Browse Items (347 total)

In contrast to Le Chapelier’s fears that all clubs, even the Jacobins, actually subverted the political process, the Jacobins saw themselves as ensuring the proper functioning of the constitution and allowing full participation by patriotic citizens…

Here Moreau de Saint–Méry describes the topography and peoples of the French part of the island, providing some important basic knowledge which he expands upon in subsequent passages.

As many as two–thirds of the slaves in Saint Domingue in 1789 had been born in Africa, but by that time a significant number of Africans or children of Africans had become free. Here Moreau de Saint–Méry details the origins of this pivotal group.

The first debate over the fate of Louis XVI concerned whether the Convention could try the King at all, and if so, for what crimes. The Constitution of 1791 had promised Louis "inviolability," meaning immunity from prosecution. One of the first…

By late December, the Convention was in the process of trying the King. Louis agreed to testify in his own defense. He justified the decisions of 1789–91 by pointing out that he had still been King and that he had consistently tried to rule within…

Emmanuel–Joseph Sieyès was born at Fréjus, 3 May 1748. He was educated at a Jesuit school, became a licentiate of the canon law, and was appointed vicar–general by the bishop of Chartres. He first came into prominence with the publication of his…

The Society of the Friends of Blacks rested their case for the abolition of the slave trade on the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen and the belief that political rights should be granted to religious minorities. Their denunciation of the…

Stanislas Maillard was a national guardsman known for having taken a leading role in the attack on the Bastille. In 1790 he testified before a commission established by the court in Paris to investigate the events of October 1789. He exaggerates his…

Stanislas Maillard, a National Guardsman and "veteran" of the taking of the Bastille, here testifies at a police court, on the events of 5–6 October. Notice that he ultimately supports the activism of the market women.

Gouverneur Morris, an American in Paris, wrote about the street protests that followed the King’s dismissal of the royal minister of finance, the popular Jacques Necker. Many Parisians considered Necker the man most able to enact reforms that might…