French History Advance Access published online on October 27, 2009
French History, doi:10.1093/fh/crp067
Living the Enlightenment in an Age of Revolution: Freemasonry in Bordeaux, 1788-1794
* Kenneth Loiselle is an assistant professor of history at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. He is completing a manuscript on male friendship practices within Freemasonry in Enlightenment and revolutionary France and may be contacted at kenneth.loiselle{at}trinity.edu
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Abstract |
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Despite the assumed connections between Freemasonry and the French Revolution, the historiography of the brotherhood during this period remains remarkably thin. Using newly available archival holdings, this microhistory reconstructs Masonic life in Bordeaux, focusing specifically though not exclusively on the Anglaise lodge, from the calling of the Estates General to the fall of Robespierre. It demonstrates the remarkable vitality of this city's lodges and argues that while some aspects of Masonic associational culture may be construed as republican, Freemasonry's reaction to revolutionary events was no different from that of the wider public. It is thus more useful to study the movement as a laboratory where an institution of the Enlightenment encountered and adapted to a new political order rather than seek the origins of the Revolution in Masonic activities.