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This article reveals for the first time how Catholic clerics survived financially during the Napoleonic period in Italy (1796–1814). Despite the very rich, 200-year historiography on one of the Church's most critical periods, there is almost nothing on how religious clerics coped at this time. Their institutions had been despoiled by the French, often in collaboration with locals, negating traditional forms of clerical income, such as alms or rental income from non-ecclesiastical properties. This caused clerics to search out unorthodox – at times, non-canonical – ways of eking out a living, either for themselves, their religious communities or both, as such distinctions were often blurred. Masses were monetized and traded; ecclesiastical paraphernalia composed of precious metals were smelted and commodified, and relics were sold for profit. The uncovering of these controversial acts by men who in normal times were upstanding reveals the desperation of the times and provides insight into the rich discussion on determining the degrees of separation (and overlap) between the sacred and profane. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Democracy was in the margins both as an idea and as a political force in the eighteenth century. Even in the 1790s, 'democracy' was hardly the defining notion of the revolutionaries' political visions. The small states as much as the large states perceived democracy as an outmoded legacy of antiquity leading to anarchy and despotism, inapplicable not least because it was undesirable in the modern world in which commerce was a rising force. This article tells the story of how this changed, how the understanding of 'democracy' was transformed during the French Revolution to represent a viable transition mechanism to a state of widespread and durable liberty. To avoid a teleological approach in the process of this analysis, this article examines the works of Condorcet on modern democracy in the context of the predicaments of the eighteenth century and the French revolutionary decade: how to avert at the same time despotism, military government and popular anarchy; and how to establish a free and stable state on the basis of modern commercial society? The history of the French Revolution is hereby placed in dialogue with that of eighteenth-century political and intellectual history. The effect is that a fresh picture of the entirety of Condorcet's political vision emerges as his idea of democracy is studied from the viewpoint of his historical sensitivity, political economy, constitutional theory and international thoughts. In the end, Condorcet was the thinker who most significantly and prominently contributed to the post-1789 emergence of the concept of 'democracy' – which had thitherto been considered as the political form inevitably leading to destructive anarchy and despotic Caesarism – as a viable pathway to stability and prosperity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

‘Revolution’ as a historical category has received continuous academic interest and scrutiny, whereas the regime invented by the French Revolution has received less sophisticated theoretical analysis and unpacking. The term ancien régime was created in the moment of its death. The subsequent restructuring and politicization of this concept during the post-Napoleonic era remains largely unstudied. It is the argument here that the world after 1815 created a number of ‘new old regimes’. These political systems, which made reference to ancien régime inheritances, were not straightforward reflections of a ‘real past’. They were malleable discourses that could be calibrated to corroborate the competing claims made by conservatives, radicals and liberals about how post-Napoleonic Europe was to be organized. The ‘new old regime’ of the nineteenth century, though historically grounded, was instrumental in design and made little effort to resurrect the ‘real past’ to which it purportedly made constant reference. The battle to define the ‘new old regime’ was not a rear-guard action but lay at the very heart of European politics after 1815. The forces of nationhood, constitutionalism, parliamentarianism, liberalism and democracy unfurled by the twin titans of revolution and Napoleonic conquest were not guaranteed to win the day. Dynasticism, aristocratic hierarchy, military glory, religious revival, village communalism and regionalism continued to prosper during the first half of the nineteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The education of children as future elites after the Restoration was a persistent concern for French émigrés after the Revolution of 1789. Focusing on discourse on émigré education and émigréschools in Britain and the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, this article examines how, in the 1790s, the émigrés' rejection of the Republic and their quest for monarchical restoration resonated in pedagogical activities. Under difficult living conditions and unclear prospects of political exile, education became a consolidating strategy of combating the Revolution with pedagogical means. The social composition, educational programmes, and public representations of émigréschools reveal their pivotal role in émigré community life, involving priests, women, writers, politicians, local supporters -- and children. Comparison between Britain and the Holy Roman Empire allows for differentiating strategies of integration into the host societies and of immunization against revolutionary influences. Education contributed to strengthening the émigrés' identity and mobilizing their hosts for the ideological, military, and humanitarian struggle against the Revolution. The students' later careers call for reconsidering experiences of exile education among the elites of Napoleonic and Restoration France. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The consumption of food and drink was suffused with political meaning in the new culture of revolution. This article explores tensions arising from the dining culture of revolutionary politicians at a time when the activity of politics had become subject to public scrutiny. A deputy’s approach to food, and especially to the social activity of dining, was used to judge his authenticity. Conspicuous consumption by deputies became a source of conflict between a hungry populace and its elected representatives. Cafés and restaurants, together with private dinner parties (‘behind closed doors’), were locations where the tactical business of politics could be conducted, yet such venues were seen as redolent of Old Regime practices and against the culture of transparency. Deputies who were seen to engage in excessive consumption and attend select dinner parties, especially with ‘suspect’ characters, were vulnerable to the charge that they were engaging in a conspiracy against the Republic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars were the first in history to be written about in great numbers by the common soldier. This article, which focuses on French reminiscences of the wars, examines a variety of memoirs published from the late eighteenth through to the twentieth century. During this time we see a different approach to war and how it was recalled and remembered, more personal, more experiential than ever before. This article argues that the historical accuracy of these veteran narratives is unimportant. Instead, they reveal much more about how the wars were portrayed, and how they were remembered. Important too is what these narratives reveal to historians about the (inner) lives of soldiers during the wars, and what veterans in hindsight thought and felt about particular events. Here too the reality of the ‘experience of war’ is not as important as the cultural construct that is presented. As such, war narratives are an important source for the ways in which veterans and French society preferred to remember and process the past. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Examines the transition of rural labor in the Bolognese, the ricefield workers during French Revolution in Bologna, Italy. Changes in the rice cultivation during the Revolutionary era; Details of the battle against ricefields known as Restoration in 1816 and 1817; Engagement of strikes by Bolognese ricefield workers.

Explores the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the French Revolution in 1939 and the responses to it of agents on the Left, center and radical Right of French political culture. Development of literary fascists; Critique of revolutionary and republican forces that placed 1789 at the beginning of the French slide into a decadent modernity; Class conflict.

Looks at the emergence of national identity in Alsace, examining how the Societe Populaire club at Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines, reacted to the stage of the French Revolution known as the Terror, and how this reaction defined its relationship to the French state. Background information on the club; How members of the club were linked to the wider community; Opposition of club members to the dechristianization of the state.