Paris in early 1791 was feverish with political involvement. Ordinary people expressed violent opinions on the street corners, journalists published wild rumours one day and denounced scaremongering the next, political clubs grew like mushrooms and advocated the most radical solutions to political deadlock and crisis. In such an atmosphere, what did it mean to be 'one of the people'? Where were boundaries to be drawn around the national community? How could one identify threatening outsiders? What should be done about them?" "This book explores how Parisians of all classes sought to answer such questions, and why it was that the answers they found drove 'patriots' to confront each other on the Champ de Mars.