Author's Preface
The following sketch of the course of the French Revolution was originally published during 1889 in serial form in "Justice," the weekly organ of the Social Democratic Federation. It has been revised, corrected, and, in some parts, added to, for the present re-issue. It need scarcely be said that it in no way pretends to be a complete history of the great political, social, and intellectual movement it describes. The present volume is designed primarily as a guide to those who, not having the time to study larger works on the subject, yet wish during these centennial years to have in a small compass a connected description of the main events of the French Revolution, more especially from the point of view of modern Socialism. It is undeniable that there are many Englishmen who would indignantly repudiate any aspersions on their education for whom the French Revolution means little more than the destruction of one institution called the Bastille, the erection of another institution called the Guillotine, and the establishment of the Napoleonic Empire on the ruins of both. They have no idea of the complex forces, economical, speculative, and political, which manifested themselves in the succession of crises (scarcely, indeed, of the existence of the crises themselves) which took place between the assembling of the States-General in 1789, and the suppression of the Babœuf conspiracy in 1796.
For such as these, and for many others to whom the above remarks will not altogether apply, a condensed
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