A retrospective Ulysses’ syndrome: French émigré recollections of the British host

Between 1789 and 1815, thousands of French counter-revolutionaries chose exile rather than abide by the new political systems brought on by the Revolution, and later by Napoléon. A large number came to the British Isles. Contemporary documents demonstrate the French exiled community cohabited peacefully alongside a rather welcoming British society. Yet, self-narratives written after the Bourbon Restoration of 1815 described a different situation, in which French and British communities often clashed over behavioural and political distinctions. These discourses appeared to have further diverged from the event as time went by. This article does not mean to assess how traumatised the French émigré populations had been when driven to exile, but how the initial trauma, i.e the forced and lengthy separation from their motherland, was modified in later narratives and scholarship first to be utilised in the creation of national memories, and later in the formation of transnational ones. Focusing on the French memorial side of this transnational phenomenon, it aims to understand the political, social, and editorial agendas driving such modifications

A retrospective Ulysses’ syndrome: French émigré recollections of the British host

Between 1789 and 1815, thousands of French counter-revolutionaries chose exile rather than abide by the new political systems brought on by the Revolution, and later by Napoléon. A large number came to the British Isles. Contemporary documents demonstrate the French exiled community cohabited peacefully alongside a rather welcoming British society. Yet, self-narratives written after the Bourbon Restoration of 1815 described a different situation, in which French and British communities often clashed over behavioural and political distinctions. These discourses appeared to have further diverged from the event as time went by. This article does not mean to assess how traumatised the French émigré populations had been when driven to exile, but how the initial trauma, i.e the forced and lengthy separation from their motherland, was modified in later narratives and scholarship first to be utilised in the creation of national memories, and later in the formation of transnational ones. Focusing on the French memorial side of this transnational phenomenon, it aims to understand the political, social, and editorial agendas driving such modifications

French emigration in Great-Britain in response to the French revolution: memories, integrations, cultural transfers

From 1789 onwards, thousands of Frenchmen and women left France in response to the political, social, economical and cultural changes following the outbreak of the Revolution. A large number came to the British Isles. This dissertation focuses on the interrelation and interpenetration between the migrants and their host, confronted by circumstances to cohabit. Insofar as French and British populations were concerned, it questions the extent to which displacement, exchanges, and diverse interpretations of the exile defined the limits of each community. This thesis argues that evolving relations between the two groups pragmatically defined the political and social categories of émigré and refugee. Useful to the British State and the loyalist community, the French emigrant/refugee became a subject of propaganda against radicalism; forced to survive in a foreign environment, the emigrant group anticipated the expectations of its host by creating a public persona based on shared experiences of trauma. This discursive unity hid a financially, socially, politically and culturally divided population. As exile went on and the relations between London and Paris fluctuated, the limits of the emigrant public persona shrunk, to recentre around a core ultra-royalist group. This attempt at a histoire croisée of emigration in the British Isles combines traditional sources (contemporary and retrospective ego-documents, journalistic accounts, political publications) and innovative ones (classified adverts, passports, returns of the Aliens) to recreate the landscape of French and British encounters at a crucial moment in their history. Indeed, this dissertation aimed to open up a space for a research on emigrant-British cultural transfers by unearthing the situations, individuals and locations fundamental in the importation and reinterpretation of cultural objects in their own culture

A retrospective Ulysses’ syndrome: French émigré recollections of the British host

Between 1789 and 1815, thousands of French counter-revolutionaries chose exile rather than abide by the new political systems brought on by the Revolution, and later by Napoléon. A large number came to the British Isles. Contemporary documents demonstrate the French exiled community cohabited peacefully alongside a rather welcoming British society. Yet, self-narratives written after the Bourbon Restoration of 1815 described a different situation, in which French and British communities often clashed over behavioural and political distinctions. These discourses appeared to have further diverged from the event as time went by. This article does not mean to assess how traumatised the French émigré populations had been when driven to exile, but how the initial trauma, i.e the forced and lengthy separation from their motherland, was modified in later narratives and scholarship first to be utilised in the creation of national memories, and later in the formation of transnational ones. Focusing on the French memorial side of this transnational phenomenon, it aims to understand the political, social, and editorial agendas driving such modifications

Printed Private Library Catalogues as a Source for the History of Reading in 17th-18th century Europe

International audienc

How Conservative Was the Holy Alliance Really?: Tsar Alexander’s Offer of Radical Redemption to the Western World

This chapter argues that tsar Alexander’s Holy Alliance of 1815 was far less conservative and far more revolutionary than it was later understood to be. To make this point, the chapter reconstructs how this “secret plan” came to be understood as “conservative” and how this reading of the Holy Alliance Treaty was influenced by latter-day interpretations and machinations far more than by its concrete substance at the time. Subsequently, the origins and constitutive elements of the plan are delineated in order to demonstrate that it was a revolutionary amalgam of Christian pietism, semi-scientific Enlightenment theories, and a dose of modern, bureaucratic state centralism. Based on new archival evidence, it will transpire how both Prussian security experts and French semi-scientist scholars contributed to the design of the Holy Alliance. The Holy Alliance contained conservative ingredients, but the liberal and provocative elements stood out—these were however suppressed within a few years by political appropriations by other statesmen

Muddling through: The Rhetoric on Conservatism and Revolution in the London Times, 1789-2010

Historians have devoted a great deal of attention to analysing the vocabularies and political and philosophical languages that emerged during the modern era. For instance, they have explored the ‘isms’ of the period (romanticism, liberalism, fascism, republicanism, communism, and so on), often in specific national settings and in specific periods. This article harnesses the strength of computer-assisted humanities’ research methods to map a single aspect of the language of conservatism in everyday reading material over a longer period of time. On the basis of the London Times, the article examines the way the concept of ‘revolution’ figured in relation to ‘conservatism’ in so-called value-laden semantic fields. These textual fields involve ideas and beliefs, have normative connotations, are highly iterative and vary over time in complex ways. Four such fields figured in the London Times, roughly marked by 1780, 1830, 1900, 1970 and 2010 as milestone years. Often reflecting on violent revolutions outside Britain, the journalists and commentators of the Times conceptualised British conservatism primarily as anti-reformist rather than anti-revolutionist. In the end, revolution even became an ironical term, applicable to anyone with a penchant for change, including conservatives themselves

Muddling through: The Rhetoric on Conservatism and Revolution in the London Times, 1789-2010

Historians have devoted a great deal of attention to analysing the vocabularies and political and philosophical languages that emerged during the modern era. For instance, they have explored the ‘isms’ of the period (romanticism, liberalism, fascism, republicanism, communism, and so on), often in specific national settings and in specific periods. This article harnesses the strength of computer-assisted humanities’ research methods to map a single aspect of the language of conservatism in everyday reading material over a longer period of time. On the basis of the London Times, the article examines the way the concept of ‘revolution’ figured in relation to ‘conservatism’ in so-called value-laden semantic fields. These textual fields involve ideas and beliefs, have normative connotations, are highly iterative and vary over time in complex ways. Four such fields figured in the London Times, roughly marked by 1780, 1830, 1900, 1970 and 2010 as milestone years. Often reflecting on violent revolutions outside Britain, the journalists and commentators of the Times conceptualised British conservatism primarily as anti-reformist rather than anti-revolutionist. In the end, revolution even became an ironical term, applicable to anyone with a penchant for change, including conservatives themselves

Muddling through: The Rhetoric on Conservatism and Revolution in the London Times, 1789-2010

Historians have devoted a great deal of attention to analysing the vocabularies and political and philosophical languages that emerged during the modern era. For instance, they have explored the ‘isms’ of the period (romanticism, liberalism, fascism, republicanism, communism, and so on), often in specific national settings and in specific periods. This article harnesses the strength of computer-assisted humanities’ research methods to map a single aspect of the language of conservatism in everyday reading material over a longer period of time. On the basis of the London Times, the article examines the way the concept of ‘revolution’ figured in relation to ‘conservatism’ in so-called value-laden semantic fields. These textual fields involve ideas and beliefs, have normative connotations, are highly iterative and vary over time in complex ways. Four such fields figured in the London Times, roughly marked by 1780, 1830, 1900, 1970 and 2010 as milestone years. Often reflecting on violent revolutions outside Britain, the journalists and commentators of the Times conceptualised British conservatism primarily as anti-reformist rather than anti-revolutionist. In the end, revolution even became an ironical term, applicable to anyone with a penchant for change, including conservatives themselves

How Conservative Was the Holy Alliance Really?: Tsar Alexander’s Offer of Radical Redemption to the Western World

This chapter argues that tsar Alexander’s Holy Alliance of 1815 was far less conservative and far more revolutionary than it was later understood to be. To make this point, the chapter reconstructs how this “secret plan” came to be understood as “conservative” and how this reading of the Holy Alliance Treaty was influenced by latter-day interpretations and machinations far more than by its concrete substance at the time. Subsequently, the origins and constitutive elements of the plan are delineated in order to demonstrate that it was a revolutionary amalgam of Christian pietism, semi-scientific Enlightenment theories, and a dose of modern, bureaucratic state centralism. Based on new archival evidence, it will transpire how both Prussian security experts and French semi-scientist scholars contributed to the design of the Holy Alliance. The Holy Alliance contained conservative ingredients, but the liberal and provocative elements stood out—these were however suppressed within a few years by political appropriations by other statesmen