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Revolution Eats Its Early Champions
- Pierre Vergniaud warned that the revolution would devour its own children, predicting despotism born of revolutionary excess.
- The podcast argues this pattern of purging allies had been happening from the revolution's start, not just foretold as prophecy.
Arrests Far Outnumber Executions
- Arrests ballooned under the Law of Suspects but most detainees were not executed; many were acquitted or survived in custody.
- The host contrasts the scale of arrests with relatively lower official execution totals to contextualize the Terror's brutality.
Early Tribunal Still Functioned As Court
- The Revolutionary Tribunal initially maintained procedures that allowed real defenses and acquittals for much of 1793.
- Only a minority of denunciations led to guillotine sentences until later politicization of trials.