British Politeness and the Progress of Western Manners: An Eighteenth-Century Enigma

1997 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 53-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Langford
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Peace Treaty ◽  
British Politics ◽  
English Channel ◽  
Xviiie Siècle ◽  
The People ◽  
Xviiie Siecle

IN March 1802, the peace treaty of Amiens was signed, resulting in a two-way flow of travellers across the English Channel. Among those arriving at Dover was Joseph Fiévée, printer by trade,littérateurby vocation, and latterly politican by profession. It is said that he was commissioned by Bonaparte himself to report on affairs in London. In any event, his findings were published in theMercureand reprinted in a work whose title,Lettres sur l'Angleterre, et réflexions sur la philosopkie du XVIIIe siècle, challenged comparison with the most famous of French commentaries on England, that of Voltaire. It reads as polemic rather than analysis, confronting what Fiévée took to be serious errors made by his countrymen when they wrote about Britain. But little of the book was what one might expect of such a work. Fiévée was not primarily interested in British politics, law and government, but in the character and manners of the people. His conclusions may be summed up in one of his many generalizations. ‘If civilization … is the art of rendering society pleasing, agreeable and congenial, the English constitute the least civilised nation of Europe.’

La jurisprudence de l'intendant en Hainaut français au XVIIIe siècle

2008 ◽  
Vol 76 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 353-371
Author(s):  
Cédric Glineur
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Judicial Practice ◽  
Xviiie Siècle ◽  
Xviiie Siecle

Abstract Referring to precedents in the eighteenth-century quasi-judicial practice of the intendant in French Hainault. – Following the practice already in use in the King's Council and government departments, the Commissioner in the French Hainault province (commissaire départi en Hainaut) started towards the beginning of the 18th century to keep all documents received or drafted by his offices. These documents included the orders he issued in adjudicating cases brought before him. As intendant, he had at his disposal the files of the proceedings in which he had had to reach a decision in his quasi-judicial capacity. Judgements rendered in previous cases could help him to solve new cases. As these precedents were documented in his records, he was able to develop a case law in particular areas, such as tax litigation.

scholarly journals Les récits de voyage épistolaires en Arabie au XVIIIe siècle

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 ◽  
pp. 11-30
Author(s):  
Abdulghani Al-Hajebi
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Travel Narrative ◽  
Real Character ◽  
Xviiie Siècle ◽  
Xviiie Siecle ◽  
Epistolary Narrative

Narratives of travel to Arabia in the eighteenth century are often stories written during the journey. These letters form after the return of the traveler the matter of a story published by the traveler himself or by a publisher. The letter that constitutes the travel narrative is usually of particular value: it gives the story a more real character. Based on an analysis of four epistolary travel relationships, this article's main objectives are to prove the presence of letters in travelogues in Arabia, to demonstrate the functions and characteristics of these letters, the originality and specificity of each epistolary narrative. Our study focuses on the letter as a narrative, and not as a mere ornament or circumstantial element related to the course of the action. Les récits de voyage en Arabie au XVIIIesiècle sont souvent des récits par lettres écrites pendant le voyage. Ces lettres forment après le retour du voyageur la matière d’un récit publié par le voyageur lui-même ou par un éditeur. La lettre qui constitue le récit de voyage possède en général une valeur particulière : elle donne au récit un caractère plus réel. Basé sur une analyse de quatre relations de voyage épistolaires, cet article a pour principaux objectifs de prouver la présence des lettres dans les récits de voyage en Arabie, de démontrer les fonctions et les caractéristiques de ces lettres, l’originalité et la spécificité de chaque récit épistolaire. Notre étude se focalise sur la lettre en tant que récit, et non comme simple ornement ou élément circonstanciel lié au déroulement de l’action.

Jacques Réda's ‘Le Noir et l'or de Dresde’: Ethics and Aesthetics in War's Wake

2021 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-144
Author(s):  
Lynn Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Second World War ◽  
German Reunification ◽  
World War ◽  
Xviiie Siècle ◽  
Poetic Prose ◽  
Xviiie Siecle ◽  
Second World

In ‘Le Noir et l'or de Dresde’ ( Europes, 2005), Jacques Réda's quixotic project is to excavate a Dresden that is no more. Fully aware of this paradoxical aim as he walks through its martyred cityscape ‘vers la Dresde du XVIIIe siècle en sachant qu'elle n'existait plus’, he reflects on images present and past: sun-drenched spires remembered from eighteenth-century paintings that stand as witness to what no longer exists, the brutal bombings by American and British forces during the Second World War, and the commercialized aftermath of German reunification. As Réda moves beyond assessing tragedy through a historical lens, his poetic prose commemorates trauma by accentuating chromatic, lexical and aural textures and intensities in order to open avenues towards shared subjectivity. He establishes an ethical and aesthetic trajectory that responds creatively to war's destruction, and concludes by reframing the city's heraldic colours, black and gold, within sunset's unifying transit across a poetically reconstructed skyline

Poverty and family size in two eighteenth-century Dutch villages

1995 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jona Schellekens
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Family Size ◽  
Xviiie Siècle ◽  
Xviiie Siecle

L'ambition de cette étude est de chercher dans quelle mesure et comment la taille de la famille peut avoir affecté le niveau de pauvreté dans une communauté rurale des Pays-Bas au XVIIIe siècle. On a estimé la proportion des ménages en état de pauvreté, en fonction de la durée écoulée depuis le mariage: il semble que la présence de plusieurs jeunes enfants provoque une pauvreté passagère de la famille; le suivi des ménages pauvres par groupes d'âge montre aussi que la présence de jeunes filles est un facteur de pauvreté accrue, lorsque ces dernières restent à la maison parce qu'elles ne trouvent pas de travail à l'extérieur, pesant de ce fait sur le budget des parents.

Evasion temporelle et fantaisie créatrice : usage des peintures du XVIIIe siècle dans les fictions romantiques

2017 ◽  
Vol 80 (4) ◽  
pp. 488-497
Author(s):  
Catherine Thomas-Ripault
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Short Stories ◽  
Xviiie Siècle ◽  
Pictorial Representations ◽  
Xviiie Siecle

Abstract After 1830, many Romantic authors, inspired by the delicate and poetic paintings of the eighteenth century, endeavored to recreate their mood in novels or short stories. Through those pictorial representations, they imagined a blithe, refined, and dreamlike world, tinged with melancholy, allowing them to forget their own colorless time and express a degree of nostalgia for a bygone age. In the style of Rococo painters, however, Romantics also emphasized imperfection and weakness, gently mocking the ornate and frivolous forms the eighteenth-century artists played with. From their perspective, Rococo art therefore remained in an inferior position within the artistic hierarchy. Its singular forms, however, echoed their own quest for fancy and originality, and ultimately enabled them to depart from earlier Romanticism.

scholarly journals Les Lumières sous le prisme d’un mot : l’emploi du mot citoyen dans quelques ouvrages français du XVIIIe siècle

Çédille ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 381-401
Author(s):  
Adriana Lastičová ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
French Literature ◽  
Literary Discourse ◽  
Methodological Basis ◽  
Xviiie Siècle ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Xviiie Siecle ◽  
The Revolution

"This study explores the use and the utilisation of the word citoyen in Eighteenth-century French literature before the revolution of 1789, of which the word is considered one of the symbols. We have gathered a corpus of works of reflection and fiction, published especially around 1750-1770, which we consider representative of the phenomenon and contrastive at the same time. Thanks to the methodological basis of the discourse analysis and the semantics that have a wide range of descriptive and methodological categories we are able to outline the practices associated with the word citoyen in the literary discourse in the course of the eighteenth century and we raise the question of the intertextuality between works of reflection and fiction."

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document