Conclusion

Abstract

The Conclusion brings together many of the most important themes of the book. It underlines the extent to which the great majority of Parisians—and no doubt the French population more generally—in no way anticipated the Revolution. It notes the near absence of any direct influence before the Revolution of the canonical “Enlightenment” on an intelligent and well-read member of the elite like Colson—except in the most general sense of an openness to very practical reforms. It documents the complete absence of a putative “desacralization” of the monarchy before 1789—sometimes argued by historians to link the Old Regime with the Revolution. It describes Colson’s long, patient, and forgiving support for the king, at least until his attempted flight in 1791. It also underscores the incessant circulation and power of rumors of impending disasters in Paris, not just in the summer of 1789 (during “the Great Fear”), but also as they continued from the autumn of 1789 throughout the Revolution, and how such rumors affected popular psychology and behavior. Finally, it stresses the strong popular resistance in Paris, even among the great majority of the “sans-culottes” radicals, to “dechristianization”—and the possible role of the attack on religion in the failure of many such radicals to support Robespierre on the 9th of Thermidor (July 27,1794).