E. Showing the Whole Face of the Revolution
It is not sufficient to point out the risk that our civilization may disappear altogether. We must know how to reveal amid the chaos that envelops us the whole face of the Revolution in its immense hideousness. Whenever this face is revealed, outbursts of vigorous reaction appear.
Destruction of the statue of Louis XIV, Place Vendôme, August 1792.
This act, pulling down the original statue of Louis XIV that had stood
in place for nearly 100 years, was one of many during the French Revolution that set in place the idea of destroying the monuments of a displaced politics.
For this reason, during the French Revolution and throughout the nineteenth century, the counter-revolutionary movement in France was stronger than ever before. Never had the face of the Revolution been seen so well. The immensity of the maelstrom in which the old order of things had been shipwrecked had suddenly opened the eyes of many people to a host of truths silenced or denied by the Revolution down through the centuries. Above all, the spirit of the Revolution had become clear to them in all its malice and in all its profound connections with ideas and habits long considered innocent by most people.
Statue of Father Junipero Serra that was in the Los Angeles Plaza Historic District, was toppled by Black Lives Matter protesters. One of the many statues, Confederate, Religious or not, being removed due to Anitfa and BLM. Photo by Ham II.
Thus, the counter-revolutionary must frequently unmask the whole face of the Revolution in order to exorcise the spell it casts upon its victims.
Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, Revolution and Counter-Revolution (York, Penn.: The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property, 1993), Part II, Ch. VIII, Pg. 101-102.
