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"Hedouville and his superiors belonged to the same breed as Maitland andhis. Uninhibited, they wallowed with zest in the filth and mire of
their political conceptions and needs, among the very leaders of their
society, but nevertheless the very dregs of human civilisation and
moral standards. A historian who finds excuses for such conduct by
references to the supposed spirit of the times, or by omission, or by
silence, shows thereby that his account of events is not to be trusted.
Hedouville after all was a product of the great French Revolution.
Voltaire and Rousseau were household words and died before the
Revolution. Jefferson, Cobbett, Tom Paine, Clarkson and Wilberforce had
already raised banners and were living lives which to Maitland and his
kind made them into subversive elements of society. They had their
reasons. So have their counterparts of to-day. They fill our newspapers
and our radios. The type is always with us, and so are their
defenders."
