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Diabolè is at the heart of the rhetorical practices of the classical age. It consists in ascribing your opponent acts or features that may make him lose his credibility in the eyes of the audience. In the speeches which oppose him to Demosthenes, Aeschines likes to question the manliness of his opponent, thus regularly associating him with femininity. This process allows him to blame Demosthenes for feminine flaws like cowardice or inclination to luxury and, in doing so to deny him the faculty to guide the political life of the city. At the same time, the feminizing process holds a comic dimension through which Aeschines expects to get the sympathy of the audience.

From 1367 to 1430 the Byzantine city of Ioannina was an independent State governed by a sovereign bearing the title of Despot. The succession was theoretically hereditary but in fact elective: the class of the archons, who constituted the political and social elite of the city, effectively detained the power to choose the ruler. Thus, in 1411, soon after the death of Despot Esau Buondelmonti, his young son George and his widow Eudocia Balšić were proclaimed respectively Despot and Regent, but were quickly expelled to the benefit of Carlo Tocco, count of Cephalonia and nephew of Esau.
In a first part, the paper examines the sources. At first, it deals with the Chronicle of the Tocco, an opus redacted to the glory of Carlo, which is the most detailed source, but not the most objective nor the most trustworthy. The relevant excerpt of the Chronicle is translated and commented, showing a number of logical and chronological incoherences, thus leading the careful reader to defiance. The second source is the Chronicle of Ioannina, which gives less than little details but nevertheless supplies us with three capital pieces of information, namely the date of Esau's death, on the 6th of February, the date of the exile of Eudocia and George, on the 26th of February, and finally the date of the entrance of Carlo Tocco in the city, on the 1st of April. The paper subsequently examines the succession of events as provided by the Chronicle, proposing to invert some of them in order to obtain a far more logical narrative. In any case, the rapidity of the chasing of Eudocia, which occurred only twenty days after the death of Esau, leads to the conclusion that it was not improvised nor spontaneous but organized by the ruling class of Ioannina as soon as Esau was dead, if not earlier.
The paper tries to find out the reasons of the revolution, questioning on the one hand the version of the Chronicle, according to which Eudocia was chased because of her tyrannical personality, and on the other hand the version of modern historians, according to whom an ethnic grid of lecture, supposing the Greek people of Ioannina preferred the Italians like Carlo to the Serbians like Eudocia, could be applied to the specific case. The actual reasons were probably strategical: while Eudocia, originating from the then decaying Lordship of Valona, in nowadays Southern Albania, could not benefit from strategic allies against the Albanian lord of Arta who was threatening the city, Carlo had powerful troops at his disposal and had proved himself as a warlord, and therefore was considered by the elite of the city as more capable of defending it. Nevertheless, these reasons could not officially justify a coup which contravened the principle of hereditary succession.
Carlo Tocco and his partisans therefore constituted a more or less underground network which allowed the change of regime. Carlo held a double discourse, sending a messenger officially in order to support the independence of Ioannina from the Albanians, secretly having talks with the archons about a possible change of ruler. The archons themselves held such a double discourse, since they officially supported George and Eudocia. As a result, the candidature of Carlo Tocco was never publicly announced to the people before the latter chased Eudocia.
The paper then deals with the writing of the relevant passage of the Chronicle itself and shows how this biased source not only narrates the change of regime but moreover tries to legitimate it. Indeed, it carefully avoids comparing the respective legitimacies of George and Carlo, preferring a storytelling opposing the goods of Carlo and the evils of Regent Eudocia. The paper therefore studies some literary aspects of the text, specifically about the figures of speech and the sophisms used in an argumentative way in order to justify the revolution and the accession of Carlo Tocco. It also favourably examines the possibility that the anonymous messenger of Carlo Tocco was also the anonymous author of the narrative and that after being in charge of the underground aspects of the change of regime, he was also in charge of the storytelling.
In its conclusion, the paper recalls that the legitimation of the coup was made in two times: first during the events by hiding the conspiring network and its final objective of installing the count of Cephalonia on the throne, then, after the events, by redacting a narrative defaming Eudocia Balšić and lauding Carlo Tocco. Then it underlines the fact that the relevant excerpt of the Chronicle gives us information not only about the specific events dealt with in this article, but also about the political ways and networks in Epirus at that time, thus putting some kind of light upon some similar events in the cities of Arta and Ioannina during the late 14th and early 15th centuries, showing that the ruling class were fully aware of the strategic evolutions and quickly reacted to them, that both persons and news were circulating rather quickly, and that, despite the political fragmentation of Epirus, members of the ruling class knew each other, communicated and concluded agreements according to the circumstances. Finally, as an epilogue, it evokes the fate of the main protagonists: Carlo Tocco successfully led the war against the Albanians and took Arta in 1416 and then ruled most of Epirus until his death in 1429, while Eudocia and George probably fled to Valona, and lived the rest of their life in exile, never coming back to Ioannina.

In many historical works, the Acadians, descendants of French Catholic settlers who had settled in the former French colony of Acadie, were expropriated and then deported by their new British administrators because of their religion and presumed allegiance to the King of France. However, how did the British perceive these newly colonized people and how did the French respond to their deportation? In the period following their deportation by the British in 1755, the Acadians were listed in acts of law, decrees, but also in press articles and private correspondence such as that of the governor of the Massachusetts colony Francis Bernard. Gathering these traces reveals various political and social perceptions used in transatlantic societies. Thus, what do administrators mean by using expressions such as “Acadians” or “French Neutrals”? These designations also shed light on the expectations of the European administrators towards a people first administered by the French and then deported by the British. Were they “war prisoners”, an “immigrant workforce” or new subjects of law? This article tries to answer these questions, unveiling the various British and French administrations' perceptions towards the Acadian refugees in the middle of the eighteenth century.

In 1919, war broke out when the populations of Arab countries aligned with the Allied Powers in the Great War demanded their independence. The League of Nations was in charge of the fate of Arab countries, following the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. A provisional system, the Mandates, was established whilst the League conducted a more detailed study to determine how independence might be granted. The European states deployed senior officials to the Middle East to assume both military and civilian functions, in order to prepare the reorganisation of these territories while also ensuring an effective return to peace. In this context, General Henri Gouraud was selected by the French President of the Council, Georges Clemenceau, to preside over the destiny of Syria. How might one explain why the “Tiger”, who did not favour the colonists, chose to replace the first High Commissioner of Syria, the diplomat Francois Georges-Picot, by a general officer and a member of the “colonial party”? This choice was imposed on Clemenceau by the terms of the Allied withdrawal from the Middle East after the Great War. The Sykes–Picot Agreement of May 1916 was the basis for these negotiations, to the exclusion of all other agreements, such as the earlier McMahon–Hussein Agreement. Since British troops held most Arab cities—including Damascus, Homs, Hama, and Aleppo—it was necessary to establish a military succession between the British and the French. A colonial officer highly-regarded by his peers, General Gouraud (1867–1946) had distinguished himself during the Great War both in Gallipoli (1915) and on the Champagne front (1917–18), commanding the IVth Army. Moreover, the Government was grateful to Gouraud for maintaining cordial relations with the British commanders, above all Sir Ian Hamilton. Clemenceau asked him to arrange the withdrawal of the British forces under General Sir Edmund Allenby, and their replacement by French troops. Beyond the military succession, Gouraud's mission was simply to maintain order in Syria until the League of Nations decided on its fate.
Due to local tensions in the Middle East—relating to peace negotiations between the Arabs (represented by Faisal, son of Hussein, the Sheriff of Mecca) and the Turks (led by Mustapha Kemal)—Gouraud's powers of diplomacy were to be tested. With the title of High Commissioner of the French Republic in Syria and Commander-in-Chief of the Levantine Army, Gouraud's post was equivalent to that of Gallieni in Madagascar and Lyautey in Morocco. With a proconsulat in the manner of ancient governors or, more recently, his British colleagues in Egypt, Gouraud was missioned to build a “Great Syria”. Many of Gouraud's staff were officers who had transferred from Morocco, further confirming his role as the “Lyautey of Syria”. However, arriving at the Syrian mandate headquarters in Beirut, General Gouraud and his civilian assistant, Robert de Caix, discovered that they had been provided with a proconsulat “on the cheap”. The reason lay in the post-war agreements that followed in the Eastern Mediterranean – a Braudelian scheme. In Europe, the peacetime practice of “sharing the World” regained its status when Clemenceau was replaced by Alexander Millerand. Continuing to approach post-war negotiations on an imperial scale, the Quai d'Orsay chose to collaborate with Mustapha Kemal and the Turks rather than with Faisal. The Arab nationalists found themselves in a “race against the clock” to validate the secret agreements signed by Faisal and Clemenceau in January 1920. Under Millerand, France's policy in the east was becoming more nebulous, and the lines were starting to blur. The Arab nationalists sought to overcome these difficulties by proclaiming Faisal the King of Syria in March 1920. But it soon became clear that the new French President of the Council (also the Minister of Foreign Affairs) did not wish Faisal to forge an independent Syria. As Millerand considered it impossible to honour the agreement signed by Clemenceau, he issued secret instructions to demand that General Gouraud take control of Damascus.
The battle of Khan Meyssaloun, on 24 July 1920, put an end to Faisal's dream of a Syrian Arab kingdom. Yet by allowing Gouraud to install the mandate in Syria, it was to be a Pyrrhic victory. Exiled by the English, Faisal was swiftly proclaimed King of Iraq in August 1921 and viewed as the true liberator of the Arab territories. Gouraud escaped the attack at Kuneitra on 23 June 1921, but not the Arab nationalist propaganda that has discredited him ever since. Despite efforts to comply with the “spirit of the mandate”, he quickly understood that he could not embody the “colonial humanism” promoted by the new Colonial Minister, Albert Sarraut. In reality, his stay in the Middle East from 1919 to 1923 attests to the emergence of a new colonial era, where power gradually gave way to mere influence.

In 1970s, the Ligue communiste révolutionnaire (LCR) is upset by the “second feminist wave” contestations. Its activists are involved on a national and local scales in the “work woman” of the organization. They participate in the fights for the free abortion and contraception; then in the construction of a unitarian movement “class struggle” within the autonomous and non-mixed women's movement. But due to their double membership, activists dispute the structures and LCR ways of functioning contributing in the “demolition of the processes of male domination” present within the organization. Analysis of LCR relationships in the feminism having mainly built itself at the national level, take toulousian example allows to play with “scales game” in order to have comparisons between the spaces of protest.

The 1960s and 1970s are characterised by a regionalist wave throughout the Western world, particularly notable in France because it breaks with the “Jacobin” ideology, that is, the traditional conception of France as a united, indivisible and centralized nation, and because it is clearly left-wing. Several causes make it possible to understand this wave, such as the “discovery” of regional planning in the post-war years, the socio-economic upheavals experienced during the 1950s and 1960s quick expansion, the influence of the decolonization struggles and the ideological impact of May 68.
One party symbolizes the integration of the regional issue on the left: Michel Rocard's Parti Socialiste Unifié (PSU). Its doctrinal elaboration is done in two stages, producing two legacies. It first developed a democratic and legitimist regionalism in 1966-1967, affirming the need for democratic regional institutions to revive French democracy and rebalance the French territory. These positions ensured its original identity within the French left. Then the party elaborated a more revolutionary nationalitarian approach in 1971-1974, denouncing the internal colonialism experienced by the national minorities in France, asserting the plurinational character of France. Progressively, other leftist organizations would also incorporate a new stance on the regional issue, among them the Maoist Gauche Prolétarienne (GP) or the Trotskyist Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire (LCR).
If this leftist regionalism has cultural and democratic justifications – respect for and development of popular cultures, self-management of territorial issues by those who are concerned – it also has a cognitive and strategic dimension. The goal is to territorialize social problems to show that they are the product of the unequal development of capitalism; to affirm that the State is not only an instrument in the hands of the capitalists, but also a direct actor of the oppression of the peripheries by its centralizing and uniformizing policies; and finally to hope that a fusion of the different local struggles into regional social movements could be the spearhead of the Revolution.
This rehabilitation of regionalism will affect the entire French left. Many of the left-wing regionalist demands elaborated during the 1960-1970s were to be implemented – admittedly at the minimum – by the French Socialist Party in the 1980s. The Greens incorporated this heritage even more comprehensively, at the institutional level, by defending asymmetric federalism, and at a cultural level, by promoting the strengthening of the place of regional languages in the public sphere.