Contenu du sommaire

Based on the correspondence of two women of the nobility of the robe between 1779 and 1788, this article illustrates the role of women in the production and circulation of scientific knowledge. This exchange is two-way, between the capital and the provinces. Firstly, the Parisian woman, in the forefront of the « magnetic movement », transmits all the information she learns to the woman from Toulouse, herself eager to learn it; secondly, the latter reports her own experiences as a magnetizer. The current article highlights the contradictory positions of these two letter-writers: one skeptical of magnetism, the other devoting herself to it completely, together with two of her sons, members like her of the illuminist masonic circle of the Coëns elect. All three of them use Mesmer's technique in treatment, but at the same time practice practiced cures by artificial somnambulism. They will welcome successively Maxime de Puységur, and Mesmer.

Often evoked but rarely detailed, the plan of Louis XVI's escape from Paris in July 1792 represents a good vantage point for observing the political divergences within the revolutionaries and the counter-revolutionaries. In addition, it demonstrates the concrete political positions taken by certain among the former enlightened aristocrats who would become at first constituents, and later, counter-revolutionaries. Conceived by former ministers, financed by eminent aristocrats, this counter-revolutionary project nonetheless remained a non-event. The Quixotic nature of the plan was no doubt one of the aspects that led to its abandonment. Yet it was above all the power of rumor, stemming from the first « flight » in June 1791, and the political tensions surrounding the king that explained the abandonment of the project. Assailed by the « aristocrats » and the «constitutionalists », Louis XVI deemed it advisable to reject this project on the very eve of its implementation.

The twenty-one deputies of the National Convention guillotined on October 31, 1793 have been traditionally considered as Girondin deputies, removed from power by their Montagnard opponents. The biographical study of Charles Louis Antiboul, deputy of the Var, however, challenges this assertion as lacking in precision. This research highlights the complexity inherent in the classification of certain deputies, who seem to escape the classic tripartite division of contemporary political positions. The non-partisan approach advanced by Antiboul, whose sole aim was to defend the common good, underscores a specific way of positioning oneself politically. The actual reasons behind the death sentence of the Tropezian appear to be twofold. These probably originated in his resolute defense of the department of the Var, which was accused of federalism. And his interrogation by the Marseilles federalists brought about his downfall, because he was suspected of colluding with the « rebels ».

Logistics is part of the dialectic of material and political means implemented by successive governments during the first campaigns of the Revolution (1792-1794). Support systems evolved between centralized and delocalized action. If at the beginning of the conflict a central organization emerged, entrusted with any purchases, commissions gradually replaced the action of the Ministry of War, until its disappearance on April 20, 1794. Logistics made it possible to highlight the transmission of purchases decision-making, shifts from executive to legislative power. Thus, faced with shortages, the armies draw on their own resources, but can, gradually, count on better organized and more diffuse support between the various players in the political game.

Descriptions of military sieges are numerous, though little studied, particularly for the period of the revolutionary wars. A study of a corpus of accounts written by soldiers - whose itineraries must be retraced – demonstrates the permanence of this ancient practice within the Revolution, and illuminates the practice itself. Such reports, however rich in information, are not always neutral. Certain considerations--deferential attitudes of the author towards military hierarchy ; written justifications ; even writings after the fact---could compromise the accuracy of these accounts. Moreover, such writings entered the flood of files in transit between the different military fronts and the authorities. Indeed, the factual reports, together with narratives containing autobiographical overtones, often afforded opportunities for self-justification, and for the preservation of one's honor faced with potentially deadly accusations. The author's aim in this article is to examine a corpus of writings likely to prove the existence of a possible genre of siege narratives.