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O’Neill Media: PN1997 .D35 1991
French RevolutionVirtue and Terror – Part 2
Week 02 – Lecture 0122 January 2008
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II. 1791
Turning point:No more dream of
“constitutional monarchy”
1791: June 20-21: “The Night of Varennes”: Royal family tries to escape
Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette (of Austria)“La Nuit de Varennes”: O'N Media PN1997.N92x 1983
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Deputy Target gives birth to the constitution of September 1791NB: A male gives birth! Viktor Frankenstein
III. 1792: “Radical phase” begins
Unified self v. Other:
External Enemies
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• 1) “Domestic”: September Massacres [1792] in Paris– V Frankenstein born
• 2) “Foreign”: French victory at Valmy calms tensions
• REPRESENTATION: Enemy is everywhere: in your neighborhood!
“L’ennemi est partout!”[The enemy is everywhere!]
• EXPORTING THE REVOLUTION: mission civilisatrice
• REPRESENTATION: “A Crusade against Counter-revolutionaries”: to liberate all Europe
– “Crusade”: medieval religion-- “liberate” from Holy Land from Islam– War against external enemies [“counter-revolutionaries”] permits the invention /
legitimation of self-identity over and against an “other”
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Phrygian cap --- worn by freed Roman slaves
The MarseillaiseArise you children of our patrie,Oh now is here our glorious day !Over us the bloodstained bannerOf tyranny holds sway !
Oh, do you hear there in our fieldsThe roar of those fierce fighting men ?Who came right here into our midstTo slaughter sons, wives and kin.
To arms [aux armes], oh citizens ! Form up in serried ranks !March on, march on !And drench our fieldsWith their tainted blood !
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Albertville 1992 Opening Ceremony
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTuy9kW1UKk
Start at 4:02 --- notice the white dove of PEACE!!!
The Marseillaise
Arise you children of our patrie,Oh now is here our glorious day !Over us the bloodstained bannerOf tyranny holds sway !
Oh, do you hear there in our fieldsThe roar of those fierce fighting men ?Who came right here into our midstTo slaughter sons, wives and kin.
To arms [aux armes], oh citizens ! Form up in serried ranks !March on, march on !And drench our fieldsWith their tainted blood !
IV. 1793: Regicide
Disorder at the Center:
Pollution, Purity and Danger
Cf. Earlier examples of anthropological anxieties:Uccello, Burning of the Jews
Gargoyles: sacred center / dangerous edgesLuther: pope as monster excrement
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• Jean-Paul Marat: Leader of the radical Montagnard faction
• 1793: July 13• Assassinated in
his bath by – Charlotte Corday, a
young Girondinconservative.
Jacques Louis David, Marat Assassinated
[1793]
counter-revolutionary / conservative forces
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1793• October 28: Marie
Antoinette guillotined for “promiscuity” [esp. incest]
• QUESTION: Why would you kill your father and mother???
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Imaginary “Center” of the NationCartesian Order --- Sexual Disorder
PURITY --- POLLUTION
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Tabula rasa: Dechristianisation program
The Republican Calendar: Adopted by Convention of Oct. 1793
Re-naming the months
Referents are “natural”
[i.e., not mythological / Xtn]
cf,. Rousseau: “natural” = “primitive”; “innocent”; “objective”; not sullied by “civilization” or “culture”
Again: cf. Frankenstein
RATIONALITY:
12 Months
30 days each
Three ten-day weeks [décades]
10th day = day of rest
5 days left over at end of year:
the “sans-culottides”
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What’s in a name??????????
Proper address: “Citizen X” … [cf. Soviets: “Comrade”
NOT based on gender “Monsieur”; “Madame”; “Mademoiselle”
or “Estate”: “Monseigneur” [“My Lord”]; “Père” [“Father”]; “Soeur” [“Sister”]
Elimination of “de” --- signifies aristocracy [Duc d’Orleans; Duc de Lubac; Dumortier
Children’s names --- no longer saints’ names [Pierre; Michelle; Jean-Marie]
Rather, natural referents: “Goldenrod”; Marigold”; “Seedling”; Rosebud”
V. 1793-1794
Robespierre: Virtue imposed by Terror
“Terror is nothing other than justice: prompt, severe, inflexible.”
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Maximilien de Robespierre:
“The Incorruptible”
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• Rousseau: “A Republic of Virtue”; the “Regeneration of Man”
• Robespierre: the total regeneration of man requires both virtue and terror [cf. Lenin]
• Two-pronged strategy:• 1) “family values”: e.g.,
republican motherhood• 2) guillotine: ridding body
politic of infection
July 1793- July 1794: Robespierre principal director of the
Comité de salut public[Committee on Public Safety]
A. Clément,La France Républicaine
[Republican France]
•• VirtueVirtue• Breasts:
– motherhood– Virgin Mary
• Rooster: ancient symbol of France [the Gallican rooster]
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Rousseau’s “Regenerated Man”Completely virtuous
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9akAroGKuEs
Grey’s Anatomy
Melodrama
starts from
and
expresses
the anxiety brought by
a frightening new world
in which the traditional patterns
of moral order
no longer provide
the necessary social glue . . .
Trauma: a collective encounter with chaos…
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Melodrama
plays out the force
of that anxiety
with
the apparent triumph
of villainy,
and it dissipates it
with
the eventual victory
of virtue.
Cf. Purity [virtue] and
danger [villainy]
Rousseau’s “Regenerated Man”Completely virtuous
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Georges Jacques Danton
• Robespierre a puritan: “family values”
• Danton: more popular rival– not at all puritanical– must be eliminated– Guillotined: 5 April 1794
O’Neill Media: PN1997 .D35 1991
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June 20, 1794: Feast of the Supreme Being
[June 21 = St. John Baptist / Solstice]
20 June 1794:
Feast of the Supreme Being
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Notre-Dame de Strasbourg
Converted into a
“Temple of Reason”
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Cathedral of Clermont-Ferrand: “The French People
recognize the Supreme Being and the immortality of the soul.”
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Tabula rasa: Dechristianisation program
The Republican Calendar: Adopted by Convention of Oct. 1793
Francis Poulenc, Dialogues of the
Carmelites
17 July 1794
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Hail, holy Queen, Mother of Mercy,
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our life, our sweetness and our hope, Hail! [salve]
our life, our sweetness and our hope, Hail! [salve]
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Hail, holy Queen, Mother of Mercy,
Hail, holy Queen, Mother of Mercy,
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our life, our sweetness and our hope, Hail! [salve]
To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve;
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to thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping; [repeat]
in this valley of tears [in had lacrimarum valle]..
Turn then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us;
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And Jesus, blessed fruit of thy womb, Show unto us after this our exile ,
O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary.
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O clement ….
O loving …. O sweet, virgin, Mar -------
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Glory be to the Father, and to the Son who from death is risen …
and to the Paraclete … into eternity of eternities … [Doxology for Eastertide]
into eternity …
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Caricature:
Robespierre
executes
the executioner
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“This is all of France”
Constitution of 1791
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“Thermidorian Reaction”:
Coup of 9 Thermidor
(July 27, 1794)
Robespierre shot in the jaw
Beheading of Robespierre:
10 Thermidor
28 July 1794
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The TerrorA desperate effort to stabilize
subjective individualism into a community where
they will be interconnected and care for one another.
Inherent instability of “subjective individualism”
– On the one hand: the individual person as the ordering principal and source of all value
• PROBLEM: not just one will but many!
– Thus: individual is source of instability and disorder
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First topic of semester:Comparing the American and French
RevolutionsTwo revolutions
↓Two visions of “democracy”
↓Two visions of “unity”
↓Two visions of “human nature”
[Phil. Core: “Phil. of the Person”]
Dissent and factions essential
Prevent tyranny of majority over individual (minority) wills
Human nature/reason fallible
Dissent and factions not allowed
Contrary to idea of “social compact”
Human nature/reason both innocent and ever-progressing
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Virtue v. Villainy: must virtue’s victory be forcibly imposed???