"Nobody, who has not lived before 1789, knows how sweet life can be," said Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, a French diplomat legendary for both his cunning and total lack of moral scruples.¹ His exceptional intelligence did not prevent him from being blind to the social reality around him. Talleyrand's douceur de vivre aside, the majority of French people in the 1780s lived on the edge of starvation and France was close to being ungovernable. It was only a matter of time before heads