The French Revolution and the cult of the dead

“” Forget the living, honor the dead ; It is the means of securely establishing the Republic ». This Couthon formula realizes the revolutionary paradox underlined by Joseph Clarke. If the revolution has placed the cult of the dead at the heart of its project, it is as a pure political instrument. She did not know how to honor ordinary dead, nor find a language capable of satisfying the mourning of loved ones.

The cult of the dead under the revolution was certainly not a virgin subject. Mona Ozouf, Michel Vovelle, Antoine de Baecque had already shown the difficulties of this cult, worked by the sublime, torn between party and pain, unity and conflict, rehashing and invention. But Joseph Clarke has the merit of reverse the perspectives: he ceases to take an interest in the only political function of the funeral festivals, to reveal the face “ private »Mourning emotions. What resonances could have the death of Mirabeau, Marat or Lepelletier for the simple spectator of their funeral ? How was the institution of the Pantheon, born in April 1791, was perceived from the Paris people ? How the mourning of ordinary victims sacrificed on the altar of the Revolution – winners of the Bastille, “ martyrs »From August 10, 1792, soldiers-citizens who fell in combat-could he incarnate for their families ?

A cultural and political failure

So many questions to which the author answers without concession, to better dismantle a failure both political and cultural. Cultural first, because the revolution and its elites did not understand, he assures, the very strong popular resistances to the secularized worship of great men. Taking reverse the work of Michel Vovelle on the “ dechristianization “Pre-revolutionary, Clarke considers that popular expectations in terms of personal salvation and funeral rites remain extremely traditional. Religious honors would be an essential requirement for relatives of the deceased, beyond that Maurice Agulhon called the “ Non -dogmatic religion of the cult of death ». Also the increasingly secularized rituals-profane therefore in the eyes of spectators-proposed by the Revolution could only provoke indifference or skepticism. Political failure then – and the subject is more classic – because the cult rendered never succeeds, or almost, to celebrate the unity of the nation over time. If the pantheonization of Mirabeau borders on unanimity, that of Voltaire a few months later unleashes the most contradictory passions. If Rousseau was celebrated at the Pantheon as a great philosopher of nature in the fall of 1794, the pantheonization of Descartes decreed in 1793 failed in 1796. We finally know the tribulations of the corps of Marat, glorified in July 1793, pantheonized in September 1794, and exhausted the following year. In addition, the tribute to the violent dead poses the problem of the sacralization of this violence and the dissensus which it necessarily induces. Above all, the unity of the political body could have recovered on the equal celebration of ordinary dead and “ great men ». However, from this point of view, despite official proclamations, the revolution remained deeply unequal, leaving a heavy price of widows and orphans embittered by what they felt as a betrayal.

The broken dream of the unanimity of mourning

The stages of this relentless failure are clearly established. Joseph Clarke shows the ephemeral alliance of patriotism and traditional piety in the first celebrations of the dead “ Winners of the Bastille ». High masses, profundyand funeral stages of the summer of 1789 saw the language of the revolution penetrating the most classic religious language: to hear the sermons of the patriotic priests (including the Father Fauchet, future founder of the social circle), the sacrifice of the heroes would have been of providential nature, the regeneration in progress of moral nature, the supernatural revolution. However, very quickly, the dead of July 14 are forgotten, for the benefit of the new authorities (the Bailly and La Fayette) ; No monument is devoted to them and the civic order is based on the concealment of violence. Likewise, the victims of the Mutiny of Nancy in 1790 were only celebrated on the side of the Order – before being rehabilitated by the Jacobins in 1792. With the funerals of Mirabeau in April 1791, we remain, despite the pantheonization decree, in a traditional ritual that the author compares even to the funeral of Louis XV in 1774. A “ masses And other funeral services celebrated throughout France testify to national mourning with religious forms as much as civic. The religious crisis in progress – in this spring 1791 – nevertheless was not long in bursting during the following pantheonization, that of Voltaire in July 1791. The absence of any recourse to the church made, in the circumstances of the moment, an anti -religious ceremony ; The procession even lent itself to an antimonarchical reading. Suffice to say that the dreamed unanimity of mourning was radically broken.

The very institution of the Pantheon fails to create membership. The aesthetics of the Quinchére de Quincy, allegorical architect, devoted to the abstract homeland more than to great embodied men, comes up against the dominant sensitivities. The Parisians, assured the author, would have preferred him an outdoor Élysée, in accordance with the feeling of nature, or a mixture of civic temple and above church. It is true that from 1792-1793, there is no longer any question of resorting to the Church, even constitutional, to honor the dead of the Revolution. This is precisely the problem, according to Joseph Clarke, because the competing sacredes are both fragile and disputed. The cult of Marat in the summer and in the fall of 1793, shows very strong expectations of religiosity that must be taken seriously: the cult rendered by the Parisian popular classes to the “ martyr “, At “ saint “, To” immortal Marat would not be that metaphorical. But at the same time, political rivalries – in the midst of a federalist crisis and while Robespierre challenges maratism – weaken the memory of the hero sacrificed, especially in the provinces. And less than two years later, Marat’s busts are broken and its body exhumed from the Pantheon.

From 1793, the massive sacrifice of citizens-soldiers (half a million between 1792 and 1799) created new expectations: the collective and egalitarian celebration of heroes who died for the fatherland. Popular companies and clubs propose to erect memorials in their honor. Locally the measure could be achieved here and there, on the other hand, Parisian legislators have never been able to apply their promises, both with regard to the heroes of August 10 and soldiers of the year II. Only modest pensions were paid to war widows, very quickly made derisory by rampant inflation. Under the Directory, the rites and the stone only celebrate the generals mowed by the war-the Hoche and the Joubert-, in a semi-family ritual of which the Champ-de-Mars is the epicenter. Anonymous victims remain the outsets of a cultural cult of the dead.

Religious or secular worship ?

The work, incisive, often makes it possible to move the eyes, to the province and rare individuals – often grieved widows – whose complaints are integrated into the story. However, he does not always convince. On the form, break at all costs “ idols Historians – in turn Michel Vovelle, Mona Ozouf, Philippe Ariès, or Annie Jourdan – lacks a little humility. However, the chapters are unevenly new and enlightening. Everything related to the Pantheon, the cult of Marat or Lepelletier, the cult of the generals of the Directory, will hardly surprise. Then, the overall bias raises many questions. We will not evoke the murderous formulas with regard to a mangile revolution of men and ungrateful towards his own martyrs … But, strictly theoretically, is it very legitimate, in this cult of the revolutionary deaths, to closely distinguish a sphere “ private “Religious and a sphere” public ” policy ? The neighbors, close to the companions of the “ Winners of the Bastille “They only experience affections” private »» ? The characteristic of imaginary political communities is not to blur such borders ? We note by parenthesis that references to anthropology and sociology are almost absent. Furthermore, if we are convinced by the idea of ​​a strong popular expectation of religious tributes to the deceased, we can challenge their interpretation. Is it a loyalty to Tridentine Catholicism or a simple attachment to the Church like “ pump machine »(Maurice Agulhon) ? The author contrasts in favor of the first hypothesis, without massive evidence in support. The unpopularity of the pantheon, similarly, is as systematic as the author supports ? Is the secular worship of great men reducible to an elite culture, like the penchant for allegory ? Can we deny as radically as the author makes the birth of a “ New cult of the dead »(Philippe Ariès) at the end of XVIII^e and at the beginning of XIX^e century ? The end of “ common pits », The individualization of memory, the distance from the living and the dead, the advent of the large modern, partially secularized necropolises, following the great decree of Prairial an XIIall this does not simply lead to restoring a religious cult of the dead, cult that the revolution would have artificially broken. In total, the book – this is not the least of its qualities – undoubtedly deserves discussion but opens up stimulating reflections, especially on the sacred in politics, too reduced here to its traditional religious dimension.