Guillotine Nostalgia
You might want to review the history, mes amis.
I'm seeing a lot of references to the French Revolution these days. You may want to take a look at your history books before putting on your cockade and putting up your guillotine posters.
When the French Revolution that most people know about took place, beginning in 1789, there was a ferment of political thought. The ideological momentum of the Enlightenment, the fervor for liberty and the widespread disgust with Monarchy, Ministry and Church's mismanagement of the state swept away all the old forms, to be replaced by a government of "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity."
The fraternity went away almost immediately. The equality and liberty not long after.
France immediately found itself at war with almost all of its neighbors. In the chaos, the Jacobins seized control of the National Convention, and launched a political purge that is remembered as "The Terror." It turned into a civil war, and over 17,000 people were publicly executed and an additional 10,000 died awaiting trial.
Once the Girondins were able to seize power and execute the architect of the Terror, Maximillian Robespierre, they established a ruling committee of five, and relied on a young army officer to maintain civil peace (and their authority) with as much ruthlessness as he found necessary.
His name was Napoleon. And he was to be the Emperor who buried the Revolution while plunging France in to a war that destroyed an entire generation of young men in Europe.
If you are hungering for 1789, you should reflect on the horrors that persisted for 26 years afterward, and arguably until the Revolution of 1848.
A thought for the thoughtful; a word to the wise.