Neither did he think that the disunited and wavering powers of Europe would venture to declare war against a nation that proclaimed peace so long as we did not attack them.

But should the European cabinets be sufficiently mad to attempt this new crusade against human reason, then Robespierre fully believed they would be defeated, for he knew that there lies invincible force in, the justice of a cause--that right doubles the energy of a nation, that despair often supplies the want of weapons, and that God and men were for the people.
He thought, moreover, that if it was the duty of France to propagate the advantages and the light of reason and liberty, the natural and peaceful extension of the French Revolution in the world would prove far more infallible than our arms,--that the Revolution should be a doctrine and not an universal monarchy realised by the sword, and that the patriotism of nations should not coalesce against his dogmata.

Their strength was in their minds, for in his eyes the power of the Revolution lay in its enlightenment.

But he understood more: he understood that an offensive war would inevitably ruin the Revolution, and annihilate that premature republic of which the Girondists had already spoken to him, but which he himself could not as yet define.

Should the war be unfortunate, thought he, Europe will crush without difficulty beneath the tread of its armies the earliest germs of this new government, to the truth of which perhaps a few martyrs might testify, but which would find no soil from whence to spring anew.