Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution, Volume I:
The Bastille
Thomas Carlyle's The French Revolution is a
landmark of literary history. Conceived not as a dry recounting of facts,
but as a personal, vivid, direct and dramatic encounter with the turbulent
times of revolutionary France, it is in fact an extended dramatic monologue
in which we meet not only the striking personalities and events of the time,
but the equally striking personality and mind of Thomas Carlyle himself. In
this, the second volume of the series, we live out the course of the French
Revolution from the aftermath of the fall of the Bastille to the
insurrection of August 1792, which effectively brought the reign of Louis
XVI to an end. Carlyle's many-faceted
personality and his constantly shifting attitudes and viewpoints on the
events he narrates paint a wonderfully intricate picture of the amazing
events of the time. And that, at heart, is the attitude he conveys most
vividly--his sense of amazement at the enormous revolutionary energy that
burst forth in this time, in ways no one, at the time, could predict or even
truly comprehend, and that remain a source of astonishment to this day.
A satisfied listener wrote: "This book is a treat for the
ears. It's like fine wine or anything else that needs intelligence,
experience, and taste to be appreciated. I had to buy the hardbound copy so
I would be able to read it over and over at leisure. The book is worth
listening to for its rich range of expression and subtle humor even if you
don't want to learn about the revolution, but having said that it is a first
class description of those momentous events and renders them in a way that
your dry dates-and-events histories could never rise to. A must for any
student of history with a literary bent." (a listener from Bethany, CT.) |
Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution, Volume II:
The Constitution
In this, the second volume of the series, we live out the
course of the French Revolution from the aftermath of the fall of the
Bastille to the insurrection of August 1792, which effectively brought the
reign of Louis XVI to an end.
Carlyle is nothing if not passionately devoted to
law and order. Yet as he takes us through the convoluted events and
struggles that led revolutionary France by fits and starts towards a
constitution, he also shows us so clearly how the whole desperate process
was doomed to failure, and he reserves his most scorching sarcasm and
vituperation for those who, in spite of their devotion to their task, led
France down a path from which she could not return. |
Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution, Volume III:
The Guillotine
In this, the third volume of the series, we live out the course of the
French Revolution from the aftermath of the insurrection of August 1792,
which effectively brought the reign of Louis XVI to an end, through the
short-lived Constitutional Assembly, into and through the horrors of the
Reign of Terror and the emergence of the man on horseback--Napoleon
Bonaparte.
As only a writer of his authority and vision can do, Carlyle shows
us how, once the Constitution could not be put into effect, France began a
death spiral. Torn into pieces by deep-rooted hatreds, harassed and invaded
by external enemies, struggling to find a way to govern itself in an age
that knew no guidelines, precedents or established principles, even the most
ardent revolutionaries went astray and led France into a welter of
bloodshed--the Reign of Terror, a rolling genocide that threatened to move
from executing royalists, to executing republicans, to executing all but the
most power-hungry of the radical revolutionaries, a bloodbath that could
only be brought to a stop by a man on horseback and cannoneers willing to
fire on their own people: the force that was Napoleon. |
