Revolution in Toulouse

de Martyn Lyons

This study assesses the impact of the French Revolution as a whole, and of the Terror in particular, on a large provincial centre: the city of Toulouse. It investigates in detail the specific background and nature of the sans-culotte movement in the city, and suggests how it was influenced both by the strength of traditional Ancien Regime institutions in the city, and by its proximity to the Pyrenean theatres of war. It deals with political repression, as well as the religious, economic and military aspects of the Terror. The scope of the study includes the periods of the White Terror and the Directory, in order to ask why the Revolution as a whole was more moderate in Toulouse than in other more violent Southern cities, which students of French Revolutionary history may too readily accept as the norm.