Robespierre
"[W]hen, by prodigious efforts of courage and reason, a people breaks the chains of despotism to make them into trophies of liberty; when by the force of its moral temperament it comes, as it were, out of the arms of the death, to recapture all the vigor of youth; when by tums it is sensitive and proud, intrepid and docile, and can be stopped neither by impregnable ramparts nor by the innumerable armies of the tyrants armed against it, but stops of itself upon confronting the law’s image; then if it does not climb rapidly to the summit of its destinies, this can only be the fault of those who govern it."
--Maximilien Robespierre, 1794
Olympe de Gouges, "Revolutionary Robespierre," September 8, 1793
The Committee of Public Safety
Reign of Terror
Corinne Babineaux, "Terrible, Terrifying, Terrific," September 25, 1793
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See Some Examples
Exploring the Horror that is the Reign of Terror with John Green
Mais Ici, Ma Vie Va Finir (but here, my life will end)
"Yesterday, at seven o'clock in the evening, a most extraordinary person called Olympe de Gouges who held the imposing title of woman of letters, was taken to the scaffold.... She approached the scaffold with a calm and serene expression on her face, and forced the guillotine's furies, which had driven her to this place of torture, to admit that such courage and beauty had never been seen before.... That woman... had thrown herself in the Revolution, body and soul. But having quickly perceived how atrocious the system adopted by the Jacobins was, she chose to retrace her steps. She attempted to unmask the villains through the literary productions which she had printed and put up. They never forgave her, and she paid for her carelessness with her head." |
Olympe de Gouges, "Who Has Ruined My Revolution?" November 2, 1793