India 2001 books

The operations of a campaign, in which the untaught and
ill-fed army of republican France had to meet the troops of England,
Flanders, Prussia, Austria, Sardinia, and Spain, besides those of
royalist France, were sufficient to occupy even the energies of Carnot.
Robespierre, in the Convention and in the Committee, was omnipotent; but
he also had his master, and he knew it. He knew that he could only act,
command, and be obeyed, in union with, and dependence on, the will of
the populace of Paris; and the higher he rose in that path of life which
he marked out for himself with so much precision, and followed with se
much constancy, the more bitterly his spirit chafed at the dependence.
He knew it was of no avail to complain of the people to the people, and
he seldom ventured to risk his position by opposing the wishes of the
fearful masters whom he served, but at length he was driven to do so,
and at length he fell.
Half a century has passed since Robespierre died, and history has become
peculiarly conversant with his name.


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