The Destruction of the Bastile The Destruction of the Bastile The Destruction of the Bastile was composed by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1789. The poem describes Coleridge's feelings of hopes for the French Revolution as a catalyst for political change. When the Bastille was overrun during the French Revolution and destroyed in July 1789, many political liberals within Britain celebrated. The schoolboy Coleridge, in particular, leaned towards radical views and would later become more and more radical although his views within "The Destruction of the Bastile" are more moderate. Although the poem was composed following the Bastille's destruction, it was not published until 1834. The
Historiography of the French Revolution Ralph Waldo Emerson that the writing of the book was the "dreadfulest labor [he] ever undertook". In 1909, Peter Kropotkin, a Russian anarchist, published "The Great French Revolution", which attempts to round out the political approach with the perspective and contribution to the Revolution of the common man. Alphonse Aulard (1849–1928) was the first professional historian of the Revolution; he promoted graduate studies, scholarly editions, and learned journals. His appointment to the Sorbonne was promoted and funded by Republicans in the national and Paris governments, but he was not himself involved in party politics. He promoted a republican, bourgeois, and