Richard Ballard is a historian of France specialising in the French Revolution with two outstanding works, The Unseen Terror: The French Revolution in the Provinces and A new Dictionary of the French Revolution. But he has turned his research and writing skills, as an essentially accessible author, to the late late middle ages. He has researched deeply the French archives - national and provincial - and in secondary works, including rare contemporary medieval and modern works. He read history at Oxford and taught history at Eton, Wells Cathedral School, Haileybury College and Westminster School. He lives in Paris in Avenue St Cloud Versailles - good for archives.