ABSTRACT
The preoccupation with conspiracy at the time of the French revolution should be less surprising. This chapter explores the context of plots and conspiracies in 1791 by focusing on the type of activity as it was perceived towards the end of the ancien regime. The mentalite of the revolutionaries was of course pardy constructed in and by the revolutionary experience. But the men and women of the revolution were also formerly men and women of the ancien regime. So, there are ancien regime origins of the revolutionary obsession with plots in terms of the vision of politics and of its implications during the revolution. The idea of conspiracy and plot had a legal use and many people were prosecuted for criminal conspiracy. Recently historians have tended to accept the case for the centrality of the court to the social and political system.
