Today, 14 July 1789, is known as Bastille Day and the French revolution….this is when the french people had had enough of the suffering that they endured with the monarchy and took to the streets and stormed the prison known as the Bastille.

“Bastille Day is a holiday celebrating the storming of the Bastille—a military fortress and prison—on July 14, 1789, in a violent uprising that helped usher in the French Revolution. Besides holding gunpowder and other supplies valuable to revolutionaries, the Bastille also symbolized the callous tyranny of the French monarchy, especially King Louis XVI and his queen, Marie Antoinette.”

The prominent figure of this time was Maximilien Robespierre who oversaw the ‘Reign of Terror’ that ensued after the fall of the monarchy.

When Robespierre was elected as a deputy for the Third Estate in the Estates General in May, he witnessed the onset of the Revolution that broke the monarchy just two months later. It consumed him.

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The radical journals and pamphlets together with the lengthy speeches given at the revolutionary clubs paved the way for manipulation of the press and the learning of the methods of mass psychology, indoctrination, and incitement of mob violence.

Jean-Paul Marat took his cue from Robespierre and began “perpetual denunciations of traitors” in his journal, L’Ami du Peuple. He even went so far as to “call openly for violence against fellow Frenchmen.” Another radical journalist, René Hébert, followed suit and used his newspaper, Le Père Duchesne, to arouse and agitate the French populace.

Despite incessant references to the virtue of the people, Robespierre trusted their virtue solely as an abstract concept or when their passions could be mobilized to serve the purposes of the revolution. In his eyes, mob violence was justified if it answered his personal call to carry out political riots or revolutionary insurrections. Robespierre no longer had any further use for the mob, and his references to the people became a total abstraction.

From 1792 to 1794, ‘The Incorruptible’ was instrumental in setting the stage for and presiding over the Reign of Terror. His technique was simple and time-tested–the Machiavellian tactic of “divide and conquer” (divide et impera). He did so with gruesome efficiency eliminating one by one his divided opposition–first the monarchists followed by the Feuillants and the Girondins; next the Hébertists; then the Dantonists; and finally, anyone who stood in his way and the continuation of the Terror. Robespierre succeeded in establishing institutionalized terror as an instrument of state power. He presided over it and used it against his enemies. For him, the end justified the means.

https://www.realclearhistory.com/2025/04/07/maximilien_robespierre_tyrant_1101685.html

I offer up this history lesson because I smell similar situations brewing here in the US….we must tread lightly and avoid any repeat of history.

Class Dismissed!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”