Popular Culture
Grievance List (September 1789)
The Haitian free blacks and creoles, many of them substantial property owners and slaveholders, sent delegates to the National Assembly in France with a list of their stated grievances and demands.
The Coffee Planter of Saint Domingo (London, 1798)
Here Pierre Joseph Laborie provides the perspective of the planter. He gives a detailed description of the organization of enslaved labor in the production of coffee.
The Slaves from Africa
Born in 1750, Mederic-Louis-Élie Moreau de Saint-Mery grew up in Fort Royal, Martinique as a white Creole and studied law in Paris, France.
The Maroons
Born in 1750, Mederic-Louis-Élie Moreau de Saint-Mery grew up in Fort Royal, Martinique as a white Creole and studied law in Paris, France.
That Seductive Mulatto Woman
Born in 1750, Mederic-Louis-Élie Moreau de Saint-Mery grew up in Fort Royal, Martinique as a white Creole and studied law in Paris, France.
Robespierre (3 December 1792)
Maximillien Robespierre, a leading Jacobin deputy in the Convention, had originally opposed the trial, believing that to try the King was to imply the possibility of his innocence.
Marat (3 December 1792)
As a journalist, Marat had for the first few years of the Revolution supported the monarchy as an institution.
Saint–Just (13 November 1792)
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.
Description of the Royal Menagerie (1789)
A common theme in libels was to compare the royal family to animals. This pamphlet parodies the Queen and her entourage as animals in a zoo, emphasizing how the courtly way of life at Versailles seemed bizarre to the rest of the French people.
The Attack on the Tuileries (10 August 1792)
In early August, the Legislative Assembly was deadlocked, unable to decide what to do about the King, the constitution, the ongoing war, and above all the political uprisings in Paris.