The sovereign power attributed to reason must be regarded as the culminating idea which not only engendered the Revolution but governed it throughout. During the whole Revolution men gave themselves up to the most persevering efforts to break with the past, and to erect society upon a new plan dictated by logic. Slowly filtering downward, the rationalistic theories of the philosophers meant to the people simply that all the things which had been regarded as worthy of respect were now no longer worthy. Men being declared equal, the old masters need no longer be obeyed. The multitude easily succeeded in ceasing to respect what the upper classes themselves no longer respected. When the barrier of respect was down the Revolution was accomplished. The first result of this new mentality was a general insubordination. Mme. Vigee Lebrun relates that on the promenade at Longchamps men of the people leaped on the footboards of the carriages, saying, ``Next year you will be behind and we shall be inside.'' The populace was not alone in manifesting insubordination and discontent. These sentiments were general on the eve of the Revolution. ``The lesser clergy,'' says Taine, ``are hostile to the prelates; the provincial gentry to the nobility of the court; the vassals to the seigneurs; the peasants to the townsmen,'' &c. This state of mind, which had been communicated from the nobles and clergy to the people, also invaded the army. At the moment the States General were opened Necker said: ``We are not sure of the troops.'' The officers were becoming humanitarian and philosophical. The soldiers, recruited from the lowest class of the population, did not philosophise, but they no longer obeyed. In their feeble minds the ideas of equality meant simply the suppression of all leaders and masters, and therefore of all obedience. In 1790 more than twenty regiments threatened their officers, and sometimes, as at Nancy, threw them into prison. The mental anarchy which, after spreading through all the classes of society, finally invaded the army was the principal cause of the disappearance of the ancien regime. ``It was the defection of the army affected by the ideas of the Third Estate,'' wrote Rivarol, ``that destroyed royalty.'' 2. The supposed Influence of the Philosophers of the Eighteenth Century upon the Genesis of the Revolution--Their dislike of Democracy.