Conspiracy in the French Revolution

Conspiratorial views of events abound even in our modern, rational world. Often such theories serve to explain the inexplicable. Sometimes they are developed for motives of political expediency: it is simpler to see political opponents as conspirators and terrorists, putting them into one convenient basket, than to seek to understand and disentangle the complex motivations of opponents. So it is not surprising to see that just when the French Revolution was creating the modern political world, a constant obsession with conspiracies lay at the heart of the revolutionary conception of politics. The book considers the nature and development of the conspiracy obsession from the end of the old regime to the Directory. Chapters focus on conspiracy and fears of conspiracy in the old regime; in the Constituent Assembly; by the king and Marie Antoinette; amongst the people of Paris; on attitudes towards the peasantry and conspiracy; on Jacobin politics of the Year II and the 'foreign plot'; on counter-revolutionary plots and imaginary plots; on Babeuf and the 'conspiracy of equals'; and finally on fear of conspiracy as an intellectual impasse in the revolutionary mentality. Inspired by recent debates, this book is a comprehensive survey of the nature of conspiracy in the French Revolution, with each chapter written by a leading historian on the question. Each chapter is an original contribution to the topic, written however to include the wider issues for the area concerned. There is an emphasis throughout on clarity and accessibility, making the volume suitable for a wide readership as well as undergraduates and advanced researchers

ISBN 0719074029   Pages 240 ISBN13 9780719074028 (What's this?)   Volumes 1 Publisher Manchester University Press   Weight (grammes) 730 Imprint Manchester University Press   Published in Manchester Format Hardback   Height (mm) 234 Publication date 01 Aug 2007   Width (mm) 156 Library of Congress DC   Spine width (mm) 25 DEWEY 944.04   Academic level Further/Higher education DEWEY edition DC22

		Introduction: conspiracy in the French Revolution - issues and debates by Thomas E. Kaiser and Marisa Linton and Peter R. Campbell		1
1		Perceptions of conspiracy on the eve of the French Revolution by Peter R. Campbell		15
2		Conspiratorial thinking in the Constituent Assembly: Mirabeau and the exclusion of deputies from the ministry by Barry M. Shapiro		42
3		The real and imagined conspiracies of Louis XVI by John Hardman		63
4		'Horrible plots and infernal treasons': conspiracy and the urban landscape in the early Revolution by David Andress		85
5		Conspiracy in the village? French revolutionary authorities and the search for 'subverters of public opinion' in the rural south-west by Jill Maciak Walshaw		106
6		'Do you believe that we're conspirators?': conspiracies real and imagined in Jacobin politics, 1793-94 by Marisa Linton		127
7		The emigres and conspiracy in the French Revolution, 1789-99 by Simon Burrows		150
8		Never was a plot so holy: Gracchus Babeuf and the end of the French Revolution by Laura Mason		172
9		Conclusion: Catilina's revenge - conspiracy, revolution, and historical consciousness from the ancien regime to the Consulate by Thomas E. Kaiser		189

"This is an excellent volume - one of the most coherent and consistently engaging edited collections I have read in quite some time. A stimulating volume on a theme of immense importance to the historiography of the Revolution."--Darrin McMahon, Florida State University .

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