As can be seen from the analysis in the preceding chapter, the revolutionary process is the development by stages of certain disorderly tendencies of Western and Christian man and of the errors to which they have given rise.

In each stage, these tendencies and errors have a particular characteristic. The Revolution, therefore, metamorphoses in the course of history.

The metamorphoses observed in the great general lines of the Revolution recur on a smaller scale within each of its great episodes.

Hence, the spirit of the French Revolution, in its first phase, used an aristocratic and even ecclesiastical mask and language. It frequented the court and sat at the table of the royal council. Later, it became bourgeois and worked for a bloodless abolition of the monarchy and nobility and for a veiled and pacific suppression of the Catholic Church. As soon as it could, it became Jacobin and inebriated itself with blood in the Terror.

But the excesses committed by the Jacobin faction stirred up reactions. The Revolution turned back, going through the same stages in reverse. From Jacobin it became bourgeois in the Directory. With Napoleon, it extended its hand to the Church and opened its doors to the exiled nobility. Finally, it cheered the returning Bourbons. Although the French Revolution ended, the revolutionary process did not end. It erupted again with the fall of Charles X and the rise of Louis Philippe, and thus through successive metamorphoses, taking advantage of its successes and even its failures, it reached its present state of paroxysm.

The Revolution, then, uses its metamorphoses not only to advance but also to carry out the tactical retreats that have so frequently been necessary.

This movement, always alive, has at times feigned death. This is one of its most interesting metamorphoses. On the surface, the situation of a certain country looks entirely tranquil. The counter-revolutionary reaction slackens and dozes. But in the depths of the religious, cultural, social, or economic life, the revolutionary ferment is continuously spreading. Then, at the end of this apparent interval, there is an unexpected upheaval, often more severe than the previous ones.

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Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira