Thus it is clear that the revolution of 1789 was not at all a proletarian movement. There may seem to be some doubt concerning the agitation of 1793, for it is this, before all others, which our great historians, as Sybel, like to specify as "communistic." The men of Montaigne are, in their eyes, the predecessors of the social democracy; and, indeed, quite lately in a small book published by the Berlin Professor H. Delbrueck in the Goettingen library for working-men, exactly this assertion is presented--that the leaders of this social movement were true social democrats, and that in fact the social democracy has developed no new thoughts since Saint Just and Robespierre. I cannot recognise this assertion as correct. Let us test it. I assert that even the movement of 1793 was essentially non-proletarian. We grant that in it an undercurrent of democracy breaks forth, which the French Revolution always had; and it is this which has misled many. This was there from the beginning. It expressed itself already in 1789, in the elections to the States-General, and comes finally in 1793 to its full development. As you read through the _Cahiers_ with their _Doléances_ of the year 1789, those "papers of grievances" which the electors, especially those of Paris and Lyons, were accustomed to hand to their representatives, you find therein already a peculiar tone which does not harmonise with the honeyed expressions of the men of the "tennis court." These demands were connected with the ruling hard times, for the winter of 1789 had been severe; and they complained because misery could not be lessened by a free constitution. "The voice of freedom means nothing to the heart of a miserable man who is dying of hunger." Already they demanded bread taxes and employment, the overthrow of Sunday rest and of feast-days. Everyone knows how this cry arises again and again in the speeches and writings of Marat. The _Ami du Peuple_ declaims against the "aristocrats," and desires to serve the "people." They found out that, for the great masses of the "poor," freedom and equality availed nothing; and Marat thus concludes: "Equality of rights leads to equality of enjoyment, and only upon this basis can the idea rest quietly." Then come the taxes; the "maximum" comes. But I ask you, does that make this movement a proletarian and social one? Can it be that at all? Let us look merely at its supporters! The chief centres of democratic undercurrent are, as has been said, Lyons and Paris. In Lyons we find, indeed, a proletariat, that of the silk industry. We have the statistics of the year 1789; at that time there were, in the Lyons silk industry, 410 _maîtres marchands fabricants_, 4402 _maîtres ouvriers_, 1796 _compagnons_, and about 40,000 other workers of both sexes. We must allow that here, without doubt, there are indeed strong proletarian interests and instincts; yet they are veiled by the peculiar character of the Lyons silk industry.