The French Revolution has been a landmark in the history of anarchism. The use of revolutionary violence by masses to achieve political ends has been in the imaginary of anarchists of the forthcoming centuries and events as Women's March on Versailles, the Storming of the Bastille or the Réveillon riots were seen as the revolutionary archetype. In his "Manifesto of the Equals", Sylvain Maréchal looked forward to the disappearance, once and for all, of "the revolting distinction between rich and poor, of great and small, of masters and valets, of governors and governed". Anarchists would identify themselves with the enrages or sans-culottes-The Enragés (Enraged Ones) opposed revolutionary government as a contradiction in terms. Denouncing the Jacobin dictatorship, Jean Varlet wrote in 1794 that "government and revolution are incompatible, unless the people wish to set its constituted authorities in permanent insurrection against itself". French Revolution depicted in the common subconscious of anarchists that as soon as the rebels seize power, they would become the new tyrants, something that was evident by the State orchestrated violence of the Reign of Terror. The proto-anarchist groups of enrages and sans-culottes were ultimately erased at the edge of the guillotine.
