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This article reexamines the legacy of Wagnerism in France through the lens of cultural and intellectual history. Taking the Revue wagnérienne (1885-88) as its central subject of analysis, it demonstrates that contributors to the Revue developed from Richard Wagner's work several strategies for transcending the Franco-German nationalist conflicts so trenchant in the 1880s. Falling beyond the confines of any one academic discipline or aesthetic category, the Wagnerism presented on the pages of the Revue wagnérienne borrowed from scientific thought, aesthetics, religion, and politics in equal measure. This comingling of approaches expressed by the authors suggests that Wagnerism in the 1880s created an intellectual space for seemingly contradictory perspectives to coexist. Grappling with Wagner's works and ideas, then, provided French intellectuals with an opportunity to imagine alternatives to many of the political, cultural, and ideological polarizations of the early Third Republic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since Emile Zola's "J'accuse," the Dreyfus affair has often been conceptualized as a struggle between truth and raison d'état. In this interpretation, the antidreyfusards voluntarily cede any claim to the concept of truth in favor of arguments based in the exigencies of national security. This article suggests, however, that antidreyfusard rhetoric and imagery also employed a concept of truth: a subjective truth that depended on personal credibility as established through opposition to imagined enemies of France. The caricaturist Caran d'Ache represented this relational truth in scenes of antidreyfusard women identifying and rejecting dreyfusard or Jewish men. These scenes allowed the artist to emphasize the personal and conditional nature of this sort of truth by showing ambiguous sexualized or aggressive women acquiring credibility through their hostile interactions with dreyfusard or Jewish adversaries, thereby permitting the representation of a truth based on human interaction and relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contrast to a familiar assimilation model whereby peasants were "transformed into Frenchmen," this study of Limousin migrant masons illustrates how occupational specialization, rural-based social networking, and circular migration strategies encouraged residential concentration in Paris in the second half of the nineteenth century. After addressing circular migration and the characteristics of the building trades that promoted social networking, this study draws on census and electoral records to map the boundaries of Limousin solidarity in Paris during the Third Republic (1871-1914). Rather than constituting a "colony," Limousin migrant masons established "microcommunities" based on familial and village-based social ties. The article concludes with an analysis detailing the functions of residential concentration by considering how collective living arrangements in hôtels garnis (boardinghouses) enabled the procurement of work, maintained the cohesion of the work team, and promoted links connecting Paris to the Departments of the Haute-Vienne and the Creuse in central France. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]