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There were two French Revolutions—the first stage instigated by free-Left elements imbued with toleration, anti-authoritarianism, secularism, individualism, liberty and the revolutionary individualism of Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine. The second stage of the French Revolution devolved into a bloody, terroristic dictatorship, an all-powerful state amidst a cult of personality, such as the so-called incorruptible Maximilien Robespierre, in a counter-revolution that was anti-liberal and antithetical to the Lumières movement, which became the Age of Enlightenment. (en) |