Our first stop on the walking tour this morning was the monument of Georges Danton, a leader in the early stage of the French Revolution . Of note, was his disfigurement  caused by smallpox (a small miracle, in my opinion , that he survived) and being attacked by pigs and a bull. As a result, his face was scarred, pocked, and his lip was torn and never healed.  He was, sad to say, ugly; however it appeared to work in his favor.

Napoleon Bonaparte was a man with no physical characteristics to intimidate his enemies (or his peers), but his intellect was persuasive .

Helen Maria Williams began writing letters about the Revolution and waxing eloquently as if “the Deity [looked] down and witness[ed] the sacred engagement into which they had entered (252).  She described the day of the Federation at Paris in terms that approach ecstasy. She writes that “the incense of praise was never more likely to ascend to Heaven” (253), as when the Catholics held a worship service with Protestants.  Her writing is so colored by her personal feelings about the Revolution that the reader may not be able to accurately gauge the reliability of her observations .

All of this reminds me of the 1966 action film of the same  title of this post with Clint Eastwood . The French Revolution had its share of all three.