Seminar Reading: Week 12
The King's trial and the sans-culottes
After the fall of the monarchy on August 10, 1792, a republic was declared. The National Legislative Assembly was dissolved and replaced by the National Convention. It was tasked with drafting a new constitution. But the multiple crises France faced -- war, civil strife, economic meltdown and political chaos -- the Convention found itself having to deal with matters at hand. Two crucial matters included the Trial of the King and the sans-culotte movement, which was seen as responsible for the September Prison Massacres in Paris and around France.
This week is focused on exploring who the sans-culottes were. It is also focused on the debates over the king: should he be tried? Could he be tried constitutionally? And if so, how should he be tried? The latter issue was further complicated by the constitutional void. In the absence of a new republican constitution, did the Constitution of 1791, which set out the terms of a constitutional monarchy, hold? Was 'revolution' itself justification for punishing the king? These questions divided revolutionaries and the Jacobins. The fallout over condemning and executing the king would persist for many decades to come.
Core primary readings
* Mason & Rizzo, FRDC, on September Massacres (174-176); on King's Trial (p. 177-187); on sans-culottes and radicals (p. 197-208)
Core secondary readings
T.E. Kaiser, 鈥楩rom the Austrian Committee to the Foreign Plot: Marie-Antoinette, Austrophobia, and the Terror鈥�, French Historical Studies, 26 (2003), 579-617
P. Hanson, 鈥楩rom Faction to Revolt鈥� in Andress (ed.), OHFR (2015), 436-45.
Questions
1. What was a sans-culotte? What was their historical significance?
2. What arguments were given for trying the King?
3. What argument were given against trying the King?
4. What problems did the fall of the monarchy present, beyond whether or not the king was to be tried for treason?
Further Reading
The Royal Couple in Context
J. Cuno, (ed.), French Caricature and the French Revolution, 1789-99 (1989)
S. Maza, Private Lives and Public Affairs: The Causes C茅l猫bres of Pre-Revolutionary France (1993), esp. ch. 4
M. Price, The Fall of the Monarchy (2002)
J. Felix, Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette (2006)
D. Andress, Massacre at the Champ de Mars: Popular Dissent and Popular Culture in the French Revolution (2000)
D. Andress, 鈥楾he denial of social conflict in the French Revolution: discourses around the Champ de Mars massacre鈥�, French Historical Studies, 22 (1999)
G.A. Kelly, 鈥楤ailly and the Champ de Mars massacre of 1791鈥�, Journal of Modern History (1980)
A. Patrick, The Men of the First Republic (1972)
L. Hunt, Politics, Culture and Class in the French Revolution (1984)
L. Hunt, The Family Romance of the French Revolution (1992)
C. Jones, 鈥楢 Fine 鈥淩omance鈥� with No Sisters鈥�, French Historical Studies, (1995)
A. Baecque, The Body Politic: Corporeal Metaphor in Revolutionary France (1997)
P. Caron, Les Massacres de Septembre (1936)
P. Higonnet, Goodness beyond Virtue: Jacobins in the French Revolution (1999)
Louis XVI
J. Hardman, Louis XVI (1994)
J. Hardman, Louis XVI (2000)
J. Hardman & M. Price (eds), Louis XVI and the comte de Vergennes: correspondence 1774-87 (1998)
M. Price, Preserving the Monarchy: the comte de Vergennes, 1774-87 (1995)
P.R. Campbell, 鈥楲ouis XVI king of the French鈥�, French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture, vol. 2.
Marie-Antoinette
D. Goodman, T. Kaiser (eds.), Marie Antoinette: Writings on the Body of a Queen (2003)
C. Weber, Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution (2007)
C. Crowston, Credit, Fashion, Sex: Economies of Regard in Old Regime France (2013)
L. Hunt, 鈥楾he many bodies of Marie-Antoinette鈥�, in Hunt (ed.), Eroticism and the Body Politic (1991)
T. Kaiser, 鈥榃ho鈥檚 afraid of Marie-Antoinette? Diplomacy, Austrophobia and the queen鈥�, FH, 14 (2000)
T.E. Kaiser, 鈥楩rom the Austrian Committee to the Foreign Plot: Marie-Antoinette, Austrophobia, and the Terror鈥�, French Historical Studies, 26 (2003)
E. Lever, Marie-Antoinette (2001)
A. Fraser, Marie-Antoinette (2001)
C. Berly, Marie-Antoinette et ses biographes. Histoire d鈥檜ne 茅criture de la R茅volution fran莽aise (2006).
V.R. Gruder, 鈥楾he Question of Marie-Antoinette: The queen and public opinion before the Revolution, French History, 16 (2002)
D. Hosford, 鈥楾he Queen's Hair: Marie-Antoinette, Politics, and DNA鈥�, Eighteenth-Century Studies, 38 (2004).
The Trials
M. Walzer, Regicide and Revolution (1974)
D.P. Jordan, The King鈥檚 Trial: The French Revolution vs Louis XVI (1979)
A. Soboul, Le Proc猫s de Louis XVI (1966)
M. Walzer, 鈥楾he king鈥檚 trial and the political culture of the Revolution鈥�, French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture, vol. 2.
E. Colwill, 鈥楯ust another citoyenne? Marie-Antoinette on trial, 1790-3鈥�, History Workshop, 28 (1989)
Changing Sovereignty and Sacrificial Violence
S. Dunn, The Deaths of Louis XVI: Regicide and the French Political Imagination (1994)
P. Escalante, 'Le Roi ne meurt jamais: On the Permanence of the Theologico-Political in Revolutionary France', History of Political Thought 46: 2 (2025), 285-309.
J. Goldhammer, The Headless Republic: Sacrificial Violence in Modern French Thought (2005)
Crowds, Clubs, Sans-culottes
C. Lucas, 鈥楾he crowd and politics鈥�, FRMPC 2.
G. Rud茅, The Crowd in the French Revolution (1959)
G. Rud茅, Paris and London in the Eighteenth Century : Studies in Popular Protest (1970)
R. Cobb, Paris and the Revolution (1998)
G. Rud茅, The Crowd in the French Revolution (1959)
R. Cobb, The Police and the People: French Popular Protest, 1789-1820 (1970)
R.B. Rose, Tribunes and Amazons: Men and Women of Revolutionary France, 1789-1871 (1998)
H. Burstin, Le Faubourg Saint-Marcel 脿 l鈥櫭﹑oque r茅volutionnaire (1983)
R. Monnier, Le Faubourg Saint-Antoine (1789-1815) (1981)
R. Monnier, L鈥檈space public d茅mocratique: Essai sur l鈥檕pinion 脿 Paris de la R茅volution au Directoire (1994)
M. Genty, Paris 1789-95: l鈥檃pprentissage de la citoyennet茅 (1987)
P. Higonnet, Goodness beyond Virtue: Jacobins during the French Revolution (1998)
M. Kennedy, The Jacobin Clubs in the French Revolution (3 vols., 1982-99)
D. Andress, The French Revolution and the People (2004)
Especially Year II (1793-4)
A. Soboul, The Parisian sans-Culottes and the French Revolution (1964)
R.B. Rose, The Making of the Sans-Culottes (1983)
R.B. Rose, 鈥楴ursery of sans-culottes: the soci茅t茅 patriotique of the Luxembourg section, 1792-5鈥�, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 64: 1 (1982-3), 218-245
R. Cobb, Paris and its Provinces, 1792-1802 (1975)
R. Cobb, The People鈥檚 Armies (1987)
M. Slavin, 鈥楾he French Revolution in Minaiture: the Section Droits-de-l鈥檋ommem 1789-95 (1984)
M. Slavin, The Making of an Insurrection: Parisians Sections and the Gironde (1986)
M. Slavin, The H茅bertistes to the Guillotine (1994)
G. Williams, Artisans and Sans-culottes (1968)
J.M. Gourden, Gens de m茅tiers et sans-culottes. Les artisans dans la R茅volution (1988)
W. Sewell, 鈥楾he sans-culotte rhetoric of subsistence鈥�, FRMPC 4.
C. Lucas, 鈥楻evolutionary violence, the people and the Terror鈥�, FRMPC 4
R.M. Andrews, 鈥楾he Justices of the Peace in Revolutionary Paris, 1792-4鈥�, P&P, 52 (1971)
R.M. Andrews, 鈥楽ocial structures, political elites and ideology in Revolutionary Paris, 1792-4鈥�, JSH, 19 (1985)
M. Sonenscher, 鈥楢rtisans, sans-culottes and the French Revolution鈥� in A. Forrest & P.M. Jones (eds), Reshaping France (1991)
J. Guilhaumou, 鈥楲es milles langues du P猫re Duchesne: la parodie de la culture populaire pendant la R茅volution鈥�, Dix-huiti猫me si猫cle, 18 (1986)
C. Jones & R. Spang, 鈥楽ans-culottes, sans-caf茅, sans tabac: realms of necessity and luxury in eighteenth-century France鈥�, in M. Berg & H. Clifford (eds), Consumers and Luxury: Consumer Culture in Europe, 1650-1850 (1999)
R. Wrigley, 鈥楾ransformations of a Revolutionary emblem: the liberty cap in the French Revolution鈥�, FH, 11 (1997)
H. Burstin, 鈥楶robl猫mes de travail 脿 Paris sous la R茅volution鈥�, RHMC, 44 (1997)