A historian is always allowed to oppose hypotheses to fate. He is allowed to point out the errors of men and parties and to imagine that without these errors events would have followed another course.
I have spoken of Robespierre’s immense services after May 31, organizing the revolutionary power, saving France from civil war, anarchy, and defeat. I have also spoken of how, after the crushing of Hébertism and Dantonism, he was struck with doubt, blindness, and distraction.But what must never be forgotten when judging these men is that the problems fate imposed on them were formidable and probably beyond human strength. Perhaps it wasn’t possible for one generation alone to bring down the ancien régime, create new laws and rights, raise an enlightened and proud people from the depths of ignorance, poverty, and misery, fight against an international league of tyrants and slaves, and to put all passions and forces to use in this combat while at the same time ensuring the evolution of the fevered, exhausted country towards normal order and well-ordered freedom.
The France of the revolution required a century, countless trials, backslidings into monarchy, reawakenings of the republic, invasions, dismemberments, coups d’état, and civil wars before it finally arrived at the organization of the republic, at the establishing of equal liberty through universal suffrage.
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/07/jaur ... -socialist
http://hac.bard.edu/news/post/?item=19820#against-pity