On Hatred

"The Gods Will Have Blood" (Les Dieux Ont Soif) by Anatole France is a brief historical novel set during the French Revolution, in the fiteen months preceding the fall of Robespierre. The main character in the story is a sensitive, largely unsuccessful artist by the name of Evariste Gamelin. Slowly, Gamelin is drawn into the Jacobin terror machine. Appointed as a magistrate, he applies the principles of revolution, finds treason in every failure, and plays his part in sending hundreds to the guillotine.

France's story is a study in contrasts. Gamelin is, on the one hand, a faithful son, an ardent lover, and an amusing friend. On the other hand, he is cold-hearted and ruthless, using his power to settle personal scores, justifying abuse by invoking the good of La Patrie. Eventually, he arranges the murder of his brother-in-law, despite the pleas of his distraught sister. His mother does not even ask for clemency, recognizing what he has become. Brotteaux, the ci-devant aristocrat who makes marionettes and reads Lucretius like a breviary; Citizeness Rose Theverin, the superficial yet charming actress, whose ill-advised dalliances cause such grief; Father Longuemare, the former Barnabite, whose simple faith stands in marked contrast to Brotteaux's atheism; and Athenais, the child-prostitute, whose bravery overshadows them all - alternately defiant or resigned, every one of them is sacrificed on the altar of Gamelin's zeal. Over the proceedings of the tribunal, the murdered Marat, 'friend of the people,' looks down, invoking the sans-culottes to ever greater heights of patriotism, or fratricide.

Meanwhile, in the park, in his blue coat and yellow breeches, Robespierre walks Brount, his dog, and talks to children. One, with a hoop, bumps into Gamelin's legs. The artist-magistrate lifts the boy roughly in his arms. "Child!" he says, "You will grow up to be free and happy, and you will owe it to the infamus Gamelin. I am steeped in blood so that you may be happy. I am cruel, that you may be kind... When you are a man, you will owe to me your happiness... and if you ever hear my name mentioned, you will curse it." As the terrified child runs to cling to his mother's skirts, Gamelin says to Elodie, his lover, "I held that child in my arms; perhaps I shall have his mother sent to the guillotine." The Girondist cloud gathers over the Jacobin head. Once again, despotism is countered by despotism, and the common people live in fear.

What is the Terror, if not the institutionalization of hatred? As the tumbrils roll the faithful sing the Ah! Ca Ira, the theme song of the Revolution.

Ah! Ca ira, ca ira, ca ira

les aristocrates a la lanterne!

Ah! Ca ira, ca ira, ca ira

les aristocrates on les pendra!

Si on n'les pend pas

on les rompra.

Si on n'les rompt pas

on les brulera.

Nous n'avions plus ni nobles, ni pretres,

Ah! Ca ira, ca ira, ca ira

L'egalite partout regnera.

Ah! That'll do, that'll do, that'll do.

Aristocrats to the lamp-post!

Ah! That'll do, that'll do, that'll do.

The aristocrats - we will hang them!

If we don't hang them

we will break them.

If we don't break them

we will burn them.

We'll have no more nobles, no priests.

Ah! That'll do, that'll do, that'll do.

Equality will reign everywhere.

* * * * * * * * *

What is there to fear in California? Not the reasoned expression of opinion, but the invective of hatred. When debate becomes denunciation then the structure of mutual respect is removed, and the whole house falls. How ironic, that those who trumpet tolerance the loudest are those who demonstrate it the least. Proposition 8 was not motivated by hatred, but maybe its opponents are.

You can listen to Ca Ira at //edith-piaf.narod.ru/piaf1954.html