Republicanism in France after the Revolution : An 1820s account of the Terror in the voice of Thomas Paine

Written in French and attributed to Thomas Paine, the text recounts the dramatic events of the French Revolution between September 1792 and July 1793 in the voice of the Anglo-American revolutionary. Although Paine often announced plans to write a history of the Revolution, the manuscript’s authorship cannot be sustained.

This volume presents the first critical edition of a manuscript discovered among the papers of the Girondin leader Jacques-Pierre Brissot in the French National Archives. Written in French and attributed to Thomas Paine, the text recounts the dramatic events of the French Revolution between September 1792 and July 1793 in the voice of the Anglo-American revolutionary. Although Paine often announced plans to write a history of the Revolution, the manuscript’s authorship cannot be sustained. It was most likely composed during the Restoration by an author seeking to reconstruct Paine’s political perspective from contemporary sources and later revolutionary histories. Whatever its origins, the manuscript is a document of considerable intellectual interest. It offers a lucid reconstruction of Girondin constitutional thought and a vigorous defense of democratic republicanism against both royalist nostalgia and Jacobin insurrectionism. At the same time, it illuminates the ways in which the Revolution was remembered and contested in nineteenth-century France, and illustrates the afterlife of Paine’s political ideas. This edition comprises three parts. It opens with a critical introduction by Adam Lebovitz, which situates the manuscript, evaluates the case for Paine’s authorship, and reconstructs the text’s political argument. It then presents a careful transcription of the French text. The volume concludes with detailed annotations identifying the manuscript’s sources, clarifying its references to revolutionary events and figures, and assessing the evidence for the attribution to Paine. As a whole, the volume provides a substantial resource for political theorists and historians of France in the tumultuous period between 1789 and 1830.