The Project Gutenberg EBook of The French Revolution, by R. M. Johnston

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Title: The French Revolution
A Short History

Author: R. M. Johnston

Release Date: October 1, 2006 [EBook #19421]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FRENCH REVOLUTION ***

Produced by Al Haines

[Transcriber's note: Page numbers in this book are indicated by numbers
enclosed in curly braces, e.g. {99}. They have been located where page
breaks occurred in the original book, in accordance with Project
Gutenberg's FAQ-V-99. This has been done only in the book's main
chapters (I-XVII). For its Preface and its Index, page numbers have
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[Frontispiece: 1. Voltaire. 2. Marie Antoinette on her way to the
guillotine. 3. Fouquier-Tinville. 4. Carrier. 5. Danton before the
Tribunal Revolutionnaire.]

The French Revolution

_A SHORT HISTORY_

_By_

R. M. Johnston

M.A., CANTAB.

_Assistant Professor of History in Harvard University_

NEW YORK

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

1910.

COPYRIGHT, 1909

BY

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

Published, May, 1909

Second Printing, January, 1910

TO

Rayner Neate

IN MEMORY OF OLD PEMBROKE DAYS

{v}

PREFACE

The object of this book is similar to that with which, a few years ago,
I wrote a short biography of Napoleon. The main outlines of the
Revolution, the proportion and relation of things, tend to become
obscured under the accumulation of historical detail that is now
proceeding. This is an attempt, therefore, to disentangle from the
mass of details the shape, the movement, the significance of this great
historical cataclysm. To keep the outline clear I have deliberately
avoided mentioning the names of many subordinate actors; thinking that
if nothing essential was connected with them the mention of their names
would only tend to confuse matters. Similarly with incidents, I have
omitted a few, such as the troubles at Avignon, and changed the
emphasis on others, judging freely their importance and not following
the footsteps of my predeces