THE FRENCH REVOLUTION HAD SPREAD TO BRITAIN?

INTERVIEW WITH

MICHAEL RAPPORT

Dr Michael Rapport is a historian based at the University of Glasgow who specialises in the French Revolution and its global impact. His books include Rebel Cities: Paris, London And New York In The Age Of Revolution and 1848: Year Of Revolution.

In 1700s France the so-called ‘Third Estate’, comprising everyone from peasant farmers to the bourgeoisie, were not happy. Politically they were invisible to both the First and Second Estates (the classes who wielded the most power) and, despite their poverty, were often subject to high taxation. The intellectual ideas of the Enlightenment began to preach the rights of the common man over the elites and following the extravagant spending of King Louis XVI, France’s involvement in the American Revolutionary wars and other additional factors, France erupted into revolution. In 1793, this would lead to execution of the monarchy. A revolutionary wave swept across Europe