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Article: Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution.
- Article from:
- National Review
- Article date:
- December 31, 1989
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1989 National Review, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution,
THE YEAR just passing marked the two-hundredth anniversary of the French Revolution, or, more precisely, of the fall of the Bastille. The commemorations were in many ways peculiar. In Paris the celebration was without discernible content, some amorphous patriotism plus a prolonged fashion show. In London, a realistic reconstruction of the guillotine had to be removed from the British Museum because it was too frightening to schoolchildren. The democracy movement in Peking appealed to both the French and American Revolutions, though more to the latter.
It is only for convenience's sake that the fall of the ...