Revolution. ``There is no age of enlightenment for the
populace.''


3. The supposed Part of the People during Revolution.


The laws of the psychology of crowds show us that the people
never acts without leaders, and that although it plays a
considerable part in revolutions by following and exaggerating
the impulses received, it never directs its own movements.

In all political revolutions we discover the action of leaders.
They do not create the ideas which serve as the basis of
revolutions, but they utilise them as a means of action. Ideas,
leaders, armies, and crowds constitute four elements which all
have their part to play in revolutions.

The crowd, roused by the leaders, acts especially by means of its
mass. Its action is comparable to that of the shell which
perforates an armour-plate by the momentum of a force it did not
create. Rarely does the crowd understand anything of the
revolutions accomplished with its assistance. It obediently
follows its leaders without even trying to find out what they
want. It overthrew Charles X. because of his Ordinances without
having any idea of the contents of the latter, and would have
been greatly embarrassed had it been asked at a later date why it
overthrew Louis-Philippe.

Deceived by appearances, many authors, from Michelet to Aulard,