Is there any one whose character
suffers under a more wide-spread infamy? The abomination of whose deeds
has become more notorious? The tale of whose death has been oftener
told; whose end, horrid, fearful, agonized, as was that of this man, has
met with less sympathy? For fifty years the world has talked of,
condemned, and executed Robespierre. Men and women, who have barely
heard the names of Pitt and Fox, who know not whether Metternich is a
man or a river, or one of the United States, speak of Robespierre as of
a thing accursed. They know, at any rate, what he was--the demon of the
revolution; the source of the fountain of blood with which Paris was
deluged; the murderer of the thousands whose bodies choked the course
of the Loire and the Rhone. Who knows not enough of Robespierre to
condemn him? Who abstains from adding another malediction to those which
already load the name of the King of the Reign of Terror.
Yet it is not impossible that some apologist may be found for the blood
which this man shed; that some quaint historian, delighting to show the
world how wrong has been its most assured opinions, may attempt to
vindicate the fame of Robespierre, and strive to wash the blackamoor
white.
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