Brick Club 4.10.1, 4.10.2
I like Hugo’s comparison of an émeute, a riot, as a sweeping, unstoppable force of nature, fueled by some natural and inevitable destabilization. “The émeute is a sort of waterspout int he social atmosphere which suddenly takes form in certain conditions of temperature,” that is, while it /may seem randomly destructive, the riot arises from specific and identifiable conditions. This is a very helpful way of looking at revolutionary violence, not as an uncontrollable force, but as a symptom of chronically exacerbated underlying tensions. These tensions seem invisible to those who aren’t suffering under them, but any meteorologist or literally just a person standing in the middle of a storm can see them very clearly.
“System: the émeute strengthens the governments which it does not overthrow.” Classic deviance theory from Durkheim. A healthy, but not overbearing, deviant group helps to strengthen the solidarity of mainstream society. People are never more patriotic than when they feel their culture/way of life/identity/status quo is under threat. The idea of a common enemy brings people together. Note: this theory really only applies when the majority or mainstream are maintaining and consolidating their power. This isn’t the same thing as poor and/or minority communities banding together to survive under an oppressive power. (Also this is why intersectionality is really, really important when advocating for oppressed groups! It breaks up the monolith of power into manageable fronts that can be confronted by a unified collective).
This is not what happened in 1830; the moderate “compromise school” that Hugo mocks claims that “[the émeutes] degraded that revolution, at first so remarkable for unanimity, into a quarrel.” This draws from the ideas I mentioned above, but from the perspective of the bourgeoisie complaining that the riots were too costly, too violent, so messy and dishonorable. Did the poor really have to do all that when half a revolution would have been good enough? Why did they have to want more? The bourgeoisie are in storm shelters, complaining about how the poor weren’t satisfied with their new umbrellas. I’m biased, obviously, but so is Hugo. He very keenly points out “And what if the 14th of July did cost a hundred and twenty millions? The establishment of Philip V. in Spain cost France two thousand millions.” Why do we value the glory of patriotic war, but devalue the riots of our own citizens in pursuit of fair treatment? We will soon see that framing and context are just as, if not more important, than the acts themselves.
Here’s another nice bit: “the war of the whole against the fraction is insurrection; the attack of the fraction against the whole is an émeute.” I would add that there’s an additional layer of power dynamics to consider that complicates this, but I take Hugo’s meaning well enough.
I’m…going to skip the dense historical passages, but the big question to take away from all of this is: who decides? Who lives, who dies, who tells your story? To the victor go the spoils and the history textbooks, etc. Hugo says, “In the beginning insurrection is an émeute,” that revolution always starts as a riot and it’s where the course of history ends up that determines whether an event stays as a riot or earns the title of insurrection. This is important because, remember, riots are wrong (violent, costly, messy) and insurrections are right (just, noble, moral). I’ll add in again that it’s all about where the power ends up, who decides, in the end. July is a revolution, June is a rebellion.
Hugo wavers a whole lot when it comes to talking about revolts and rebellions and riots. He shows a pretty clear understanding of how the victors write history and how historical value and the distribution of power go hand in hand. In the face of this, he explicitly states “we show only show one side and an episode, and that certainly the least known…but we shall do it in such a way that the reader may catch a glimpse, under the gloomy veil which we are about to lift, of the real countenance of that fearful public tragedy.” He is not a historian here and tells us so. He’s a dramatist and is deliberately telling one side of the story as a drama of humanity. The same man who found the human drama in Louis Philippe’s rise to the throne, in the Bourbon Restoration, in Gillenormand. It’s something that frustrates me to no end, but makes Hugo what he is.
