2354 Twilight of the Old Order 1774-1778, by Claude Manceron translated from the French by Patricia Wolf (read 27 Jan 1991) This is the first volume of the author's "Age of the French Revolution" and covers the years 1774 to 1778. I don't like its arrangement. There are 93 chapters, each on its own topic, and it spends a lot of time telling what Mirabeau was doing during those years and that really isn't too interesting, and ditto Beaumarchais. It also tells a lot about Lafayette and that is told from a different perspective. Basically the account is biographical and anecdotal and that is not the kind of history I am used to. Manceron insists Louis XVI had no operation--that Joseph II just gave them (Louis and Marie Antoinette) psychological advice. I do not like Manceron, since he is clearly anti-Catholic and so I doubt I will read the further volumes by him . ( )

This was the first volume in a series on the French Rev. (published originally in France as The Men of Liberty) that only lasted until Bk 5 and the destruction of the Bastille. I have never been able to determine if Manceron died or gave up on the project.