Twelve Who Ruled

"Palmer’s Twelve Who Ruled is my single most favourite book on the French Revolution. He does precisely what I was just talking about. He doesn’t do it for the tens of thousands – I’m more interested in the tens and the hundreds of thousands – but for the twelve who ruled. He’s incredibly good at giving you a sense of what these people are confronted with, the incredible difficulty of their situation and the unbelievable stress of the circumstances they find themselves in. “Palmer’s Twelve Who Ruled is my single most favourite book on the French Revolution.” He’s just fantastic at recreating that atmosphere and, as a result, forcing you to sympathise with these men. His position is much closer to my own position. He sees this as trying to do something really important, coming up against enormous obstacles in the course of trying to do it, failing, but completely understanding why this would happen in this particular way. He also gives you a sense that these were actually real people. They were not completely out of control. For the most part, the people on this committee are living incredibly austere lives. They’re working 20 hours a day, they’re devoting themselves completely to the cause of trying to save the republic. And, the fact is, they succeed. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . They are able to reorganise the military under the worst of all possible circumstances. They actually win the war, in a situation in which winning the war seemed totally impossible. What Palmer does so successfully is get you to identify with the things they’re trying to do. He doesn’t try to make it seem like it’s all a bed of roses, that they’re just idealists who are achieving what they want to achieve – he’s also interested in the conflicts between them. But he’s just fantastic at getting you inside the rooms where these decisions are being made. Yes, and as an opponent of war. He was afraid of what the war would do to the revolution. Palmer’s book is why I went into French history, and why I wanted to study the French Revolution. I read it for the first time when I was 19, and I just found it mesmerising. Exactly. He was able to say, “Well, what did you expect them to do?” Being confronted with a civil war in the west, with every single monarchical power in Europe aligned against you, what are you supposed to say? “Oh well! It’s not a good idea. We shouldn’t have a republic because they all say we shouldn’t.” He really gets you to see the political stakes that are involved."