The Mystics Of Anarchy - Part 7

It is amongst these same unhinged lone spirits, amongst those whose suffering causes hallucinations both physical and moral, where mysticism germinates, and which tomorrow will become fanaticism.

In the last pages of his excellent novel about Lourdes, M. Zola shows the close connection between the two, anarchy and religious mysticism, the first being the daughter of the latter, and his hero, a disillusioned priest, his mystical spirit passing from one to the other, lead by the force of events, through a natural sequence of ideas, ‘without apparent transition in the troubled depths of his thoughts.’

These bloody mystics of Anarchy have had precursors who have drawn thoughts of crime from the same poisoned well. They were the Anarchists of their time, these religious mystics, these ardent Catholics of past centuries, Jacques Clément, Ravaillacs, who knifed Henri III and Henri IV, just like Caserio knifed the unfortunate President Carnot. It is the same mystical and fanatical thought that prepares the criminal hand, all of them dreaming that the murder of a few will assuage the suffering of all.

Mystics, religious fanatics, such are these common criminals; but just so as to conform this thesis, we have here in the full, entire, glaring light the strange ‘comrade’ who goes by the name of Sébastien Faure and who plays such a large role in the world of Anarchy, who all the defendants belonging to the sect claim as their advocate before the courts, who travels throughout France agitating for Anarchy, with his pockets full of money from unknown sources. We discover that Faure is the son of Royalist parents, that he has worn the cassock of the Society of Jesus, that he has been a novice with the Jesuits at Clermont-Ferrand, nurturing his religious exaltation, fanning his ardour.

On 18^th February 1894, the newspaper ‘Le Temps’ gave us the following report, that nobody has denied, about this strange man.

‘Sébastien Faure is an old member of the Society of Jesus; he spent a number of years as a novice in Clermont; it is, therefore, an ex-Jesuit in whom the Anarchists put their trust.  Faure was born in Saint-Etienne in 1858. He belongs to a respectable merchant family, well known in the town for their religious feelings and their monarchical opinions, placed by them in the Jesuit College, the College of Saint-Michel, where he was a brilliant student.

With a lively piety, an almost mystic imagination, he became a novice at Clermont-Ferrand. There he was drenched in religious exaltation and fervour. He had a remarkable facility with words, a polished nuanced language, a great subtlety mixed with wit in his arguments, qualities that he has not lost, qualities that had him marked down as a preacher. He was the essence of a missionary, of a converter, the Fathers said of him.

What happened to him? What incident produced him? We do not know exactly.

Sébastien Faure left the Society of Jesus and became an insurance agent in Bordeaux, then a trader on the Paris Stock Exchange. At the same time he became involved in revolutionary politics and as Socialism already had its command structure he placed himself in the avant-garde, that is to say with the Anarchists, at the head of the column and leading it.’

So there we have him, Sébastien Faure, Jesuit pupil, Jesuit novice, a true Jesuit!

Oh yes! It is only the hatred of liberty and democracy that can forge such dreadful bandits, menacing modern society with their horrible crimes, blowing the violent wind of reaction over our republican country.

It is impossible to ignore the mysticism of the Anarchists or their religious education. The reactionaries cry out with joy at their crimes. For example, M. Paul de Cassagnac has declared, ‘The effect of Vaillant and Henry’s bombs will be salutary. Blessed are the bombs!’

What are we to make of the anarchist Marius Tournadre. Many letters found at his house told of how money had been sent to the ‘comrades’, letters that had been sent by priests! These priests are the propagators of Anarchy! Their aim is political and religious reaction, which they think is good and right. They apply exactly the same principles as the Anarchists, murdering a few men to further advance the happiness of all.

But they are not the only agents of Anarchist propaganda. There are others who are unconscious of the fact. These others are the sceptical and neurotic Parisian crowd, all those who live in that overheated atmosphere, in the artificial milieu of our lively exciting capital. This crowd, although it is the first victim of Anarchy’s crimes, is one of the main causes of the murderous bombs.

Those who work, the workmen, small businessmen, shopkeepers, all those who suffer in their spirit from the rigorous necessities of work, remain steady and sensible, are rightly furious with the Anarchists, and if they could catch them in the act, like Henry at the Terminus Café, they would lynch these bandits. But the revellers and the layabouts, the rich boys of the boulevards find it all a bit of a joke. They laugh about it, think it funny. The bomb is a spice for their jaded sensibilities. Their idiot neuroticism is added to a stupid sentimentality and a hateful posturing, such as all the hullaballoo surrounding the subscription to help little Sidone Vaillant. This neurotic sentimentality has encouraged more than one Anarchist, has unhinged more than one brain in making it fall into the rut of these fashionable doctrines.

Let us not be mistaken. The Anarchists most ardent and fervent help comes from these cynics, bon-viveurs, neurotics and agitated souls of the Paris salons and cabarets.

In our century of human solidarity, of yearning for universal fraternity, Anarchy fixates on its destructive doctrine, the atavistic remains of ancient barbarism. Anarchy is a plague and like all plagues it will come and go.

For the moment the Anarchist madness has gone, but the mysticism of which it is the child, will always be with us. Only this mysticism changes according to the century. In the Middle Ages it was religious. In our age it is Anarchist.

What will it be in times to come?