That is
to say, France permitted it because the onslaught of the decaying class
made atrocities such as these appear to be a condition of
self-preservation. I doubt if, in human history, there be such another
and so awful an illustration of the possible effects of conservative
errors of judgment.
For France never loved the Terror or the loathsome instruments, such as
Fouquier-Tinville, or Carrier, or Billaud-Varennes, or Collot-d'Herbois,
or Henriot, or Robespierre, or Couthon, who conducted it. On this point
there can, I think, be neither doubt nor question. I have tried to show
how the Terror began. It is easy to show how and why it ended. As it
began automatically by the stress of foreign and domestic war, so it
ended automatically when that stress was relieved. And the most curious
aspect of the phenomenon is that it did not end through the application
of force, but by common consent, and when it had ended, those who had
been used for the bloody work could not be endured, and they too were
put to death. The procession of dates is convincing.
When, on July 27, 1793, Robespierre entered the Committee of Public
Safety, the fortunes of the Republic were near their nadir, but almost
immediately, after Carnot took the War Department on August 14, they
began to mend.
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