« Un beau viveur et un délicat vivant ». Le baron de Besenval, courtisan et collectionneur, à travers son iconographie

2021 ◽  
pp. 43-64
Author(s):  
Agnès Calatayud
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Ancien Regime ◽  
Art Collectors ◽  
Ancien Régime ◽  
Louis Xv ◽  
The Revolution

At the zenith of his life, the baron Pierre-Joseph-Victor de Besenval de Brünstatt (1721-1791), after having distinguished himself in battle under the reign of Louis XV as a colonel in the regiment of Swiss guards, had become the most seasoned courtier of Versailles. Assiduous member of Marie-Antoinette’s entourage, witty and attractive, he excelled in the two arts which were the mainstays of the Queen’s coterie at the Trianon château: the art of conversation and that of gallantry. Besenval had a prevailing passion; he was one of the finest art collectors of his time. In the aftermath of the storming of the Bastille, a momentous event he could not prevent despite commanding the Royal troops in Paris, he left the capital hastily, was caught, imprisoned, judged, and miraculously freed. The aim of this article is to examine different portraits of this aristocrat who embodied the Ancien régime and its downfall who, at the dawn of the Revolution, wanted to bow out gracefully from these tumultuous times leaving behind an exceptional portrait of himself as an art collector. A unique painting of its kind amongst 18th century French works, this fascinating and intimate fireside portrait immortalises Besenval’s wit and taste for posterity.

The Conseil Constitutionnel and Judicial Review

1991 ◽  
Vol 12 (x) ◽  
pp. 61-82
Author(s):  
Richard Cicchillo
Keyword(s):  
Judicial Review ◽  
Ancien Regime ◽  
Similar System ◽  
Modern France ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Law ◽  
Ancien Régime ◽  
The Revolution

For Americans, long accustomed to judicial review of the law, the traditional absence of a similar system of constitutional control in France comes as a surprise. Closer examination however, reveals that the French politico-historico-judicial tradition inherited from the Ancien Régime and the Revolution of 1789 is deeply opposed to the development of "government by the judges." Why did the Revolution react against the judiciary? How has the idea of constitutional control evolved in modern France? What are the possible sources of legitimacy for an institution (the Conseil constitutionnel) and a concept (judicial review) cut off from the sanction of tradition? What is the future of the Conseil?

Debating Slavery

2020 ◽  
pp. 103-123
Author(s):  
Alan Forrest
Keyword(s):  
Ancien Regime ◽  
Port Cities ◽  
Chambers Of Commerce ◽  
Learned Societies ◽  
Ancien Régime ◽  
The Revolution

The chapter examines the moral threat to slaving in the last years of the Ancien Régime with the rise of abolitionism, first in Britain, then more gradually, in France. Moral qualms about slavery had first been expressed by Enlightened authors like Raynal and Condorcet; but the writings of some English abolitionists, notably Thomas Clarkson, proved equally powerful. However, in merchant circles, especially the chambers of commerce, slaves continued to be seen as a commodity, and the slaving interest was violently defended as the Revolution approached. The chapter examines pamphlets produced by both sides in the debate, and discusses the role of masonic lodges, clubs, and learned societies in the port cities themselves.

scholarly journals The Transformations of Travel during the Revolution and the Empire: the Italian Case

Viatica ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gilles BERTRAND ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Strong Impact ◽  
Ancien Regime ◽  
Experimental Field ◽  
Italian Case ◽  
First Empire ◽  
Ancien Régime ◽  
The Way ◽  
The Revolution

This article studies the situation of French travellers in Italy during the Revolution and the First Empire. Revolutionary unrest and breaks with the Ancien Régime had a strong impact on the way Europeans travelled during this period. In addition to the nobles and the literate who continued to travel, other members of the population and new travel areas for exploration appeared. According to the Venetian archives dating from 1789 to 1796, Italy, a welcoming land for some, became an experimental field for strategies with political and scientific stakes.

scholarly journals 18th-Century Price-Riots, the French Revolution and the Jacobin Maximum

1959 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 432-445 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. B. Rose
Keyword(s):  
French Revolution ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Price Control ◽  
Ancien Regime ◽  
Economic Forces ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Ancien Régime ◽  
The French Revolution

The “war communism” of the Jacobins, mobilizing all economic forces for the defence of the Republic, has many features which seem to anticipate later regimes more self-consciously and more consistently socialist. At the same time it appears in some respects as a partial return to the étatisme of the Ancien Régime in reaction against the liberalism of 1789. Particularly is this true of the adoption, in 1793, of a system of price control for essential commodities.

Revolution

2019 ◽  
pp. 91-101
Author(s):  
David Sorkin
Keyword(s):  
Political Rights ◽  
Ancien Regime ◽  
Equal Rights ◽  
Quarter Century ◽  
Bourgeois Society ◽  
Political Status ◽  
Lame Duck ◽  
Ancien Régime ◽  
The Revolution

This chapter addresses how the French Revolution's alteration of the Jews' political status was truly fundamental and ambiguous. The National Assembly's legislation did not have an unalloyed revolutionary pedigree. The ancien régime persisted in the legislation of January of 1790 that granted political rights to the Jews of Bordeaux as an extension of privilege. Rights for the Jews of Alsace were deferred for twenty-one months until September of 1791 when a lame-duck assembly finally resolved the issue as a matter of constitutional integrity. Despite these ambiguities, the Revolution introduced the pattern of unconditional emancipation “out of” estates, which became a potent model for polities aiming to create a civil or bourgeois society. Through conquest and occupation over the next quarter century, France would export that model to the rest of Europe. Ultimately, the Revolution polarized Europe. Full emancipation or equal rights irrevocably became associated with the ideas of 1789. When and where those ideas triumphed, so did Jewish emancipation. When and where opponents triumphed, Jewish emancipation suffered either abridgment or outright abrogation.

scholarly journals Dogancan Özsel (ed.), Reflections on Conservatism (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011)

2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Garrett Barden
Keyword(s):  
Alexis De Tocqueville ◽  
Ancien Regime ◽  
The Past ◽  
Ancien Régime ◽  
The Revolution

In the foreword to his The Ancien Régime and the Revolution (1856) Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that “No nation had ever before embarked on so resolute an attempt as that of the French in 1789 to break with the past, to make, as it were, a scission in their life line and to create an unbridgeable gulf between all they had hitherto been and all they now aspired to be. …in a word, they spared no pains in their endeavour to obliterate their former selves.”

Geometries of Power

2013 ◽  
Vol 72 (4) ◽  
pp. 434-474 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Fischer Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Arrangement ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Ancien Regime ◽  
Geometric Configurations ◽  
Napoleonic Era ◽  
Ancien Régime ◽  
The Revolution

In the revolution of 1789, France set out to replace its absolute monarchy with a government based on a separation of legislative, judicial, and executive powers. In Geometries of Power: Royal, Revolutionary, and Postrevolutionary French Courtrooms, Katherine Fischer Taylor asks how the goal of separating powers affected the reform of French justice through its physical housing. Providing the first overview of French courtroom layout, Taylor identifies four geometric configurations that characterize in turn the late ancien régime, the revolutionary decade, and the Napoleonic era and beyond. While taking account of changes in the conduct of trials, the analysis emphasizes instead how the courtroom’s spatial arrangement expresses the political source and status of justice. The revolution’s hitherto-unstudied circular layout is placed in the context of the novel curvilinear legislative chamber and influential theater reform. It proposes that the Napoleonic replacement, a rectangular layout inspired by contemporaneous basilican church interiors, instead reframed justice as a sacral power distinct from the theatrical legislature.

The Dutch affair and the fall of theancien régime, 1784–1787

1995 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 875-905 ◽  
Author(s):  
Munro Price
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Foreign Minister ◽  
Dutch Republic ◽  
Ancien Regime ◽  
Internal Politics ◽  
French Foreign Policy ◽  
Ancien Régime ◽  
United Provinces ◽  
The Revolution

ABSTRACTThis article explores the domestic political aspects of the last great disaster of French foreign policy before the revolution: the unsuccessful intervention in Holland between 1784 and 1787. These have been largely ignored by historians, although much attention has been given both to the internal politics of the Dutch republic as well as to British involvement in her affairs during this period. The article argues that the increasing incoherence of French policy towards the United Provinces was caused by profound splits within the king's council. These culminated in a series of attacks on the diplomacy of the powerful foreign minister, the comte de Vergennes, by his ministerial opponents. The Dutch affair reveals the fragmentation of foreign policy during the last years of theancien régime,and also paints a wider picture of a deeply divided royal government on the eve of the revolution.

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