From Jacobin to Liberal - Hardcover

Jullien, Marc-Antoine

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0691032998 ISBN 13: 9780691032993

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 1993

Synopsis

For this book R. R. Palmer has translated selections from the abundant writings of the versatile French political figure and writer Marc-Antoine Jullien, weaving them together with his own extensive commentary into an absorbing narrative of Jullien's life and times. Jullien's hopes and fears for the "progress of humanity" were typical of many of the French bourgeoisie in this turbulent period. His life coincided with the whole era of revolution in Europe and the Americas from 1775 to 1848: he was born in the year when armed rebellion against Britain began in America, he witnessed the fall of the Bastille as a schoolboy in Paris, joined the Jacobin club, took part in the Reign of Terror, advocated democracy, put his hopes in Napoleon Bonaparte, turned against him, and then welcomed his return from Elba. Under the restored Bourbons, he became an outspoken liberal, rejoiced in the revolution of 1830, had doubts about the July monarchy, welcomed the revolution of 1848, and died a few weeks before the election of Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte as president of the Second Republic.

Drawn from books, pamphlets, reports, letters, book reviews, magazine articles, poems, and private notes and memoranda, Jullien's comments are supplemented here by letters that his mother wrote during the early years of the French Revolution and by articles by Jullien's collaborators in the Revue Encyclopédique. In Palmer's skilled hands, these selected materials from a now forgotten life vividly portray France's transition from revolutionary republicanism and the Terror through the Napoleonic years to the more placid liberalism of the nineteenth century.

About this title

About the Author

R. R. Palmer is Professor Emeritus of History, Yale University, and is now affiliated with the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He is the author and translator of numerous works on French history.

Reviews

In the skillful hands of veteran historian Palmer (Yale Univ.), a nearly forgotten individual from the French Revolutionary era is used to describe the day's important persons and events. As a young man, Jullien rose high in the Jacobin party and became a trusted assistant of Robespierre. He managed to survive the reaction against the Reign of Terror and make a career as a journalist, social commentator, and political adviser and bureaucrat. He was an early supporter of Napoleon, though later he feared that the emperor had lost sight of the ideals of the Revolution. Through the years of the Restoration and the July Monarchy, Jullien continued to campaign for liberal reforms and the "progress of humanity." By piecing together excerpts from Jullien's books, pamphlets, articles, letters, and other writings, Palmer gives readers a bird's-eye view of the most turbulent and important decades in French history. Highly recommended.
- T.J. Schaeper, St. Bonaventure Univ., N.Y.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0691032998
• ISBN 13: 9780691032993
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 260