jean paul marat and maximillien robespierre (and georges danton) were the three most important men of the french revolution who unleased the reign of terror.
how principled were marat and robespierre then?
was it idealism or bloodthirstiness that led marat to attack just about anyone with influence and for robespierre who, after doing away with royalty and aristocracy, went on to execute anyone at the mere suspicion of being counter-revolutionaries, without extensive trials?
i believe they were radicals rather than men of principles.
“Marat's radical denunciations of counter-revolutionaries supported much of the violence that occurred during the wartime phases of the French Revolution.”
if marat were principled, his murderer charlotte corday (guillotined on 17 July 1793 for the murder) must also be just as principled. she testified during her four-day trial that she “…killed one man to save 100,000”.
historians note that as many as 40,000 accused prisoners may have been summarily executed (at the guillotine) without trial or died awaiting trial under the committee of public safety controlled by robespierre.
robespierre “instigated the Terror and the deaths of his peers as a measure of ensuring a Republic of Virtue; but his ideals went beyond the needs and wants of the people of France. He became a threat to what he had wanted to ensure and the result was his downfall.”
robespierre is summed up as a “bright young theorist but out of his depth in the matter of experience”.
sometimes, extreme idealism blinds such that it may lead to just plain extremism.
i dare not be idealistic about the death penalty.
Anatole France coined the epoch as, "The Reign of Terror", however , in defense of the Republicans and the Jacobins the terror was originally coined to address the terror the aristocrats and members of the Royal Person experienced when tried and judged before the Revolutionary fervor of the people, whom mere months before were nothing but drones under the foot of the former King of France, now referred to by Marat as 'Citizen Capet'.
The spirit of the Revolution encompassed the idea of Egalitarianism, Fraternity, Equality under the Law. And with this required the justice for the People (referring to the political mass); in the spiritual and purist sense, Marat and Robespierre were and are the Fathers of the French Republic, and their ultra-patriotism allowed no mercy for members of the royal person and the aristocracy as well as those who were judged as traitors and opponents of the Revolution.
Considering the time period and the political upheaval the Revolution caused, France was at war with Absolutist Austria-Hungary (Hapsbrug Empire, the empire that the late Queen Marie Antoinette came from), The Spanish Empire, The British Empire and parts of the German States of the Rhine, which were allied to Prussia. France and the Revolution was in a state of paranoia and to protect the national interest , as well as the continuation of the Spirit of Revolution (which did spread and led to the the liberalization of Austria, Spain, England and the German states & Prussia). Marat and Robespierre's actions can be understood considering the fact that they were the first leaders of a powerful country to successfully abolish the aged-old monarchical system , which had enslaved the people and ruled over them in unwarranted classed society & old superstitions.
Robespierre and Marat literally died for the revolution, whose contribution is unquestionable in regards to the transformation of France from a backward Absolutist Monarchy into the present French Republic, which later exported the same revolutionary idealism throughout continental Europe.
The transformation of France from Monarchy to Republic was, indeed, no easy task.
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