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After reading History at Oxford University, Richard Ballard taught at Eton College, Wells Cathedral School, Haileybury and Westminster School. He has lived in the Charente-Maritime since 2003, where he has researched the French Revolution extensively and published articles on the subject. He is the author of The Unseen Terror: The French Revolution in the Provinces (I.B.Tauris, 2010). Published in 2012 by I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd 6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010 www.ibtauris.com Distributed in the United States and Canada Exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010 Copyright © 2012 Richard Ballard The right of Richard Ballard to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. ISBN: 978 1 84885 464 2 (HB) 978 1 84885 465 9 (PB) eISBN: 978 0 85773 323 8 A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available To Mary Contents List of Maps Preface Acknowledgements A Chronology Entries A–Z A B C D E F G H I J L M N O P Q R S T V W Y Reference Notes Bibliography List of Maps The Provinces of Old Regime France and Principal Towns The New Departments of Revolutionary France Revolutionary Paris Preface The French Revolution fits the observation (often attributed to Winston Churchill) that history is ‘one damned thing after another’. But if we have picked up a book like this, we admit to being interested in, and may even be fascinated by, what happened when the French nation fell into a melting pot and refashioned itself. The idea of the French Revolution still conjures up the guillotine and knitting women watching aristocratic heads roll, or the Bastille being taken by a ferocious mob and the Terror. It can also suggest Liberty from arbitrary government and Equality before the law. In Abel Gance’s 1929 film Napoleon, while the Thermidor coup to bring Robespierre down is in full cry, Saint-Just goes to the tribune to recount the positive achievements of the Revolution: 11,210 decrees passed, of which two-thirds were dedicated to humane causes.1 As we look through the ten years that followed 1789, before it was arranged for a brashly competent general called Bonaparte to take the Revolution over, a sense of balance is often lacking. A New Dictionary of the French Revolution aims to help people who are beginning to find their way through the confused scenes of this drama with its huge number of players. Many personalities and events have entries to themselves, with links indicated by means of bold text. Some entries about minor characters take more space than other more obviously important ones because they have been used to record general developments. Issues and personalities that do not rate an entry of their own, but are mentioned within larger topics, can be found by reference to the General Index. There are many references in this book to writers about the French Revolution in the English-speaking world. A French lawyer once lent me his well-thumbed copies of all Claude Manceron’s series called Les Hommes de la liberté