The radicals concluded that traditional institutions are contrary to reason and therefore must be abolished.

For Rehberg, the Revolution was a failed experiment in idealism, a misguided attempt by French radicals to recreate society and state according to the principles of reason. There lay a fundamental fallacy behind this experiment: the belief that the principles of reason are guidelines for concrete political practice, that they are blueprints to reconstruct all society and the state. It was this belief, Rehberg argues, that sanctioned the frenzy of destruction behind the Revolution, the eagernes