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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Psychology of Revolution by Gustave le Bon: Cambrai. His example, with that of Carrier, contributes to show
what man can become when he escapes from the yoke of law and
tradition. The cruelty of the ferocious commissary was
complicated by Sadism; the scaffold was raised under his windows,
so that he, his wife, and his helpers could rejoice in the
carnage. At the foot of the guillotine a drinking-booth was
established where the sans-culottes could come to drink.
To amuse them the executioner would group on the pavement, in
ridiculous attitudes, the naked bodies of the decapitated.
``The reading of the two volumes of his trial, printed at Amiens
in 1795, may be counted as a nightmare. During twenty sessions
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