392 ROBESPIERRE ; 
The projects and desires of Robespiérre were as little compatible 
with the inclinations and tastes of his people, as the measures he 
adopted were ill calculated to invest him with the sovereign autho- 
rity, which he nevertheless succeeded in obtaining. ‘There was no 
apparent unity of purpose between his contemporaries and himself ; 
and no sooner was the veil withdrawn, by which his real objects 
were concealed from their view, than his fall was doomed; and 
then, as if ashamed of their puerile submission to the will and dicta- 
tion of a man of low degree, whose objects and desires they neither 
partook of nor comprehended, they sought escape from their disgrace- 
ful position by misrepresenting the feelings by which Robespiérre 
was influenced, involving his character and designs in dark obscu- 
rity, by which history has sustained an almost irremediable injury, 
and readers have been hitherto grossly misled and deceived on this 
most interesting and all-important subject. 
The prevailing opinion appears still to be, that the (so called) 
Reign of Terror was of a negative character, abrogating all laws, 
giving rise to unlimited indulgence in licentious passions, and gross 
individual depravity, and breaking asunder the bonds of social order. 
But whatever may have been the disposition of the multitude, and 
however immoderate the excesses into which they plunged, it is 
clear that Robespiérre did not enter into their feelings, and still less 
was his conduct influenced by their views. And, indeed, why 
should Robespiérre attempt to demolish all the restraints of morality, 
who never felt their salutary influence? Why should he, who 
never indulged in corrupt and unrestrained revelry, either for his 
own gratification or to suit party taste, break down those protecting 
barriers which, whilst they sustain the vast fabric of society, restrain 
men within the sphere of a safe familiar intercourse? Again, how 
was it possible for a man to countenance these licentious indulg- 
ences, who considered every free and uncontrolled exercise of the 
will by others as tending to anti-revolutionary principles, regarding, 
at the same time, his own judgment, not only as infallible, but as 
being on a level with, if not superior to, the law itself? So far 
was the Reign of Terror from favouring, that it actually put a stop 
to those depraved and lawless habits of the people which had pre- 
vailed from the 10th of August. Robespiérre did not introduce or 
promote anarchy and wild commotion as a part of his system; but 
by a decree, levelled against all suspected persons, carried in the As- 
sembly of the National Representatives, after the destruction of the 
Girondines, he called forth a civil war novel in character, frightful 
in detail, and fearfully devastating in its effects, which, extending 
