ABSTRACT
A great political assembly, a parliament for example, is a crowd, but a crowd which sometimes fails in effectual action on account of the contrary sentiments of hostile groups composing it. The presence of these groups, actuated by different interests, must make people consider an assembly as formed of superimposed and heterogeneous crowds, each obeying its particular leaders. Leaders of great repute or unusual violence can sometimes, by acting on all the groups of an assembly, make them a single crowd. The history of revolutionary Assemblies shows how pusillanimous they were, despite the boldness of their language respecting kings, before the leaders of the popular riots. Political assemblies are composed of heterogeneous groups, but they have sometimes been formed of homogeneous groups, as, for instance, certain of the clubs, which played so enormous a part during the Revolution, and whose psychology deserves a special examination. The progressive exaggeration of sentiments was plainly demonstrated in all the assemblies of the Revolution.
