I'm really starting to truly understand both the French and the Russians prior to their revolutions.

[canetoad]

8. I'm lucky

Never been what you call 'well off' but have never gone hungry for more than a couple of hours when a meal has been late. I cannot bear to imagine the gnawing, hopeless, unabated misery of real hunger.

I'm well aware that many atrocities were committed both during and after the French revolution. Thugs can go hungry too and there would have been a fair share of thugs among the decent French people fighting an existential battle. That, unfortunately is the price that had to be paid. There was no escaping it.