As seen in 1876 (#2)

From a review of Victor Hugo's work, "Ninety-Three" in an 1876 edition of our small-town newspaper (you will notice that media spin is nothing new):

"Warren Gazette, Friday Evening, July 16, 1876"

“… Victor does not exaggerate either the savageness or the wisdom of those remarkable men who rode for a time on the waves of that mighty whirlpool… in spite of their bloodthirsty fury, the French leaders were among the most able political economists that ever shaped the policy of any government. It is true that they mowed swaths of human heads…
“…never before were the affairs of any imperiled nation conducted with such wisdom, so few mistakes, so many triumphs.”
“…it had been the policy of the old government to keep the people and the army in darkness, but the Revolutionists were not afraid of light.”
“If the Revolution was murderous, what where the times which preceded it? – It was the uprising of men from torture, and for our part we have always thought that they were a thousand times more merciful than those who had taught them vengeance. They decreed speedy death, but they had no Bastilles, no agonizing flames, no wheels whereupon to break the bones of helpless enemies.”
“We do not attempt to palliate the crimes of Marat, Danton and Robespierre, but we do contend that even atrocities like theirs, in the midst of an explosion strong enough to annihilate a system of oppression a thousand years old, would scarcely have been thought surprising.”
“We commenced this article with a view to say something about that famous war in La Vendee… Its ferocity was incredible. La Vendee is in the west of France, and like other of the western provinces, it was always strongly devoted to the ancient royalty. The Republicans sent armies to subdue the murderous and ignorant peasants who were testifying their loyalty to crown and mitre by the most horrid cruelties committed against all person who dared to breathe a liberal thought.”
“In vast swamps, the armies met and struggled, never meeting upon open ground, which with the instinct of murderers the villainous peasantry avoided. – No prisoners were taken on either side or if taken were immediately put to death, for the Parisian troops, maddened by the fiendish cruelty of their enemies, retaliated with no less barbarity.”
“…all through the war, the English watched the coast, ready at any opportunity to assist the blind slaves who were fighting for a state of things which had kept them so long in darkness and which they had not intelligence enough to perceive had passes away forever.”
“Perhaps some of them atoned in some measure for their earlier treason to France by dying at Jena or Wagram, or dragging frosty cannon over the snows of Russia.”
“We doubt not that all La Vendee would rise today in favor of those fossil Bourbons in whose support they once sacrificed so much…”

It is interesting and scary to see how those on the side of the Revolution really hated and despised the peasants .