La Révolution française!

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Anything that can produce Maximillian Robespierre can't be all good.

ruveyn

I recently read the French translation of "A Tale of Two Cities / London and Paris" by Charles Dickens. That was a very interesting read. As time passed during the revolution the oppressed masses became the oppressors and anyone remotely linked to nobility was sentenced to death. It was interesting to see the characters evolve from being downtrodden and starving, to plotters and conspirators, then into organised gangs waging war against the establishment and finally becoming the juries themselves at the "trials" of the nobility.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.....

ruveyn

I know enough about the subject.



Is an interesting time.



I read some articles.



if the kings wanted to return to the previous period, the only way to do so would have been a massive civil war that would end the educated population, and to freedom of expression, and the end of the Age of Enlightenment.

I find that the French Revolution was a very tragic invent. I mean, the man who epitomizes it's fanatical cruelty (whether or not he was scapegoated by other members of the Committee for Public Safety with too much of the blame) was a man who initally opposed the Death Penalty and was an abolitionist (Maximilien Robespierre)! The French Revolution is a testament to how external duress and the pressure of power deforms the character of individuals, even rather great individuals. Also, in ages in which governments are chastised as being "ruled by committees", "bureaucratic", and "slow", its very interesting to see the result of a rapidly fast-moving government, which wasn't too pretty. It's also sad to see that, after killing the leaders of the more radical factions of the French Revolution, its successors decided that to end the "Red Terror" they needed to killing countless members of France's urban poor (who had sufferred a toll during the Red Terror also).

I am reading Thomas Carlyle's The French Revolution now....

Opinions are more than welcome!!