In his mind, “he was the instrument of Providence, charged with delivering France to her exalted future. If France were not yet worthy of such a future, it was clear to him that they must be regenerated--through virtue or terror--until they became what destiny demanded of him.” On the eve of his ascension to power, Robespierre scribbled in his notebook, pledging to preserve the revolution by persecuting all who oppose its ideals. Like most educated men of his generation… rewarded atheism as a vice of the aristocracy… Randomised and gratuitous Terror, he felt was more likely to weaken than to strengthen the republic.” However, he builds upon this method of terror to mold France, saying:
If the mainspring of population government in peacetime is virtue, the mainspring of popular government in revolution is virtue and terror both: virtue, without which terror is disastrous; terror, without which virtue is powerless. Terror is nothing but prompt, severe, inflexible justice; it is therefore an emanation of virtue; it is not so much a specific principle as a consequence of the general principle of democracy applied to the homeland’s most pressing