[Footnote 1253: Buchez et Roux, XXVIII 55. Letter by Brun-Lafond, a grenadier in the national guard, July 14, 1793, to a friend in the provinces, in justification of the 31st of May. The whole of this letter requires to be read. In it are found the ordinary ideas of a Jacobin in relation to history: "Can we ignore, that it is ever the people of Paris which, through its murmurings and righteous insurrections against the oppressive system of many of our kings, has forced them to entertain milder sentiments regarding the relief of the French people, and principally of the tiller of the soil?.. Without the energy of Paris, Paris and France would now be inhabited solely by slaves, while this beautiful soil would present an aspect as wild and deserted as that of the Turkish empire or that of Germany," which has led us "to confer still greater lustre on this Revolution, by re-establishing on earth the ancient Athenian and other Grecian republics in all their purity. Distinctions among the early people of the earth did not exist; early family ties bound people together who had no ancient founders or origin; they had no other laws in their republics but those which, so to say, inspired them with those sentiments of fraternity experienced by them in the cradle of primitive populations."] [Footnote 1254: Barbaroux, "Mémoires" (Ed. Dauban), 336.--Grégoire, "Mémoires," I. 410.] [Footnote 1255: "La Révolution Française," by Quinet (extracts from the unpublished "Mémoires" of Baudot), II. 209, 211, 421, 620.--Guillon de Montléon I. 445 (speech by Chalier, in the Lyons Central Club, March 23, 1793). "They say that the sans-culottes will go on spilling their blood. This is only the talk of aristocrats. Can a sans-culotte be reached in that quarter? Is he not invulnerable, like the gods whom he replaces on this earth?"--Speech by David, in the Convention, on Barra and Viala: "Under so fine a government woman will bring forth without pain."--Mercier "Le Nouveau Paris," I. 13. "I heard (an orator) exclaim in one of the sections, to which I bear witness: 'Yes, I would take my own head by the hair, cut it off, and, presenting it to the despot, I would say to him: Tyrant, behold the act of a free man!'"] [Footnote 1256: Now, one hundred years later, I consider the tens of thousands of western intellectuals, who, in their old age, seem unable to understand their longtime fascination with Lenin, Stalin and Mao, I cannot help to think that history might be holding similar future surprises in store for us. (SR).] [Footnote 1257: And my lifetime, our Jacobins the communists, have including in their register the distortion, the lie and slander as a regular tool of their trade. (SR).]