Robbespierre Virtue
It is a direction of intention; it therefore requires of the citizens an integrity of purpose, which is to say a critical spirit, patriotism in the proper sense of the word, respect for the rights of others, reasoned devotion to the national community, "virtue" in the language of Montesquieu, Rousseau and Robbespierre. "The soul of the Republic," wrote Robbespierre in 1792, "is virtue, love of country, the generous devotion that fuses all interests into the general interest" (pp. 219 220).
Perhaps the reader in the late 20th century --- some fifty years after Lefebvre wrote his book --- is too weary from the horrors of that half-century to take the author's romantic notions about the French Revolution as seriously as they should be taken.
However, the author should not be blamed for the politically jaded individual reading his book fifty years after its writing. Perhaps Lefebvre sensed the Nazi horrors which were shortly to be visited upon the same France about which the author was writing.
It is not fair, in any case, to judge the book simply on its idealistic, even romantic, view of the French Revolution and its impact on the evolution of democracy and freedom around the world. The author has fashioned a thorough historical account of what remains one of the seminal events in Western Civilization. It is a detailed report which presents the conflicts and leading personalities in a dynamic, if scholastic, approach. Lefebrve is certainly not out to entertain the general masses with his book. He is an historian whose loyalties are first to the accuracy of the facts he is reporting, and this loyalty is expressed in the straightforward style of his work.
Perhaps the reader in the late 20th century --- some fifty years after Lefebvre wrote his book --- is too weary from the horrors of that half-century to take the author's romantic notions about the French Revolution as seriously as they should be taken.
However, the author should not be blamed for the politically jaded individual reading his book fifty years after its writing. Perhaps Lefebvre sensed the Nazi horrors which were shortly to be visited upon the same France about which the author was writing.
It is not fair, in any case, to judge the book simply on its idealistic, even romantic, view of the French Revolution and its impact on the evolution of democracy and freedom around the world. The author has fashioned a thorough historical account of what remains one of the seminal events in Western Civilization. It is a detailed report which presents the conflicts and leading personalities in a dynamic, if scholastic, approach. Lefebrve is certainly not out to entertain the general masses with his book. He is an historian whose loyalties are first to the accuracy of the facts he is reporting, and this loyalty is expressed in the straightforward style of his work.