 While Novalis was always sympathetic to the ideals of the French revolution, he grew increasingly skeptical in his assessment of their actual realization in late eighteenth-century France. In his view, the proponents of liberté, egalité, and fraternité had failed to live up to their celebrated ideals. For all its good intentions, the revolution had resulted in inequality, injustice, and terror. It is characteristic of Novalis’s political philosophy that he not only offers a principled discussion of this predicament, but also a historical critique. Novalis sees the revolution in continuity with the Enlightenment, and worries that these movements cultivate a notion of reason that fails to take historical reality into account. The proponents of the revolution had forgotten to ask if the people were ready to take on the admirable ideals of liberty, equality, and solidarity. Novalis wishes not only to endorse the ideals of the revolution, but also to offer reflections on how the people can be brought to a stage where they can responsibly take on the principles of the revolution and make its ideals their own. This is the ultimate task and purpose of Bildung.