French Revolution
In 1792 he came back to Saint-Malo and discovered the political changes France had undergone in the wake of the French Revolution. He sailed to Isle de France (present-day Mauritius) in August on a commercial brig, and was informed on his arrival of the outbreak of war against Britain. Surcouf served as first officer of the 40-gun frigate Cybèle during the Action of 22 October 1794.
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Famous quotes containing the words french revolution, french and/or revolution:
“In comparison to the French Revolution, the American Revolution has come to seem a parochial and rather dull event. This, despite the fact that the American Revolution was successful—realizing the purposes of the revolutionaries and establishing a durable political regime—while the French Revolution was a resounding failure, devouring its own children and leading to an imperial despotism, followed by an eventual restoration of the monarchy.”
—Irving Kristol (b. 1920)
“I never rebel so much against France as not to regard Paris with a friendly eye; she has had my heart since my childhood.... I love her tenderly, even to her warts and her spots. I am French only by this great city: the glory of France, and one of the noblest ornaments of the world.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“In bourgeois society, the French and the industrial revolution transformed the authorization of political space. The political revolution put an end to the formalized hierarchy of the ancien regimé.... Concurrently, the industrial revolution subverted the social hierarchy upon which the old political space was based. It transformed the experience of society from one of vertical hierarchy to one of horizontal class stratification.”
—Donald M. Lowe, U.S. historian, educator. History of Bourgeois Perception, ch. 4, University of Chicago Press (1982)