Book III: "The Track of a Storm" In these final fifteen chapters Dickens focuses on the Reign of Terror (September, 1792 to September, 1793, precipitated by the excesses of the aristocracy in the preceding century, especially of the Sun King,Louis XIV, who is reputed to have said shortly before his death in 1715,"Apres moi, le deluge." In October, 1789, several thousand women marched on Versailles, demanding that Louis XVI move to Paris. In February, 1790, the King accepted the principles of the Revolution, which heretofore had been democratic but disorganised. In September, 1791, after unsuccessfully attempting to flee France, the King accepted the work of the Assembly, and, with the concurrence of the Girondists in its successor, theLegislative Assembly, declared war against Austria in April, 1792. However, sensing the King was now aliability in a war being waged against France by monarchist regimes in Austria and Prussia, the Parisian mobattacked the Palace of the Tuileries in August. Under the Revolutionary Tribunal over 1,200 political prisonersperished in the infamous September Massacres. The National Convention, which then replaced the Legislative
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