What does a person feel on the eve of catastrophic changes? The widespread terror that swept over France before the French Revolution turned into panic, suspicion, and disorder—things hard to put into words. Starving peasants walking into the cities in search of work. Vagrants begging for alms at the city gates. Endless rebellious crowds. All of this is evidence of mass hysteria that gripped the country in the summer of 1789, but any great upheaval is far more complicated than it looks from the outside. Behind the outward face of uprisings always lie individual human lives and personal stories.
The outstanding historian Georges Lefebvre explores the phenomenon of the French Revolution, showing how deeply it wounded and changed the fates of ordinary people. Drawing the reader right up to the rebellious crowd, he helps them experience the same fears and hopes and understand what was going on in the hearts of those who, at the decisive moment, took up arms.