Twelve Baskets Bulging: Place de la Revolution, 1794 Hi Folks! Here is Number 12: In his literary classic, A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens may have used the theme of Love Conquers All to reflect his belief that the era was, in his words, “the best of times.” But for many people, it was indeed, “the worst of times.” The height (or perhaps more accurately, the nadir) of the French Revolution was The Reign of Terror. From June 1793 to July 1794, as many as 40,000 people may have been put to death by “The National Razor.” Dr. Joseph Guillotine invented the device with hopes that it would horrify French politicians so much they would abolish capital punishment altogether. When that did not happen, his family members changed their surname to avoid any association with it. In 1792, Maximillien Francois Marie Isidore de Robespierre became chairman of “The Committee of Public Safety.” (Orwell would have been proud.) Thus did he become the central figure in a movement that began as a revolution against the institutional tyranny of government by the royalty but morphed into the anarchic tyranny of government by the citizens. He would eventually lose control of the forces he had unleashed, and was himself sent to the guillotine on July 28, 1794. The Reign of Terror tells a sobering story about what can happen when mob rule becomes mainstream public policy. Political movements that are long on passion but short on substance can be dangerous. America and the other democracies of the world should take note of that. But, as history has shown, we won’t. The last execution of a French convict by guillotine occurred in 1977. France abolished the death penalty in 1981. Thanx to the digital artists at Renderosity.com, 3Dcommune, Daz 3D, or Archive3D.net, whose props were used in the composition of this image. Dr Zik