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Alvan F. Sanborn’s Paris and the Social Revolution offers a systematic survey of the revolutionary currents that have coursed through Parisian society at the turn of the twentieth century. The work opens with a self‑portrait of the author, who declares himself a “conservative of the conservatives” and an “evolutionist only under protest,” positioning his inquiry as an impartial account of both the established institutions and their dissenting opponents. From that candid preface the book proceeds to a detailed, chapter‑by‑chapter map of anarchist theory, propaganda, and practice, followed by examinations of socialist tendencies, the intellectual life of the Latin Quarter, and the bohemian milieus of Montmartre. Sanborn’s aim is to present the various classes, students, artisans, artists, and agitators, exactly as he has observed them, granting each their “innings” in the broader narrative of Parisian revolt.
The prose reflects the scholarly tone of an early‑1900s sociopolitical study, dense with historical references and a formal, almost rhetorical style. Sanborn’s voice is both detached and passionately engaged, blending exhaustive cataloguing with occasional personal commentary. Readers who relish meticulous historical analysis, especially those interested in French anarchism, the cultural politics of the Latin Quarter, or the interplay of art and radicalism in pre‑World War I Paris, will find this volume a rewarding, if demanding, companion.
The opening · free to read
Once for all, then, the author is not a revolutionist, though there are moments when he fancies he would like to be one, it appears such an eminently satisfying state. It takes faith to be a revolutionist; and he is, alas! mentally incapable of faith. He is not an anarchist, not a socialist, not a radical, not a “red republican,” nor a “mangeur de prêtres.” His affiliations have not been even Dreyfusard in France, nor even Bryanite in America. He is a conservative of the conservatives, only prevented from being a reactionary by the fact that reaction is but another form of revolution, and the most hopeless and faith-exacting of them all. So far from being a revolutionist, he is an evolutionist only under protest,—vi et armis, as it were. He favours things as they are, things as they were quite as often, while things as they might be contain for him no allure. He cherishes enormously this imperfect old world as it is, still more as it was; has not the slightest desire to reconstruct it after his own formula, and would not willingly exchange it for any hypothetical world which, up to the present hour, restless human ingenuity has devised.
He is “naturally beforehand shy of novelties, new books, new faces, new years,” and is “sanguine only in the prospects of other [former] years.” He likes old cabinets, old comedies, old prints, old stuffs, old pipes, old wine, old ships, old trees, old shoes, old friends, old customs, old crotchets, and old ladies.
He prefers infinitely—it is very wrong and foolish, perhaps, but he cannot help it—ancient hostelries to modern hotels, spontaneous neighbourliness to organised benevolence, fireplaces to furnace-heaters, and waving meadows to close-cropped lawns; a blooded aristocrat to a social struggler, a patriot to a cosmopolite, a brave drinker to a total abstinence apostle, an illiterate Breton peasant to the “smart” product of improved schools, a mediæval cloister to a free-thinker’s hall, and an easy-going priest to a nervous sceptic; beauty to utility, superstition to science, ritual to plain sense. A uniform appeals to him more than a business suit, a coquettish gown more than the most advanced hygienic bloomer, a solicitous mother and competent housewife more than a brilliant club woman. He finds more satisfaction in old-fashioned, comfortable ideas than in disquieting progressive ones. He would quite as soon be domineered over by a noble as by a parvenu or a pot-house politician, and is less shocked by the colossal pretensions of a pope than by the puerile bumptiousness of a small-minded clergyman. He deplores railways, trolleys, bicycles, automobiles, and compulsory education, because they all tend to destroy native dialects, customs, and costumes, obliterate all local colour, and so render lands far separated dully alike. He resents the presumptuousness of that Reason which is so seldom reasonable, and would not shed a tear nor distil a regret if telephones, telegraphs, and psychical research were swept off the face of the earth.
He is well aware, therefore, that there is good to be said of time-honoured institutions: of the state; of the army, the church, and the courts of law, the props of the state; and of capitalists, the pets and protégés of the state. On occasion he could write a fervid defence of each and every one of these established things. But he is equally aware that there is good to be said of the conscientious opponents of the state, its props and its protégés. To say this good is his present business; and, if he seems to bend over backward sometimes in saying it, it should be borne in mind that they also have bent over backward—nay, turned double somersaults backward—who, prompted by terror, prejudice, intolerance, hatred, or contempt, have pronounced unqualified condemnation on the consecrated antagonists of things as they are; and it should at least be queried whether his indiscretions may not be excused (if not altogether justified) thereby.
No, the author is not a revolutionist, but he is acquainted with plenty of good fellows who are. “He has eaten their bread and salt; he has drunk their water and wine.” He has taken pot-luck with them, witnessed their privations, and listened to the telling of their dreams. He thinks he comprehends them, he knows he loves them, and he would present them as he has found them to the world.
This attitude will be understood by all who really believe in fair play, in giving every man his innings and the devil his due; who can admit merits equally in Christians and Pagans, Jesuits and Agnostics, Classicists and Romanticists, Greeks and Goths; who admire a beau geste alike in missionary and filibuster, condottiere and crusader, martyr and toreador, pirate and king,—in a Jeanne d’Arc and a Ravaillac, a Kitchener and a Joubert, a Sheridan and a Mosby, a Dewey and an Aguinaldo, a Hobson and a Cervera, a Makaroff and a Uryu, a Napoleon and a Musolino, a Richard Cœur de Lion and a Robin Hood, a Nelson and a Cambronne. It will be understood by all those who appreciate a joke, even when it turns against themselves; who recognise the nobility of straight thinking and bold speaking, the sublimity of high passion, the regenerating force of righteous resentment and stubborn resistance, and the holiness of self-sacrifice for an ideal; who have a faculty for putting themselves in other men’s places or have learned the hard lesson of calling no thing “common or unclean”; who love men because they are men, serve women because they are women, compassionate suffering because it is suffering, reverence him who hath much struggled to no apparent purpose, and pardon much, like the Christ, to him who hath much loved.
That these persons are the few does not seriously matter. It is a great thing to be understood by a few.
ALVAN F. SANBORN. PARIS, JANUARY, 1905.
_The simplest, most natural form of propaganda, telling one’s faith to one’s neighbours—The group the unit of public oral propaganda—Characteristics of the group, its meetings, its statistics, its autonomy—Federations and congresses—Communication between groups—Union meetings of groups—Anarchist mass-meetings_—Punchs-conférences and soupes-conférences—Ballades de propagande—Déjeuners végétariens—_Amateur theatricals—The_ Maison du Peuple—Soirée familiale—_The_ trimardeur—_The_ chanson as a means of propaganda, with examples of revolutionary chansons.
III. The Written Propaganda of Anarchy 61
The anarchist press, Le Journal du Peuple, Les Plébéiennes, Le Libertaire—_Jean Grave and_ Les Temps Nouveaux—_The press as a means of intercommunication between the_ camarades, the trimardeurs, _and the groups_—L’Education Libertaire—_Amateur papers—Ephemeral character of the anarchist press_—Le Père Peinard _and its editors—Anarchist almanacks—Financial difficulties of the anarchist press and methods of raising funds—Difficulties encountered in publication and circulation_—“Les Lois Scélérates”—_Placards and fliers—Paul Robin and his system of_ éducation intégrale—Le Collège Libertaire—_The study of the masters and of their forerunners and disciples—Popular editions of great writers who tend towards anarchy—Violent brochures._
IV. The Propaganda of Anarchy by Example 91
_Thoreau and Garrison as precursors of the anarchistic attitude—Tolstoy on the propaganda by example—Its importance—Practicable and impracticable acts of this form of propaganda—Octave Mirbeau on depopulation—Pierre Lavroff on propaganda by example—Anarchist experiment stations and reasons for their failure—The attitude of anarchists towards trade-unionism_—La grève universelle—_The attitude of anarchists towards co-operation_—La pan-coopération.
V. The Propaganda of Anarchy par le Fait 105
Lack of unanimity among French anarchists regarding this method of propaganda—The emergence into public prominence of the insurrectional idea—César de Paepe’s speech at the Geneva Peace Congress of 1867—Declaration of the Fédération Italienne—_Insurrections at Letino and San Galo, Italy—Utterances at the Congresses of Fribourg and of the_ Fédération Jurasienne—_Distinction between the individual overt act when directed against an official of the state and when directed against an individual member of the_ bourgeoisie—_The latter acts disapproved by the majority of anarchists—Elisée Reclus on this subject—The attitude of_ Les Temps Nouveaux—_Zo d’Axa on the overt acts of Ravachol—Statistics of the victims of anarchists—Reasons for the alarm excited by the propaganda_ par le fait—_Some humorous features of the panic during the period of “The Terror”—Theft as a form of propaganda par_ le fait—_Charles Malato and Jean Grave on this subject—Cases of Clément Duval and Pini—Extent of anarchist thefts—Counterfeiting—Case of L’Abruti._
VI. The Causes of Propaganda par le Fait 131
Desire for vengeance the cause of the greater part of the overt acts of anarchists—The death of Watrin—Such acts proceed mainly from those who have suffered injustice either in their own person or in that of those near to them—The cases of Duval, Pini, Dardare, Decamp, Léveillé, Rulliers, Pedduzi, Ravachol, Lorion, Vaillant, Etievant, Salsou—Zo d’Axa on the police rafle of April, 1892—Recent questionable repressive measures—Collusion of state officials and police to turn revolutionary disturbances to selfish ends—Legality often strained by the government in its repressive measures—Overt acts almost never the result of conspiracy—Belief in his “mission” of the propagandist par le fait—_The_ stigmata of this vocation—Testimony of Björnson, Zola, and other writers—Stimulating effect of the executions of anarchists upon anarchist fanaticism—Sympathy of many who are not anarchists excited by overstraining of legal forms and undue severity in repressive measures—The apotheosis of Vaillant—Anarchist anniversaries—Why so many violent anarchists are Italians—England’s immunity from overt anarchist acts—The futility of repressing the free expression of violent ideas—The case of Laurent Tailhade.
VII. The Character of the Propagandist par le Fait 155
The salient traits of the anarchist character—The average psychic type of the anarchist as indicated by A. Hamon—Personal character of Ravachol, Pini, Duval, Faugoux, Salsou—The anarchist’s abhorrence of cruelty to animals—The propagandist par le fait rarely a worthless fellow—Frugality and domestic virtues of prominent anarchist criminals—Personal courage of this type, with notable examples.
VIII. Socialists and Other Revolutionists 167
Revolutionary and evolutionary socialists—Radical differences between theoretic socialism and anarchism—Practical aims common to both—Similarity in methods of propaganda—Union of anarchists and socialists against common enemies in troubled periods—Similarity in attitude of both towards trade-unionism and co-operation—Revolutionary tendencies of royalists, imperialists, anti-Semites, and nationalists—Déroulède’s proclamation to his electors—Anarchist approval of Jules Guérin’s defence of “Fort Chabrol.”
IX. The Revolutionary Traditions of the Latin Quarter 177
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