Robespierre had read Rousseau from cover to cover and believed in
the philosopher's doctrines with all his heart so that he would have
gone to death for them. In the belief that they eventually would
succeed and regenerate France and all mankind, he was ready to work
with unwearied patience. The paucity of his followers in the National
Assembly and the overpowering personality of Mirabeau prevented him
from exercising much influence in framing the new constitution, and he
gradually turned for support to the people of Paris. He was already a
member of the Jacobin Club, which, by the withdrawal of its more
conservative members in 1791, came then under his leadership.
Thenceforth the Jacobin Club was a most effective instrument for
establishing social democracy (although it was not committed to
republicanism until August, 1792), and Robespierre was its oracle.
Robespierre was never a demagogue in the present sense of the word: he
was always emphatically a gentleman and a man of culture, sincere and
truthful.
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