The Days of the French Revolution

AUTHOR’S NOTE

This is a narrative history of the French Revolution from the meeting of the Estates General at Versailles in 1789 to the coup d’état of 18 Brumaire which brought Napoleon to power ten years later. It concentrates upon events and people rather than ideas, particularly upon those journées which helped to decide the course of the Revolution and upon those men and women involved in them. It is written for the general reader unfamiliar with the subject rather than the student, though I hope the student to whom the field is new may find it a readable introduction to the works of those historians to whom I myself am indebted. I want particularly to mention, and to thank, Professors Georges Lefebvre, Albert Soboul, Alfred Cobban, Richard Cobb, George Rudé, A. Goodwin and Norman Hampson. I am most grateful to Richard Cobb, Professor of Modern History in the University of Oxford, for having read the typescript and for having given me much valuable advice for the book’s improvement.

I want also to thank my friends, Mr R. H. Owen, who helped me with various translations when we were working on the book in Paris, and Mr John Guest who has been my most skilful and trusted editor for over twenty years. For their help in a variety of other ways I am deeply indebted to Mrs John Rae, Mrs Francis Pollen, Mrs John Street and to my wife for compiling the index.

C. H.

Appendix 1 provides some information about the fate of characters whose end is not recorded in the text;

Appendix 2 is a glossary of French terms used in the text;

Appendix 3 is a table of the principal events in France from 1788 to 1799.