The Oxford History of the French Revolution Quotes

“We will be paying more! ... No doubt; but who? Only those who were not paying enough; they will pay what they owe according to a just proportion, and nobody will be overburdened. Privileges will be sacrificed! … Yes: justice demands it, need requires it. Would it be better to put further burdens on the unprivileged, the people? There will be a great outcry! … That was to be expected. Can general good be done without bruising a few individual interests? Can there be reform without some complaints?8”
― William Doyle, The Oxford History of the French Revolution

“Carried away by their own success and rhetoric, they now bade defiance to the whole of Europe. ‘They threaten you with kings!’ roared Danton to the Convention.3 ‘You have thrown down your gauntlet to them, and this gauntlet is a king’s head, the signal of their coming death.”
― William Doyle, The Oxford History of the French Revolution

“Neither had any interest in compromise or conciliation.”
― William Doyle, The Oxford History of the French Revolution

“Privilege, that fundamental principle of social and institutional life since time immemorial, had been renounced. With it went the whole structure of provincial, local, and municipal government.”
― William Doyle, The Oxford History of the French Revolution

“Enlightenment meant criticism, a belief that nothing was beyond rational improvement, and that nothing was justifiable that could not be shown to be useful to humanity, or to promote human happiness.”
― William Doyle, The Oxford History of the French Revolution

“The lot—and often indeed the aim—of most professional bourgeois was to vegetate in modest, undemanding, but comfortable circumstances, finding wives of similar background and being succeeded in their office or calling by their children and grandchildren”
― William Doyle, The Oxford History of the French Revolution

“The vast majority of French people who were not destitute lived under constant threat of becoming so, and were prepared to use violence to avoid such a fate. When they did, they terrified the narrow, secure social élites who in normal times dominated urban life and who never had to worry about the price of a four-pound loaf.”
― William Doyle, The Oxford History of the French Revolution