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PARTISAN REVIEW
ordinary, rational people in any country would. Numerous factions–
Monarchiens, Brissotins, Feuillantistes, Montagnards, Girondins, Jacob ins,
Sansculottes, Chouans, Enrages, Dantonistes, Hebertistes, Robespierristes,
Thermidoreans-dotted
the political landscape, making the simple schism in
America between Federalists and Republicans seem, in comparison, posi–
tively unimaginative. But so spellbound were the French people by the
myth and rhetoric of unity and so cynical were political leaders who used
the myth of unity to isolate their adversaries and consolidate their own
power, that even when citizens and politicians disagreed passionately with
one another, they continued to condemn factions and parties as well as the
very idea of organized opposition. Even when it was apparent that noth–
ing existed
but
dissension and conflict, revolutionary leaders in France
were blind to the idea of an inclusive polity in which a variety of political
visions were tolerated as well as blind to the idea of parties that might cut
across rather than exacerbate class divisions.
In the United States, Madison had made conflict among competing
factions the organizing principle and stabilizing device of American gov–
ernment. Jefferson had made ideological conflict between two political
parties the principal feature of American political culture. But in France,
factions and parties were anathema. What justification could there be for
bodies that represent "partial" and private interests in a nation of equal and
self-sacrificing citizens, all committed to the "common good?" Such "par–
ticularisms," moreover, constituted unwelcome reminders of the
privileged, elite bodies of the Old Regime. "No one knows better than I,"
proclaimed Mirabeau, "that the salvation of everything and of everyone
resides in social harmony and in the
almihilation of allfactions."
"I abhor any
kind of government," Robespierre stated succinctly, "that includes factious
men." Saint-Just also weighed in, announcing that "factions are the most
terrible
poison
in society." Danton echoed the party line: "You must absorb
this truth: factions cannot exist in a republic." The fantasy that the solu–
tion to complex political problems lay simply in harmony and unity
motivated Danton to declare that "fraternity alone. . .can give the
Convention the sublime impetus that will define its path."
One of the most catastrophic blows to political pluralism was the
Convention's decision in April 1793 to suspend the inviolability of its
deputies, another grim step in the Revolution's downward spiral toward
repression and terror. Henceforth duly elected representatives could be–
and were-removed, prosecuted, and killed for nothing more than their
minority views. The improbable argument was made that the inviolability
that had cloaked the hereditary monarch must not be accorded to tempo–
rary, elected officials. Ironically, the moderate Girondins had been in favor
of this idea no less than their radical Jacobin counterparts. Both sides, per-
