Louis XVI’s Chapel during the French Revolution 1789-1792

Abstract — The close association of Christianity with the late Bourbon monarchy’s style of governance has often been interpreted as a burdensome legacy, which impacted greatly on the period preceding the French Revolution. In recent years, historians have referred to the ideological, juridical and intellectual assaults on the religious foundations of the French crown, throughout the eighteenth century, either as a process of ‘ desacralization ’ or as the religious origins of the French Revolution. This article, though inspired by this school of thought, takes a different approach by examining the less well-known ceremonial and ritual components of this form of kingship, with particular reference to the king’s chapel. Louis XVI’s ecclesiastical household was both the centre of royal patronage for the Gallican Church and the chief regulatory authority of the monarch’s personal religious devotion. Its actions, transformation and fate during the Revolution are instructive in two ways. First, its survival during the first three years of the revolutionary troubles highlights its fundamental and constraining influence over the French monarchy. Secondly, the gradual, though determined, effort to undermine the pact between throne and altar that it represented exemplifi es a lesser known aspect of the national deputies ’ anticlerical agenda

Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette

The important role played by Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette in the radicalization of the early phase of the French Revolution has never been in doubt. Most histories continue to focus on the regal couple’s real, and supposed, role in fomenting counter-revolution at home and especially abroad. This chapter engages with the complex question of the dwindling fortunes of Louis XVI’s monarchy from a more domestic angle. It focuses on that neglected, though crucial, year of 1790 which witnessed the failure to erect a viable constitutional settlement. It became impossible to accommodate both Crown and assembly in a viable working relationship. Essentially, the king’s distrust for the deputies, who had little by little arrogated his remaining powers, proved insurmountable. The monarchy’s passive resistance to the revolution’s early reform programme and political culture became increasingly unpopular. This created a radicalized and tension-filled atmosphere which pushed the revolution into hitherto unexpected directions

Collaborators, Collaboration, and the Problems of Empire in Napoleonic Italy, The Oppizzoni Affair, 1805-1807

The recent bicentennial commemorations of the Napoleonic empire have witnessed a proliferation of new studies. Scholars now possess much more sophisticated conceptual tools than in past decades with which to gauge the problems faced by French imperial administrators throughout Europe. Well-trodden concepts, like centre/periphery or collaboration/resistance, have been reinvigorated by more sophisticated understandings of how rulers and ruled interacted in the early nineteenth century. This article argues that, while much progress has been made in understanding problems of ‘resistance’, there is more to be said about the other side of the same coin, namely: ‘collaboration’. Using the micro/local history of a scandal in Napoleonic Bologna, this article wishes to reaffirm that collaboration was an active agent that shaped, and often shook, the French imperial project. The biggest problem remained that, despite ‘good intentions’, collaborators sometimes simply did not collaborate with each other. After all, imperial clients were determined to benefit from the experience of empire. The centre was often submerged by local petty squabbles. This article will use a specific micro-history in Bologna to highlight the extent to which Napoleonic empire builders had to thread a fine line between the impracticalities of direct control and the dangers of ‘going native’

Re-inventing the Ancien Régime in Post-Napoleonic Europe

‘Revolution’ as an 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 the moment of its death. The subsequent restructuring and politicisation 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 organised. 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 gorgons 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