eventually captured and killed. The Marquis de Sade, from whom we get the term sadism, was released from prison. The Paris Commune took over control of Paris. In the spring of 1792, the First Committee of Public Safety was established, charged with judging and punishing traitors. Soon the streets of Paris began to run with blood, as thousands of people were killed by the guillotine. As more soldiers were needed to "liberate" the rest of Europe, France instituted history's first universal levy, the ultimate in state control over the lives of its citizens. For opposing the Revolution, most of the city of Lyons was destroyed. Lafayette, who at first had embraced the Revolution, was arrested as a traitor. Soon a progressive income tax was passed, prices on grain were fixed, and the death penalty given out to those who refused to sell at the government's prices. Every citizen was required to carry an identity card issued by his local commune, called Certificates of Good Citizenship. Every house had to post an outside listing of its legal occupants. The Revolutionary Communes had committees that watched everyone in the neighborhood and special passes were needed to travel from one city to another. The jails were soon filled with more people than they had been under Louis XVI. Eventually, every citizen was technically guilty of crimes against the state. The desire for absolute equality resulted in everyone being addressed as "citizen," much as the modern-day Communist is referred to as "comrade. Education was centralized and bureaucratized. The old traditions, dialects, and local allegiances that helped prevent centralization were swept away as the Assembly placed a mathematical grid of departments and municipalities on an unsuspecting France. Each department was to be run exactly as its neighbor. Since "differences" were aristocratic, plans were made to erase individual cultures, dialects, and customs. In order to accomplis...
