ABSTRACT
Let me start with a typical statement raised by the title of this section: 'The French Revolution was a key event in the development of nationalism, both French nationalism and that of the other European countries'. This quote is extracted from Beatrice F. Hyslop's Preface to the second printing of her 1934 classic French Nationalism in 1789 (1968: v-vi). Her book, based on a preliminary study of the general cahiers of grievances (cahiers de doléances) written on the eve of the French Revolution by the leaders of the three estates, but particularly by the representatives of the Third Estate, provides us with an 'expression of dominant opinion' (ibid.: vi) on the national question in 1789 and hence empirically confirms a generally held opinion.
