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Leaders of the French Revolution

por J. M. Thompson

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1789-1795 were years of revolutionary drama in France-of struggle protest, war-fever, exasperation, terror, ambition and bloodshed. Few of the many who are remembered from the time were great men, but they lived under the microscope of great times, which gave to their most insignificant qualities portentous proportions. Perhaps, too, their age and country encouraged variety and extravagance of character, few there are few periods of history so rich in personalities. Of the eleven men chosen by J. M. Thompson for study, only three (Siey?s, Lafayette and Dumouriez) survived the Revolution, and lived to see its cynical apotheosis in the Napoleonic Empire. Of the others, Mirabeau died in 1791 and Louvet in 1797, while the remainder-Brissot, Marat, Danton, Fabre, Robespierre and St. Just-were murdered, executed or put to death. J. M. Thompson writes in his introduction, 'But to all of them the Revolution was an overwhelming experience. What did they do in it? What did they think of it? Let us see.'… (más)
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If my reading habits this year were a series of Doctor Who, then the recurring theme would probably be the French Revolution. It's central to [b:Les Misérables|2225130|Les Misérables|Victor Hugo|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1222130242s/2225130.jpg|3208463], is the real antagonist of [b:A Tale of Two Cities|6558596|A Tale of Two Cities|Charles Dickens|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1245487246s/6558596.jpg|2956372], and lurks at the beginning of all things in [b:War and Peace|10752432|War and Peace|Leo Tolstoy|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1299673971s/10752432.jpg|4912783]. To a lesser extent it also figures in [b:The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet|8720194|The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet|David Mitchell|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51rI19dDYYL._SL75_.jpg|7405757] and even [b:Map of a Nation|12532839|Map of a Nation|Rachel Hewitt|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/513LsIBsJ9L._SL75_.jpg|14225764] (the Ordnance Survey ostensibly began in 1791, partially through fears that revolutionary France might seek to invade England's poorly mapped southern coast). For all that, though, I really didn't know much about the Revolution. Sure, Victor Hugo had waxed lyrical about its heroes and waxed wroth about its villains, but they were just so many names without faces or stories.

Leaders of the French Revolution may not have been the best introduction to this part of history — it readily assumes fairly thorough knowledge of the events of the 1790s and was written in 1923 so presumably a fuller picture now exists than is painted by Thompson within the book. But despite those problems the book is well written and at least gives an insight into the men behind the names.

As the title suggests the book concerns itself with some of the key men involved in the Revolution. Thompson is a historian's historian, eschewing any source that isn't primary or untainted by bias. As such the chapters on each of the men is quite short, eleven men's lives are covered in rather less than three hundred pages, and that with some overlap since these men plotted and worked with and against one another. But then these men rarely had long lives — only three of the eleven lived to see the end of the Revolution in 1799, two in exile and one instigating the coup d'etat that saw Napoleon's rise to power. The rest of them find themselves on an unhappy conveyor belt heading towards the guillotine, oftentimes managing to wrestle a fellow politician to the front of the queue, only to realise that puts themselves second in line. Thompson disagrees that the Terror was really that terrifying for the majority of the population, but for the politicians it really was a fatal game. To lead the Revolution was to proscribe your political enemies before they proscribed you. And proscription in Revolutionary France almost always meant an appointment with "Madame Guillotine". ( )
  imlee | Jul 7, 2020 |
If my reading habits this year were a series of Doctor Who, then the recurring theme would probably be the French Revolution. It's central to [b:Les Misérables|2225130|Les Misérables|Victor Hugo|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1222130242s/2225130.jpg|3208463], is the real antagonist of [b:A Tale of Two Cities|6558596|A Tale of Two Cities|Charles Dickens|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1245487246s/6558596.jpg|2956372], and lurks at the beginning of all things in [b:War and Peace|10752432|War and Peace|Leo Tolstoy|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1299673971s/10752432.jpg|4912783]. To a lesser extent it also figures in [b:The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet|8720194|The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet|David Mitchell|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51rI19dDYYL._SL75_.jpg|7405757] and even [b:Map of a Nation|12532839|Map of a Nation|Rachel Hewitt|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/513LsIBsJ9L._SL75_.jpg|14225764] (the Ordnance Survey ostensibly began in 1791, partially through fears that revolutionary France might seek to invade England's poorly mapped southern coast). For all that, though, I really didn't know much about the Revolution. Sure, Victor Hugo had waxed lyrical about its heroes and waxed wroth about its villains, but they were just so many names without faces or stories.

Leaders of the French Revolution may not have been the best introduction to this part of history — it readily assumes fairly thorough knowledge of the events of the 1790s and was written in 1923 so presumably a fuller picture now exists than is painted by Thompson within the book. But despite those problems the book is well written and at least gives an insight into the men behind the names.

As the title suggests the book concerns itself with some of the key men involved in the Revolution. Thompson is a historian's historian, eschewing any source that isn't primary or untainted by bias. As such the chapters on each of the men is quite short, eleven men's lives are covered in rather less than three hundred pages, and that with some overlap since these men plotted and worked with and against one another. But then these men rarely had long lives — only three of the eleven lived to see the end of the Revolution in 1799, two in exile and one instigating the coup d'etat that saw Napoleon's rise to power. The rest of them find themselves on an unhappy conveyor belt heading towards the guillotine, oftentimes managing to wrestle a fellow politician to the front of the queue, only to realise that puts themselves second in line. Thompson disagrees that the Terror was really that terrifying for the majority of the population, but for the politicians it really was a fatal game. To lead the Revolution was to proscribe your political enemies before they proscribed you. And proscription in Revolutionary France almost always meant an appointment with "Madame Guillotine". ( )
  leezeebee | Jul 6, 2020 |
2864 Leaders of the French Revolution, by J. M. Thompson (read 21 Apr 1996) This is a 1929 book which tells of eleven men: Sieyes, Mirabeau, Lafayette, Brissot, Louvet, Danton, Fabre D'Eglantine, Marat, Saint Just, Robespierre, and Dimouriez. All I knew something about except Brissot and Louvet, who were Girondists. Of the 11 mentioned, only Sieyes, Lafayette, and Dimouriez survived the Revolution. This was not a bad book, but unlikely to be memorable to me. ( )
  Schmerguls | Feb 9, 2008 |
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1789-1795 were years of revolutionary drama in France-of struggle protest, war-fever, exasperation, terror, ambition and bloodshed. Few of the many who are remembered from the time were great men, but they lived under the microscope of great times, which gave to their most insignificant qualities portentous proportions. Perhaps, too, their age and country encouraged variety and extravagance of character, few there are few periods of history so rich in personalities. Of the eleven men chosen by J. M. Thompson for study, only three (Siey?s, Lafayette and Dumouriez) survived the Revolution, and lived to see its cynical apotheosis in the Napoleonic Empire. Of the others, Mirabeau died in 1791 and Louvet in 1797, while the remainder-Brissot, Marat, Danton, Fabre, Robespierre and St. Just-were murdered, executed or put to death. J. M. Thompson writes in his introduction, 'But to all of them the Revolution was an overwhelming experience. What did they do in it? What did they think of it? Let us see.'

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