2: The Psychology of the Legislative Assembly
(EN: The Legislative Assembly was a temporary parliament that lasted about a year, from 1791 to 1792. The constituent assembly, above, culminated in the ratification of a new constitution; the legislative assembly framed laws for the new regime, and the national assembly described in the next chapter was the first elected parliament of the new regime.)
Political Events in the Time of the Legislative Assembly
The psychology of a group, like that of an individual, is significantly influenced by its experience in the context of the events of its time.
The legislative assembly was entirely monarchical: the constituent assembly had not deposed the king, and in fact defended him against some of the clubs who would have executed him. While a constitution was in place and a republic established, the constitution merely limited royal power by codifying the rights of citizens and the legislative assembly was a parliament that served as an advisor and a watchdog against the king, who remained on his throne.
Louis XVI was "incessantly begging for intervention from abroad" to restore his powers, while kowtowing to the will of the assembly in what he believed to be a temporary arrangement. This was not taken seriously, either by the assembly or the foreign powers to which the king plead his case: the Swiss provided a bodyguard, but other countries (namely Prussia, Austria, and Russia) were more interested in invading France for their own profit rather than helping re-institute its monarchy.
One notable event is that, in response to the royal appeal to Austria, the Jacobins assembled a force of 600,000 men and demanded the king declare war against that nation, to which he immediately agreed. Meanwhile, the queen revealed their plans to the Austrian council to demonstrate that the king was not sincere and had been pressured into declaring war upon them.
The beginnings of the struggle were disastrous, with the Jacobin columns in a disarray of panic. This early failure emboldened the nobility, and Marie Antoinette in particular attempted to capitalize on the fiasco by threatening Parisians against harming the royal family. This made the king seem an ally to the invaders, and "from that day he was marked for the scaffold."
When the national guard reformed and became better organized, it stormed the capital and defeated those legions loyal to the king. The king took refuge with the assembly, which merely decided to suspend him from power and left his fate to the a future assembly, the convention, to decide.
Mental Characteristics of the Legislative Assembly
To begin, the legislative assembly had different functions than the constituent assembly. Its task was not to develop a constitution, but to see the terms of the constitution carried out - which is to translate theory into reality. It is am much different task, and much more difficult one, to make things happen in reality than it is to talk about what ought to happen in theory.
The assembly itself included 750 deputies of various factions: pure royalists, constitutional royalists, republicans, and supporters of various political clubs (namely the Girondist and Montangard factions of the Jacobin clubs). IT contained many attorneys, other educated men, military officers, priests, and "a vary few" scientists.
This philosophical basis of their positions seemed to be fascinated with Rousseau's idea of a return to a natural state, though this was blended with various philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome - but for most, philosophy had very little influence: "reason was continually figuring in their speeches but never in their actions."
The psychological characteristics of the assembly could be summed up in four words:
- Spontaneity - Members of the assembly were prone to emotional outbursts and to making quick decisions with scant deliberation
- Inconsistency - From one day to the next, the assembly would make conflicting resolutions
- Timidity - Some of its inconsistency stemmed from doing whatever was necessary to ameliorate to factions within and without
- Weakness - Resolutions were often superficial and lacked effectiveness, having no power to be enforced or even monitored
Meanwhile, the revolutionary clubs and their armed militia, behaving little better than "bandits" terrorized both the population and the assembly: they filled the prisons with "suspects" and summarily executed them, intimidated the mayor of Paris and other officials, ransacked private property, massacred civilians, and so on. Factions within the assembly were well aware of this, and did nothing to discourage it.
Between the impotence of the assembly and the reign of these gangs, the net result for society was largely "mob rule" in which the best a citizen could hope for was to be ignored by both.