The Royalists, whom he trusted,
themselves betrayed him, and Danton fell, to be succeeded by Robespierre
and his political criminal courts. Meanwhile, on September 20, 1792, the
Prussian column recoiled before the fire of Kellermann's mob of
"vagabonds, cobblers and tailors," on the slope of Valmy, and with the
victory of Valmy, the great eighteenth-century readjustment of the
social equilibrium of Europe passed into its secondary stage.
CHAPTER V
POLITICAL COURTS
In the eye of philosophy, perhaps the most alluring and yet illusive of
all the phenomena presented by civilization is that which we have been
considering. Why should a type of mind which has developed the highest
prescience when advancing along the curve which has led it to
ascendancy, be stricken with fatuity when the summit of the curve is
passed, and when a miscalculation touching the velocity of the descent
must be destruction?
Although this phenomenon has appeared pretty regularly, at certain
intervals, in the development of every modern nation, I conceive its
most illuminating example to be that intellectual limitation of caste
which, during the French Revolution, led to the creation of those
political criminal tribunals which reached perfection with Robespierre.
Pages:
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168