This book is surprisingly enjoyable for me. Written by a headmaster in 1926, it is an excellent storytelling about the French Revolution from 1787-1799.
In summary, French Revolution is about the storming of the Bastille, creation of constitutional monarchy and proclamation of the First French Republic, Reign of Terror and finally the establishment of the French Consulate (before the sovereignity of Napoleon Bonaparte).
Reign of Terror was a series of massacres and numerous public execution in response to anti revolutionary movement, anticlerical sentiment, and accusations of treason ironically by the Committee of Public Safety. They even guillotined their last king, King Louis XVI and his Queen Marie Antoinette for treason. The Terror had ruined the Revolution and Liberty, by destroying so many men of talent, character, and courage; it had removed the leading men who could have guided the Republic. This was when Napoleon had stepped in and assumed the position as an emperor subsequently.
The Revolution was an attempt to put the ideas of liberty, equality and fraternity (based on the literatures of Rousseau, Voltaire and Montesquieu) into practice. In the course of this attempt the French met with great difficulties and made great mistakes; they were forced to fight for their existence against enemies both without and within, and in the heat of a tremendous conflict they forgot most of the ideas with which they had started.
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