Several works each return in their own way to the revolutionary episode.
---- Robert Darnton shows in a long-term study the importance of thevarious popular uprisings that, between the middle of the 18th century
and 1789, crossed France in general and Paris in particular. The
detestation of despotism was built between these two dates. He relies on
original sources often neglected such as songs, libels, engravings,
poems, police reports concerning rumors, the dissemination of
philosophers' texts and the sharing of information via speech... The
author shows through five major phases the tensions that gradually built
the basis of this revolution. First the refusal of wars like that of the
Austrian succession in 1748, the growing detestation towards
Marie-Antoinette and the scandals that regularly shook the king's court,
the weight of the American constitution which envisaged a country of
liberty. The circulation of information and the growing criticism of the
regime are the ferments of the revolutionary crisis of the spring and
summer of 1789, the coagulation of anger having led to the end of the
Ancien Régime.
A very useful synthesis by Michel Biard and Pascal Dupuy allows us to
restore the major phases of the period from 1787 to 1804. In fourteen
chapters alternating chronological narrative and thematic analyses, they
offer a reminder of the main research works concerning the French
Revolution.
They paint a portrait of a boiling France between 1787 and the explosion
of 1789 opening a new period where the monarchy remained under the
control of the assembly. The authors emphasize the role and weight of
the recently politicized revolutionary crowd demanding new rights. They
study the contradictory movements between the king and the Assembly and
the growing demands of the population. The fall of the monarchy
following the storming of the Tuileries on 10 August 1792 allows us to
discover the role of the sovereign in the desire to stabilise the new
institutions and restore the old order. War is certainly a central
element in the implementation of exceptional measures, but it is
accompanied by several civil wars in Vendée and in the departments that
were not very favourable to the directives of the Committee of Public
Safety. While the authors refute the expression of terror by preferring
it to the confrontation between the factions within the committees and
clubs and between opponents of the revolution and the revolutionaries.
The fall of Robespierre led to the end of the revolutionary period and
social measures, war still monopolized the Revolution, favouring the
accession to power of Napoleon Bonaparte. The authors also offer a
thematic analysis of the relations between the Church and the
Revolution, on culture and on the different components of the
revolutionary movement. A local monograph proposed by Pierre Serna
studies the revolution on the scale of a city, Orléans. This is an
important center in the economic and social system of 18th century
France, trade is numerous, products partly from the slave trade and
slavery have allowed the city to enrich itself. If a few have built real
fortunes, the majority of the population remains on the sidelines of
prosperity. The city, contrary to the legend that the local elites have
tried to create since the Restoration, was one of the epicenters of the
revolution. Orléans has about 45,000 inhabitants in 1789, the religious
network is particularly important even if the high clergy is few in
number in the city, likewise the nobility, if it exists, is not very
important. On the other hand, the 8,000 adults of working-class origin
and the 24,000 people who depend on them are the heart of the city.
Orléans fell into the revolutionary orbit in 1789. If reading the
grievance books alone suggests that the demands were secondary, the
demands appear in the margins, the pamphlets denouncing privileges, the
lack of food, and the injustices multiply. The city was set ablaze very
early on. Faced with threats of famine, the municipality organized
relief based on emergency measures requisitioning wheat. Before trying
by all means to delay the radical measures requested by the clubs. The
fall of the monarchy encouraged the break. In the summer of 1792, the
city fell into the revolutionary camp, the sans-culottes held the
streets. The city's festivals in honor of Joan of Arc were replaced by a
cult in honor of Marianne. The convention took advantage of this to use
the places of confinement to move the imprisoned Parisians there. But
very quickly, they lost influence, rumors playing an important role in
the loss of their political influence. Very quickly, the city became a
center of stability again. The Directory and then the Empire sought to
make these episodes disappear from the city. The author articulates the
revolutionary story and local events, thus offering a history of the
revolution at the local level.
Finally, this comic strip on Robespierre is a great initiative. The
title of the collection Les légendes noires de l'histoire could have led
one to fear a purely accusatory story, but this is not the case. This is
a real biography of Robespierre showing the contradictions of the
character. It begins with the storming of the Bastille and the year
1789, then it goes back through a clever process to the construction of
the character. The unfortunate little lawyer born in Arras in 1758,
takes up the cause of the Third Estate, by writing notebooks of
grievances and espousing the cause of the humble. Very quickly, the
authors present his great speeches to the National Assembly and then to
the Convention, showing that he was in turn the apostle of the abolition
of the death penalty and then its ardent supporter two years later when
it came to condemning the king for high treason. They emphasize his
opposition to the war in 1791 and then recall his speeches in favor of
the mass uprising a few months later. Similarly, the character evolves
between a desire to defend pluralism and his implacable character in the
fight against his adversaries. The authors show the contradictions of
the character, in which pride and self-esteem counted for a lot, the
central question remains the exercise of power by a single man imbued
with a historical role. A fundamental question posed by studies on the
French Revolution.
L'humeur révolutionnaire Paris 1748-1789
Robert Darnton
Gallimard, 2024, 582 p. 32 EUR
The French Revolution
Michel Biard and Pascal Dupuy
Armand Colin, 2024, 382 p. 33 EUR
The Forgotten Revolution. Orléans 1789-1820
Pierre Serna
CNRS éditions 2024 436 p. 26 EUR
Robespierre, the Melancholic Sphinx
Makyo, Gabrielli and Polelli
Delcourt 2024 94 p. 19 EUR
https://monde-libertaire.fr/?articlen=8071
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