![]() ![]() But the latter are not the Girondins, Enragés, Hébertistes, or Jacobins of the Left, but, rather, the Males- herbes, the Neckers, and the Talleyrands. Instead, he judges the movement from the victims' outlook. He seldom looks at the events from the revolutionaries' point of view and never with sympathy for them. In this respect his narrative is a sensational story. ![]() Schama sees the Revolution as a series of scandalous events. Unfortunately, as Thomas Paine said of Edmund Burke, « He pities the plumage, but forgets the dying bird. He admits that he does not believe in « pure objectivity » - what historian does? But the reader has the right to expect of him a fair treatment of the revolutionaries in the real circumstances of a profound social and political crisis. In « shaking off the mythology of the revolution » (see the interview by Mervyn Roth- stein in The New York Times, April 27, 1989), Schama has created his own mythology. » Simon Schama wants no revolution at all. Robespierre used to chide his moderate opponents of « wanting a revolution without a revolution. Simon Schama, Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution. ![]()
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