POLITICAL PRISONERS IN FRENCH MENTAL INSTITUTIONS BEFORE 1789, DURING THE REVOLUTION, AND UNDER NAPOLEON I

Political prisoners in French mental institutions before 1789, during the Revolution, and under Napoleon I.

BEFoRE 1789 mental patients were interned in France in three types of institutions: the state-directed hopital general, the clerical institution (often called charit6), and the small private pension, maison de sante. Hopital general is a misnomer and a euphemism. In Germany at that time these institutions were far more appropriately called Zuchthdiuser, in England "work-houses", and in certain ...

The French Revolution, 1789-1799

Napoleon Bonaparte’s Concordat and the French Revolution

In 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte and Pope Pius XVII signed an agreement called the Concordat, which was an agreement between the French state and the Catholic Church that reconciled the Church with the antireligious policies established during the French Revolution. This paper discusses the conflicting viewpoints held by various historians concerning the legacy of the Concordat; that is, did the agr...

Drought and the French Revolution: The effects of adverse weather conditions on peasant revolts in 1789

This paper examines the role of adverse climatic conditions on political protest and institutional development. In particular, it assesses the role of adverse climate on the eve of the French Revolution on peasant uprisings in 1789. Historians have argued that crop failure in 1788 and cold weather in the winter of 1788/89 led to peasant revolts in various parts of France. To test this hypothesi...

The language of enlightened politics: The Société de 1789 in the French revolution

The Socidtd de 1789 was a political club founded in early 1790 to propagate the ideals of the Revolution and the Enlightenment. A systematic analysis of the language found in the public discourse of the Socidtd using simple quantitative techniques suggests important distinctions in comparison to the language found in a baseline sample, a selection of the General Cahiers de doldances of 1789. It...