Government

Triumph of Napoleon, First Consul

Napoleon encouraged comparisons between the post-revolution French republic and the Roman republic. The French adoption of the term "Consul" was a clear reference to the Roman Republic, for that was the name given the men chosen to direct the republican government in Roman times.

Source Collection: Slavery and the Haitian Revolution

Since the revolutionaries explicitly proclaimed liberty as their highest ideal, slavery was bound to come into question during the French Revolution. Even before 1789 critics had attacked the slave trade and slavery in the colonies.

Chinese Posters: Propaganda, Politics, History, Art

Source Collection: War, Terror, and Resistance to the French Revolution

One fault line that has divided inquiries into the Terror has been its connections to the democracy introduced in 1789.

British Liberty Tree

These painted engravings ridicule the unrest wrought by French revolutionaries by contrasting French subversion with British stability.

Expulsion of the Girondins

Throughout the spring of 1793, radicals in the Convention, in the Paris Commune, and in the sections struggled for power against Brissot and his allies, known as the "Girondins." They differed over how the Revolution should be affected by popular pressure.

Source Collection: French Monarchy Falls

Although the monarchy had always struggled against elites over the definition of royal power, virtually no one could imagine France being governed without a king. At the outset of the French Revolution, only a handful of citizens had even contemplated a republic.

Robespierre’s Second Speech (28 December 1792)

As part of his defense, Louis’s lawyers had suggested the King should be judged not by the representatives of the people in the Convention but by the people themselves through a referendum.

Source Collection: Women and the Revolution

Women participated in virtually every aspect of the French Revolution, but their participation almost always proved controversial. Women's status in the family, society, and politics had long been a subject of polemics.

Source Collection: Paris and the Politics of Rebellion

The world was shocked by the swiftness and strength with which radicalism emerged in the first years of the Revolution. Interestingly, it is not so surprising that throughout the two centuries that have elapsed since then, labor has remained mainly arrayed on the political left.