Illustration of the storming of the Bastille prison, in an event that has come to be seen as the start of the French Revolution, 14th July 1789.Hulton Archive / Getty Images The French national ...

David A. Bell teaches French history at Princeton. His “Shadows of Revolution: Reflections on France, Past and Present” is forthcoming from Oxford University Press. Two hundred twenty-six years after ...

1. The quality that makes Jules Michelet’s history so powerful is what the French call souffle—literally, breath; figuratively, inspiration, creativity, energy. Michelet understood the French ...

The Women’s March on Versailles was one of the most dramatic moments of the French Revolution. It was a bold and desperate act driven by hunger, anger, and a burning desire for justice. The pivotal ...

The French Revolution (1789-1799) lasted until the ascent of Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821). Years of medieval oppression and financial mismanagement led the French people to want changes in politics ...

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their ...

When angry commoners stormed the Bastille in Paris on July 14, 1789, they struck a blow against one of the monarchy’s most forbidding symbols. The infamous prison no longer exists—it was destroyed in ...

For centuries, historians have debated whether the “Great Fear” panic in the early days of the French Revolution was driven by the mass hysteria of ignorant peasants or a rational response to the ...

Mathematician and author, the Marquis de Condorcet (1743-1794) was an aristocrat who nevertheless embraced the early stage of the French Revolution. Even as the Jacobins hunted him down during the ...

When traveling around Pennsylvania, I always love learning about the history of the state that most people never knew. So, on a recent trip to the Endless Mountains, I was excited to stumble across ...