This thesis studies the way in which colonists and revolutionaries defined the value of the French Revolution and its relation to the colonies. It does so by looking at the issue of citizenship for...Show moreThis thesis studies the way in which colonists and revolutionaries defined the value of the French Revolution and its relation to the colonies. It does so by looking at the issue of citizenship for free people of colour in Saint-Domingue. This question was central to the colonial debate between the colonist lobby, the Club d’hôtel Massiac, and the revolutionaries of the Société des Amis des Noirs. Both these pressure groups used the press to influence the public. A look at some of the relevant newspapers shows how revolutionary discourse developed throughout 1790 and 1792 and how colonial events were shaped in the narratives of the Revolution. By reconstructing this colonial debate in the press, this thesis argues that the colonial question became an essential part of revolutionary and counterrevolutionary ideologies throughout the years 1790-92. In these two years, revolutionaries and counterrevolutionaries appropriated the colonial issue in their developing political identities. Questions of colonial reform changed from pragmatic considerations in 1790 to an ideological struggle between revolutionaries and counterrevolutionaries in 1792. The integration of the colonial question in revolutionary narratives was stimulated by domestic developments and by the complex connection between metropole and colony. The discourse in the press showed how much the colonies affected the development of ideologies and narratives in the French Revolution and how the colonial issues were appropriated in pre-existing discourses in France. Despite recent attention to the impact of the Haitian Revolution, little is known about the French reaction to the events on France’s most important colony. However, as this thesis argues, the colonial debate was essential to the experience of Revolution.Show less
In this thesis, the author explores the ways in which Dutch refugees were influenced in their political thinking during their exile in France, 1787-1795. Special attention has therefore been paid...Show moreIn this thesis, the author explores the ways in which Dutch refugees were influenced in their political thinking during their exile in France, 1787-1795. Special attention has therefore been paid to the individual case of Johan Valckenaer (1759-1821), who was an influential figure in the Dutch refugee community.Show less
This thesis argues that rather than adopting one consistent standpoint, Austen’s novels are equally critical of extreme conservatism and radicalism. In each of the three novels, Northanger Abbey,...Show moreThis thesis argues that rather than adopting one consistent standpoint, Austen’s novels are equally critical of extreme conservatism and radicalism. In each of the three novels, Northanger Abbey, Mansfield Park, and Persuasion, Austen positions herself politically, by complexly connecting themes of community, mobility, and rootlessness. Methodologically, the thesis offers close-readings of passages from the novels in relation to motifs belonging to these themes. It situates these readings in political and cultural contexts, connecting Austen’s exploration of these matters to the arguments put forward by her contemporaries. It also shows how Austen’s views changed towards the end of her writing career, and demonstrates that her political ideals adapted to historical changes and were not fixed either to a doctrinaire conservatism or radicalism.Show less
Newspapers reveal much more than the facts reported within them. They illustrate revolutionary culture and the climate of ideas which faced readers. Understanding this is crucial to imagining how...Show moreNewspapers reveal much more than the facts reported within them. They illustrate revolutionary culture and the climate of ideas which faced readers. Understanding this is crucial to imagining how people experienced the daily reality of living through such times. Newspapers during the Directory period have seldom been studied. This is a particular lacuna given the crisis and unexpected chaos of the summer of 1799. By mid-1799, multiple military fronts as well as internal unrest backgrounded the beginning of the royalist rebellion in the Haute-Garonne. The way in which the press characterised this royalist threat and communicated the crisis discloses much about what editors, and in turn their readership, were afraid of happening. Editors relied on collective memories of the horrors of the Terror to characterise opposing political factions thereby demonstrating fears of repeating the recent past. Contrasting this dire rhetoric and the extreme demonisation of the rebels with actual indifferent government attitude to the insurrection illustrates that this was merely a form of propaganda employed for political ends by the Jacobin, royalist, and republican political movements. In the same vein, the post-rebellion manipulation of the depiction of peasant rebels once again establishes that these words were more motivated by political needs than by reality. This reveals an underlying anxiety from a Directory whose control over France was steadily eroding.Show less
Salons were a widespread phenomenon in late eighteenth-century Paris, but their political role during the first years of the French Revolution has been overlooked. As centres of news and...Show moreSalons were a widespread phenomenon in late eighteenth-century Paris, but their political role during the first years of the French Revolution has been overlooked. As centres of news and information, places for education in political culture and political sociability, and public opinion shapers, salons were of vital importance for professional politicians and revolutionaries. The salonnière or hostess formed the centre of the informal conversation held between a select company of elite people, invited at her home and on her initiative. In this way she could wield power and have an informal political ‘career’. The flexible character of a salon, which is a concept changing according to its context rather than a fixed institution, makes it hard to give a definition. The case study of the political meetings at the home of Madame Roland questions the way in which salons have been regarded so far, for their place functioned as a headquarters of the Girondin political movement, a propaganda institution and a political salon in which she initially played little to no role. In the radicalising political environment leading towards the Terror, Jacobin revolutionaries who often were former visitors of the salons themselves increasingly regarded the salons with suspicion, rejecting its non-transparency, aristocratic character and female activities. By the end of 1793, both the revolutionary politicians and public opinion had turned against the salons and the elitist salon society, which disappeared from Paris.Show less
In political debates and academic literature, the French and Haitian Revolutions have often been presented as separate or even conflicting historical events. The emerging global historiography of...Show moreIn political debates and academic literature, the French and Haitian Revolutions have often been presented as separate or even conflicting historical events. The emerging global historiography of the Age of Revolution increasingly brings to light the many links that connect these revolutions and render their dichotomization illegitimate. This thesis simultaneously draws on and contributes to this historiographical development by experimenting the methodological approach of Atlantic intellectual history from below. Focusing on the perspectives of the French sans-culottes and the insurgent slaves of Saint Domingue (colonial Haiti), it explores how these revolutionary groups’ exposure to a transatlantic flux of ideas and developments impacted their views on the slavery system between 1789 and 1794. The thesis reconstructs these views through a myriad of primary sources reflective of public opinion, such as French revolutionary newspapers and eyewitness accounts of the insurgent slave armies’ internal debates. In line with Homi Bhabha’s theoretical proposition that concepts have no ‘primordial fixity’ and can therefore be ‘translated and read anew’ in different ideological environments, it finds that the introduction of news and ideas from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean generated abolitionist popular mentalités among both the sans-culottes and the insurgent slaves. While the former came to conceive of themselves as slaves rebelling against their aristocratic masters and thus developed a view of Saint-Domingue’s slaves as natural allies, the latter fused French revolutionary rights-based discourse with originally West-African political culture to produce a syncretic political vision which rendered abolition imaginable and, therefore, attainable. The convergence of these distinct, yet ultimately commensurable, popular mentalités facilitated the general emancipation of Saint-Domingue’s enslaved population by the French colonial authorities in August 1793, followed by the formal abolition of slavery by the French National Convention in February 1794. The interwoven abolitionist history of the sans-culottes and the insurgent slaves presented by the thesis brings to the fore the commonalities, rather than the conflicts that characterized the connected French and Haitian Revolutions: it offers a mode of telling that might be hopeful and helpful in our own times.Show less
Edmund Burke's views already were conservative at the time of the American Revolution and he continued with this line of thought during the French Revolution. Thomas Paine also remained consistent...Show moreEdmund Burke's views already were conservative at the time of the American Revolution and he continued with this line of thought during the French Revolution. Thomas Paine also remained consistent with his revolutionary thoughts, but his views were not as widespread as the American victory and the swiftness of the revolutionary reforms made in 1789 suggest. Meanwhile, Burke’s conservative desires were certainly not obsolete and his views saw surprising support, and not, as one might expect, just from nobility trying to keep their privileges.Show less
