Research Guides: HIST 308: Revolutionary France, 1750-1815: Finding Primary Sources

Searching DiscoverE for Primary Sources

A primary source is a document, recording or other source of information created at the time being studied, by an authoritative source, usually one with direct personal knowledge of the events being described.

Primary sources include diaries, letters, family records, statistics, speeches, interviews, autobiographies, film, government documents, or original scientific research.

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France History Revolution, 1789-1799 Personal narratives

France History Revolution, 1789-1799 Sources

Newspaper Sources

The Times Digital Archive
Full page and article images of the Times (London) with searchable full text, including searchable advertisements and photographs, back to the first issue.
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The collection includes digital reproductions providing access to every page from every available issue. This archive does not include the Sunday Times, a newspaper independent of the Times. Coverage: 1785-1985 (Use LexisNexis Academic for Times issues July 1, 1985 to present)
17th-18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers (1604 to 1800)
Collection Includes material on East India Company.of early English news media gathered by Reverend Charles Burney (1757-1817). Includes newspapers, pamphlets, broadsides, and books.
America's Historical Newspapers
Access various historical newspapers that span from the seventeenth to the twentieth century.
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Formerly Early American Newspapers Digital.
Digital French-Language Newspaper Portal

Primary Sources

Ancien Régime Drama (University of Warwick)
"The University of Warwick's Marandet collection of 18th and 19th century French plays is a unique resource and one of the most significant collections of its kind in the country. There are over 2000 plays from the period 1700-1830 and a similar number from the period 1830-1900. Most of the plays were acquired originally by a 19th century French collector, Amédée Marandet, who was himself an actor and playwright. Many of the works and their authors have now been forgotten but the collection is extremely rich in popular drama of the 18th and 19th centuries. The digitised plays have been split into four periods. The plays in the Ancien Régime Drama collection cover the period to 1789." - https://cdm21047.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/Ancien
Archives parlementaires: The ARTFL Project
"The Archives parlementaires is a chronologically-ordered edited collection of archival and published sources on the French Revolution. - https://artfl-project.uchicago.edu/node/148
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The Archives parlementaires provide an unparalleled view into the workings of the Revolution through the thoughts and actions of its participants. The work is a day-to-day record of debates and discussions held by the three parliamentary bodies that legislated for France between 1789 and 1794. The first seven volumes of the AP present the Cahiers de doléances sent to the Estates General in 1789. Subsequent volumes draw primarily on official minutes of parliamentary debates, but also include journalistic accounts of the proceedings, speeches prepared for delivery but never presented, as well as letters, reports, and other documents received or reviewed by the assembly. Fragmented power, multiple authorities, and accounts from various and conflicting perspectives further complicate the record. Given the Revolution’s rapid pace, the AP’s detailed and layered chronological organization of Revolutionary sources provides an invaluable narrative to scholars.
The ARTFL Project
Provides access to a wide variety of French literature texts, ranging from classical works to non-fiction prose and technical writing. Includes a Provenal database that includes texts in their original spellings.
British Newspaper Coverage of the French Revolution (Univ of California, Santa Barbara)
Resource from the University of\ California, Santa Barbara.
British Periodicals I: 17th-20th centuries
Contains journals, periodicals, and printed volumes. Featured topics include literature, philosophy, history, science, the fine arts and the social sciences.
Collection of French Revolution Documents and Primary Sources (Alpha History)
A Colony in Crisis: The Saint-Domingue Grain Shortage of 1789 (UMD Library)
"Given that 1789 was a pivotal year in French history and the history of the Western world, the presentation of these documents is crucial not only for the field of history, but also for the promotion of alternative histories of the Atlantic World and the Haitian Revolution." - https://colonyincrisis.lib.umd.edu/about/
The confidential correspondence of Napoleon Bonaparte with his brother Joseph, sometime king of Spain : selected and translated, with explanatory notes, from the "Mémoires du roi Joseph".
Despatches from Paris, 1784-1790 / selected and ed. from the Foreign office correspondence, by Oscar Browning (HathiTrust)
"Despatches of the Duke of Dorset and other British ministers at Paris ... The Paris despatches from June 1790 to August 1792 have been edited by Mr. Browning for the Cambridge university press (1885)." - https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000585881
Digital Bodleian
"The Bodleian Libraries’ collections are extraordinary and significant—both from a scholarly point of view and as material that has an historic and aesthetic richness that holds value for non-academic users. Each year the Libraries serve more than 65,000 readers, over 40% of them from beyond the University, while its critically-acclaimed exhibitions attract almost 100,000 visitors annually. In an effort to make portions of our collections open to a wide variety of users from around the world for learning, teaching and research, the Bodleian Libraries have been digitizing library content for nearly twenty years. The result is over 650,000 freely available digital objects and almost another 1 million images awaiting release." - https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/about.html
Digital Library of the Caribbean
"The Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC) is a cooperative digital library for resources from and about the Caribbean and circum-Caribbean. The dLOC partner institutions are the core of dLOC. dLOC partners retain all rights to their materials and provide access to digitized versions of Caribbean cultural, historical and research materials currently held in archives, libraries, and private collections." - https://dloc.com/dloc1
Digitized French Revolutionary Pamphlets (University of Alabama)
"The pamphlets were used to spread the word of revolution, but never created with the intention of lasting over 200 years. This ephemera was digitized from the over 300 pamphlets from the period of the French Revolution housed in the W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library's Rare Books Collection. The pamphlets include writings by some of the best known players of the French Revolution and Directory periods, including Robespierre, St. Juste, Desmoulins, and Danton." - The University of Alabama (http://purl.lib.ua.edu/18375)
Documents of the French Revolution (Columbia University)
Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO)
Contains digital images of 150,000 books published during the 18th Century. Fully searchable.
Eighteenth Century Journals
Access journals printed between 1685 and 1815. Topics covered range widely to include: colonial life, provincial and rural affairs, revolutions, coffee house gossip, and more.
France: 1789 - 1871 from EuroDocs
Provides access to relevant resources.
The French Revolution and Napoleon Collection (Florida State University)
"The French Revolution and Napoleon Collection at Florida State University holds over 20,000 rare titles from this period alongside numerous manuscript and record collections. It was established in the early 1960s as the Department of History expanded its offerings in that particular period of history by establishing the Institute on Napoleon & the French Revolution. Florida State University, through the Department of History and the Institute, provides the only graduate program in the United States devoted to the historical study of this time period." - https://fsu.digital.flvc.org/islandora/search/?type=edismax&collection=fsu%3Anapcolmain
French Revolutionary Drama and French Revolutionary Pamphlets Collection (University of Florida)
"The French Revolutionary Pamphlets include 2,800 pamphlets representing governmental correspondence, decrees, and other documents. The collection, including both the documents of the revolutionary government and handbills circulated among its citizens, makes evident the power of the people to influence government and of the press to manipulate the people. The collection's popular drama illustrates attitudes toward everyday life, politics, and government. " - https://ufdc.ufl.edu/frf
French Revolution Digital Archive (Stanford)
"The French Revolution Digital Archive (FRDA) is a multi-year collaboration of the Stanford University Libraries and the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) to produce a digital version of the key research sources of the French Revolution and make them available to the international scholarly community. The archive is based around two main resources, the Archives parlementaires and a vast corpus of images first brought together in 1989 and known as the Images de la Revolution française."
French Revolution Images: Iconography from the collections of the Bibliothèque nationale de France
"rench Revolution Images: Iconography from the collections of the Bibliothèque nationale de France provides access to the most complete searchable digital archive of French Revolution images available. It is based on a benchmark image-base, Images de la Révolution française, undertaken by the Bibliothèque nationale de France on the occasion of the Revolution’s bicentennial in 1989...The images selected for the digital archive concentrate solely on the period from 1787 through 1799, from the years immediately preceding the outbreak of the Revolution through the emergence of Napoleon. Only visual materials directly tied to the Revolution itself are included." - https://exhibits.stanford.edu/frenchrevolution/about/about-the-project
French Revolution Materials from the Internet Archive
Provides access to available digitized sources from various libraries.
French Revolution Pamphlets Digital Initiative (Newberry Lirbary)
"French Revolution Collection (FRC): The French Revolution Collection consists of more than 30,000 pamphlets and more than 23,000 issues of 180 periodicals published between 1780 and 1810. The collection represents the opinions of all the factions that opposed and defended the monarchy during the turbulent period between 1789-1799 and also contains innumerable ephemeral publications of the early Republic." - http://publications.newberry.org/dig/frc/index
The French Revolution Primary Sources (Hanover Historical Texts)
French Revolution Sourcebooks from Fordham University
Provides access to digitized relevant primary sources.
Gallica Digital Library
Gallica is the digital library of the Bibliothèque nationale de France. It has lots of both primary and secondary sources.
Gouverneur Morris, The Diary and Letters of Gouverneur Morris, 2 vols. [1888]
HathiTrust Digital Library
HathiTrust is a very large scale collaborative repository of digital content from research libraries including content digitized via the Google Books project and Internet Archive digitization initiatives, as well as content digitized locally by libraries.
Les Gazettes Européennes du 18e Siècle
Digitized collection of European gazettes from the 18th century.
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution (GMU)
This resource " provides an accessible and lively introduction to the French Revolution as well as an extraordinary archive of some of the most important documentary evidence from the Revolution." - http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/
Making of the Modern World
Access a variety of documents related to the development of the modern, western world through the lens of trade and wealth. Includes books, serials, pamphlets, essays, and more.
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Includes access to Part I (1450-1850), Part II (1851-1914), and Part III (1890-1945).
The McGill University Napoleon Collection
"The McGill University Napoleon Collection was created in the 1950s under the auspices of the then University Librarian, Richard Pennington. Beginning with a small donation of books and prints from the Canadian publisher Frederick Southam (1869-1946), the collection was developed with the advice of Paul Fleuriot de Langle, a curator of the Musée Marmottan in Paris and a specialist in Napoleon and the art of the Empire, and of the Parisian print dealer Paul Prouté. As well, book dealers in both France and England supplied contemporary publications, documents and monographs for the collection. Many of these came from important collections such as that of Carberry Tower Library that belonged to the Elphinstone family. By the early 1960s, the collection had come to comprise some 2000 separate prints, 2400 monographs and related materials." - http://digital.library.mcgill.ca/napoleon/english/index.htm
Memoirs relating to the French revolution by Bouillé, François-Claude-Amour, marquis de, 1739-1800
Napoleonic Period Collection (University of Washignton Libraries)
"This collection showcases 83 satirical prints, or caricatures, from the Napoleonic Period, all giving political commentary on events of the period. Fifty of the prints were created by French artists, and thirty-three by English artists. Nearly all of the French prints date from the last two years of Napoleon's reign, but the English prints represent a broader time period ranging from 1793 to 1815. The prints are primarily original etchings with other printing methods represented. Most of them have been hand-colored. The original collection is in good physical condition, although a few pieces have been trimmed to the edge of the plate impression or even the edge of the image." - https://content.lib.washington.edu/napoleonweb/index.html
Napoleonic Satires (Brown University)
"The Napoleonic satires housed in the Anne S. K. Brown Military collection of the John Hay Library represent several important gifts made to the library in the 20th century. In addition to the Napoleonic satires located in the military collection bequeathed by Ms. Brown, Paul Revere Bullard (Class of 1897) and William H. Hoffman contributed a variety of significant objects with a Napoleonic theme. In addition to print caricatures and satires, their donations include historical volumes, manuscripts, sculpture, and some paintings." - https://library.brown.edu/cds/napoleon/about.html
Napoleon Series: French Legislation, Decrees and Proclamations, 1799-1815
Nineteenth Century Collections Online
Contains primary sources from the 19th Century, including monographs, newspapers, pamphlets, manuscripts, ephemera, and more.
Policing Male Homosexuality: 18th-Century Paris Database (Colorado College)
"This project, based on thousands of police records located in several Parisian repositories, involves the creation of an interactive database that will allow students and scholars to analyze patterns and changes in same-sex relations from the 1720s to the 1780s. We want not only to explore, describe, and visualize the sodomitical subculture on its own terms but also to connect it with the larger society in many ways: immigration, age and class structures, employment and unemployment, gender, urban space, prostitution, public and private matters, social control and personal agency." - http://coloradocollege.website/phs/
Presse Lyonnaise de 1790 a 1944
Digitized collection of Presse Lyonnaise.
The Principal Speeches of the Statesmen and Orators of the French Revolution, 1789-1795
The Reign of Terror: A collection of authentic narratives of the horrors committed by the revolutionary government of France under Marat and Robespierre. Written by eye-witnesses of the scenes. Tr. from the French. Interspersed with biographical notices o
Rothschild Trade Card Collection
"The volumes contain over 700 trade cards (early shop advertisements) and related items, mostly from France, but also from Germany and elsewhere on the continent. They date from the early seventeenth to early nineteenth centuries and are for suppliers as diverse as hat-makers, stationers, goldsmiths, print-sellers and confectioners. Together they offer a unique insight into the commercial and social world of the past." - https://waddesdon.org.uk/the-collection/research-publications/trade-cards/
Thomas Jefferson - Onset of the French Revolution, 1789
Thomas Jefferson was in Paris during the French Revolution of 1789 in his capacity as the U.S. Minister to France. This resource offers his account of the events.