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.

Are not our old historical assurances everywhere asserted?
Has it not been proved to us that crooked-backed Richard was a good and politic King; and that the iniquities of Henry VIII are fabulous?
whereas the agreeable predilections of our early youth are disturbed by our hearing that glorious Queen Bess, and learned King James, were mean, bloodthirsty, and selfish.
I am not the bold man who will dare to face the opinion of the world, and attempt to prove that Robespierre has become infamous through prejudice.

He must be held responsible for the effects of the words which he spoke, and the things which he did, as other men are.

He made himself a scourge and a pestilence to his country; therefore, beyond all other men, he has become odious, and therefore, historian after historian, as they mention his name, hardly dare, in the service of truth, to say one word to lessen his infamy.
Yet Robespierre began his public life with aspirations of humanity, which never deserted him; and resolutions as to conduct, to which he adhered with a constancy never surpassed.