Postscript on the Religious hatred bill. From Anatole France’s The Gods Will Have Blood:
The greatest revelation given him by the wisdom of Robespierre concerned the crimes and infamies of Atheism…Robespierre cleared his mind and opened his eyes. By his virtuous eloquence, the great man showed him the true character of atheism, its aims, its nature, its effects. He demonstrated how the doctrine, born in the salons and boudoirs of the aristocracy, was the most insidious doctrine the enemies of the people had ever devised to demoralize and enslave the people; how it was a crime to deprive the unfortunate of the consoling thought of a benevolent Providence which would reward and compensate them, so rendering them easy victims of the vile passions that degrade and enslave men.
It’s all about respect, you see. Elsewhere, France characterises the Montagnard faction of the Jacobins as the fat bellied, property loving middle classes, people who conflated stability and order with virtue and who expanded the ideals of reason and moderation into tyranny. Monster Pooters, in short. Respectables run amok. They were also entirely based in the capital, as a consequence of which they were relentless centralizers and had no general anchorage in wider social or economic interest groups. Not too dissimilar to the current bunch, in tendency at least.
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