An account of the events that shook 18th-century Europe to its foundation. Christopher Hibbert charts the French Revolution from its beginnings as an impromptu meeting on an indoor tennis court at Versailles in 1789, right through to 1795 and the coup d'etat that brought Napoleon to power. In the process, he explains the drama and complexities of this epoch-making era.

Table of Contents

Prologue - court and country; the day of the tennis-court oath, 20 June 1789; the day of the Vainquers de la Bastille, 14 July 1789; the day of the market-women, 5-6 October 1789; the days of the federes and the flight to Varennes, 14-17 July 1790 and 19-26 June 1791; the days of the tuileries, 20 June and 10 August 1792; the days of the September massacres and the execution of the king, 2-7 September 1792 and 21 January 1793; the days of the enrages and the hebertists, 28 May-2 June and 4-5 September 1793; the days of the terror, October-December 1793 and March-July 1794; the days of Thermidor, 22-28 July 1794; the days of Germinal, Prairal and Vendemiaire, 1 April, 20 May and 4-6 October 1795; epilogue - the advent of Bonaparte; appendices.