speaking of the people, to say that he is speaking of groups, and
that these groups may have been guided by leaders:--

``And what, then, cemented the national unity? Who saved this
nation, attacked by the king and rent by civil war? Was it
Danton? Was it Robespierre? Was it Carnot? Certainly these
individual men were of service: but unity was in fact maintained
and independence assured by the grouping of the French into
communes and popular societies--people's clubs. It was the
municipal and Jacobin organisation of France that forced the
coalition of Europe to retreat. But in each group, if we look
more closely, there were two or three individuals more capable
than the rest, who, whether leaders or led, executed decisions
and had the appearance of leaders, but who (if, for instance, we
read the proceedings of the people's clubs) seem to us to have
drawn their strength far more from their group than from
themselves.

M. Aulard's mistake consists in supposing that all these groups
were derived ``from a spontaneous movement of fraternity and
reason.'' France at that time was covered with thousands of
little clubs, receiving a single impulsion from the great
Jacobin Club of Paris, and obeying it with perfect docility.
This is what reality teaches us, though the illusions of the
Jacobins do not permit them to accept the fact.[3]



[3] In the historical manuals which M. Aulard has prepared for
the use of classes in collaboration with M. Debidour the