History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814

Of the great incidents of History, none has attracted more attention or proved more difficult of interpretation than the French Revolution.

The ultimate significance of other striking events and their place in the development of mankind can be readily estimated.

It is clear enough that the barbarian invasions marked the death of the classical world, already mortally wounded by the rise of Christianity.

It is clear enough that the Renaissance emancipated the human intellect from the trammels of a bastard mediaevalism, that the Reformation consolidated the victory of the new learning by including theology among the subjects of human debate.

But the French Revolution seems to defy complete analysis.

Its complexity was great, its contradictions numerous and astounding.

A movement ostensibly directed against despotism culminated in the establishment of a despotism far more complete than that which had been overthrown.

The apostles of liberty proscribed whole classes of their fellow-citizens, drenching in innocent blood the land which they claimed to deliver from oppression