R. R. Palmer (1909-2002) was professor emeritus of history at Yale University and a guest scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He taught at Princeton University from 1936 to 1963. He was the author of many books, including the two-volume The Age of the Democratic Revolution (Princeton), the first volume of which won the Bancroft Prize in 1960, and the translator of The Coming of the French Revolution by Georges Lefebvre. Isser Woloch is the Moore Collegiate Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University.

"Excellently documented... [O]ne of the best pictures that has ever been put together of the twelve men who made up [the] Committee of Public Safety... There is fine scholarship here."--New York Times "An excellent book on the administration of France by the great Committee of Public Safety... [Palmer] has made the members of the Committee living characters and the events of the period real occurrences."--American Political Science Review "A wonderful collective portrait of the Committee of Public safety; from the first sight of the room where they met at the Tuileries, you are plunged into the drama of their adventure."--Biancamaria Fontana, Times Higher Education

• List of Illustrations vi Foreword to the Princeton Classic Edition vii Preface to the Bicentennial Edition xvii 1 Twelve Terrorists to Be 3 2 The Fifth Summer of the Revolution 22 3 Organizing the Terror 44 4 The Beginning of Victory 78 5 The "Foreign Plot" and 14 Frimaire 108 6 Republic in Miniature 130 7 Doom at Lyons 153 8 The Missions to Alsace 177 9 The Missions to Brittany 202 10 Dictated Economy 225 11 Finding the Narrow Way 254 12 Ventose 280 13 The Culmination 305 14 The Rush Upon Europe 335 15 The Fall 361 Epilogue 388 Bibliographical Essay 397 Index 405