Athens, Rome, Florence, and many other cities which formerly shone in history, were victims of these terrible theorists. The results of their influence has always been the same--anarchy, dictatorship, and decadence. But such lessons will not affect the numerous Catilines of the present day. They do not yet see that the movements unchained by their ambitions threaten to submerge them. All these Utopians have awakened impossible hopes in the mind of the crowd, excited their appetites, and sapped the dykes which have been slowly erected during the centuries to restrain them. The struggle of the blind multitudes against the elect is one of the continuous facts of history, and the triumph of popular sovereignties without counterpoise has already marked the end of more than one civilisation. The elect create, the plebs destroys. As soon as the first lose their hold the latter begins its precious work. The great civilisations have only prospered by dominating their lower elements. It is not only in Greece that anarchy, dictatorship, invasion, and, finally, the loss of independence has resulted from the despotism of a democracy. Individual tyranny is always born of collective tyranny. It ended the first cycle of the greatness of Rome; the Barbarians achieved the second. CONCLUSIONS The principal revolutions of history have been studied in this volume. But we have dealt more especially with the most important of all--that which for more than twenty years overwhelmed all Europe, and whose echoes are still to be heard. The French Revolution is an inexhaustible mine of psychological documents. No period of the life of humanity has presented such a mass of experience, accumulated in so short a time. On each page of this great drama we have found numerous applications of the principles expounded in my various works, concerning the transitory mentality of crowds and the permanent soul of the peoples, the action of beliefs, the influence of mystic, affective, and collective elements, and the conflict between the various forms of logic. The Revolutionary Assemblies illustrate all the known laws of the psychology of crowds. Impulsive and timid, they are dominated by a small number of leaders, and usually act in a sense contrary to the wishes of their individual members. The Royalist Constituent Assembly destroyed an ancient monarchy; the humanitarian Legislative Assembly allowed the massacres of September. The same pacific body led France into the most formidable campaigns. There were similar contradictions during the Convention. The immense majority of its members abhorred violence. Sentimental philosophers, they exalted equality, fraternity, and liberty, yet ended by exerting the most terrible despotism.