Twelve Who Ruled Book Review
The year of terror is one of the most complex and misunderstood periods in the French Revolution. Palmer, in his book, Twelve Who Ruled, however, takes this period and skillfully turns it into a written masterpiece. The book is narrated from the point of view of someone with an omniscient knowledge of the subject matter, who is reflecting back on the period from the outside.
The book tells the story of a brief moment in history when twelve men (Robespierre, Barere, Saint Just, Couthon, Lindet, Carnot, Saint-Andre, Prieur, Varenne, Herbois, Scholles, and Duvernois) ruled France; even though they were technically under the control of the Convention.
…show more content…
This can be seen when Palmer compares the other member to Robespierre. After the personal history of each of the twelve men, Palmer moves right in and starts discussing how and why the Committee of Public Safety was formed, and how it came to power. After this, he maneuvers circumspectly into how the committee used this power to purge the nation of "counter revolutionaries," who needed but offend the sensitive ears of Robespierre to be executed. He then moves along chronologically to the height of the Committee's power and eventually describes the decline and eventual demise of the reign of terror. This is signified by the execution of Robespierre, who was designated as the instigator of the terror. It is in his death that the terror culminated, and along with it, this book.
This book is considerably effective as a narrative biography of the "Twelve Who Ruled." Through his eloquent use of detail and his elegant ability to paint a superb picture which incorporates both the lives and actions of the men in power and the essence and accomplishments of the Committee of Public Safety as a whole he tells the story of the Reign of Terror. It is his intermixing of the two, along with his representation of the day that makes this book so "Thoroughly sound, eminently readable," and representative of great narrative writing.
Throughout this book,
Through the use of strong imagery of the descriptions of the seven prisoners and guards, Dickens emphasizes the shift in power among the French aristocracy and the commoners. As Madame Defarge leads the mob to seize the guards in Bastille and free the prisoners, the ironic contrast formed within the actions truly depict the power altering between the two distinctive social classes. The seven dead guards were portrayed as, “seven gory heads on pikes” and “impassive faces, yet with a suspended—not an abolished—expression on them”(170). The powerful imagery thoroughly proves their defeat against the mob, since after the seven prisoners were released, the power became of the commoners. Thus, this is a substantial event to the start of the revolution,
The book provides evidence and witness testimony to help the reader determine what might have happened the night of the Boston Massacre. The evidence given was from witnesses from the King and witnesses for Preston. This trial lasted for five days and ended with Preston being innocent (83). The story information given from the witnesses was different, although all the witnesses had the same amount of soldiers and they had the Captain at the site. A few of the witnesses’ stories went together and contained about the same information, all-resulting in Preston’s favor. Since the shooting took place around nine at night in the dark, it is unsure of what the Captain was wear making some of the witness not as reliable due to their description of the Captain. Some witnesses could have thought it was the Captain but it could have been one of their own citizens, no one knows for sure. One witness, Daniel Cornwall, said he was standing within 2 yards of the Captain and he claimed that the Captain standing to the right and facing the
The Reign of Terror was a time in France when King Louis had share his power and French people started to lead a revolution against him. The french people had enough so they decided that it was finally time to lead a revolution. Although thousands of people died in the Reign of Terror, it was justified because they got rid of their leaders, and France became a stronger country.
The Reign of Terror lasted from September 1793 until Robespierre was executed in 1794. The Reign of Terror’s main purpose was to protect France from foreign enemies and eliminate counterrevolutionaries. People who disagreed with the revolution were executed in town square in front of the town’s people. During the Reign of Terror, about 40,000 people were murdered or executed. Was this method of protecting France from external and internal enemies reasonable? The Reign of Terror was not justified because the external affairs were small, the internal affairs were not serious, and the methods of the Terror were too extreme.
The year of terror is one of the most complex and misunderstood periods in the French Revolution. Palmer, in his book, Twelve Who Ruled, however, takes this period and skillfully turns it into a written masterpiece. The book is narrated from the point of view of someone with an omniscient knowledge of the subject matter, who is reflecting back on the period from the outside.
You may know this affair as ¨The Bloody Massacre¨, The Boston Massacre, ¨the incident on King street¨, but do you know the true story. In this tractate youĺl find why this event even happened, the scene itself, how Paul revere's engraving was actually a propaganda, and the aftermath of all this!
Innocent lives lost, brawls on the streets, and blood splattered on the ground. These are all things you would find during the Reign of Terror, a period of time during the French Revolution where the newly-created government executed large amounts of people who were suspected enemies of the Revolution. The French Revolution started in 1789 as an attempt to rid of the absolute monarchy that ruled over the French people and create a new government that fit their needs. There were three leading factors that spurred the start of the Revolution. The first was the high debt that rose during this time, primarily from King Louis XVI sending money to aid in the American Revolution.
The author explained how the French Revolution starts and also how choice made by the royal government affect the old regime which moved the country into different conflicts. For example, in chapter 1 “The
Suetonius wrote The Twelve Caesars as a biography about twelve Roman Caesars. This essay will compare and contrast two of them, Divus Julius and Nero. Even though the two men both became Emperors who ruled Rome, they could not have been more different. Both had certain authority and public powers during each of their reigns. Their lives were also scattered with times of virtue and scandal. This was a different time from today. Human behavior and morals played a significant role in those ruling over others. Some had them and some not so much. In the end, their stories will ultimately give the reader an illustration of these two men and what their stories tell us about the lives of Roman emperors in the first century.
Twenty thousand to forty thousand died; it is still unknown exactly how many people were lost through the blood drenching event of the Reign of Terror.[Footnote] Throughout the French revolution, specifically the eleven month, 1793-1794 Reign of Terror, revolutionary leaders, such as Maximilien Robespierre believed in enforcing fear to resolve the instability of France. “Terror is nothing else than swift, severe, indomitable justice; it flows, then, from virtue”-Maximilien Robespierre.[Footnote] This period in history signified great atrocities of massacres, and a time where fear was evoked within every French civilian. The National Convention of France was a great factor in encouraging the start of the Reign of Terror; they continued on
In this essay I shall try to find whether the Terror was inherent from the French revolutions outset or was it the product of exceptional circumstances. The French revolution is the dividing line between the Ancien Regime and the modern world. After France the hierarchy that societies of the time had been founded on began to change and they began to sweep away the intricate political structures of absolute monarchy, but however to achieve this was the Terror absolutely necessary? And was it planned/ or was it just the extraordinary circumstances, which the French had lead themselves into once they had deposed of Louis the
The Twelve Tables were the first laws ever written down and shown to the public in Ancient Rome. The Twelve Tables were displayed in the Roman Forum or marketplace. The Twelve Tables were also the earliest surviving writings of Ancient Rome.
The French Revolution began in 1789 as an attempt, by the revolutionaries, to form a new government that would give the people more liberty, equality and value people’s rights. Between 1793 and 1794 the government used extreme ways to achieve their goals. This period of time, led by Robespierre, was called the reign of Terror because between 20,000-40,000 french people were killed by the government forces. The Reign of Terror was not justified for three reasons:The external and internal threat did not deserve it, they denied natural rights against people who opposed them and the methods of the Terror were too extreme.
In June of 1793, the Committee of Public safety began the Reign of Terror, which would not end until July of 1794. As a result of the Terror, over 14,000 people were killed by the use guillotines, firing squads, and drowning. A large majority of these deaths occured in the French Departments of Lore, Lyon, and Vendee (Document 1). In Paris, most of those executed were nobles and upper middle class citizens, while throughout the rest of France, the majority of those executed were peasants and working class citizens. (Document 2). Over 10,000 of the people executed committed hostile acts against the French State (Document 3). The Reign of Terror was a chaotic time period in which France was warring against Austria and Prussia and in deep financial troubles. The revolutionaries used the terror to their advantage, eliminating all of those who were in opposition. The terror, however, was disadvantageous to the revolutionaries because it caused more chaos and civil unrest throughout all of France.
Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the Terror as an instrument of the French Revolution.