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An intimate history of an ordinary Parisian citizen and his neighbors that reflects on the origins and radicalization of the French Revolution.What was it like to live through one of the most transformational periods in world history? In
The Glory and the Sorrow, eminent historian Timothy Tackett answers this question through a masterful recreation of the world of Adrien Colson, a minor lawyer who lived in Paris at the end of the Old Regime and during the first eight years of the French Revolution.
Based on over a thousand letters written by Colson to his closest friend, this book vividly narrates everyday life for an "ordinary citizen" during extraordinary times, as well as the life of a neighborhood on a small street in central Paris. It explores the real, day-to-day experience of a revolution: not only the thrill, the joy, and the enthusiasm, but also the uncertainty, the confusion, the anxiety, and the disappointments. While Colson reported on major events such as the storming of the Bastille and the King's flight to Varennes, his correspondence underscores the extent to which the great majority of Parisians--and no doubt of the French population more generally--in no way anticipated the Revolution; the incessant circulation and power of rumors of impending disasters in Paris, not just in the summer of 1789 but continually from the autumn of 1789 throughout the Revolutionary decade; and how this affected popular psychology and behavior. In doing so, this account demonstrates how a Parisian and his neighbors were radicalized over the course of the Revolution.
An evocative account of Colson's time and place,
The Glory and the Sorrow is a compelling microhistory of Revolutionary France.
List of contents
- Acknowledgments
- Prologue
- Chapter 1 Arrival in Paris
- Chapter 2 Life in Paris before the Revolution
- Chapter 3 Making a Living
- Chapter 4 Understanding the World
- Chapter 5 The World Changes
- Chapter 6 Days of Glory
- Chapter 7 Rumor and Revolution
- Chapter 8 Becoming a Radical
- Chapter 9 Days of Sorrow
- Conclusion
- Appendix: Translations of Selected Letters
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
About the author
Timothy Tackett is Professor of History Emeritus at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of many books, including
The Coming of the Terror in the French Revolution;
When the King Took Flight;
Becoming a Revolutionary: The Deputies of the French National Assembly and the Origins of a Revolutionary Culture; and
Religion, Revolution, and Regional Culture in Eighteenth-Century France.
Summary
The Glory and the Sorrow is a biography of an ordinary citizen and his neighbors in central Paris that brings to life the day-to-day experience of the French Revolution, not only the thrill, the joy, and the enthusiasm, but also the uncertainty, the confusion, the anxiety, and the disappointments.
Additional text
Adrien Colson was a Parisian lawyer who lived through the waning ancien régime and the most turbulent years of the French Revolution. He would have disappeared from history were it not for the 1,000 letters he sent to a friend in central France. In them he gave eyewitness testimony of the revolution as it caught flame in ways neither he nor his neighbour...could have predicted. Timothy Tackett deftly uses the correspondence to create a vivid picture of Colson and his thrilling, terrifying times: his book stands in the tradition of Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's Montaillou. Colson is revealed as representative of the masses - a man caught up in events, in thrall to rumour and the bewildering speed of events..
