declared their faith in rational democracy as inscribed in the con-
stitutions of the two countries were either French or American. An
American, Thomas Paine, was elected to the Calais Council; an Ital-
ian, Filippo Mazzei, was sent as Ambassador to Europe by Ameri-
can revolutionaries.

It was not enough, however, to place the concept of "the peo-
ple" on the throne of popular sovereignty. If the people were really
to be sovereign, the government had to be of the people, by the
people, for the people. It was not enough to declare their rights;
those rights had to become reality. And finally, it was not enough
to call people "citizens"; they had to behave like citizens. The peo-
ple had to have their place in life and to know their place. From
the very beginning, therefore, the ideological nation was a peda-
gogical nation, and its principal preoccupation was to prepare the
people to occupy the role corresponding to their new status. My
reader surely realizes just how fine and impalpable was the line
dividing the rights of the people from their responsibilities, and
how easy it was in an ideological nation to cross from a democra-
tic regime into an authoritarian or totalitarian one.

From this perspective, it is not surprising that, immediately after
the revolution, ideological or pedagogical nations resorted to war.
Wars waged by revolutionary France and fueled by revolutionary
fervor took no notice of the traditional distinction between offense
and defense, becoming, simultaneously, wars of both salvation and
liberation. Thus, from a revolutionary point of view, there was no
difference between the Kellerman who defended the nation at
Valmy and Dumouriez and the Kellerman who in the following
weeks invaded Belgium and Holland. The revolutionary nation
could not rest easy until it had overthrown all the surrounding
tyrants and in place of their thrones raised altars to the goddess of
Reason. While war was essential to the salvation of the nation, it
was also an extraordinary civic proving ground, the quickest form
of education, which separated the men from the higher-ranking
citizens. In the face of danger, of civil indoctrination, of social pro-
motion, of obedience to the new democratic hierarchy, war taught
people equality and fraternity. With its system of universal draft,
war was the most effective means ever invented to "mold" the
new nation. Indeed, it was the answer to a problem that from that
time on has plagued all who govern democratic countries: what to
do with "the people"? It is useless to wonder whether the choice
to wage perpetual war was a careful, deliberate decision. It is
enough to observe that, having founded an ideological nation

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