Almost everywhere, the bourgeois liberals who led the revolution took their inspiration from British parliamentarianism, which underpinned Britain’s world hegemony and industrial growth, while radicals and democrats were inspired by the ideals of the French Revolution of 1789–93. Moderate liberals sought the destruction of inherited authoritarian constitutions and the end of traditional, legally inscribed social hierarchies, while more radical spirits wanted a democratic republic. At the beginning, whatever their constitutional beliefs, revolutionaries everywhere thought of themselves as
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