ABSTRACT
Science and invention were moulding suitable conditions for the Industrial Revolution and was to flourish henceforth at the cost of much immediate human suffering yet bringing the promise of a better life to ordinary people who hitherto, even under the best of regimes, had rarely lived far outside the threat of starvation. The Revolution manifested itself actively on 14th July in the storming by the people of Paris of the hated Bastille, the massive state prison, and in the utter destruction of this awful symbol of the despotic power of the Ancien Regime. The liberal phase of the Revolution ended on 10th August 1792 with the sack of the Tuileries and the suspension of the King. To combat counter-revolutionary ideas all existing media of communication were employed — the press, tracts, illustrated notices and, to use a modern term, public relations agents.
