Here is a major new study of one of the most powerful - and certainly the most feared - leaders of the French Revolution. John Hardman offers a brilliantly original analysis of the revolution's formidable protagonist and in the process he explores the dynamics of the French revolutionary movement and the ferocious and self-destructive rivalries of its leadership. He examines the role of his 'faction', and reveals the ferocious and self-destructive rivalries of the Revolutionary leaders. In the process he provides a dramatic angle from which to survey of the main phase of the Revolution, from the fall of the ancien regime to the end of the Terror.