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ONeill Media: PN1997 .D35 1991

French Revolution

Virtue and Terror Part 2

Week 02 Lecture 01

22 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 1791

NB: 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!

Lennemi est partout![The enemy is everywhere!]

EXPORTING THE REVOLUTION: mission civilisatrice

REPRESENTATION: A Crusade againstCounter-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 Marseillaise

Arise you children of ourpatrie,

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 !


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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 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 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 edges

Luther: 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 Girondin

conservative.

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 wouldyou 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 [dcades]

10th day = day of rest

5 days left over at end of year:

the sans-culottides


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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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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

Comit de salut public

[Committee on Public Safety]

A. Clment,

La France Rpublicaine[Republican France]

VirtueVirtue

Breasts:

motherhood

Virgin Mary

Rooster: ancientsymbol of France [the

Gallican rooster]


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Rousseaus Regenerated Man

Completely virtuous


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

Greys Anatomy

Melodrama

starts from

and

expresses

the anxiety brought by

a frightening new world

in which the traditional patterns

of moral order

no longer providethe 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 / Solsti ce]

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]



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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

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 virtues victory be forcibly imposed???

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