Histoire de la Révolution Française

Louis Blanc (1811–82) was a French historian and politician whose writings had a considerable influence on the development of French socialism. In his famous Organisation du travail (1839) he called for social reform by action of the State, an unusual position at the time. As a member of the provisional government established after the 1848 Revolution, he campaigned for workers' rights, advocating the creation of cooperative workshops. His twelve-volume Histoire de la Révolution Française (1847–62), most of which he wrote while in exile in England, combines years of thorough research with Blanc's characteristic socialist and republican enthusiasm. Volume 10, first published in 1858, focuses on the Reign of Terror (1793–4), inaugurated by political tensions between the Girondins and the Jacobins and led by Robespierre. It covers the many executions conducted following the law of 22 Prairial, which extended the power of the Revolutionary Tribunal.