“No previous political upheaval however violent, had aroused such passionate enthusiasm for the ideal the French Revolution set before it was not merely a change in the French social system but nothing short of a regeneration of the whole human race. It created an atmosphere of missionary fervor and indeed assumed all the aspects of a religious revival-much to the consternation of contemporary observers. It would be perhaps truer to say that it developed into a species of religion, if a singularly imperfect one since it was without a god, without a ritual or promise of a future life. Nevertheless, this strange religion has, like Islam, overrun the whole world with its apostles, militants and martyrs. “
“The Old Regime and the French Revolution” Alexis de Tocqueville 1856
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