Economic Lives in the French Revolution A Tale of Three Cousins

The chapter is about three first cousins, born in 1766, 1767 and 1768, who lived in the small provincial town of Angoulême during the French Revolution. It explores the evidence of the daily events of their lives, in relation to births, marriages, deaths (and a divorce); to the revolutionary municipal administration; and to the registers of property transactions in biens nationaux or confiscated estates. These records, the essay suggests, provide a view of the turbulence of even ordinary lives in revolutionary times. They also point to some of the new possibilities for histories of economic life during the revolution, including the history of the economic activities of women, the economic history of the state, the history of urban property, and the economic balance sheet of the revolution itself.