Helena Rosenblatt

And then the revolution derailed into this horrible period of the terror, and eventually they thought that Napoleon would come and save the revolution.

So there was a lot of hope that this charismatic figure who claimed to want to save the revolution was making all the right noises.

He was going to bring peace to France.

He was going to bring back order.

He was going to protect all these things liberals had fought for so hard.

And then instead, he became this despot and a demagogue.

And he used wars, you know, to divert attention to what he was doing at home.

He gave gifts to people.

He lined the pockets of his friends.

He flattered people, gave them power, but at the same time that he amassed power in his own people.

This was profoundly demoralizing to the early liberals that I'm talking about who had this lofty notion of what a freer, better, more moral, more humane world would look like.

And look what it derailed into.

So what did they learn from that?

They learned that you needed certain safeguards in place.

This is really when you get, like, liberalism as a constitutional way of thinking and balance of power, separations of powers, individual rights, freedom, how important freedom of press is, how important freedom of religion is.

Napoleon used religion, you know, to...

Buttress's power.

So all of these constitutional ideas really came together then.

And they, you know, it happened again and again over the course of the 19th century that you have these very clever, charismatic figures who could speak directly to the people.

I understand you.