Description

This is a comprehensive history of the French Revolution, and the way in which it went from toppling King Louis XVI, through the turbulent Reign of Terror, and ultimately brought about Napoleon as French emperor. From the preface: "M. AULARD, one of the most eminent and untiring students of the French Revolution, and Director of the well-known periodical devoted to Revolutionary history, La Revolution française (in which so much of his work appears), has here, as he tells us, as the result of twenty years of research, given us only one special aspect of a period. "No historical work", he says, "is sufficient to itself or to the reader. This of mine presupposes and demands the reading of others". To many readers of this book the history of the French Revolution will be thoroughly familiar. But in order to increase its interest for those who have not the leisure or the inclination to read other, histories together with M. Aulard's, and have not a know-ledge or a memory of the period sufficient to dispense with such reading, it will be well to preface the author's text with a brief sketch of the events leading up to the Revolution, a few remarks on the causes and the nature of the Revolution, and a chronological summary of the chief events of the period covered by this book. Again, for the general reader only, I have also added some explanatory notes and brief biographical sketches of the principal figures of the time."