POLITICAL STYLES AND SITES OF POWER IN ANCIEN RÉGIME FRANCE

1998 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 1173-1182
Author(s):  
COLIN JONES
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Political History ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Ancien Regime ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Old Regime ◽  
The Road ◽  
History Of ◽  
Economic Analyses ◽  
Ancien Régime

Power and politics in old régime France, 1720–1745. By Peter R. Campbell. London: Routledge, 1996. Pp. xii+420. ISBN 0-415-06333-7. £50.Antoine Lavoisier: science, administration, revolution. By A. Donovan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Pp. xvi+351. ISBN 0-521-56218-x. £40. 0-521-56672-x. £14.95 (pb).Officers, nobles and revolutionaries: essays on eighteenth-century France. By W. Doyle. London: Hambledon Press, 1995. Pp. xii+238. ISBN 1-85285-121-x. £35.Venality: the sale of offices in eighteenth-century France. By W. Doyle. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. Pp. xviii+343. ISBN 0-19-820536-8. £45.The bakers of Paris and the bread question, 1700–1775. By S. L. Kaplan. Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press, 1996. Pp. xviii+261. ISBN 08223-1706-0. £47.50.Montesquieu and the Parlement of Bordeaux. By R. Kingston. Geneva: Droz, 1996. Pp. 329. ISBN 2-600-00161-1. £30.Class and state in ancien régime France: the road to modernity? By David Parker. London: Routledge, 1996. Pp. xvii+349. ISBN 0-415-13647-4. £40.The books analysed in this review bear witness in different ways to a revival of historians' interest in the political history of ancien régime France which was highlighted by Peter Campbell in a recent review article in this journal. Campbell speculated that what Fernand Braudel all-so-dismissively called ‘event history’ (l'histoire événementielle) was making a comeback at the expense of Annaliste geo-historical analysis in the longue durée mode or mid-term conjunctural history rooted in social and economic change. A complementary way of looking at the phenomenon, which strikes the reader on engaging with the present crop of works, is to see current historiographical interests in political history as the revenge of Alfred Cobban, progenitor in the 1950s and 1960s of famous revisionist attacks on the socio-economic analyses of the Jacobino–Marxist school of French Revolutionary historiography adorned by Mathiez, Lefebvre, and Soboul. Cobban's broadsides were aimed not simply at some of the conceptual apparatus of the ‘Marxists’, but also sought to highlight empirical research as a corrosive solvent of what he viewed as the deterministic hyperbole of politically-influenced left-wing history.

Biblical Criticism and Censorship in Ancien Régime France: the Case of Richard Simon

1985 ◽  
Vol 78 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 149-177 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick J. Lambe
Keyword(s):  
Church And State ◽  
Political History ◽  
Book Trade ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Ancien Regime ◽  
Louis Xiv ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ancien Régime ◽  
Vital Element

The case of Richard Simon and the suppression of his book, Histoire critique du Vieux Testament in 1678 stands at a point where the interests of both Church and State in maintaining control of the book trade intersected. As such, the case is of interest in two important areas: first, from the point of view of the social and political history of the ancien régime in France, this case exhibits the intense concern for maintenance or extension of the powers of jurisdiction of the authorities which is so characteristic of the reign of Louis XIV. In some instances this preoccupation with autorité and droit led to an unseemly public jockeying for power, and it is interesting to see how the book trade is seen as a vital element in this struggle.

A Lawyer's Defense of a Wine Merchant against a Carpenter's Deposition: A Story about Friendship and Betrayal

1999 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 365-384
Author(s):  
Santo L. Aricò
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Family Law ◽  
Ancien Regime ◽  
History Of ◽  
Parlement Of Paris ◽  
Ancien Régime ◽  
Sacred Laws

In 1770, Antoine-Louis Séguier, the avocat général (king's advocate) of the Parlement of Paris, defended Jean-Baptiste Dubarle, a Parisian wine merchant, against charges of theft, seduction, kidnapping, and adultery initiated by a carpenter, Eustache Chefdeville. For all of the offenses, Chefdeville demanded monetary reparation.The case, summarized in a mémoire, connects the history of family law in France under the ancien régime to the skillful use of lawyerly forensics. But it also relates to literary portrayals of social scapegraces who betray the esteemed values of friendship and gratitude: in fact, this member of Paris's menu peuple emerges from the pages of the case abstract as a dissembling traitor. Séguier's legal brief, viewed as a work of fiction, projects Chefdeville as an ungrateful betrayer who feigns comradery. In Séguier's telling, this disfigured pariah, albeit socially inferior, takes his place next to the deceptive worldlings described in many eighteenth-century novels. Like them, he violates the sacred laws of sincerity, turning himself into a moral pervert. Séguier's mémoire is rich precisely because it demonstrates how a skilled lawyer attempting to win his case adopts the form of a story characterized by all the literary qualities of the day—love, friendship, avarice, and betrayal. It illustrates a classic legal approach and also reads like a novel from beginning to end.

Gibbon's unfinished History: the French Revolution and English political vocabularies

1992 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Womersley
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Ancien Regime ◽  
Royal Family ◽  
Textual History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ancien Régime ◽  
The French Revolution

AbstractOn Gibbon's death his papers contained an incomplete and unpublished essay on the genealogy of the European dynasty of which the British royal family was a branch, entitled The antiquities of the house of Brunswick. This article explains why Gibbon began this work, and why he laid it aside. Beginning by describing the nature and purpose of literature on Hanoverian genealogy in the earlier eighteenth century, and proceeding to relate the content of the Antiquities to the politics of Blackstone and Hume, the article identifies the Antiquities as a distinctively ancien régime defence of British political life and institutions which was elicited from Gibbon by the early months of the French revolution. The abandonment of the Antiquities is then explained as part of Gibbon's shocked response to the deepening gravity of events in France after the September massacres. In the polarized political atmosphere which ensued, the literary finesse of the Antiquities ran the risk of being confused with disaffection. That risk was increased when Gibbon and The decline and fall began to be used by radicals as auxiliaries in their attack on England's ancien régime. The textual history of the Antiquities allows us to perceive the rapidity with which the connotations and ownership of certain political vocabularies in England changed during the early 1790s.

scholarly journals "Gardez-vous-en bien ... de la brochure"

1970 ◽  
Vol 69 ◽  
pp. 233-248
Author(s):  
Michiel Van Dam
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Political Culture ◽  
Source Material ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Current Understanding ◽  
Ancien Regime ◽  
Political Language ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Ancien Régime ◽  
Social Upheaval

At the end of the eighteenth century, the Austrian Netherlands were plagued by politicalturmoil and social upheaval, brought forth by a reaction against the reformatory movementset up by the Habsburg government. The contestation of Joseph II's reformist policywas performed in public, as the region was flooded with polemical pamphlets, ideologicaltreatises and many other types of popular writings during (but also before and after) theperiod of the Brabant Revolution (1787-1789). Pamphlets have stood at the centre ofattention for historiography on Belgian political culture at the end of the ancien régime,yet this wide employment of the source material has not led to a comparative overview ofthe way these writings have been used in historical research. This article will attempt tofill this gap, by first providing a methodological typology of several historiographicaluses of a particular pamphlet, the Manifeste du Peuple Brabançon, written at the end of1789, and signed by the leader of the conservative opposition, Hendrik Van der Noot.Secondly, I will attempt to show how eighteenth-century pamphleteers used a multitudeof discourses at their disposal, by briefly discussing another set of (pre-revolutionary)pamphlets. This has immediate consequences for the current understanding of eighteenth-centuryBrabant political culture, which, so I argue, should not be considered discursivelymonolithic (containing one political language) but pluralist (containing multiple politicallanguages).

Hesitant Steps: Acceptance of the Gregorian Calendar in Eighteenth-Century Geneva

2006 ◽  
Vol 75 (3) ◽  
pp. 544-564 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Powell McNutt
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Julius Caesar ◽  
Ancien Regime ◽  
Gregorian Calendar ◽  
Julian Calendar ◽  
Ancien Régime ◽  
At Will ◽  
The Catholic Church

History demonstrates that the calendar is a tool of far more significance than simply a means to organize units of time. For Roman high priests prior to the reign of Julius Caesar, the calendar was a tool of power, symbolizing political supremacy over society through the manipulation of time at will. Under Pope Gregory XIII, the calendar was a symbol of papal responsibility to ensure the proper worship of the Catholic Church. In the case of European Protestants, the Julian calendar was a symbol of religious identity and protest against Catholic domination. Likewise, within revolutionary France, the Calendrier Républicain symbolized the rejection of the Ancien Régime and Catholicism. These few examples are an indication that throughout history in various times and places calendars have proven to represent more to humanity than mere time reckoning methods. Consequently, one may approach the study of the calendar as a means to grasp cultural and religious identity within specific regional contexts.

Constitutional Justice in France

2020 ◽  
pp. 223-278
Author(s):  
Olivier Jouanjan
Keyword(s):  
Legal Order ◽  
The Other ◽  
Ancien Regime ◽  
Fifth Republic ◽  
History Of ◽  
Constitutional Justice ◽  
Ancien Régime

This chapter examines the concept of ‘constitutional justice’ (justice constitutionnelle) as it is understood within the French legal order. Afterward, the chapter examines the history of French constitutional justice from the Ancien Régime to the Fifth Republic. Here, the constitutional jurisdiction of the Fifth Republic—that is, the Constitutional—and, in a broader sense, the system of constitutional justice as it exists in the Fifth Republic—are given particular attention. But an analysis of the Constitutional Council is not enough, however. The chapter also allows for a larger picture that takes into account the interactions between constitutional jurisdiction and all the other judicial actors.

The Root of all Evil? Money and the Scottish Catholic Mission in the Eighteenth Century

1987 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 267-282 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. F. McMillan
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
International Finance ◽  
Ancien Regime ◽  
Material Resources ◽  
The World ◽  
Catholic Mission ◽  
Ancien Régime ◽  
Joseph Ii ◽  
The Church

We are all familiar with the idea that the Church is in the world but not of it, and that too great a preoccupation with earthly things may compromise the Church’s other-worldly objectives. One thinks of the extravagance of a Renaissance pope such as Leo X, reputed to have said, ‘Let us enjoy the papacy, since God has given it to us’: or of an ancien régime prelate like the Archbishop of Mainz, who arrived for the coronation of the Emperor Joseph II with a retinue of fourteen sumptuous carriages: or, in our own time, the Vatican’s reported links with some of the shadier elements in the world of international finance. Yet, it is equally obvious that lack of adequate material resources can act as a serious impediment to the Church’s mission to go forth and teach all nations. Excessive poverty, like excessive wealth, brings its own problems. As the adage has it, not money itself but the desire for money is the root of all evil. Excessive poverty and the desire for money are the themes which I wish to pursue in this paper, in the context of the Scottish Catholic Mission in the eighteenth century, and more specifically as they relate to the so-called Jansenist quarrels which divided the Mission in the 1730s and 1740s.

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