The awakening from this orgy of feeling was like the awakening from any other form of emotional excess. With it came the knowledge that neither the world nor human nature can be changed overnight. When the news went [Pg 199]abroad there were many who interpreted as license what had been given them for liberty. Forests were cut down. Game-preserves were invaded and animals slaughtered. Artisans found themselves out of work and hungrier than ever because of the economy now necessarily practised by the nobility. Such mighty reforms required time and the readjustment of almost every detail of daily life. Even before experience made this manifest the delegates began to realize that towns and bishoprics and provinces might refuse to ratify the impulsive acts of their representatives; and some of the nobles who had spoken for themselves alone did not feel as unselfish in the cold light of day as they had believed themselves to be while the candles glowed during that strange night session. The final result was to bring out differences of opinion more sharply and to widen the gulf between conservatives who clung to everything which belonged to the past and liberals whose desire was to give the people all that had been gained and even more. [Pg 200]XXII THE SANS-CULOTTES Lafayette's position as commander of the National Guard of Paris was one of great importance. "He rendered the Revolution possible by giving it an army," says a writer of his own nation, who does not hesitate to criticize him, but who also assures us that from July, 1789, to July, 1790, he was perhaps the most popular man in France. Being a born optimist, he was sure that right would soon prevail. If he had too great belief in his own leadership it is not surprising, since every previous undertaking of his life had succeeded; and he certainly had more experience in revolution than any of his countrymen--an experience gained in America under the direct influence of Washington. He had gone to America a boy afire with enthusiasm for liberty. He returned to France a man, popular and successful, with his belief in himself and his principles greatly strengthened. He was impulsive and generous, he had a good mind, but he was not a deep thinker, and from the very nature of his mind it was impossible for him to foresee the full difficulty of applying in France the principles that had been [Pg 201]so successful in America. In France politics were much more complicated than in a new country where there were fewer abuses to correct. France was old and abuses had been multiplying for a thousand years. To borrow the surgeon's phrase, the wound made by revolution in America was a clean wound that healed quickly, "by the first intention." In France the wound was far more serious and horribly infected. It healed in time, but only after a desperate illness.