Lectures on the French Revolution (ebook)

Argumento de Lectures on the French Revolution (ebook)

Delivered at Cambridge University between 1895 and 1899, Lectures on the French Revolution is a distinguished account of the entire epochal chapter in French experience by one of the most remarkable English historians of the nineteenth century. In contrast to Burke a century before, Acton leaves condemnation of the French Revolution to others. He provides a disciplined, thorough, and elegant history of the actual events of the bloody episode—in sum, as thorough a record as could be constructed in his time of the actual actions of the government of France during the Revolution. There are twenty-two essays, commencing with “The Heralds of the Revolution,” in which Acton presents a taxonomy of the intellectual ferment that preceded—and prepared—the Revolution. An important appendix explores “The Literature of the Revolution.” Here Acton offers assessments of the accounts of the Revolution written during the late eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries by, among others, Burke, Guizot, and Taine.0I.The Heralds of the Revolution 1
II.The Influence of America 17
III.The Summons of the States-General 33
IV. The Meeting of the States-General 49
V. The Tennis-Court Oath 59
VI. The Fall of the Bastille 67
VII. The Fourth of August 82
VIII. The Constitutional Debates 95
IX. The March to Versailles 110
X. Mirabeau 123
XI. Sieyès and the Constitution Civile 138
XII. The Flight to Varennes 151
XIII. The Feuillants and the War 167
XIV. Dumouriez 182
XV. The Catastrophe of Monarchy 194
XVI. The Execution of the King 208
XVII. The Fall of the Gironde 222
XVIII. The Reign of Terror 233
XIX. Robespierre 246
XX. La Vendèe 261
XXI. The European War 274
XXII. After the Terror 286 Appendix:
The Literature of the Revolution 298
Index 323