This volume, comprising Part I of the authors classic work Revolutionary France 1770--1880, offers a vivid narrative and radical reinterpretation of the years surrounding the momentous events of 1789 and their aftermath. During this period there were not one, but two revolutions: by intent the first was egalitarian, the second-- Bonapartes authoritarian. The tension between the two characterized the period and was to shape the Republic that eventually emerged from the ruins of the ancien regime.