1789-1795 were years of revolutionary drama in France—of struggle protest, war-fever, exasperation, terror, ambition and bloodshed. Few of the many who are remembered from the time were great men, but they lived under the microscope of great times, which gave to their most insignificant qualities portentous proportions. Perhaps, too, their age and country encouraged variety and extravagance of character, few there are few periods of history so rich in personalities. Of the eleven men chosen by J. M. Thompson for study, only three (Sieyès, Lafayette and Dumouriez) survived the Revolution, and lived to see its cynical apotheosis in the Napoleonic Empire. Of the others, Mirabeau died in 1791 and Louvet in 1797, while the remainder—Brissot, Marat, Danton, Fabre, Robespierre and St. Just—were murdered, executed or put to death. J. M. Thompson writes in his introduction, ‘But to all of them the Revolution was an overwhelming experience. What did they do in it? What did they think of it? Let us see.’

Eleven men who played prominent parts in the revolutionary drama including Sieyes, Mirabeau, Lafayette, Brissot, Louvet, Danton, and others.

Two political and military giants compared

This is the story of the French Revolution told from a psychological and group dynamic perspective. The aim is to throw light on the workings of the revolutionary mind and the emotions at work in society which pave the way towards revolution and war. Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette are presented as a couple trapped by the symbolism invested in them, a circumstance that turned them into scapegoats. The contrasting personalities of the two most controversial leaders of the Revolution Robespierre and Danton provide psychologically informed explanations of their success and failure as leaders. The group perspective the nature of crowd behaviour and mob violence links to the complex relationship between leaders and groups. In the Parisian case of 1789 group emotions fear, rage, euphoria and fervour influenced the course of the Revolution. The assassination of Marat and the struggle to the death between the extremists of the Left and the Moderates is a classic study in group paranoia culminating in a Reign of Terror destined to end in self-destructive violence. The conflict between the Revolution and the Church as an expression of belief in an ideal society led to a battle for the minds of a people facing two incompatible ideologies. The French Revolution was an important milestone in western social and political development. It carried within itself the seeds of a humane society, but turned into murder and execution. The dichotomies arising echo down the generations. The same split in our thinking applies to how we view today's social upheavals and conflicts conflicts of opposing mythologies with their psychological overtones interpreted as political doctrines as evinced currently in Russia's territorial claims to Eastern Ukraine, Islamic fundamentalist wars, and the IsraeliPalestinian conflict. Hope lies in the application of therapeutic principles garnered from the field of group dynamics.

A biography of Georges-Jacques Danton, a leading French revolutionary—from his rural upbringing to his death five years after the storming of the Bastille. One of the Western world’s most epic uprisings, the French Revolution ended a monarchy that had ruled for almost a thousand years. Georges-Jacques Danton was the driving force behind it. Now David Lawday, author of Napoleon’s Master, reveals the larger-than-life figure who joined the fray at the storming of the Bastille in 1789 and was dead five years later. To hear Danton speak, his booming voice a roll of thunder, excited bourgeois reformers and the street alike; his impassioned speeches, often hours long, drove the sans-culottes to action and kept the Revolution alive. But as the newly appointed Minister of Justice, Danton struggled to steer the increasingly divided Revolutionary government. Working tirelessly to halt the bloodshed of Robespierre’s terror, he ultimately became another of its victims. True to form, Danton did not go easily to the guillotine; at his trial, he defended himself with such vehemence that the tribunal convicted him before he could rally the crowd in his favor. In vivid, almost novelistic prose, Lawday leads us from Danton’s humble roots to the streets of revolutionary Paris, where this political legend acted on the stage of the revolution that altered Western civilization. “A gripping story, beautifully told . . . Danton was a headstrong firebrand, a swashbuckling political showman with a prodigious memory, whose spectacular oratory held audiences in thrall.” —The Economist