ABSTRACT
During the French Revolution, the people recast their identity, uniting together into a large secular fraternity and redefining their basic loyalty in terms of citizenship and its responsibilities within a state. The leaders of the Revolution followed the work of Rousseau upon the social reconstruction of individuals and thought of the general will of the people, within this human and social contract, as representing the voice of God and symbolizing its massive and irresistible force through the pagan demigod Hercules. The French people were now destined to find their fundamental identity within the collective terms of the state. The power play of the Parisian Assembly mostly represented an expression of the leading philosophes and satirists, spewing their hatred and outlandish criticisms upon the Ancien Regime and purging elements that displayed a modicum of respect for the old order through a more sober-minded belief in the possibility of reform.
