The End of an Élite

It is rare that doctoral monographs are converted with fluency and distinction into influential academic books. However, in this invigorating and scholarly analysis of French prelates in the build-up to the French Revolution, Aston has capably managed the transition. Aston's study is an engaging and useful assertion of the important and conscientious role played in this crucial period by the French high clerisy ... in the fluency of his prose, the depth of his research and the importance of his subject, Aston has produced a valuable addition to the history of late eighteenth-century France.

• An apostolic elite - the bishops of the French Church at the end of the Ancien Regime; the bishops, political reform and public administration; bishops and the Assembly of Notables, spring 1787; a clerical minister - Brienne, the bishops versus cures - clerical elections to the Estates-General, spring 1789; the end of the First Estate - the bishops and the Estates-General, May-July 1789; the failure of patriotism - the bishops in the National Assmebly, July-September 1789; the bishops outside the Assembly and the new political order, 1789-90; the constitutionalists on the defensive, winter 1789-1790.