“Revolution is like Saturn, it devours its own children.”
Act I.
Dantons Tod (Danton's Death) (1835)
“Citizens, we have reason to fear that the Revolution, like Saturn, will successively devour all its children, and finally produce despotism, with the calamities that accompany it.”
Citoyens, il est à craindre que la révolution, comme Saturne, ne dévore successivement tous ses enfants et n’engendre enfin le despotisme avec les calamités qui l’accompagnent.
Quoted by F.A.M. Mignet, Histoire de la révolution française (1824), ch. 7 http://perso.orange.fr/fdomi.fournier/H%20moderne/Mignet/P_04.htm original French] and [http://www.fullbooks.com/History-of-the-French-Revolution-from-17894.html English translation
Original
Citoyens, il est à craindre que la révolution, comme Saturne, ne dévore successivement tous ses enfants et n’engendre enfin le despotisme avec les calamités qui l’accompagnent.
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Original: (fr) Citoyens, vouliez-vous une révolution sans révolution?