“Citizens, did you want a revolution without a revolution? What is this spirit of persecution that has come to revise, so to speak, the one that broke our chains? But what sure judgement can one make of the effects that can follow these great commotions? Who can mark, after the event, the exact point at which the waves of popular insurrection should break? At that price, what people could ever have shaken off the yoke of despotism? For while it is true that a great nation cannot rise in a simultaneous movement, and that tyranny can only be hit by the portion of citizens that is closest to it, how would these ever dare to attack it if, after the victory, delegates from remote parts could hold them responsible for the duration or violence of the political torment that had saved the homeland? They ought to be regarded as justified by tacit proxy for the whole of society. The French, friends of liberty, meeting in Paris last August, acted in that role, in the name of all the departments. They should either be approved or repudiated entirely. To make them criminally responsible for a few apparent or real disorders, inseparable from so great a shock, would be to punish them for their devotion.”

— Maximilien Robespierre

Citoyens, vouliez-vous une révolution sans révolution? <br class="br">"Answer to Louvet's Accusation" (5 November 1792) Réponse à J.- B. Louvet http://www.royet.org/nea1789-1794/archives/discours/robespierre_reponse_louvet.htm, a speech to the National Convention (5 November 1792)

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Maximilien Robespierre78

French revolutionary lawyer and politician 1758–1794

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“Citizens, did you want a revolution without revolution?”

Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) French revolutionary lawyer and politician

Original French: Citoyens, vouliez-vous une révolution sans révolution? <br class="br"> Réponse à J.- B. Louvet http://www.royet.org/nea1789-1794/archives/discours/robespierre_reponse_louvet.htm, a speech to the National Convention (5 November 1792)

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“For all these things have been illegal, as illegal as the Revolution, as the fall of the Monarchy and of the Bastille, as illegal as liberty itself... Citizens, did you want a revolution without a revolution?”

Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) French revolutionary lawyer and politician

Misc Quotes
Original: (fr) Citoyens, vouliez-vous une révolution sans révolution?

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Maximilien Robespierre78

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