PARIS DURING THE REVOLUTION

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28690, 13 September 1958, Page 3

PARIS DURING THE REVOLUTION

The Way of the Tumbrils. By John Elliot. Max Reinhardt. 180 pp. Index.

Sir John Elliot is a distinguished British railwayman who, since 1953, has been chairman of the London Transport Board. All his life, the story of the French Revolution has held a restless interest for him, and he has made a hobby of trying in his spare time to trace its echoes among the sights and sounds of modern Paris. Few events in history have been better or more thoroughly described and analysed than the French Revolution, yet the French people themselves appear to have had little desire to preserve memories of particular places. The face of Paris has changed greatly during the last 100 years —old houses have been demolished, streets have been widened, new streets have been put in where none existed previously, and with memories so short the typography of the Revolution is now difficult to trace. Nevertheless, even today, nearly 150 years, after the Revolution, there exist places through .which the past still breaks through, despite the fact that these places are unmarked; and if the French ever institute pn Historic Places Trust Board such as has recently been done in New Zealand, the services of Sir John Elliot will prove invaluable. After ferreting out

spots at which a dozen of the most turbulent and tragic episodes occurred, the author takes his reader to them and dramatically relives each story against the background of those same streets and houses in Paris as they are today. Thus the reader really seems to be in Paris as an eye-witness during the Revolution, to hear the roaring of the crowds, the shouts of the victims, and the thudding of the guillotine. Recreated also by the author is Charlotte Corday’s fantastic murder of Morat in his bath; Danton’s famous trial and betrayal; the violent end of Robespierre, the dictator of The Terror; the massacre of the priests at the present-day Convent des Carmes; the long agony of Marie Antoinette in her dungeon by the Seine.

Part history,- part guide-book, “The Way of the Tumbrils” is a breathless story of men and women fighting desperately in the shadow of the scaffold. An excellent map of central Paris covering the area from Place de la Bastille to Place de la Concorde enables the reader to follow the route of the tumbrils from the Conciergerie Prison and to locate nearly 20 historic places mentioned in the text. Not the least engaging are Peter Roberson’s excellent pen-and-ink sketches, 24 of them, all of which add considerable point to much of what Sir John Elliot has to say. The student will value this book as much as the general reader will enjoy it.