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The judicial « trilogy » of the trials of Nantes at the end of the year II and the beginning of the year III marks a decisive moment in the history of the Revolution. In an exceptionally tense political atmosphere, the Conventionnels were well aware that the legal indictment of one of their own members could prove dangerous for other deputies of the national representation. They developed, therefore, a « legal shield » with which they sought to preserve a political function already tested in the year II. Using the procedure of the « appel nominal » to decide on the indictment of the representative Carrier, the « theatricalization of the session » reflected political attitudes and positions of the time. The categorization of the votes, the abstentions, the motivations of the deputies, their comings and goings in the session, as well as those of the accused – all are keys to the understanding of this crucial stage in the development of the condemnation of the Terror. The appeal against Carrier does not follow the logic of partisan affiliation : it is not the overt unanimity that permits an insight into the reading of this appeal, but rather its pregnant silences.

This article examines the decline in the public posting of laws which occurred largely under the Convention. This decline followed upon a period in which the posting of laws was particularly intense during the opening years of the Revolution – a practice that had caused some material and practical difficulties. The delay in the delivery of posters was interpreted, especially from 1793 onwards, as an obstruction posed by the departmental administrations to the publication of the laws – a reflection that justified a reform of publication procedures aiming to dispense with the poster as a way of avoiding the departmental relay. However, the posting of the laws did not disappear entirely : the deputies used the official newspaper-posters of the Convention, the Bulletin of the National Convention, to publish a certain number of decrees. Yet this reorientation of the Bulletin towards the publication of laws is consistent with the suppression of the departmental relay.

During the Revolution, one of the largest paper mills in France was built on the upper Garonne, and it adopted modern cylinder technology. Destroyed by a fire, it was rebuilt on a small scale by using traditional technology, as used by the other mills in the Pyrenees. While these mills were gradually entering a phase of industrialization, adapting their technical progress to the social and environmental conditions of the region, the mill of Camon, by contrast, was mired in a technical system that had become archaic. This example, which goes beyond the monographic example, illustrates the specific constraints of technology transfer like those of the insertion of a capital innovation into an old technical system. If performed too early, the transfer could constitute an obstacle to the development of the company and put it in jeopardy. Neglected or undertaken too late, it was accompanied by a technical delay that would render manufacturing no longer profitable.

The « French Blacks » of Santo Domingo caused concern within the Spanish empire. The leaders of Santo Domingo, resorting to new trafficking, did not hesitate to sell prisoners captured from their enemies as slaves in Cuba and Puerto Rico, disregarding their freedom. Following in their footsteps, in 1803, those in charge of Guadeloupe and Martinique sent by Bonaparte, got rid of those who refused to re-establish slavery by transferring them to the partially unsubdued coasts of Venezuela, which gave rise to some dramatic occurrences. The fear of the proselytizing by the « French Blacks » even led the French imperial government to demand the participation of Spain in the repression of their activities in the Caribbean.

If the foreign policy of the First Empire was scarcely interested in East Asia, the Napoleonic wars conducted in the European theater did nonetheless have far-reaching repercussions by the naval conflict in which Napoleonic France and its Dutch allies were engaged in the Indian Ocean. Farther east, the Dutch trading post of Dejima – Japan's only window on the West – tried, as best it could, to maintain itself, in difficult circumstances where the shogun government, stubbornly adhering to the policy of closing the archipelago, had to protect itself both from British covetousness concerning Dejima in the south and from the Russian push on Japan's northern margins. It was through the regular but incomplete reports that the director of the trading post sent to Edo, the shogun capital, and through these sporadic and conflicting contacts that the Bakufu grew aware of the evolution of the balance of power in Europe, of the emergence of Great Britain as a major maritime power, and of the still little known figure of Napoleon.