The French Revolution: A History
The French Revolution: A History was written by the Scottish essayist, philosopher, and historian Thomas Carlyle. The three-volume work, first published in 1837 (with a revised edition in print by 1857), charts the course of the French Revolution from 1789 to the height of the Reign of Terror (1793–94) and culminates in 1795. A massive undertaking which draws together a wide variety of sources, Carlyle's history—despite the unusual style in which it is written—is considered to be an authoritative account of the early course of the Revolution.
Part I. The Bastille
Book I. Death of Louis XV.
Chapter 1. Louis the Well-Beloved. President Henault, remarking on royal Surnames of Honour how ...
Book II. The Paper Age.
Chapter I. Astraea Redux. A paradoxical philosopher, carrying to the uttermost length that aphor...
Book III. The Parlement of Paris
Chapter 1. Dishonoured Bills. While the unspeakable confusion is everywhere weltering within, an...
Book IV. States-General
Chapter 1. The Notables Again. The universal prayer, therefore, is to be fulfilled! Always in da...
Book V. The Third Esta
Chapter 1. Inertia. That exasperated France, in this same National Assembly of hers, has got som...
Book VI. Consolidation.
Chapter 1. Make the Constitution. Here perhaps is the place to fix, a little more precisely, wha...
Book VII. The Insurrection of Women.
Chapter 1. Patrollotism. No, Friends, this Revolution is not of the consolidating kind. Do not f...
Part II. The Constitution
Book I. The Feast of Pikes.
Chapter 1. In the Tuileries. The victim having once got his stroke-of-grace, the catastrophe can...
Book II. Nanci.
Chapter 1. Bouille. Dimly visible, at Metz on the North-Eastern frontier, a certain brave Bouill...
Book III. The Tuileries.
Chapter 1. Epimenides. How true that there is nothing dead in this Universe; that what we call d...
Book IV. Varennes.
Chapter 1. Easter at Saint-Cloud. The French Monarchy may now therefore be considered as, in all...
Book V. Parliament First.
Chapter 1. Grande Acceptation. In the last nights of September, when the autumnal equinox is pas...
Book VI. The Marseillese.
Chapter 1. Executive That Does Not Act. How could your paralytic National Executive be put 'in a...
Part III. The Guillotine
Book I. September.
Chapter 1. The Improvised Commune. Ye have roused her, then, ye Emigrants and Despots of the wor...
Book II. Regicide.
Chapter 1. The Deliberative. France therefore has done two things very completely: she has hurle...
Book III. The Girondins.
Chapter 1. Cause and Effect. This huge Insurrectionary Movement, which we liken to a breaking ou...
Book IV. Terror.
Chapter 1. Charlotte Corday. In the leafy months of June and July, several French Departments ge...
Book V. Terror the Order of the Day.
Chapter 1. Rushing Down. We are now, therefore, got to that black precipitous Abyss; whither all...
Book VI. Thermidor.
Chapter 1. The Gods Are Athirst. What then is this Thing, called La Revolution, which, like an A...
Book VII. Vendemiaire.
Chapter 1. Decadent. How little did any one suppose that here was the end not of Robespierre onl...