It is by no means easy to say just what were the social and political conceptions of a Frenchman of the middle classes at the moment of the Revolution. They might be reduced to a few formulae concerning fraternity, equality, and popular government, summed up in the celebrated Declaration of the Rights of Man, of which we shall have occasion to quote a few passages. The philosophers of the eighteenth century do not seem to have been very highly rated by the men of the Revolution. Rarely are they quoted in the speeches of the time. Hypnotised by their classical memories of Greece and Rome, the new legislators re- read their Plato and their Plutarch. They wished to revive the constitution of Sparta, with its manners, its frugal habits, and its laws. Lycurgus, Solon, Miltiades, Manlius Torquatus, Brutus, Mucius Scaevola, even the fabulous Minos himself, became as familiar in the tribune as in the theatre, and the public went crazy over them. The shades of the heroes of antiquity hovered over the revolutionary assemblies. Posterity alone has replaced them by the shades of the philosophers of the eighteenth century. We shall see that in reality the men of this period, generally represented as bold innovators guided by subtle philosophers, professed to effect no innovations whatever, but to return to a past long buried in the mists of history, and which, moreover, they scarcely ever in the least understood. The more reasonable, who did not go so far back for their models, aimed merely at adopting the English constitutional system, of which Montesquieu and Voltaire had sung the praises, and which all nations were finally to imitate without violent crises. Their ambitions were confined to a desire to perfect the existing monarchy, not to overthrow it. But in time of revolution men often take a very different path from that they propose to take. At the time of the convocation of the States General no one would ever have supposed that a revolution of peaceful bourgeoisie and men of letters would rapidly be transformed into one of the most sanguinary dictatorships of history. CHAPTER IV PSYCHOLOGICAL ILLUSIONS RESPECTING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 1. Illusions respecting Primitive Man, the Return to a State of Nature, and the Psychology of the People. We have already repeated, and shall again repeat, that the errors of a doctrine do not hinder its propagation, so that all we have to consider here is its influence upon men's minds. But although the criticism of erroneous doctrines is seldom of practical utility, it is extremely interesting from a psychological point of view. The philosopher who wishes to understand the working of men's minds should always carefully consider the illusions which they live with. Never, perhaps, in the course of history have these illusions appeared so profound and so numerous as during the Revolution.