Indeed it did not perceive any essential distinction between the monarchical or legitimist and the national principles; and the error was under the circumstances not unnatural.

In the European political landscape of 1793 despotic royalty was a much more conspicuous fact than the centuries of political association in which these monarchies had been developed.

But the eyes of the French democrats had been partially blinded by their own political interests and theories.
Their democracy was in theory chiefly a matter of abstract political rights which remitted logically in a sort of revolutionary anarchy.

The actual bonds whereby men were united were ignored.

All traditional authority fell under suspicion.