The Crowd by Gustave le Bon (libby ebook reader .TXT) đź“–
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do not stand in fear—by Alexander, Caesar, Mahomet, and Buddha,
for example. On the other hand, there are fictive beings whom we
do not admire—the monstrous divinities of the subterranean
temples of India, for instance—but who strike us nevertheless as
endowed with a great prestige.
Prestige in reality is a sort of domination exercised on our mind
by an individual, a work, or an idea. This domination entirely
paralyses our critical faculty, and fills our soul with
astonishment and respect. The sentiment provoked is
inexplicable, like all sentiments, but it would appear to be of
the same kind as the fascination to which a magnetised person is
subjected. Prestige is the mainspring of all authority. Neither
gods, kings, nor women have ever reigned without it.
The various kinds of prestige may be grouped under two principal
heads: acquired prestige and personal prestige. Acquired
prestige is that resulting from name, fortune, and reputation.
It may be independent of personal prestige. Personal prestige,
on the contrary, is something essentially peculiar to the
individual; it may coexist with reputation, glory, and fortune,
or be strengthened by them, but it is perfectly capable of
existing in their absence.
Acquired or artificial prestige is much the most common. The
mere fact that an individual occupies a certain position,
possesses a certain fortune, or bears certain titles, endows him
with prestige, however slight his own personal worth. A soldier
in uniform, a judge in his robes, always enjoys prestige. Pascal
has very properly noted the necessity for judges of robes and
wigs. Without them they would be stripped of half their
authority. The most unbending socialist is always somewhat
impressed by the sight of a prince or a marquis; and the
assumption of such titles makes the robbing of tradesmen an easy
matter.[18]
[18] The influence of titles, decorations, and uniforms on crowds
is to be traced in all countries, even in those in which the
sentiment of personal independence is the most strongly
developed. I quote in this connection a curious passage from a
recent book of travel, on the prestige enjoyed in England by
great persons.
“I had observed, under various circumstances, the peculiar sort
of intoxication produced in the most reasonable Englishmen by the
contact or sight of an English peer.
“Provided his fortune enables him to keep up his rank, he is sure
of their affection in advance, and brought into contact with him
they are so enchanted as to put up with anything at his hands.
They may be seen to redden with pleasure at his approach, and if
he speaks to them their suppressed joy increases their redness,
and causes their eyes to gleam with unusual brilliance. Respect
for nobility is in their blood, so to speak, as with Spaniards
the love of dancing, with Germans that of music, and with
Frenchmen the liking for revolutions. Their passion for horses
and Shakespeare is less violent, the satisfaction and pride they
derive from these sources a less integral part of their being.
There is a considerable sale for books dealing with the peerage,
and go where one will they are to be found, like the Bible, in
all hands.”
The prestige of which I have just spoken is exercised by persons;
side by side with it may be placed that exercised by opinions,
literary and artistic works, &c. Prestige of the latter kind is
most often merely the result of accumulated repetitions.
History, literary and artistic history especially, being nothing
more than the repetition of identical judgments, which nobody
endeavours to verify, every one ends by repeating what he learnt
at school, till there come to be names and things which nobody
would venture to meddle with. For a modern reader the perusal of
Homer results incontestably in immense boredom; but who would
venture to say so? The Parthenon, in its present state, is a
wretched ruin, utterly destitute of interest, but it is endowed
with such prestige that it does not appear to us as it really is,
but with all its accompaniment of historic memories. The special
characteristic of prestige is to prevent us seeing things as they
are and to entirely paralyse our judgment. Crowds always, and
individuals as a rule, stand in need of ready-made opinions on
all subjects. The popularity of these opinions is independent of
the measure of truth or error they contain, and is solely
regulated by their prestige.
I now come to personal prestige. Its nature is very different
from that of artificial or acquired prestige, with which I have
just been concerned. It is a faculty independent of all titles,
of all authority, and possessed by a small number of persons whom
it enables to exercise a veritably magnetic fascination on those
around them, although they are socially their equals, and lack
all ordinary means of domination. They force the acceptance of
their ideas and sentiments on those about them, and they are
obeyed as is the tamer of wild beasts by the animal that could
easily devour him.
The great leaders of crowds, such as Buddha, Jesus, Mahomet, Joan
of Arc, and Napoleon, have possessed this form of prestige in a
high degree, and to this endowment is more particularly due the
position they attained. Gods, heroes, and dogmas win their way
in the world of their own inward strength. They are not to be
discussed: they disappear, indeed, as soon as discussed.
The great personages I have just cited were in possession of
their power of fascination long before they became illustrious,
and would never have become so without it. It is evident, for
instance, that Napoleon at the zenith of his glory enjoyed an
immense prestige by the mere fact of his power, but he was
already endowed in part with this prestige when he was without
power and completely unknown. When, an obscure general, he was
sent, thanks to influential protection, to command the army of
Italy, he found himself among rough generals who were of a mind
to give a hostile reception to the young intruder dispatched them
by the Directory. From the very beginning, from the first
interview, without the aid of speeches, gestures, or threats, at
the first sight of the man who was to become great they were
vanquished. Taine furnishes a curious account of this interview
taken from contemporary memoirs.
“The generals of division, amongst others Augereau, a sort of
swashbuckler, uncouth and heroic, proud of his height and his
bravery, arrive at the staff quarters very badly disposed towards
the little upstart dispatched them from Paris. On the strength
of the description of him that has been given them, Augereau is
inclined to be insolent and insubordinate; a favourite of Barras,
a general who owes his rank to the events of Vendemiaire who has
won his grade by street-fighting, who is looked upon as bearish,
because he is always thinking in solitude, of poor aspect, and
with the reputation of a mathematician and dreamer. They are
introduced, and Bonaparte keeps them waiting. At last he
appears, girt with his sword; he puts on his hat, explains the
measures he has taken, gives his orders, and dismisses them.
Augereau has remained silent; it is only when he is outside that
he regains his self-possession and is able to deliver himself of
his customary oaths. He admits with Massena that this little
devil of a general has inspired him with awe; he cannot
understand the ascendency by which from the very first he has
felt himself overwhelmed.”
Become a great man, his prestige increased in proportion as his
glory grew, and came to be at least equal to that of a divinity
in the eyes of those devoted to him. General Vandamme, a rough,
typical soldier of the Revolution, even more brutal and energetic
than Augereau, said of him to Marshal d’Arnano in 1815, as on one
occasion they mounted together the stairs of the Tuileries:
“That devil of a man exercises a fascination on me that I cannot
explain even to myself, and in such a degree that, though I fear
neither God nor devil, when I am in his presence I am ready to
tremble like a child, and he could make me go through the eye of
a needle to throw myself into the fire.”
Napoleon exercised a like fascination on all who came into
contact with him.[19]
[19] Thoroughly conscious of his prestige, Napoleon was aware
that he added to it by treating rather worse than stable lads the
great personages around him, and among whom figured some of those
celebrated men of the Convention of whom Europe had stood in
dread. The gossip of the period abounds in illustrations of this
fact. One day, in the midst of a Council of State, Napoleon
grossly insults Beugnot, treating him as one might an unmannerly
valet. The effect produced, he goes up to him and says, “Well,
stupid, have you found your head again?” Whereupon Beugnot, tall
as a drum-major, bows very low, and the little man raising his
hand, takes the tall one by the ear, “an intoxicating sign of
favour,” writes Beugnot, “the familiar gesture of the master who
waxes gracious.” Such examples give a clear idea of the degree
of base platitude that prestige can provoke. They enable us to
understand the immense contempt of the great despot for the men
surrounding him—men whom he merely looked upon as “food for
powder.”
Davoust used to say, talking of Maret’s devotion and of his own:
“Had the Emperor said to us, `It is important in the interest of
my policy that Paris should be destroyed without a single person
leaving it or escaping,’ Maret I am sure would have kept the
secret, but he could not have abstained from compromising himself
by seeing that his family got clear of the city. On the other
hand, I, for fear of letting the truth leak out, would have let
my wife and children stay.”
It is necessary to bear in mind the astounding power exerted by
fascination of this order to understand that marvellous return
from the Isle of Elba, that lightning-like conquest of France by
an isolated man confronted by all the organised forces of a great
country that might have been supposed weary of his tyranny. He
had merely to cast a look at the generals sent to lay hands on
him, and who had sworn to accomplish their mission. All of them
submitted without discussion.
“Napoleon,” writes the English General Wolseley, “lands in France
almost alone, a fugitive from the small island of Elba which was
his kingdom, and succeeded in a few weeks, without bloodshed, in
upsetting all organised authority in France under its legitimate
king; is it possible for the personal ascendency of a man to
affirm itself in a more astonishing manner? But from the
beginning to the end of this campaign, which was his last, how
remarkable too is the ascendency he exercised over the Allies,
obliging them to follow his initiative, and how near he came to
crushing them!”
His prestige outlived him and continued to grow. It is his
prestige that made an emperor of his obscure nephew. How
powerful is his memory still is seen in the resurrection of his
legend in progress at the present day. Ill-treat men as you
will, massacre them by millions, be the cause of invasion upon
invasion, all is permitted you if you possess prestige in a
sufficient degree and the talent necessary to uphold it.
I have invoked, no doubt, in this case a quite exceptional
example of prestige, but one it was useful to cite to make clear
the genesis of great religions, great doctrines, and great
empires. Were it not for the power exerted on the crowd by
prestige, such growths would be incomprehensible.
Prestige, however, is not based
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