Becoming French

Becoming Revolutionary

Abolition of the Monarchy and Declaration of a Republic

Background Reading
Censer and Hunt, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, pp. 62-85.

Required Work
During this section of the course, you are expected to learn a basic chronological history of the 1780s-1790s (that is, to gain a core sense of "what happened, when"). Historians of the French Revolution often refer to "the tenth of August" without specifying a year; they mention "the flight to Varennes" without saying who fled. If you don't know what these terms, and others, mean, you will not be able to follow the remainder of this course.

In addition to taking careful notes in lecture and doing as much reading as possible, you will probably want to:

print a timeline so that you can note on it the significance of events (in your own words)

read through the Liberty, Equality, Fraternity timeline and use that website's "search" box to look up unfamiliar terms

print a list of important names and key terms—make sure you can identify them and explain their importance!

Further Reading
In addition to the general histories listed last week, see:
David P. Jordan, The King's Trial: The French Revolution vs. Louis XVI (1979).

Warren Roberts, Jacques-Louis David, Revolutionary Artist: Art, Politics, and the French Revolution (1989).

Timothy Tackett, Becoming a Revolutionary (1996).

Timothy Tackett, When the King Took Flight (2003).

Michael Walzer, ed., Regicide and Revolution: Speeches at the Trial of Louis XVI (1992).

History of French "National Assemblies"
from 1789 to the present (for a short
history of the building, see here)


Liberty, Equality, Fraternity