Days of the French Revolution by Christopher Hibbert

¶ … French Revolution" is unlike any of these yawn-producing history books that you have read in the past. It literally covers the days -- Hibbert has chosen ten days -- of major of key themes that shaped the Revolution.

Written for the general reader, the book lacks the depth of one such as Simon Schama's voluminous Citizens, but is vividly told and page-turning providing an excellent overview of the subject for the unenlightened reader.

More historiography than history, Hibbert has produced a work of non-fiction that seems to more largely read as fiction where he describes the momentous events that occurred from the Revolution's beginning on an inner tennis court to the rise and decline of Napoleon. Grand figures trotted the stage: there was the indecisive Louis XVI and his equally immature wife Marie Antoinette. The austere and ambitious Robespierre tyrannized the nation, while the dames knitted at and watched the guillotines. Others, such as Dante, Washington, and Franklin made an appearance too. Finally, the grandiose and unforgettable Napoleon, in all his 'Napoleonic' charm and splendor, strode along the stage, finalized the Revolution, and turned France's future towards more dreary days.

The book is a page-turning one. Hibbert, renowned and accredited non- fiction writer that he is, has managed to turn a gory and potentially dreary subject into a gory and entertaining one. Those who like Terror, for instance, will find plenty to feed their appetite here. And those who indulge in humor, will be -- surprise of all surprises -- humored here. In spots. I, for instance, find the description of Louis' wedding day supremely funny. Admonished by his grandfather for eating too much, Louis explained that he slept better on a full stomach. As unprepared as the 19-year-old was for marriage, he was even more unprepared for his duties as kind. Ergo, the French Revolution.

Hibbert does a service for educators and anyone involved with the French Revolution in that he has achieved the remarkable: made the characters of the period gloriously alive and palpable -- so alive that we can almost feel them. By his producing three-dimensional characters, we feel pity and understanding for even the most insensible or repulsive of them, and begin to feel as though we too existed amongst those "Days of the revolution." Shortfalls may be that Hibbert occasionally indulges in too much speech.

The 'days,' too, as any philosopher of history would point out, are only days in Hibbert's rendition. It was he who decided what was important and left out the rest. He, the author, exalted certain events, whilst downplaying others, and left out events that, to others, may have been of major importance. The 'days' too had political and economic ramifications that effected France and the world to this day. It was the 'days' for instance that led to the American constitution and the global monarchy largely being the way they are. There was The Day of the Tennis Court Oath, the Day of the Bastille, the Day of the Market Women, the Day of the Flight to Varennes, the Days of the Tuileries, the days of the September Massacres and the execution of the King, the Days of the enrages and the Hebertists, and so forth, ending with the Day of the advent of Bonoparte. But none of these were 'days' as Hibbert describes them, rather they were days and nights and epochs of gory and momentous events with each fading into the other... The book, therefore, more describes Hibbert's opinions and take towards the French Revolution than it fulfills the mission of providing an objective and accurate picture. The days were never discrete days. Rather they were a blurring of unstoppable events with one day leading into the next and the proponents of the revolution unable to stop it even has they wished. Nothing was clear. Everything was a chaos and blur. And, here and there, conspicuous figures, such as Napoleon, rose above the chaos and added their own voice.