Skip Navigation

French History 2004 18(2):173-195; doi:10.1093/fh/18.2.173
© 2004 by Society for the Study of French History
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Livesey, J.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

A Revolutionary Career? François de Neufchâteau Does Well by Doing Good, 1774–1794

James Livesey1

1 Trinity College, Dublin

Why did members of the eighteenth-century French service elite become revolutionaries? This article argues that François de Neufchâteau's adherence to the Revolution is best understood as a career development, that the institution that related his public and private selves was the career. To understand how a career could propel an individual, and by extension a generation, in such an idiosyncratic direction, we need to interrogate our understanding of the idea of a career. The career was a development from the religious idea of the vocation or calling. It was a means of making individual self-assertion morally understandable and socially useful. Through an analysis of his reactions to public and private crisis the article reconstructs François de Neufchâteau's understanding of his vocation as a public man. The career of François de Neufchâteau offers a good example of how the themes of cultural and social history can be united in the study of the Revolution.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer:
Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.