Liberty or Death: The French Revolution

488 Pages·2017·64.85 MB·english

by  Peter McPhee

PETER M PHEE
C
E
The French Revolution
Liberty or Death
i
ii
PETER M PHEE
c
Liberty
or
Death
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS
NEW HAVEN AND LONDON
iii
Copyright © 2016 Peter McPhee
Published with assistance from the Annie Burr Lewis Fund
All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form
(beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and
except by reviewers for the public press) without written permission from the publishers.
For information about this and other Yale University Press publications, please contact:
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Typeset in Adobe Caslon Regular by IDSUK (DataConnection) Ltd
Printed in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall
Library of Congress Cataloging-i n- Publication Data
McPhee, Peter, 1948- author.
Liberty or death : the French Revolution, 1789-1799 / Peter McPhee.
New Haven : Yale University Press, 2016.
LCCN 2015040677 | ISBN 9780300189933 (cloth : alk. paper)
LCSH: France—History—Revolution, 1789-1799.
LCC DC148.M4535 2016 | DDC 944.04—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015040677
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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For Kit
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Contents
List of Maps ix
Introduction x
1 Patchworks of Power and Privilege: France in the 1780s 1
2 A World of Intellectual Ferment 23
3 Mismanaging Crisis, 1785–88 39
4 The People’s Revolution, 1789 58
5 Regenerating the Nation, 1789–90 81
6 The Revolution Triumphant, 1790 102
7 Fracturing Christ’s Family: Religious Schism and the
King’s Flight, 1790–91 119
8 Fear and Fury, 1791–92, and a Second Revolution 142
9 Republicans at the Crossroads, 1792–93 164
10 Liberty or Death: Choosing Sides in Violent Times, 1793 188
11 ‘Terror until the peace’, July–October 1793 205
12 Saving a Republic of Virtue, October 1793–April 1794 228
13 Terror, Victory and Collapse, April–July 1794 252
14 Settling Scores: The Thermidorian Reaction, 1794–95 274
15 Men with a Stake in Society, 1795–97 297
16 The Great Nation and its Enemies, 1797–99 321
17 The Significance of the French Revolution 342
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viii contents
Chronology 371
The Revolutionary Calendar 380
Notes 381
Select Bibliography 434
Index 455
Illustration Credits 469
Maps
1 French provinces in the eighteenth century. xiv
2 Revolutionary Paris. xv
3 Départements of France, 1800. xvi
4 Zones of conflict, 1793–94. xvii
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