[Sidenote: Radicals]
[Sidenote: 1. The Bourgeois Leaders]
[Sidenote: 2. The Proletarians]
More dangerous to the political settlement of 1791 than the opposition
of the reactionaries was that of the radicals--those Frenchmen who
thought that the Revolution had not gone far enough. The real
explanation of the radical movement lies in the conflict of interest
between the poor working people of the towns and the middle class, or
bourgeoisie. The latter, as has been repeatedly emphasized, possessed
the brains, the money, and the education: it was they who had been
overwhelmingly represented in the National Assembly. The former were
degraded, poverty-stricken, and ignorant, but they constituted the bulk
of the population in the cities, notably in Paris, and they were both
conscious of their sorry condition and desperately determined to
improve it. These so-called "proletarians," though hardly directly
represented in the Assembly, nevertheless fondly expected the greatest
benefits from the work of that body.
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