Those opposed to the resurrection of passport controls took a sharply different view of the probable consequences of their restoration. Far from regarding the reintroduction of passport controls as a small price to pay for defending the revolution’s larger gains, these critics saw the resurrection of social control techniques characteristic of the ancien régime as a reversal of the newfound freedom that the revolution had inaugurated, and therefore as likely to undermine popular support for the revolutionary project. This view was expressed by Stanislas Girardin of the département of the Oise
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