Democracy isn't the same thing as liberty and unfortunately people have started to believe freedom == democracy. When in reality democracy is just a way to organize decisions.
To put is succinctly if unnecessarily crass, but one could argue that gang rape is democracy in action.
That was not a "true" democracy. It was a mixture of anarchy (in that what government there was didn't have firm control of much of the country, or even of much of the forces nominally acting in its behalf) and oligarchical autocracy (in that what government did have firm control was run essentially by fiat of the Committee of Public Safety.)
Insofar as it was "democracy" at all, it was extremely indirect: electoral colleges were elected by the electorate (with ~11% turnout), who in turn elected delegates to the National Convention, which in turn appointed the Committee.
The US (either at the time or now) has much closer to "true democracy", by any reasonable definition, than Revolutionary France ever had.
As well as sharp minds, they certainly realized that "democracy is two wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for dinner".