A year after the French Revolution broke out, Edmund Burke warned that that the new Government did not deserve to be taken at its own estimation any more than the old one. The revoutionaries cried ‘liberty!’, but good as liberty is, few people would be glad to hear that a homicidal maniac had been given his, without painstaking inquiries.

The French Revolution, said Burke, was rather like a seething pot, all froth and fizz. It was necessary to wait until the action had died down, and then to analyse the whole dish. When liberty overpowers other essential ingredients in a civilised society, such as security, manners and morality, it is not a matter for celebration.

116 words