Without the seemingly irrational "smashing and looting riots" triggered by hunger among tens of thousands of ordinary people tearing open the breach ahead, the bourgeois representatives in parliament wouldn't even have been able to pass a single piece of paper. This chaotic, spontaneous riot forced the entire French society onto the irreversible path of the Great Revolution.

I have been observing the chaos in France from my American standpoint with some cautious optimism. I appreciated this piece putting it in a historical context.