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Comment by chernevik | Hacker News Reader

Yes, the excesses of the French Revolution were entirely caused by Louis XVI.

The lengths to which people will go to justify revolutionary slaughter are really something.

Hold up though. Russian's massacred in one day at Praga 20,000 people. That's basically the lower estimate of the death toll from 'The Terror'. Yet I don't see historians nor pundits observe such an act as deligitimizing of Tsarist Russia in the way they often see 'The Terror' as some kind of slam dunk against The French Republicans. That kind of slaughter was just one among many perpetrated by monarchies all over Europe against people who were often not even a significant threat in any real way to the perpetrating institutions. 'The Terror' on the other hand was happening at a time when the French Republic was in fact fighting for its existence. Every power in Europe wished to see it fail. There were active conspiracies to sabatoge it. There was an active rebellion in The Vendee. The revolutionary government was loaded with people brilliant and egotistical all vying for more influence. It's not paranoia if people are actually out to get you.

I'm not defending 'The Terror' but trying to place it in context. If we are going to do history in context, we have to see it much more as part-in-parcel of the circumstances surrounding it. My point is that it is sooooooo discussed even while we jot down the political violence of other powers as mete footnotes even while being more justifiable and smaller in scope than those.

TBH No one expects anything positive from Russia, a benighted Oriental tyranny that changed its outer faces, but never its brutal core.

France is home to the Enlightement, though; subsequently, they tend to be held to a higher standard of conduct.

Not what I'm saying. His death was caused by the discovery of letters proving he instigated the foreign aggressions and the slaughter of French citizen (I use your words, as most French deaths of this period of time were caused by the coalition army).

At the times, traitors were killed. He was a traitor, he was killed.

This destroyed the Kingdom of France (or was the last nail in the coffin), precipited the formation of the first French republic under pressure of Paris citizens who had been betrayed twice (at least, depending on how you count) and were becoming even more violent. Of course the first republic was violent, considering how it was created.

And BTW, you could consider the revolution ended there, with the fall of the kingdom of France, before the Vendée war and what's called 'la terreur'. Most considered at the time that the revolution ended in 1789, before the monarchy betrayed everyone (twice). Everything else was to keep the French constitution ("All men are born free and equal in rights").

You can read Jean Clément Martin if you want more details.

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