The revolution itself was absolutely brutal, but overall had a positive effect on all kinds of emancipation.
While it ended in Napoleon, this cannot only be attributed to the revolution itself which basically ended serfdom in France and no monarch could bring that back.
Today we take for granted that a government is a servant to the populous and not the other way around, but it was the revolution that popularized that thought.
That you had insane murderers rising to the top was a side effect. Expecting the end of monarchy to not spill blood is also a pretty rosy perspective.
liberty equality fraternity - yes, the revolution was bound to happen. You have to compare the dead to those that die under monarchist and totalitarian regimes. And democracies plainly perform better, I don't think that can be disputed.
> Today we take for granted that a government is a servant to the populous
You must be joking. Even ostensibly democratic governments have no problem at all treating the people as subjects instead of as masters.
> That you had insane murderers rising to the top was a side effect. Expecting the end of monarchy to not spill blood is also a pretty rosy perspective.
There are lots of ways to end a monarchy which, while they are not bloodless, do not involve insane murderers rising to the top. But the fact that insane murderers did rise to the top in the French Revolution was not a "side effect"; it was an obvious consequence of the way that revolution was done, dictated from the top down by a small group of people who claimed to be able to totally restructure society based on "reason".
> You have to compare the dead to those that die under monarchist and totalitarian regimes.
The totalitarian regimes that killed more than a hundred million people in the 20th century were not "monarchist". They were, as I have said, inspired by the French Revolution, and by the horrible idea that a small group of people can totally restructure society based on "reason". Every time it's been tried it has ended in, to use your phrase, insane murderers rising to the top.
> democracies plainly perform better, I don't think that can be disputed.
You do realize that "democracy" is also the term that regimes like the one installed by the French Revolution, and the Soviet Union, and the other totalitarian regimes that arose from small groups of people who claimed to be able to totally restructure society based on "reason", used to describe themselves, right?
While it ended in Napoleon, this cannot only be attributed to the revolution itself which basically ended serfdom in France and no monarch could bring that back.
Today we take for granted that a government is a servant to the populous and not the other way around, but it was the revolution that popularized that thought.
That you had insane murderers rising to the top was a side effect. Expecting the end of monarchy to not spill blood is also a pretty rosy perspective.
liberty equality fraternity - yes, the revolution was bound to happen. You have to compare the dead to those that die under monarchist and totalitarian regimes. And democracies plainly perform better, I don't think that can be disputed.