Q: Was the revolution in France inevitable?
A: I wouldn’t say it was inevitable, because, prior to the revolution, very few people in France could have anticipated that such a thing would happen. At the time, France was the most powerful regime in western Europe. It was wealthy, or at least it appeared so; it had a big army; it was very stable; and it had had an autocratic monarchy for centuries. Yet there were underlying problems in the country and it was these problems that brought about the revolution (see page 36).
Q: Was it only Paris that was a ected by the revolution, or did the unrest spread across France?
A: e revolution a ected the entire country, but in di erent ways. Everybody was very well aware of what was An e gy of the pope is burned in the happening, even before the Estates- grounds of the Palais Royal in 1791. General [the representative assembly The revolutionaries sought to bring the of the three estates] met in 1789. The Catholic Church under their control electoral process of selecting deputies to attend the Estates-General helped to politicise people, and books of grievances were drawn up, giving people the chance to say what they thought was wrong with the old regime. So the French people had begun to be politicised from May 1789 onwards, really.
Paris was certainly the epicentre of the most radical part of the French Revolution and it was also the place where, from 1793 onwards, the guillotine was situated. So those living outside the It also depends on which the great bulk of French taxation, which was incredibly unjust and onerous.