The history of French finance before 1815 suffers from the accidental and deliberate destructions of primary sources, especially the royal accounts and the archives of the contrôle général des ...

Source: J.M. Roberts, French Revolution Documents, vol. 1 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1966), 151­53. Translated and excerpted in Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution, Jack R.

The capture of the Bastille ignited one of the greatest social upheavals in Western history, the French Revolution. Violence spread to the countryside, where peasants demanded the feudal system be ...