Maximilien de Robespierre to America:

[Jackpine Radical]

“The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant.”

"The most extravagant idea that can be born in the head of a political thinker is to believe that it suffices for people to enter, weapons in hand, among a foreign people and expect to have its laws and constitution embraced. No one loves armed missionaries; the first lesson of nature and prudence is to repulse them as enemies."

[frazzled]

1. Oh goody, what next, advocating a new Reign of Terror?

I mean, really, I'm sure you can find lots of stuff that Robespierre said that we could agree with. His methods, however, left a lot to be desired. I'm not willing to kill people in the name of ideology. And I'm not into a revisionist rehabilitation of Robespierre. This is laughable.

1793
September 5: The Reign of Terror begins when Robespierre declares Terror "the order of the day." This marks the beginning of almost two years of repressing perceived enemies of the Revolution. It will claim an estimated 18,500-40,000 lives before its end in July 1794.

http://www.pbs.org/marieantoinette/timeline/reign.html

[RufusTFirefly]

2. Mark Twain on the Reign of Terror

"There were two 'Reigns of Terror', if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the 'horrors' of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror — that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves."

[frazzled]

3. With all due respect to Mark Twain

The Terror did not do a thing to alleviate hunger, cold, and heartbreak for the impoverished of France. What it did was to help lead to a restoration of the monarchy and then usher in Empire and then return to monarchy again (with a tiny brief sliver of respite with a Republic for a couple of years). This went on for 100 years until a real republican democracy actually came about. But let's not pretend that poverty was eradicated in France after the Terror. And that doesn't mean you have to be supporting the previous depredations in order to say that.

[Jackpine Radical]

4. I thought the quotes were interesting and timely.

My placing them here was not intended as any sort of endorsement of Robespierre or of the Reign of Terror. I'm not ignorant of history.