Inventing the French Revolution: Essays on French political culture in the eighteenth century PDF
Preview Inventing the French Revolution: Essays on French political culture in the eighteenth century
Inventing the French Revolution IDEAS IN CONTEXT Edited by Wolf Lepenies, Richard Rorty, J. B. Schneewind, and Quentin Skinner The books in this series will discuss the emergence of intellectual traditions and of related new disciplines. The procedures, aims, and vocabularies that were generated will be set in the context of the alternatives available within the con- temporary frameworks of ideas and institutions. Through detailed studies of the evolution of such traditions, and their modification by different audiences, it is hoped that a new picture will form of the development of ideas in their concrete contexts. By this means, artificial distinctions among the history of philosophy, of the various sciences, of society and politics, and of literature may be seen to dissolve. Titles published in the series: Richard Rorty, J. B. Schneewind, and Quentin Skinner (eds.), Philosophy in History: Essays in the Historiography of Philosophy J. G. A. Pocock, Virtue, Commerce, and History: Essays on Political Thought and History, Chiefly in the Eighteenth Century M. M. Goldsmith, Private Vices, Public Benefits: Bernard Mandeville's Social and Political Thought Anthony Pagden (ed.), The Languages of Political Theory in Early Modern Europe David Summers, The Judgment of Sense: Renaissance Naturalism and the Rise of Aesthetics Laurence Dickey, Hegel: Religion, Economics, and the Politics of Spirit, 1770—1807 Margo Todd, Christian Humanism and the Puritan Social Order Edmund Leites (ed.), Conscience and Casuistry in Early Modern Europe Lynn S. Joy, Gassendi the Atomist: Advocate of History in an Age of Science Gerd Gigerenzer et al., The Empire of Chance: How Probability Changed Science and Everyday Life Wolf Lepenies, Between Literature and Science: The Rise of Sociology Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: The 'Objectivity Question' and the American Historical Profession Terence Ball, James Farr, and Russell L. Hanson (eds.), Political Innovation and Conceptual Change Daniel Pick, Faces of Degeneration: Aspects of a European Disorder, c. 1848—1918 This series is published with the support of the Exxon Education Foundation. Inventing the French Revolution Essays on French Political Culture in the Eighteenth Century KEITH MICHAEL BAKER CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi, Dubai, Tokyo, Mexico City Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521385787 © Cambridge University Press 1990 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 1990 Reprinted 1992, 1994, 1996 A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library ofCongess Cataloguing-in-Publication Data is available isbn 978-0-521-34618-4 Hardback isbn 978-0-521-38578-7 Paperback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Information regarding prices, travel timetables, and other factual information given in this work is correct at the time of first printing but Cambridge University Press does not guarantee the accuracy of such information thereafter. To my mother, and in memory of my father Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 1 On the problem of the ideological origins of the French Revolution 12 Part I. French history at issue 2 Memory and practice: politics and the representation of the past in eighteenth-century France 31 3 Controlling French history: the ideological arsenal of Jacob-Nicolas Moreau 59 4 A script for a French revolution: the political consciousness of the abbe Mably 86 Part II. The language of politics at the end of the Old Regime 5 French political thought at the accession of Louis XVI 109 6 A classical republican in eighteenth-century Bordeaux: Guillaume-Joseph Saige 128 7 Science and politics at the end of the Old Regime 153 8 Public opinion as political invention 167 Part III. Toward a revolutionary lexicon 9 Inventing the French Revolution 203 10 Representation redefined 224 11 Fixing the French constitution 252 Notes 307 Index 357 vu Acknowledgments In the years during which these essays have been written, I have bene- fited from generous institutional support, as from the warm encourage- ment and criticism of friends and colleagues. It has been a distinct plea- sure to acknowledge these contributions to each of the essays previously published, as they appeared. The opportunity to reiterate those ex- pressions of thanks here simply adds to the enjoyment of publishing a volume such as this. My research and writing have been supported at various stages by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation; the National Endow- ment for the Humanities; the John M. OJin Foundation; the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris; the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton; the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford; and the University of Chicago. I am grateful to each of these institutions for the generous facilities and stimulating environ- ments I have been privileged to enjoy in consequence of their support. Two groups of friends and colleagues, in Paris and Chicago, have been of particular importance in offering regular critical responses to this work as it has taken form. In Paris, I owe much to the participants in the seminar on eighteenth-century French political culture directed by Fran- cois Furet and Mona Ozouf at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (and now the Institut Raymond Aron), and especially to Fran- cois Furet, Mona Ozouf, and Ran Halevi. In Chicago, I am above all grateful for the intellectual support and critical stimulation provided by colleagues and students. To Jan Goldstein, Harry Harootunian, Robert Morrissey, Peter Novick, George Stocking, and (again) Francois Furet, I wish to express my particular appreciation and thanks. And I could have wished for no better scholarly colleagues and critics than that group of students who participated in the workshop on the history of political culture, particularly Thomas Bellavia, Daniel Gordon, Jim Johnson, Alan ix x Acknowledgments Kahan, Matthew Levinger, and Kent Wright. I am grateful, too, for the technical help received from the project for American and French Re- search on the Treasury of the French Language at the University of Chicago (a joint project of the Centre National de Recherche Scienti- fique and the University of Chicago). The publishers who have permitted me to reprint and revise essays previously published are identified as appropriate at the beginning of each essay. I wish to thank them formally here. I wish, too, to thank the editors who lavished scholarly attention on those essays in their original form, particularly Steven Kaplan, Jack Censer, and Colin Lucas. I am also grateful to William Sewell, Dena Goodman, Carroll Joynes, Jeremy Popkin, William Doyle, Dale Van Kley, Dominick LaCapra, Elizabeth Eisenstein, Lionel Gossman, and John Bosher for help and information at particular points. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Catherine and Terence Murphy, and to Thomas and Maureen, for the unfailing warmth of their welcome in Paris. Finally, I want to thank my wife, Terry, and my sons, Julian and Felix, who have helped in so many ways to bring this volume about.
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