On Lucien Febvre

Historically Speaking February 2003 On Lucien Febvre George Huppert I have admired the writings of Lucien Febvre steadfasdy, ever since I was a senior in college. That was in the late 1950s on die Berkeley campus. I still remember die particular afternoon when I came out of die sunshine into the university's library and reached for die latest issue oïAnnales, E.S.C. The French journal, newly dressed up in its red and white cover, was just dien achieving a degree ofacceptance in the English-speakingworld . Lucien Febvre, the guiding spirit oíAnnales, had died recendy. I started reading his essays in earlier volumes ofhis journal , and I was soon hooked. I had stumbled upon my vocation. I would become a historian , the kind of historian Febvre imagined —had to imagine, because the kind of history he had in mind did not exist as yet. No doubt this was part ofthe attraction for die young poet manqué diat I was: history was not quite whatI had been taughtitwas. Ifone believed Lucien Febvre, it was something rare, very difficult, and supremely important. It was still in its infancy as a discipline : "l'histoire est à faire"—history has yet to be invented, said Ernest Labrousse, one of Febvre's close collaborators.1 Actually, I thought Febvre had already come pretty close to inventing diatnew kind ofhistorywith die publication, way back in 1912, of his dissertation under die tide of Philippe IIetla Franche-Comté.2 Hidingunder die appearance of a dutiful academic exercise , the book was in reality a triumph of subversion. It was lively and interesting, its tone both lyrical and personal. At die same time, die narrative was founded on die most profound and wide-ranging erudition. To his exhaustive exploitation of the rich archival sources, the audior added a vision so broad, so far removed from the ordinary, that I have always wondered how his diesis committee let it pass. The conventional, Sorbonne-approved way ofwriting historywas to produce a compilation ofdata presented in colorless clichés. At least this is how die young Febvre saw it. In lateryears he would not hesitate to excoriate the older generation of historians as "die losers of 1870," unimaginative, defeated imitators of the German historiographical tradition. He went so far as to declare diat he could not countenance the notion of scholarship for scholarship's sake: "et disons : l'érudition pour l'érudition, jamais!"3 In his Philippe II, he was thumbing his nose at his mentors. The bookwas not really about Philip II. It was about the FrancheComt é, diat odd province, French in language and institutions, but ruled in the name ofa Spanish monarch. The book is experimental in every way, especially in its ambition to create a total analysis ofwhat the author referred to as "the interior life ofa province." He scoured this farther, mountainous Burgundy, this frontier region of exceptional strategic importance in the 16th century, from the depths of its geological Formations to die expressions ofits distinct folklore, neglecting nodiing along die way, scrutinizing its dense economic activity and capturing both die immutable realities of soil and climate and die fast-moving social changes. Somehow he achieved a miracle: in spite of its encyclopedic scope, the book is full ofreal people speaking to us dirough dieir letters, diaries, and souvenir albums. Alreadyin the very firstyears ofdie 20di century, Febvre had found his distinctvoice. It was attuned to the new sciences, die new music, die new art, die new ideas diat circulated with such force in Paris on die eve of the great catastrophe of 1914. In Henri Berr's Revue de Synthèse, die work ofyoung intellectuals like Febvre could be found side by side with die newest work in sociology, psychology, or andiropology. The ideas of Marx and Freud were discussed there and all diis was to make up what Febvre called his "âme de papier"—his paper soul, his reading, the influences diat made him what he was. An eclectic anarchist since his student days, he refused to adhere to any of the movements and ideologies diat flourished all around him. He was able to dismiss Marxism , togedier widi all odier "isms," as early February...