French History - current issue

EDITORIAL

Crook, M. — 2008-02-21

Drama societies in the French Revolution: from Jacobin enthusiasts to royalist amateurs

Bourdin, P. — 2008-02-21

During the French Revolution the network of Jacobin clubs was to an extent mirrored by the existence of drama societies. Encouraged by the militants who took part in them and by the government of the Year II, they knew how to stage patriotic theatre. They competed with the professional companies and reproduced their regulations concerning morality and charity, the individual sanctions on unmotivated artists and control over repertory by the municipalities. These formal measures were not necessarily a proof of quality, but members of their audiences were indulgent since they were used to amateur theatre and because they approved of the ideas being represented. Nevertheless, drama societies were the victims of political purges and, in the Year IV, these theatres of propaganda were taken over by moderates and royalists, a development which led to their closure by the Directory.

French Republicans and the suffrage: the birth of the doctrine of false consciousness

Gunn, J.A.W. — 2008-02-21

Paradoxically, the suffrage of the French Second Republic endorsed outcomes that were anathema to its republican authors. There thus arose the formula that the Republic could not be threatened by an electoral outcome however conservative that might be. A related aspect of the defence of the Republic fixed blame on an unsophisticated electorate—and specifically the peasant voter—that was too readily imposed upon by forces of reaction. Here, one finds the essentials of the doctrine relating to the misreading of class interests later called false consciousness. These ideas formed the most characteristic political theories of the period and were revived with the coming of the Third Republic. The constitutional entrenchment of the Republic, in 1884, ended the debate. The tension between republicanism and the democracy sought by universal suffrage is a chapter in French political thought now little noted in scholarship, whereas the events referred to here are reasonably familiar. An investigation of the intellectual debate surrounding universal suffrage reveals a surprisingly neglected aspect of nineteenth-century republican ideas.

Punishing the mad bomber: questions of moral responsibility in the trials of French anarchist terrorists, 1886-1897

Erickson, E. J. — 2008-02-21

In late nineteenth-century France, several criminologists maintained that the perpetrators of the contemporary wave of anarchist terrorism were victims of mental disorders who deserved judicial leniency. French courts did not accept this theory, but instead declared the principal terrorists sane and fully responsible for their crimes and, based on this view, handed down severe sentences. Many criminologists accused the jurists of deliberately ignoring the mental illness of the anarchists because of government and public pressures to impose the death penalty, but evidence from the anarchist trials fails to support this charge. The controversy highlights the conflicts between the judicial establishment and the emerging discipline of criminology, whose pathological explanations of anarchist terrorism reflected a positivist attack on the traditional concepts of free will and moral responsibility, concepts the jurists viewed as fundamental to the legal system.

'Un rire nouveau': Action Francaise and the art of political satire

Wardhaugh, J. — 2008-02-21

Action Française was one of the most notorious political movements of the Third Republic, and its intellectual influence is widely recognized. Yet the theatre of Action Française remains almost unknown. Based on hitherto neglected archives, this article reveals the close relationship between the plays and revues of Action Française and its literary and political ambitions. First, it examines Maurice Pujo's theory of counter-revolutionary theatre and his intention to provoke a ‘new laugh’ at the Republic through the development of political satire on the classical model. Secondly, it analyses the 1907 production of Pujo's Les Nuées (modelled on Aristophanes’ The Clouds) and the subsequent development of musical revues by the Camelots du Roi. Finally, it discusses the significance of this political theatre and suggests its potential to shed light on a social and cultural life that has hitherto remained behind the scenes.

The informer, the lover and the gift giver: female collaborators in Pau 1940-1946

Ott, S. — 2008-02-21

In July 1940 the Armistice Commission sent a German delegation to Pau in south-western France. The delegation included André Müller, a Nazi who also worked for the German Security Police. Müller twenty-nine letters to a female collaborator, alongside the testimonies of those who knew the two friends, provide an unusual opportunity to recapture a sense of day-to-day relations between the occupied and occupiers. The Nazi officer's letters reveal his reflections on the war, his hopes and, above all, his material needs. The cycle of epistolary exchange that linked the two friends entailed a unidirectional flow of gifts from the female collaborator to Müller. The letters, goods and services they exchanged raise important questions about the location of power, indebtedness and gratitude in Franco-German partnerships; they also provide an opportunity to test assumptions about the inequality of such relationships in occupied France. The court testimonies in Pau also offer rare insights into female involvement in collaborationist movements, which were primarily a male sphere of activity and influence.

Six Hundred Years of Reform. Bishops and the French Church, 1190-1789

Aston, N. — 2008-02-21

Captive Histories: English, French and Native Narratives of the 1704 Deerfield Raid

Marsh, B. — 2008-02-21

Talleyrand: Betrayer and Saviour of France

Pilbeam, P. — 2008-02-21

Napoleon: Symbol for an Age. A Brief History with Documents

Crook, M. — 2008-02-21

La France des annees 1830 et l'esprit de reforme. Actes du colloque de Rennes (6-7 octobre 2005) organise par le CRHISCO (Rennes 2-CNRS) et le Centre d'histoire du XIXe siecle (Paris I-Paris IV)

Francois, P. — 2008-02-21

Alexis de Tocqueville: Prophet of Democracy in the Age of Revolution

Guyver, C. — 2008-02-21

SSFH SOCIETY NEWS

2008-02-21