aries at home and abroad, and what hadrnbeen called the Terror was reinterpretedrnas a series of countermeasures taken tornprotect French “democracy.” The samerntype of defensive scenario was then extendedrnto Lenin’s revolution, which myrnclassmates and professors presented as anrnupdated form of the French Jacobinrnbirth of freedom.rnWhat Furet and others of his generationrndid (such as the Sorbonne historianrnPierre Chaunu) was to reevaluate thernencrusted academic beliefs that hadrnformed around the Revolution. Thevrntook seriously what its critics accused itrnof doing, massacring well in excess ofrn100,000 of their presumed royalist countrymen,rnincluding babies, putting intornpractice a conspiratorial view of thernworld extracted from the Masons andrnIlluminati, and preaching what Burkerncalled an “armed doctrine” againstrnnonrevolutionized governments. Furetrndemonstrated that the radical revolutionariesrnwho drove events forward in thernearly 1790’s were not merely respondingrnto unexpected circumstances. Theyrntook advantage of the chaos thev helpedrnunleash to carry out a planned “purification.”rnWhether overthrowing a decrepitrnmonarchy that had ultimately granted arnliberal constitution or turning upon insufficientlyrn”republican” colleagues,rnthese revolutionaries, as seen by Furet,rnforeshadowed the Bolsheviks in theirrnbrutal practice and accusatory rhetoric.rnThose who compared the two groupsrnwere often right in their judgment, albeitrnfor unintended reasons.rnSignificantly, this critical view of thernRevolution has largely prevailed, andrneven the celebration in France of the bicentenaryrnof its outbreak was accompaniedrnb- journalistic and scholari attacksrnon the bloody course of events initiatedrnin 1789. Such attacks went beyond whatrnFuret wished others to think was his ownrnmeasured judgment of the Revolution,rnexemplified by his distinction betweenrnits liberal and radical phrases. As bothrnthe Chicago Tribune and Le Figaro notedrnin obituaries, Furet traced his own postcommunistrnpolitics back to the earlyrnstages of the Revolution. Then it stillrnrepresented a liberal European heritagernculminating in what Professor NathanrnTarcov, a colleague of Furet’s at the Universityrnof Chicago, describes as “repre-rnT o SI Bsc R I li i : . . .rn1 – 800 – 877 – 5459rnsentatie democracy, human rights, andrna mixed economy.”rnBut this heritage is not a liberal Europeanrnbut a social democratic one, and itrnmay be argued that Furet’s analysis disallowsrnthe kind of distinction he himselfrnintermittently made for prudential reasons.rnDistinguishing among the phasesrnof that upheaval ignores Furet’s realrnteaching, that “la Revolution fait bloc”rnwas a self-radicalizing process driven bvrncontinuing ideological currents. ThernRockford Institute might have acted onrnthe basis of what it properly perceived asrnthis analytic thrust of his work when itrngranted Furet an Ingersoll Prize threernyears ago. His longtime admirer, a descendantrnof Huguenots, and an authenticrnEuropean liberal, Pierre Chaunu, observesrnthe paradox of Furet’s relation tornthe Revolution. Moved by his own disillusionmentrnwith communist reconstructionsrnof reality to inxestigate related falsificationsrnof revolutionary events, Furetrnnonetheless stopped halfway in his ownrnpolitical development as a non-Marxistrnprogressive. But he did achieve his revisionistrngoal as a professor and author onrntwo continents more thoroughly thanrnany explicitly conservative critic of hisrnsubject. Precisely because of where hernstood, on the left (however moderately),rnFuret would be listened to, unlike thernCatholic, antirevolutionary sources hernincorporated into his scholarship. By therntime of his death, as a result of a fatal fallrnwhile playing tennis, Furet had discreditedrnthe adulatory approach to the Revolutionrnwhich still flourished in the 1960’s.rnBy now this achievement may be irreversible.rn—Paul GottfriedrnEPICYCLES:rn• More Pilfered Prose: The queen ofrnHarlequin romance novels, Janet Daileyrn(90 novels, over 300 million sold), hasrnbeen caught lifting the bodice of anotherrnromance novelist’s work. But as DavidrnSteitfeld reported in the Washington Postrnthis summer, the plagiarism wasn’trnDailey’s fault. As the novelist explained,rnher “random and non-pervasive acts ofrncopying are attributable to a psychologicalrnproblem that I never even suspectedrnI had. I have already begun treatmentrnfor the disorder and have been assuredrnthat, with treatment, this behavior canrnbe prevented in the future.” This excusernis almost as good as that of Franco-rnCameroon novelist Colixthe Bevala, whornreceived the grand prix du roman fromrnthe French Academy last October andrnhas since been exposed as a chronicrnplagiarist. As an article in Le Point put it,rnMs. Beyala claims “an extraordinaryrnmemory peculiar to the African traditionrnin which one may, without recrimination,rn. . . resolve oneself from any illrnintention because she is a woman andrna Black.” The technical name for thisrndisorder is B.A.M.: Big African Memor)’.rn• The Rockford Schools Case Continues:rnDesegregation Master Eugene Eubanks,rnwho’s apparenth’ trying to destrovrnRockford even more thoroughly than herndestroyed Kansas City, presented his latestrndesegregation budget in early August.rnActually, “presented” may not be thernright word. The $23.5 million budget—rnthat’s in addition to the school district’srnbloated budget of $146 million—wasrnsupposed to be filed with the clerk’s officernof the U.S. District Court in Rockfordrnon August 7. The da before, A’lasterrnEubanks ordered an employee tornFedEx the budget from the schoolrndistrict’s central office to the courthousernsix blocks away. The package went tornChicago before returning to Rockford,rnwhere it was apparcnth delivered to thernwrong building and hasn’t been seenrnsince. Much like Master Eubanks: afterrnapproving the budget for release a merernnine days before the last da’ on whichrnthe school board could file a challenge inrnfederal court. Master Eubanks left on arnten-day vacation.rn• The Real Criminals: The NationalrnInstitute of Justice Journal, a publicationrnof the U.S. Department of Justice, recenthrnran an article entitled “Crime &rnIllegal Immigration: Emerging Local,rnState, and Federal Partnerships.” The articlerndoes not live up to its encouragingrntitle. It seems that William McDonald,rna professor at Georgetown University,rnhas discovered the real victims of illegalrnimmigration: the illegales themselves.rn”In the heat of the discussion over . . .rnthe proper role of local law enforcementrnin immigration control, it is casv to overlookrnanother side of the issue, namely,rnprotecting illegal immigrants from thernexploitation and victimization to whichrnthey arc so vulnerable.” Those who remainrnunconvinced that our governmentrnbelieves in protecting everyone butrnAmerican citizens need look no further.rnProfessor McDonald makes no attemptrn8/CHRONICLESrnrnrn