On Being Revolutionary

What does it mean to be revolutionary? That is, what does it mean to exist, to live, to have a real state or existence for a longer or shorter time under a revolutionary regime? Such existential questions run through all three of these new works on the French Revolution by scholars working in Britain in the fields of history (Linton), French literature (Perovic), and art history (Taws). Perovic tackles the question of being in time quite literally in her study of the schemes invented to tabulate the days, weeks, and months of the period 1788–1805, some of which included astronomical or symbolic information. Taws embraces the conundrum of existence more philosophically, studying transient forms of art (objects such as passports, paper money, playing cards, and prints) that circulated widely during the tumult but which have left few traces in our day. As for Linton, the issue of being and nonbeing comes across viscerally in her biographical portraits of the men who destroyed each other and themselves in the name of the Republic.

Given that Linton’s book encompasses the lives of real people whom one could expect readers to know, and aims to reveal the social relations and psychological dynamics that drove them to acts of cruelty and self-destruction, one might expect Choosing Terror to be the most gripping read. The author claims to “go beyond how the Jacobins spoke publicly . . . [to] try to uncover what they actually thought” (6; emphasis in original), and draws on an impressive range of sources to do so. It is very informative, but alas, Choosing Terror reads more like disembodied reportage than the flesh-and-blood dramas it relays. In her detailed play-by-play accounts of infighting among the Girondins, the Hebertists, then the Dantonists, and finally the Jacobins, the author argues that much of the enmity emerged from fears of assassination schemes and conspiracies, some of which existed in effect (200). This is heady stuff! But Linton’s approach is dispassionate. As background to her exposition on how anxieties spread, she provides a generous overview on emotion in eighteenth-century theories of mind and cognition, recent cultural histories of early modern France, and the politics of emotion during the Revolution: all three are rapidly growing subfields in today’s academy.

Contextualization, rather than narration, is Linton’s forte. In her exploration of the friendship networks and the gift economy that maintained and destroyed the careers of what she calls the “first modern politicians in France,” she establishes an important argument for continuities between the old regime and the Revolution (285). Her comments on the suspicion of carnival masquerade balls and extravagant cuisine, and the high-minded “politics of virtue” embraced by deputies of various revolutionary assemblies, are interesting and prove that the austere virtue associated with Incorruptible Robespierre was far from unique to him (68–69; 84; 285–86). Her analysis of the vast correspondence, speeches, and polemics written by the politicians, and her cool appraisal of the “heroic terms” used therein, are also appreciated. Unlike some critics writing on sensibility, Linton avoids falling into the intentional fallacy and wisely points out the role of generic and rhetorical conventions in such prose. Nevertheless, when read alongside The Politics of the Provisional and The Calendar in Revolutionary France, Choosing Terror feels a bit traditional.

This may be construed as high praise, however, depending on the reader’s taste for theory and speculation. Indeed, Linton’s approach is far more sober than that of art historian Taws, whose chapters abound in playful speculation about the potential meanings of period icons and whose prose is peppered with asides by Jacques Rancière, Louis Marin, Jean...