ONeill Media: PN1997 .

D35 1991

French Revolution Virtue and Terror Part 2

Week 02 Lecture 01 22 January 2008

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

Deputy Target gives birth to the constitution of September 1791 NB: A male gives birth! Viktor Frankenstein

III. 1792: Radical phase begins Unified self v. Other: External Enemies

Lennemi est partout!

[The enemy is everywhere!]
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!

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

Phrygian cap --- worn by freed Roman slaves

The Marseillaise Arise you children of our patrie, Oh now is here our glorious day ! Over us the bloodstained banner Of tyranny holds sway ! Oh, do you hear there in our fields The roar of those fierce fighting men ? Who came right here into our midst To slaughter sons, wives and kin. To arms [aux armes], oh citizens ! Form up in serried ranks ! March on, march on !

And drench our fields With their tainted blood !

Albertville 1992 Opening Ceremony

The Marseillaise Arise you children of our patrie, Oh now is here our glorious day ! Over us the bloodstained banner Of tyranny holds sway ! Oh, do you hear there in our fields The roar of those fierce fighting men ? Who came right here into our midst To slaughter sons, wives and kin. To arms [aux armes], oh citizens ! Form up in serried ranks ! March on, march on ! And drench our fields With their tainted blood ! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTuy9kW1UKk Start at 4:02 --- notice the white dove of PEACE!!!

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 edges Luther: pope as monster excrement

 Jean-Paul Marat: Leader of the radical Montagnard faction 1793: July 13 Assassinated in his bath by
Charlotte Corday, a young Girondin conservative.

Jacques Louis David, Marat Assassinated [1793]

counter-revolutionary / conservative forces

1793
October 28: Marie Antoinette guillotined for promiscuity [esp. incest]

QUESTION: Why would you kill your father and mother???

Imaginary Center of the Nation Cartesian Order --- Sexual Disorder PURITY --- POLLUTION

Tabula rasa: Dechristianisation program The Republican Calendar: Adopted by Convention of Oct. 1793

RATIONALITY: 12 Months 30 days each Three ten-day weeks [dcades] 10th day = day of rest 5 days left over at end of year: the sans-culottides

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

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Whats in a name??????????

Proper address: Citizen X [cf. Soviets: Comrade NOT based on gender Monsieur; Madame; Mademoiselle or Estate: Monseigneur [My Lord]; Pre [Father]; Soeur [Sister] Elimination of de --- signifies aristocracy [Duc dOrleans; Duc de Lubac; Dumortier

Childrens 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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July 1793- July 1794: Robespierre principal director of the Comit de salut public

[Committee on Public Safety]

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

A. Clment, La France Rpublicaine [Republican France]

Virtue
Breasts:
motherhood Virgin Mary

Rooster: ancient
symbol of France [the Gallican rooster]

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Rousseaus Regenerated Man Completely virtuous

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Greys Anatomy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9akAroGKuEs

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]

Rousseaus 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

ONeill 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 Terror A 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 Revolutions

Two 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 virtues victory be forcibly imposed???

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