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Honorius's triumph over Attalus, the usurper and former senator (supported in 409-410 by Alaric, and by Athaulf in 414-415), was probably celebrated in 417 – as Prosper Tiro wrote in the Chronicon (and not in 416, as suggested by the communis opinio since Otto Seeck) – the year when began the consulate of Constantius (who had just married Honorius's stepsister and Athaulf's widow, Galla Placidia), and probably in the presence of Constantius and Galla. Known especially through Philostorgius, Historia ecclesiastica, XII, 5, Nikephoros Kallistos, Historia ecclesiastica, XIII, 35, and Prosper Tiro, Chronicon, 1263, while others are undoubtedly also worth mentioning – Orosius, VII, 42, 5, Marcellinus Comes, a. 412 – it probably took place, whatever was said about it, in accordance with its traditional forms (without christianizing the route, and without the calcatio colli, i.e. without the emperor trampling on the loser's head), and was marked by a specific punishment inflicted on the usurper: the amputation of two right hand fingers. Nevertheless, the latter's life was spared, as part of Honorius's clemency and union policies, which Nikephoros Kallistos and the legislation especially bear witness to (CTh, XV, 14, 14). The triumph cannot celebrate a military victory on Attalus, who was captured while trying to flee, but the latter's exhibition embodies the resurgence of the Empire and the City of Rome, the restoration of the City and of its population growth, which required an increase in its goods supplies, as required by the City's prefect. Such resurgence is not to be ascribed to the “triumphant” Honorius, who only dramatized it, but to Constantius in the Empire, and to the senatorial aristocracy in the City. The triumph enabled Honorius to acknowledge and support the part played by this aristocracy in this resurgence, as very well shown by Philostorgius, even though a great number of aristocrats had supported the work of an Attalus, who had twice portrayed himself as championing the restoration of the Roman magnificence. He also aimed at erasing not only the memory of Alaric's 410 ransacking but also of Galla Placidia's and Athaulf's wedding in Narbonne in 414, which Attalus had attended, and which had been considered by some Christians as an apocalyptic sign, in reference to the Book of Daniel, 11, 6. The usurper's name could have been linked to these two events; and Galla Placidia's union with a barbaric leader could have been the harbinger of a new destiny for the Empire, such as represented, for a short time, by Theodosius – their son, who died in infancy. On the contrary, Constantius, celebrated that same year by Rutilius Namatianus as “the only rescuer of the Latin name and fame” (De reditu suo, II, Fragment B, v. 9) stands out as the strong man at the time, as well as the incarnation of the Empire's salvation – a counterpoint in its own right to both Stilicho, “the traitor” and to Athaulf, “the barbaric spouse”.

The murder of Valentinian III on March 16th 455 was perceived as an epochal break by a part of contemporary historians. The event also seemed to predict impending misfortune for the Roman western Empire, as the dynasty of Valentinian I and Theodosius was ended. Valentinian's assassination was in fact followed by the sack of Rome by Geiseric (2th-16th June 455). The city was brutally ravaged by the Vandals. As the emperor Petronius Maximus was killed in an unsuccessful attempt to leave the city, neither political mediation, nor military reaction were possible. Only Pope Leo I courageously negotiated with the Vandals. It was possible to come to an agreement: the safety of the population was guaranteed, but the wealth and the monuments of Rome were completely delivered to the Vandals. Actually, the devastating plunder of the city was not only caused by barbarian greed. Geiserich also acted according to his political strategy. As ruler of a new powerful kingdom, Geiserich took with him statues and treasures in order to adorn his own capital, Carthage. This decision should symbolize the transfer of hegemony from the Roman empire in decline to the Vandalic State. After the sack of 455, the recovery of the city – as it had happened after Alarich's sack (410) – was not possible. Rome lost his majesty and his ancient magnificence. In this sorrowful atmosphere, the new emperor Avitus entered Rome in autumn 455. Avitus had been proclaimed emperor by the Gallic aristocracy and was also supported by the Visigoths. His entourage was in fact composed by Gallic officials and Visigothic troops. At his arrival, Avitus found the population exasperated by an harsh famine. The presence of the Visigothic allies was not tolerated, and Avitus was forced to send them away. In order to dismiss them, he needed money. However, there was no gold in the imperial treasures. Consequently, Avitus ordered to destroy bronze statues and decorations, and to sell them to the merchants in the city in order to distribute some gold coins to the barbarians. This decision roused the Senate and the Roman population to the revolt, since they were again robbed of the adornments of their city. This time, however, a Roman emperor, instead of a barbarian king, outrageously insulted Rome, her monuments (ornatus civitatis) and his people. Avitus was considered unworthy of the imperial dignity. Majorian and Ricimer also rose in rebellion. Avitus was attacked on the way to Gaul and forced to renounce to the throne. Probably, this episode also influenced the fourth Novella of Emperor Majorian (July 11th 458). Inspired by the conservative faction of the Roman aristocracy, Majorian stressed again the importance of the adornments of the city (ornatus civitatis) as a symbol of the dignity of Rome. The Novella can be interpreted as a political and cultural response to Geiseric's and Avitus's impiety. On the other hand, after Avitus's insult to the Roman majesty prophecies on the decline were spread again across the empire. They probably aroused in the same political group of the conservative faction in the Roman Senate. A century later, in the cultural milieu of Constantinopolitan bureaucracy, John Lydus still linked Avitus's decision to a prophecy on the fall of the empire preserved by the Libri Sibyllini. The same episode is narrated by John of Antioch's Historia Chroniké (composed at the beginning of Heraclius's reign), as he described the sequence of tragic events which followed the murder of Valentinian III and foretold the end of the Western Roman Empire.

Unlike many city-states in 17th century Europe, the Republic of Geneva has kept its popular assembly inherited from the medieval commune, the General Council. But the elections held in this assembly twice a year have been often considered by Genevan historians as mere formalities. They were supposed to confirm the natural order of things, rather than to aggregate individual preferences, to perpetuate the existing hierarchy in a Genevan society which was experienced as a “community” rather than a society of individuals. This impression is confirmed by the very deferential electoral behaviour of the citizens, for whom the reelection of incumbents and the respect of rank are two strong guiding principles.
However, something still happens when it seems nothing happens. In a Republic which is aristocratic de facto but democratic de jure, the electoral ceremonial stages the fiction of popular sovereignty. There were also some glitches in this smooth machinery. Some outsiders were sometimes able to be elected when a seat was left vacant in the rotation of syndics as a result of the death or resignation of one of the incumbents – though we will see this was most often the side-effect of a lack of interest for the seat from a candidate nominated in a more favourable position. Though we know in retrospect that the incumbents have always been reelected as syndics until 1728, it was not obvious for citizens, who on several occasions threatened to “get rid of the old ones”, as rumours and heated arguments multiplied throughout the city.

During the French Restoration, 111 families which were on the edge of the “Second State” at the end of the Ancien Regime succeeded in having their nobility officially confirmed, whereas 34 lineages were anoblished after asking for letters of confirmation of nobility. However, some twenty of these applicants were already engaged in a process of social decline which sometimes took roots in the last decades of the 18th century. This article focuses on the mechanism, forms and stakes of the socioeconomic downgrading of these peripheral members of the nobiliary world, who did not hesitate to spotlight their fragile situation as a consequence of their loyalty to the Bourbon dynasty and to use it as an argument to ask the royal administration for financial assistance, positions and honours as compensations for what they had endured during and since the French Revolution. It also stresses on the persistence of a strong desire for aristocracy among the French post-revolutionary elites: even if being noble was then a symbolic distinction above all, the applicants for such letter patents and their descendants still hoped that they could get more or less long-term profits if they legally reintegrated the nobility – whereas it obviously depended mostly on their ability to seize the financial, matrimonial, professional, public and mundane opportunities which were (unequally) presented to them in the 19th-century society.

This introductory article to the topic “The alternative Lefts in France: from the 1968 whirlwind to reconfiguration at the end of the century” examines the “alternative Left” category and seeks to demonstrate its historical coherence. This concept encompasses all political currents that advocate for a break with capitalism while being at the same time critical of the institutional Left to varying degrees. It includes the “New Left,” a term ascribed from the early 1960s onward both to currents arising from the institutional Left and to various far-left groups which emerged at that time. However, this concept is broader as it also includes anarchism and other post-68 political experiments (feminism, LGBT groups, environmentalism and later alter-globalization, etc.). These various groups are therefore heterogeneous: although their shared objective is “to change life”, their temporality and modus operandi vary from one to another. Nevertheless, with communist culture so present in France in the 1970s and even beyond, one common question for these political families was how to position themselves in relation to the French Communist Party, be it through rejection, competition or collaboration. Consequently, the history of the alternative Lefts encompasses the history of a wide portion of the French Left between 1968 and our most recent past.

Today the similarities between orthodox communism and radical dissent seem to be more relevant than their differences. Through the sixties the overall picture was quite different: anticommunism, meaning opposition to the PCF, the French Communist Party, was, to a large extent, the defining feature of the French Far Left, insofar as this movement stemmed from the PCF and its student branch, the Union des étudiants communistes. When sifting through the PCF Central Committee archives it appears that the question of the Far Left remained a minor issue until the end of 1967. However, as early as 1964, the leadership of the party decided to counter the Far Left, primarily taking action against the Maoists (59 out of 91 decisions directed against the Far Left), then against the Trotskyists belonging to the powerful Student-Union, the JCR (Jeunesses Communistes Révolutionnaires) or to Voix Ouvrière in the Trade-Union organizations. In so doing, the ways and means used by the PCF were numerous: public denunciations, commando-style attacks on the Far Left public meetings, physical clashes during demonstrations or consultations with CGT leaders. Yet, in spite of these constant hostile showings, the Far Left reached relative success by mobilizing a revolutionary discourse, by targeting a younger audience and building an international outreach; at the eve of the 1968 events, more than two thousand students were ready for action. While at the end of 1967, the PCF party leadership thought they had eliminated Far Left dissent, the situation got out of hand by spring 1968, and combating the Far Left became the top priority (April 30, 1968). After the spring of 1968, three options were open to the French Left. First a growing revolutionary impatience (this is the case with the Maoists and the new JCR generation), then patient abnegation (for the Parti socialiste, and other Trotskyist groups), and ultimately the choice of the PCF to bet on a Union of the Left built around a joint programme. Obviously, by the autumn of 1968, politicaly-speaking, the cards had yet to be shuffled.

This article analyses a relatively unknown existence of a generation of young farmers who participated in the burgeoning spirit of protest of 1968 and after. These post-'68 farmers mainly asserted discourses and practices breaking with the status quo following May 1968, and through union engagement. But more than that, as children of farmers themselves in many cases, they deeply challenged established forms of domination and behavioral norms in their social and professional milieu. This history is at the root of movements that would contribute to the 1987 creation of the Confédération Paysanne (CP), a farmers' union to the left of the political spectrum that would hold a key position in the anti-globalization movement in the first decade of the 2000s. The author first emphasizes the generational dimension of these engagements, and provides an account of the social and political experiences that constituted a collective appropriation of the “1968 moment.” It began with struggles within the dominant union organizations – the Fédération Nationale des Syndicats d'Exploitants Agricoles (FNSEA, National Federation of Farmers' Unions) and the Centre National des Jeunes Agriculteurs (CNJA, National Young Farmers' Centre) – that came with a collection of stances demarcating them from the unions' positions and ways of operating. Criticism of the relationship between farm union leadership and political and economic authorities led to the spread of a Marxist-inspired analysis of relations of domination in agriculture, and the implementation of actions targeting the economic structures of “the profession.” These transgressions spilled out of the strictly union setting to appear regularly in subversive practices in the local space, such as writing songs and plays illustrating class struggle or hosting troubled teenagers from large cities at the farm.
Regardless, the groups that formed in the late 1960s and early 1970s were not entirely homogeneous, and the conflicts that emerged throughout the 1970s would have a lasting influence on the histories of groups of this farming left. The author takes the example of the Paysans-Travailleurs (Peasants-Workers) group in the Orne (Normandy), which split in the mid-1970s as some placed their engagement in a revolutionary perspective and others preferred to keep a distance from political parties of the extreme left. By reconstructing the processes that lead to the formation of this group following May 1968 and its gradual crumbling several years later, the author insists on the interdependence of activist careers, subscriptions to ideas, and ways of participating in the political debates of the 1970s, which cannot be dissociated from the spaces where they interacted, giving them meaning. The analysis also demonstrates the importance of “small” dispositional differences between activists and their consequences on how these left-leaning farmers built their subjective belonging in the agricultural world.