riven by violent conflict and division whether or not there'd been a war?
>> I think that violent conflict and division was potentially there.
But, I do think, and I would not deny that the
circumstances of the war and perhaps even more important the counter revolution,
the fear of counter revolution inside the country
being stabbed in the back while you
were trying to fight the war on the military front
I think those are extremely important.
But I guess that I would argue that they are not what
would we say, necessary and sufficient to have caused the terror.
So I think we do have to look both at the circumstances and the psychology.
Not only what was happening but how did the people who
were living through those times confront,
react to, understand, interpret what was happening.
>> To go back to your earlier book on the flight of the king
It really, does underscore, doesn't it, the importance of that, moment when
the king, as the head of state in so many meanings, is seen to be a perjurer.
>> That's right.
>> If you cannot trust the king.
>> That's right.
>> How can you trust anybody?
And, it's a key theme of that book of yours, isn't it, that
maybe the only way that a violent conflict could have been
avoided would have been if there'd been a different type of king,
who was able to exercise a different type of leadership for the revolution.
>> It's great.
>> But that's hypothetical.
>> It's great fun to try to counter factual history,
and think about that who knows, I mean who knows.
But, it is clear that,
what was perceived as the betrayal of the king,
the perjury of the king,
The lies told by the king, had an incredible impact on the whole population.
And the language people used at that time to
describe what the king has done is extraordinary harsh.
The caricatures portraying the king are also portraying
him as an animal, as a beast, and so on.
And it marks a striking transformation.
He was, generally seen as a hero of the revolution prior to that,
so that, those key moments of course can
make a great difference
and did make a great difference in how the revolution developed.
>> And finally Tim, I'm struck by the way in which
you, like Marissa Linton, put so much emphasis on concepts such
as integrity and virtue, transparency, authenticity, the
measures if you like, of how patriotic you are in your devotion to the cause.
And I guess that in a way stems, as you were saying, from this
expectation in 1789 that this is going to be a regeneration of an entire society.
And that anybody who stands in the way
of that must therefore be malevolent, in some way.
>> I think that developed over time.
I don't think that was intrinsic, implicit, in the psychology the
mentality of, let's say, 1786 or just on the eve of the revolution.
I don't accept the contention that, for example, the Enlightenment, or
the ideas of Rousseau, or the ideas of natural law
engendered, automatically, created a plot
which was to develop into a revolution and develop into Terror, no.