H-France Review Vol. 1 (February 2001), No. 2
Robert Aldrich and Martyn Lyons, Eds., The Sphinx in the Tuileries and Other Essays in Modern French History:
Papers Presented at the Eleventh George Rudé Seminar. University of Sydney, 1999. vi + 399, notes.
ISBN 1-86487-026-5.
Reviewed by Kenneth Margerison, Southwest Texas State University.
Originally presented in 1998 at the Eleventh George Rudé Seminar held
in Sydney, Australia, this collection of thirty essays addresses a variety
of topics in French history spanning the period from the eighteenth through
the twentieth centuries. Areas receiving the greatest attention include
the French Revolution (six essays), the 1848 Revolution (five essays),
French colonial history (five essays), issues of gender (six essays),
and community history (three essays). As with all such published proceedings
of conferences, the essays in this collection are somewhat uneven; however,
the great majority exhibit good scholarship, and several make important
contributions to the literature.
As befits a conference held as a memorial to George Rudé, the great historian
of revolutionary crowds, a number of papers consider aspects of the French
Revolution, and James Friguglietti provides an interesting account of
the family background of George Rudé himself. Paul Hanson and David Garrioch
defend the Rudé legacy by offering reappraisals of the recent trend condemning
revolutionary violence and those responsible for it. Hanson's essay, "Revolutionary
Violence, Political Legitimacy and the 'Journées' of 10 August and 31
May," specifically challenges the concept that the Girondins were defenders
of the rule of law in contrast to the Montagnards' support of the violent
actions of the revolutionary crowds. Hanson argues that the Girondins
supported crowd violence on 10 August in Paris and later in Lyon because
in these instances they benefited politically from such popular intervention.
During the Convention, however, they spoke out against the crowd activity
in Paris that was specifically directed against them. Hanson concludes
that any verbal opposition to violence was simply a Girondin political
maneuver to counter their political opposition in the Convention. Garrioch
examines the level of Terror found in the Gobelins/Finistère section of
Paris. Instead of the "bloodstained" record one might expect to find in
one of the poorest and most radical areas of the city, Garrioch argues
that this section had relatively little terroristic activity and that
which did exist was clearly justified by the activities of the victims.
Thus, according to Garrioch, not all revolutionaries were violent, and,
at least in this section, the violence that did develop was warranted.
Other essays on the revolution have a varied subject matter. Kristy Carpenter
investigates with the career of Marie-Joseph Chénier, and Alison Patrick
examines the careers of the members of the Constituent Assembly after
1791.
A variety of aspects of the 1848 Revolution appear in this collection.
Jean-Yves Mollier provides an insightful analysis of the variegated nature
of French culture and society in 1848 and the difficulties that such diversity
presented for the republican experiment as manifested in the June Days
and the election of Bonaparte as president. Mollier is particularly interested
to demonstrate the intellectuals' continued support for the republic through
1851. Michael Adcock demonstrates how the various governments after 1848
utilized their patronage of art to bolster a particular view of labor.
As the revolution became socially more conservative, the government sponsorship
of paintings that reflected aspects of the laboring classes reflected
that conservatism. Michael David Sibalis provides an interesting study
of The Fraternal Association of Worker Tailors, a cooperative of journeymen
tailors organized initially to make uniforms for the National Guard. Often
associated with socialism and increasingly criticized, the Association
in fact tried to compete with more capitalistic enterprises in an effort
to maintain their traditional craft. Peter McPhee's informative essay,
"The Changing Contours of 1848," while evaluating recent analyses of events
in that year, primarily examines gendered approaches to understanding
the revolution. McPhee provides an excellent analysis of the current state
of the historiographical debate on the role of women in the revolution
and the attitudes of men toward female political involvement.
Two other essays, however, are less sympathetic to recent interpretations
of gender roles in the French past. Hamish Graham, in "Women and Wood:
the Gender Dimensions of Timber-Gathering and Wood-Theft in the Eighteenth
and Nineteenth Centuries," undertakes a critique of the concept of the
gendered forest posited by Peter Sahlins. Arguing that wood gathering
was not an activity undertaken only by peasant women, Graham provides
considerable evidence that this essential function of the peasant household
was undertaken by all members of the family. Likewise in "Warriors and
Killers: Women and Violence During the Paris Commune, 1871" Robert Tombs
is eager to demonstrate, contrary to much recent scholarship, that women
did not play a greater role in 1871 than in previous revolutionary upheavals.
Tombs, for instance, challenges the frequently cited example of the bravery
of a women's battalion which defended the Place Blanche by presenting
evidence that no such battalion existed. While not denying that women
played a role in 1871, he argues that they did so in the more traditional
role of cantinières. In this capacity they might very well have
engaged in some of the fighting, but, as the arrest records demonstrate,
they were rarely charged with participating in overt military activity.
Other essays analyzing gender include Olivia Harmon's study of the image
of females in eighteenth-century utopian novels, Barrie Rose's account
of the role of women in the Babeuf conspiracy, and Bronwyn Winter's examination
of the campaign of contemporary French women for political parity.
In the area of colonial history, the conference papers address topics
that range from the debates over the colonies in the Constituent Assembly
(1789-91) to the problem of decolonization after World War II. Judy Anderson
provides some interesting insights on the attitudes and activities of
the Bordeaux merchant community, which had a large financial stake in
the maintenance of the old colonial system and its reliance on slave labor.
Her conclusions, however, will not radically alter historians' current
understanding of the decisions of the assembly with regard to the colonies
and slavery. Robert Aldrich provides a very insightful account of the
establishment of the Jardin Colonial in Paris in 1899 and its relationship
to the French concept of Empire. His description of the dilapidated remains
of the facility provide a poignant commentary on the contemporary French
interest in its colonial past. By far the most substantive article on
colonialism is that of Martin Thomas on the French resistance against
Japan in Indochina during World War II. Thomas convincingly demonstrates
that many of the problems that France would experience after the war were
a direct outgrowth of its preferred method of opposing the Japanese. Refusal
to place any value on help from the populace and determination to reestablish
its full colonial authority at the end of the war insured that the Viet
Minh would ultimately win the hearts and minds of the populace. Essays
by Pierre Daprini and David Prochaska on colonial discourses and literature
also provide insights into French thinking about Empire.
The remaining essays of the collection, which primarily focus on the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries, form an eclectic mixture ranging from
Michele Cunningham's informative diplomatic study of the development of
British and French policy towards Mexico during the reign of Napoleon
III to Iain Cameron's analysis of the films of Bertrand Tavernier and
Emily Chester's interesting study of Napoléon Peyrat's influence on the
development and various uses of the romantic myth of the Albigensians.
Community studies include examinations of the character and decline of
French mining communities in the twentieth century and the nature of the
Jewish community of Strasbourg. Charles Sowerwine offers a provocative
discussion of the industrial community Oyonnax. Within a theoretical framework
provided by the economist Alfred Marshall and the work of other historians
of small communities, Sowerwine analyzes the unique features of this town
characterized by small family firms engaged in a highly competitive, but
also cooperative, enterprise making plastic products. The inhabitants,
both manufacturers and workers, clearly interacted as a community with
shared goals, and the various interests of the community were mediated
through the authority of the municipality controlled by the Communist
Party.
Two of the essays link events of the great revolution with more recent
history. Almut Franke makes a very valuable comparison between the demands
of former émigrés who demanded the return of their lands after the restoration
of the Bourbons in 1815 and the similar demands in Germany for restitution
of confiscated property after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification
of Germany in 1989. Using the French émigrés as a case study, Franke describes
the returned French émigrés' continual frustration with the various pieces
of nineteenth-century legislation designed to provide compensation rather
than the actual restoration of their property. She compares the French
experience with the similar problems that have accompanied German efforts
to provide compensation to those whose land had been expropriated after
1945. John Horne provides a highly stimulating essay "From levée en
masse to 'Total War": France the Revolutionary Legacy, 1870-1945."
The revolutionary concept of the levée en masse, according to Horne,
was resurrected after the military defeats of the Second Empire and served
as the underlying principal of French military organization during the
Third Republic. Just as the French relied on the continuation of the myth
of the revolutionary levée en masse, their German opponents from
the Franco-Prussian War through the two world wars feared a mobilized
citizenry and undertook to punish severely any perceived civilian opposition
to German military authority. Ultimately, even the Resistance relied on
the myth of the levée en masse to conduct its opposition to German occupation
of France.
Finally, Laurence Brown and Vesna Drapac consider the events and attitudes
of the 1930s and 1940s in France. Brown demonstrates that academics outside
of Paris were just as politically engaged as their Parisian counterparts
during the 1930s. Drapac persuasively argues that collaborationism during
World War II is not so easily identified as some historians believe. Active
resistance to the Nazi regime, she points out, was often a function of
time and place, and much resistance was of a subtle nature, such as women
discouraging fascist ideology in the home.
The essays presented at the Eleventh George Rudé Seminar deal with a
number of important topics, and historians will find considerable food
for thought in the essays dealing with their specialities. Those tempted
to read outside the area of their own interest will be rewarded with a
number of insightful essays on topics with which they are only generally
familiar.
LIST OF ESSAYS
- Olivia Harman, "Individual and Collective Bliss: An Exploration of
Gender in French Utopias of the Pre-Revolutionary Period."
- Hamish Graham, "Women and Wood: The Gender Dimensions of Timber-Gathering
and Wood-Theft in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries."
- Kristy Carpenter, "Marie-Joseph Chénier: Poet, Deputy and Intellectual."
- Alison Patrick, "Towards a New Elite?."
- James Friguglietti, "How George Frederick Elliot Rude Became the Historian
George Rudé."
- Paul R. Hanson, "Revolutionary Violence, Political Legitimacy and
the 'Journées' of 10 August and 31 May."
- David Garrioch, "Revolutionary Violence and Terror in the Paris Sections."
- Barrie Rose, "Babeuf, Women, and the Conspiracy of the Equals."
- Jean-Yves Mollier, "Les Intellectuels et la culture en 1848 dans l'espace
français."
- Peter McPhee, "The Changing Contours of 1848."
- Rudolph Binion, "Centenary and Sesquicentenary: A Semicentennial Leap."
- Michael Adcock, "The Republic of Labour? Representations of Working
People in French Art during the Second Republic."
- Michael David Sibalis, "The Parisian Tailors in 1848: The Association
fraternelle des ouvriers tailleurs (The 'Atelier de Clichy)."
- Robert Tombs, "Warriors and Killers: Women and Violence during the
Paris Commune, 1871."
- Judy Anderson, "Principles of Universal Liberty and the Mechanics
of Exclusion: The Contribution of the Merchants of Bordeaux to the Colonial
Debate of 1790."
- Robert Aldrich, "Vestiges of the Colonial Empire: The Jardin Colonial
in Paris."
- Martin Thomas, "Imperialist Guerillas? The French Resistance in Indochina,
1943-1945."
- Pierre Daprini, "From Indochina to North Africa: French Discourses
on Decolonisation."
- David Prochaska, "Writing Colonial Algeria."
- Michele Cunningham, "Perfidious Albion and the Sphinx of the Tuileries:
Anglo-French Relations During the Second Empire."
- Almut Franke, "Restitution or Indemnity: The Problem of Confiscated
Properties in France and Germany after a Revolution."
- Charles Sowerwine, "The Nature of Community: Cooperation, Communism
and Competition in Oyonnax, 1919-1939."
- Diana Cooper-Richet, "Le Monde de la mine en France XIXe-XXe siècles:
analyse de la formation, du développement et du déclin d'un groupe professionnel
type."
- Emily Chester, "The Castle in the Air: Mystery, Myth and Memory at
Montségur."
- John Horne, "From levée en masse to 'Total War': France and the Revolutionary
Legacy, 1870-1945."
- Laurence Brown, "Between Dreyfus and Pétain: Academics, Students and
Politics in 1930s France."
- Vesna Drapac, "The Good, the Bad and the Uninteresting: A Comparative
Approach Towards Defining Collaboration and Resistance in Occupied France."
- Julie Kalman, "The Jewish Community of Strasbourg and the Crisis of
the Mitterand Era."
- Iain A. Cameron, "Crime and Justice in the Films and Diary of Bertrand
Tavernier."
- Bronwyn Winter, "Liberté, égalitém parité: Women as Political Actors
in France, Two Hundred Years Down the Track."
Kenneth Margerison,
Southwest Texas State University,
km04@swt.edu
Copyright © 2001 by the Society for French Historical Studies, all rights reserved. The Society for French Historical Studies permits the electronic distribution for nonprofit educational purposes, provided that full and accurate credit is given to the author, the date of publication, and its location on the H-France website. No republication or distribution by print media will be permitted without permission. For any other proposed uses, contact the Editor-in-Chief of H-France.
H-France Review Vol. 1 (February 2001), No. 2
ISSN 1553-9172
