A CRIMINAL HISTORY OF MANKIND

was supposed to have smashed stocking machines in the 1780s. They operated like the Ku-Klux-
Klan, sending warnings to mill owners, threatening to smash windows or burn down their mills
unless they got rid of their machinery. Many gave way to this intimidation. In 1812, the Luddites
intercepted two weaving frames that were on their way to the mill of a man named William
Cartwright; they smashed the frames and left the drivers tied up in a ditch. Cartwright appealed to
the government for help, and they sent a small consignment of troops. On 11 April 1812, a mob of
Luddites smashed down Cartwright’s gates and poured into the mill yard with axes. As they began
to chop their way into the building, soldiers fired from upper windows. The mob fled, leaving their
wounded behind. But this was only one victory in a bitter war that dragged on for another year. An
employer named Horsfall who employed similar tactics was murdered in reprisal; in 1813 there
were mass trials of Luddites, with many executions and transportations. It was a tragic and
pointless conflict; the workers were unaware that the enemy was not the mill owners but the current
of history itself. Almost two centuries later, the British trade unions are still fighting the same
Luddite battle.
To understand the bitterness of these industrial conflicts, we need to go back to the age of Louis
XIV. Like the Luddites, Louis was equally determined to make time stand still. When his minister
Colbert brought prosperity to France by encouraging trade and industry, the king undid the good
work by exempting the nobles from taxes and wasting the money on futile wars. Louis died in
1715; and things improved under the regency of the duke of Orleans, then under Louis XV and his
minister Fleury, but the disastrous Seven Years War in 1756 led to the loss of most of the French
overseas empire. There was a steady rise in the population - from sixteen millions in 1715 to
twenty-six millions by the time of the Revolution - which flooded the towns with unemployed farm
labourers and beggars. The more enterprising formed into robber bands that terrorised the
countryside. While the poor died of starvation, the rich still managed to avoid taxes. So while
England became the ‘workshop of the world’, France was torn by social conflicts.
But the major problem was not economic but psychological. The real conflicts of history are caused
by men behaving like spoilt children. What infuriated the French peasantry was not the prosperity
of the rich, but their arrogance. Louis XIV had never understood that history was being played
according to new rules; he behaved as if he were Charlemagne, and his nobility followed his lead.
Typical of his ‘Right Man’ attitude was an event that took place in 1661, when the French
ambassador in London announced to the Spanish ambassador that if he drove up first to the palace
gates his horses’ reins would be severed. The Spanish ambassador reacted by having them
reinforced with chains. There was a fight and bloodshed. Louis XIV dismissed the Spanish
ambassador in Paris, sending him back to Madrid with a message saying that if the French
ambassador was not given precedence at all court ceremonies, there would be extremely serious
consequences (meaning war). Spain under Philip IV was not strong enough to defy France; so an
envoy was despatched to Louis to concede his demands and make a public apology in front of the
assembled court. Louis was behaving like a headstrong brat, as we have come to expect monarchs
to behave throughout history. But the world was changing, and Louis’s determination to have his
own way led directly to the French Revolution.
It is even possible to suggest a precise date for the origin of the Revolution: December 1725. It was
in that month that the thirty-year-old dramatist Voltaire was talking rather too freely at the Comedie
Frangaise about his prospects of becoming prime minister. An aristocrat, the Chevalier de Rohan,
insulted him, and Voltaire replied sharply. A fight was avoided when a lady fainted. A few days