| Description |
xiv, 212 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm |
| Contents |
Foreword / Yves Beauchemin -- Foreword to the French Edition / Pierre Chanu -- 1. The Awakening of Moderate Opinion -- 2. The Political and Social Reaction -- 3. The March toward Insurrection -- 4. The Defeat of the Sans-Culottes -- 5. The Failure of the Bourgeois Reaction |
| Summary |
Gendron highlights the ways in which the jeunesse doree - although initially used as a means to counteract the revolts of the sans-culottes - were to become one of the driving forces of the reaction, carrying the Convention well beyond its political aims |
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The jeunesse doree, or "gilded youth," were a parallel militia recruited from the ranks of minor officials and small shopkeepers. They formed a distinctive subculture, defined by age and social origin, with their own forms of extravagant dress, their own anthem, their own affectations of speech, their own regular meeting-places in the cafes of the Palais-Royal, and even their own passwords, which were usually indirect references to Louis XVII. Gendron sees them as the shock-troops of the Thermidorian Convention, encouraged and sometimes employed by its Committee of General Security to force the pace of the reaction against the "terrorists," the sans-culottes. This provocation led to the uprisings of Germinal and Prairial and the consequent eviction of the sans-culottes from the political arena |
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In this historical account of the Thermidorian Reaction following the fall of Robespierre in July of 1794, Francois Gendron describes how the sans-culottes - the lower-class radicals who had been the mainspring and vanguard of the French Revolution - were crushed, and analyses the role played by the jeunesse doree in their defeat |
| Analysis |
Politics History, 1789-1815 |
| Notes |
Translation of: La jeunesse sous Thermidor |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages [211]-212) |
| Subject |
Youth -- Political activity -- France -- History -- 18th century.
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| SUBJECT |
France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799.
http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85051319
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| LC no. |
94159401 |
| ISBN |
077350902X |
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