quality:corruption, information:highlighting, structural:scholar_edition, stylistic:tone
Legacy and memory

In fact, a whole new political mythology was being created. On 23 Thermidor, Coleridge started to write the first act of The Fall of Robespierre. Vilate, who exaggerated the numbers, raged against keeping 300,000 people in prison and trying to execute two or three hundred people every day. To preach the ideals of '93 after Thermidor was to expose oneself to suspicions of Robespierrism, suspicions which had to be avoided above all others. Two contrasting legends around Robespierre developed: a critical one that held Robespierre as an irresponsible, self-serving figure whose ambitions generated widespread calamity, and a supportive one that held him as an early friend of the proletariat, about to embark on economic revolution when he fell.