Welcome to 1789...

And people's ages are a pet peeve of mine. Most American college students also concieve of the American revolutionaries as staid men about our parents' age, probably because their most famous representations come from their later (often presidential) years. When they discover how astonishingly young Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, etc. were during the time of the revolution, they are amazed. It's the same thing with Robespierre, Danton, Camille, Saint-Just, etc., none of whom were over 30 in 1789! Look around your social circle (or college campus) and see if you can imagine some of the 20-something men (and women) YOU know winning elections, drafting legislation, or leading armies. What I think is most exciting about the French Revolution is that it's the story of what happens when you take a bunch of "regular" people in their 20's and 30's - brilliant, eccentric, more or less messed up people but not unlike us and our friends - and put them in charge of running a country in crisis, where everything they say and do has enormous consequences. And it all really happened.