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On July 28, 1794 Maximilien Marie Isidore de Robespierre died on the guillotine, along with nineteen supporters and his close associates, Louis Saint-Just and Georges Couthon, for the simple want of order, an order that made Robespierre ultimately responsible for the guillotining of 16,000 people. Robespierre began his political career on the eve of the French revolution when he was elected as a deputy of the Estates-General on March 31, 1789. He was an enemy of the monarchy, and harbored …

…had helped bring down Robespierre, Barere, Collot, Billaud, were afterwards condemned to exile for being involved with him. Robespierre became a monster, the explanation of the Terror. But how can all that blame be placed on just one man? It so much easier to believe that one superhuman aberration is the reason for a terrible incident of brutality than to ponder that perhaps there is something intensely wrong in the very heart of humanity itself.