ABSTRACT
Belief in political conspiracies was widespread in Europe during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Before the Revolution there were several political themes that often involved conspiracy theories. In recent years, historians have begun to unravel the links between the rhetoric of conspiracy and the radicalisation of revolutionary politics. This work originated, in part, with Furet who pioneered the idea that revolutionary language did not simply describe events but was itself instrumental in causing them. The accusations of conspiracy were directed against men who were, or had been, part of the inner circle of the Jacobins. The indictment of such men went to the heart of the revolutionary government and called into question the validity of the Jacobin vision of the Revolution itself. The history of the foreign plot has been examined in detail, though the lack of conclusive surviving evidence makes interpretation difficult.
