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Zhou might have meant something important by that. If you think that La Terreur set the pattern for many other terrors since, then the fact that the struggle against La Terreur hadn't (probably hasn't) finished quite yet might make that retort quite frank and meaningful.

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He was talking about the student protests of May 1968. The quote later got misunderstood to be about the French Revolution.

From https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2011/06/it...: "I distinctly remember the exchange. There was a misunderstanding that was too delicious to invite correction."

Side note - I always wondered why English speakers tend to 1. keep the original language article and 2. capitalise it even though it is not in the original language. Why is it “La Terreur” and not “la Terreur” or “the Terreur”?

I've no idea why I capitalized "La".

English is not my native tongue but I believe that in English "the" preceding a name means something specific, something near a proper name, while the absence of "the" means something common.

"they were all struck by lightning but John was killed by _the_ final lightning*"

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