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How did we get here?

By 1813, Napoleon’s weaknesses had started to show. His 1812 Russian campaign (which I’ve talked about here) had been a disaster, incurring losses up to 1/2million on the French side alone. Russian forces were now marching into Poland, intent on driving Napoleon out of central Europe entirely. What’s more, the Peninsular War (1807-1814) was draining French resources even further, engaging c.200,000 soldiers in a battle against British, Spanish, and Portuguese forces.

Despite this, Napoleon still managed to raise an army of c.150,000 to continue fighting. These were primarily conscripts from France, plus some defectors from other countries (Poland, Italy, Germany). They had little loyalty to him, and his army had grown so large and diverse that he was forced to rely on marshals to help govern it. This was certainly a contributing factor to his ultimate downfall, and his enemies knew it.

For at the same time, Britain, Spain and Portugal were joined by Austria, Prussia, Russia, Sweden, and some German states in forming the Sixth Coalition (1813-14). Yep, you read that right: by this point in the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815), there had been 40+ battles and 6 coalitions. But this one had learnt from its mistakes, and agreed to avoid battle with Napoleon directly. Instead, they focused their efforts on those forces under the command of his marshals, aiming to diminish his military power through attrition. They formalised their strategy in the Trachenberg Plan.

1813 saw a mix of victories and defeats for Napoleon. But none were so decisive as his early victories, and he was losing men to injury, defection, and illness all the way. By October, his allies had started to notice: Bavaria, alongside some other German states, defected to the Sixth Coalition. His enemies were closing in fast, and Napoleon had to act. Abandoning his plans to seize Berlin, he instead decided to regroup nearby: in Leipzig.

Here, he met the Sixth Coalition and over the next 4 days, they fought in the bloodiest European battle prior to WW1. I vividly remember my A Level history teacher making this comparison: the death toll at Leipzig was the equivalent of a passenger plane crashing every 10 minutes, non stop, for 4 days. Both sides suffered immense losses, but the allied forces emerged victorious. This was to be a turning point in Napoleon’s fortunes.

Napoleon lost his German territories and was forced to withdraw his forces from across Europe. He returned to home, where he tried to fend off allied forces as they began marching toward France. But at the end of March 1814, Paris had fallen.

The Treaty

François Bouchot & Gaetano Ferri, Napoléon signe son abdication à Fontainebleau 11 avril 1814 (1843)

The Treaty of Fontainebleau was signed by Napoleon and representatives of Austria, Russia, and Prussia on 11 April 1814. Napoleon’s initial proposal to see his son, Napoleon II, enstated as Emperor of France was rejected. Instead, the Treaty drew up 21 articles, summarised as follows:

• Napoleon was stripped of his empirical powers, land, and jewels

• He and his relatives were prohibited from regaining power in France

• He was sent into exile of the island of Elba. This was established as a separate principality over which Napoleon would preside as sovereign, until his death

• Napoleon was given some allowances, including an annual income and a personal staff of 400 men

Interestingly, the British refused to sign the Treaty of Fontainebleau. They believed that doing so would legitimise Napoleon’s title as Emperor of France. They also thought it a bad idea to place him so close to Italy and France, when both still contained pockets of Jacobin support. They worried this may make a return easy for him. They were right, of course.

For while this Treaty did stabilise Europe for a while, peace did not last long. Napoleon made a stinted comeback to France in 1815 with his Hundred Days campaign, which culminated in the Battle of Waterloo. Here, he was captured by British forces and exiled to the Island of St Helena, where he lived out the remaining 6 years of his life. In his place, Louis XVIII, brother of King Louis XVII, was named ruler of France.

It makes you wonder: what did the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars really achieve? A lot, actually, but that’s a story for another day.

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How did we get here?

The Battle of Rivoli follows on almost directly from the events outlined in my post about the Battle of Arcola (15th November 1796). Check out that article for a full run down, as well as for some background context and recommended reading.

Battle of Rivoli

The following January, Alvinczi made his 4th and final attempt to relieve the siege of Mantua. On 13th, he marched a 28,000 strong Austrian army towards Rivoli. When night fell, he decided to set up camp on the southern slopes of Monte Baldo. It was clear to Napoleon that this force would constitute the main Austrian attack, so he sent some of his men to drive them further toward Rivoli, while he rode ahead to survey the battleground.

The battle itself began at 7am the following morning. At this time, Napoleon’s forces were badly outnumbered, set at c.10,000 under General Joubert compared to Alvinczy’s 28,000. However, Alvinczy’s convoluted plan of attack meant that only 12,000 of his men would be involved in the first stage of fighting. He had decided to split the Austrian army into 6 columns with the aim of surrounding and enveloping the smaller French army. But this plan effectively reduced the Austrian advantage in numbers and, as fate would have it, meant that around half of the remaining troops never participated in most, if not all, of the battle!

Henri Félix Emmanuel Philippoteaux, ‘Napoleon at the Battle of Rivoli’ (1844)

The last Austrian attack came at 11am, when another of Alvinczy’s 6 columns finally made its way onto the battlefield (lol). Technically, the Austrian troops now had Napoleon surrounded, but his defeat of one of the columns and the opportune arrival of more French forces under Masséna meant that he was well-placed to deal with this new threat. Seeing this, another Austrian column surrendered. This forced Alvinczy to order his remaining divisions to retreat.

They fled back north towards La Corona, but Napoleon sent Joubert after them the following day. By 16th January, around 15,000 Austrians had been taken prisoner! Only c.13,000 remained and escaped with Alvinczy. And Napoleon could have followed them too, if he hadn’t needed to leave for Mantua that same evening. It was a decisive victory.

By the end of March 1797, Mantua had fallen and Napolen was marching on Vienna. The commander of the Austria troops called for a truce. This culminated in the pair signing a peace treaty at Campo Formio in October that year, a document which was negotiated by Napoleon himself.

Significance

The Battle of Rivoli was the climactic event of Napoleon’s 1796-97 Italian campaign. It led to the Austrian surrender of Mantua, the consolidation of French power in northern Italy, and ultimately France’s victory over the Austrian forces later that year. It also demonstrated Napoleon’s proficiency as a military leader. The Italian Campaign established him as an inspirational military figure, particularly due to the care he gave his men, the effectiveness of his pillaging, and his military tactics.

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How did we get here?

Napoleon Bonaparte, a young and largely unknown military commander, was appointed commander-in-chief of the Italian Campaign on 2 March 1796 by Paul Barras. Barras was the main executive leader of the Directory (1795–1799) and had seen Napoleon’s ambition and aptitude following his now famous “Whiff of Grapeshot” victory against Royalist forces at 13 Vendémiaire the previous year. But by placing him in command of the Army of Italy, Bonaparte was being assigned to the most obscure and neglected of the Republic’s military fronts.

Napoleon’s quick and multiple victories in this Italian Campaign therefore came quite unexpectedly. Especially against Austria, which was at that time a major power. Upon his arrival on the front, Napoleon launched attacks against his enemy almost immediately: on 10th May, he fought the Battle of Lodi against Austrian forces. It ended with a French victory: Napoleon occupied Milan and pillaged various artworks. His success was so resounding, in fact, that it was publicised to the extent that both the Pope and the King of Naples were persuaded to sign rapid peace treaties and to pay indemnities in an effort to avoid a French take-over!

But Napoleon wasn’t stopping there. He went on to capture 3 fortress towns: Peschiera, Verona, and Legnago. And by October 1796, was in his 4th month of beseiging the last: Mantua. These fortresses were all that stood in the Austrians’ way of gaining control of the Alpine passes, and by extension, of northern Italy. It was therefore crucial that Napoleon held his ground. He had already defeated 2 Austrian armies sent to attack him at Mantua, and a 3rd was now on its way…

Battle of Arcola

This battle was a 3 day affair (15 - 17th Nov) fought between a French army of c.14,000 under Napoleon and an Austrian of c.22,000 under Alvinczy. It followed the Battle of Caldiero on 12th November, when Napoleon took 18,000 men away from the seige at Mantua to march against the Austrians. It was a miserable day, and a short defeat for the French. Napoleon lost c.2000 men and quickly withdrew to Verona. But here, he had a stroke of genius: while Austrian troops under Davidovitch and Wurmster were blocked / preoccupied with Mantua, he would launch a surprise attack against Alvinczy from the rear.

And this they did. But Napoleon’s men were tired, demoralised, and nothing Napoleon could say would whip them into shape for another battle. That was, until he decided to lead the charge himself. He took off across the corpse-littered bridge at Arcola and ran straight into an onslaught of Austrian fire. But their attack didn’t last long: slogged down by this fire, and with several men around him wounded, an officer grabbed Napoleon and pushed him off the bridge and into a nearby ditch in an attempt to save his life. As the Austrian’s continued their attack, the French were forced to retreat further.

Antoine-Jean Gros, Bonaparte au Pont d’Arcole (1796)

It was around midnight on 16th November when Napoleon received word that Davidovich was currently marching towards him. By the time he found out this was a lie, it was already too late: he had pulled his troops from Arcola and Austrian forces had taken control. He had to fight them all over again.

After a day of fighting, Alvinczi’s hold over Arcola remained, but had been weakened. He had sustained multiple casualties and had lost contact with 1/3 of his army, which was busy fighting an approaching French division led by Masséna. Furthermore, the arrival of Augereau’s men from Mantua meant that Napoleon’s army was now reinforced by some 3000 men, giving them a numerical advantage over the Austrians.

The next day, on 17th November, the French army was flagging. Augereau’s division had begun to wave and Alvinczi was funnelling more and more troops into Arcola, where most of the fighting was now taking place. But just when all hope seemed lost, General Masséna arrived with his division! Leaving a single brigade exposed on the Arcole and Porcile roads, he concealed the rest of his division in the willows and dykes; the Austrian garrison of Arcole fell for the trap and sallied out to attack the exposed brigade. It was at this moment that Masséna gave the signal and pounced on the garrison. The surprised Austrians were easily cut down and scattered after suffering heavy losses. Augereau’s division, reinforced by cavalry from Legnago, returned to the fight, and together Masséna and Augereau entered Arcole after 5 p.m. Realizing his army was in a terrible position, Alvinczi ordered his whole army to retreat toward Vicenza overnight.

The next morning, French patrols found the Austrian camps deserted.

Significance

Though the Battle of Arcola may not appear to be a success other than in name for Napoleon, it did help cement his reputation as a military force to be reckoned with. It set him up for further successes in his capturing of Mantua and his defeat of Austrian forces at the Battle of Rivoli, too - I'll be talking about the latter very soon 👀 And ultimately, it contributed to the Franco-Austrian peace Treaty of Campo Formio which ended the War of the First Coalition.

Recommended reading

• Boycott-Brown, Martin, The Road to Rivoli: Napoleon’s First Campaign (UNKNO, 2001)

• Knapton, Ernest J., ‘A Contemporary Impression of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1797’, French Historical Studies vol.1 no.4 (Duke University Press, 1960)

• Rothenberg, Gunther E., The Napoleonic Wars (London, 2001)

• Schneid, Frederick C., ‘Chapter 17 - Napoleon’s Military Campaigns in Europe’, in: The Cambridge History of The Napoleonic Wars Volume II (Cambridge University Press, 2022)

• Von Clausewitz, Carl; Murray, Nicholas; & Pringle, Christopher, ‘The Campaign and Battle of Arcole’ in: Napoleon’s 1796 Italian Campaign (University Press of Kansas, 2018), pp. 161-212

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French counter-revolution

Both during and after the French Revolution, there were groups of “counter-revolutionaries” who opposed it for its ideological grounds, actions, or oftentimes both. These counter-revolutionaries can be split into 4 rough groups: nationalists, Catholics, royalists, and conservatives. However, they all believed much the same thing: that the events of 1789 lead to the subsequent degeneration of French society.

Revolution as anti-Christian

Catholics almost universally viewed the Revolution as fundamentally irreligious. In his 1799 ‘Die Christenheit oder Europa’, German poet and philosopher Novalis wrote that France’s ostracisation from (the Christian) religion would have catastrophic implications. But before this, the idea was best expressed by Joseph de Maistre in his seminal Considerations on France (1797), a work which is generally considered to be the first history of the Revolution. In it, he asserts that the Revolution was a divine punishment for France’s religious transgression. He even likens the assassination of Louis XVI to that of Christ, arguing that sacrifice is a foundational element of human society. To his mind, this symbolises a cleansing, and the idea that something regenerative will follow.

Bit of a side note, but de Maistre’s text also features one of my favourite ever quotes about the Revolution: he refers to the revolutionaries themselves as ‘ants on the wheels of doom’. Love it!

Revolution as anti-Romantic

The counter-revolutionary reaction to the French Revolution (and subsequently to Napoleon), is often cited as one of the crucial domains in which ‘Romanticism’ starts to emerge.

The Revolution encouraged the movement of people across the continent (read “encouraged” as “forced”), which in turn lead to a greater mobility of ideas. Europe had never been smaller, and politicians, philosophers, poets, writers, etc from across the continent wanted to have a say on the happenings in France. British poets Wordsworth and Coleridge became disillusioned with the Revolution by the end of the 1790s, writing about it in the Romantic terms of progress, change, and ruin. Goethe too, a German writer, likened the Revolution’s aesthetic approach to politics as a form of atomisation.

Revolution as plot

Conspiracy and plot played a huge role in counter-revolutionary ideas. Both in France and abroad, there was a looming sense of paranoia. Edmund Burke, in his ‘Reflection on the Revolution in France’ (1790), claimed there were ‘already confederacies and correspondences of the most extraordinary nature are forming in several countries’. He theorised that the French might cross the Channel and invade England. He also outlined his belief that the Revolution would soon descend into chaos and Terror. In both instances, of course, he was later proven right. Burke’s text is often viewed as one of the primary counter-revolutionary attacks on the Revolution at the time. Not least due to its prophetic nature.

Before I move onto how the idea of Revolution and plot became entwined with the conspiracy of the Illuminati, we’ll first need to take a look at the history of the organisation.

The Illuminati

Adam Weishaupt, a professor of law at the University of Ingolstadt, Bavaria, founded a secret society called ‘Illuminati’ in 1776. Formed of us 5 members, Weishaupt’s aim was to give order to the form of Enlightenment he wanted to see in Germany, and the rest of the world. He had become disillusioned with religion and what he viewed as its prejudices, believing instead that society should be governed by liberty and moral equality. Through the Illuminati, he hoped to foster a space in which he, his peers, and his students might discuss ideas of how to achieve this goal.

Symbol of the Illuminati

They used Freemason lodges as meeting places, and this is how the Illuminati’s ideas began to spread throughout Germany. By 1780, the secret society had 1500+ members across Bavaria, France, Hungary, Italy and Poland - including, at one point, Goethe! This was to be the height of its success, however, as soon enough its operation reached the ears of the Duchy of Bavaria and the Bavarian State Government, both of which were very Catholic.

After a series of edicts in 1785 and 1786, the house of one of the senior Illuminatus was raided. The organisation was then shut down and Weishaupt banished from Ingolstadt to live the rest of his life in the German city of Gotha. By 1786, the Illuminati was over.

Conspiracy theory

What, then, do the Illuminati have to do with the French Revolution, an event which started 3 years after its end?

Well, it seemed that the idea of a secret society revolting against the state had captured public imagination. John Robison, a physicist (of all things), published in his ‘Proofs of a Conspiracy’ (1797) that the Revolution was the work of a covert Masonic cell known as the Illuminati. While Burke’s assertion that ‘confederacies and correspondences’ were forming across ‘several countries’, Robison instead identified a single entity as holding responsibility. And the political heavyweights like Danton, Marat, and Robespierre, who were commonly seen as the driving forces of the Revolution, were merely puppets in its game. And the Illuminati was an obvious choice. And one which was to become the world’s first conspiracy theory (probably).

The Illuminati’s clearly anti-religious standpoint had been made clear from its hundreds of pamphlets and propaganda. And ever since its exposing in the previous year, it had become the focal point for the anxieties of church and monarchy about the agenda of reason and progress that was being seeded across Europe. In this climate, it wasn’t then too far fetched to suggest that the group crushed by Bavarian authorities had only been one arm of a much larger, much more sinister organisation. One which Robison saw as responsible for all the current evils of the world.

It sounds slightly insane, but ‘Proofs of a Conspiracy’, despite casting an unfortunate shadow over Robison’s physicist career, was an instant best-seller! And a similar, almost identical theory arose in another part of Europe…

In his Memoirs pour servir à l’histoire du jacobinisme, written in 1797, French journalist and Jesuit priest Abbé Augustin Barruel claimed that the Revolution was a result of protestants, freemasons (which had been infiltrated by the Illuminati), Germans, and Jews. He asserted that they were plotting to overthrow Christianity and establish a new World Republic.

Front cover of the 1799 English translation of Barruel’s ‘History of Jacobinism’

Barruel was an emigré at the time of writing this, having been forced out of France due to his staunchly Catholic beliefs. It is interesting to note that he not only viewed the Revolution as anti-Christian like de Maistre and Novalis, but as something fundamentally un-French. By using marginalised groups as scapegoats, he is implying that external influences are the primary cause of France’s current debasement.

Interestingly, a variant of this theory can also be found in the work of Nicholas Bonneville, a revolutionary Freemason from Normandy. He claimed that Jesuits were responsible for introducing crime and mythology into freemasonry, and that a Masonic conspiracy called the ‘Cercle social’ had caused the Revolution. This claim has a slightly factual basis in that the Illuminati did indeed spread its ideology internationally through Masonic lodges, but after this point, it falls flat. There was no such thing as 'the ‘Cercle social’.

Regardless of the falsity of these claims (which were clearly fuelled by something more along the lines of perceived religious persecution), the idea that a secret society of social outcasts were responsible for history’s “bad” moments is one which has had surprising longevity. After this initial accusation, the Illuminati have been held responsible for all manner of historical events, including the Russian Revolution and the assassination of John F Kennedy! It continues to be the main subject of conspiracy theories, although these origins are little known.

What do you think? Is the Illuminati still around today?

Recommended reading

• Barruel, Augustine Memoirs pour servir à l’histoire du jacobinisme (1797)

• Burke, Edmund, ‘Reflection on the Revolution in France’ (1790)

• de Maistre, Joseph, Considerations on France (1797)

• Jay, Mike, ‘Darkness Over All: John Robison and the Birth of the Illuminati Conspiracy’, The Public Domain Review (2014)

• Novalis, ‘Christendom or Europe [Die Christenheit oder Europa]’ (1799), German History in Documents and Images (GHDI)

• Robison, John, Proofs of a Conspiracy (1797)

• Taylor, Michael, ‘British Conservatism, the Illuminati, and the Conspiracy Theory of the French Revolution, 1797–1802’, Eighteenth-Century Studies vol.47 no.3 (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014), pp. 293-312

• Vicary, Matthew, ‘The birthplace of the Illuminati’, BBC Travel (2017)

Please note that all translations from French to English in this article are my own.

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The commission

In 1837, St Pauls Cathedral in Liege commissioned Belgian artist Joseph Geefs to create a series of statues under the theme of the ‘Triumph of Religion over the Genius of Evil’. Geefs’ sculptural work had risen to prominence following Belgian’s successful Revolution in 1830-31 due to his ability to capture nationalist spirit, both in design and his choice of subjects.

Les statues de [Joseph] Geefs frappent par leur finition parfaite, la grâce, la pose élégante voire poétique.

Geefs’ statues are striking for their perfect finish, their grace, their elegant, even poetic pose.

De Geest, Joost, 500 chefs-d'oeuvre de l'art belge (Lannoo Uitgeverij, 2006), p203 [ref]

The statue of Lucifer was intended to be set at the rear end of the pulpit, within an open niche formed at the base of two twin ornate staircases:

Only, this (^) isn’t Joseph’s statue. It’s actually a second iteration of the commissioned Lucifer statue, completed in 1848 by his brother Guillaume.

Reception

You see, when Joseph finished his depiction of Lucifer in 1842 and it was installed in the space, it generated immediate controversy. Let’s take a look at it:

Joseph Geefs, Le’ange du mal. Marble. 168.5 x 86 x 65.5cm. Currently held in the Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels [catalogue entry]. Photo from De Geest, Joost, 500 chefs-d'oeuvre de l'art belge (Lannoo Uitgeverij, 2006), p203 [here].

Joseph’s L’ange du mal depicts a young male figure atop a rock. Were it not for the serpent and mandorla of bat wings, it hardly appears to depict a traditional image of the Devil. In fact, this was the main cause of concern among the church administration: it did not represent a Christian ideal and was inappropriate to its setting. It was too sexual, too alluring to young, sensitive girls (or in fact, the clergy!)… in short:

Ce diable-là est trop sublime

This devil is too sublime

L’Émancipation, 4 August 1844, as cited by Jacques Van Lennep, La sculpture belge au 19ème siècle : [exposition, générale de Banque, Bruxelles, 5 octobre-15 décembre 1990] (1990)

And it’s not hard to see why. Joseph’s figure is almost androgynous, with a slim, curved body and daintily crossed ankles. His knees rest slightly open, seductively so, and his upper torso, arms, and legs are fully nude. He is clad only in a cloth that drapes over his lap. His face is soft, eyes cast downward, with hair that reaches his nape.

And so, very soon after its installation, Bishop van Bommel ordered Joseph’s sculpture to be removed. In its place, the building committee commissioned his brother Guillaume to create a second version of Lucifer, and this time, with less sex appeal.

Guillaume’s replacement

The building committee passed Guillaume designed the whole set of statues again. On the public-facing end of the pulpit, statues of Saints Peter, Paul, and Hubert, as well as the first Bishop of Liège: Lambert of Maastricht, were to occupy the niches:

Guillame’s statues in the niches on the public-facing side of the pulpit [ref].

And in the same space as Joseph’s sculpture went Guillaume’s new creation: his Le génie du mal. Let’s take a look:

Guillaume Geefs, Le genie du mal. Marble. 165 x 77 x 65 cm. [ref]

At first glance, Guillaume’s version of the statue is strikingly similar to his brother’s. It too couples realism with Neoclassical restraint, namely in the combination of human and bat anatomy. Its figure is scantily clothed, sat on a rock (chained this time), and his gaze is cast downward. But now we see the changes: his body is more stereotypically masculine, still curved but more muscular, broader and better defined. His positioning is different: an arm is raised and its hand grips his hair - this is more voluminous too. A broken sceptre and simple crown are held at his right hip. The serpent at his feet has been replaced by an apple - a nod to original sin. And finally, a single tear falls from his left eye.

It was installed into the cathedral permanently in 1848, without complain. But is it really a more sexually subdued iteration of his brother’s Lucifer portrait? Or is it… unwittingly… sexier?

I’ll leave that for you to decide. But either way, I find it interesting that Guillaume’s statue was accepted where his brother’s was not. Why? Was it due to the androgeny of Joseph’s version? Its openness? Or something else? Let me know what you think down below.

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How did we get here?

After Robespierre’s execution, the Terror had effectively come to an end. France was left in a vulnerable state and the question of what happens next played on everyone’s minds. The Revolution, according to some historians, was over, and it was time to move on. The period that followed became known as the Thermidorian Reaction, and was marked by blame, violence, and an attempt to rebuild French society.

The people wanted to move away from the radical ideas which had defined the past few years, and so they sought to rid France of those associated with Robespierre and his politics - those they saw to blame for the excesses of Revolution. In this White Terror, hundreds of radicals were executed without trial, many from the Jacobin Club.

Meanwhile, there were attempts to reestablish political order. The Thermidorians favoured more moderate political ideas, and even gave heed to Royalist sympathies once more. They decentralised executive powers from the Committee of Public Safety and sought to distance themselves from the sans-culottes, who had been the driving force for so much of the Revolution. This led to the collapse of the armed, popular movement. The Thermidorians also abolished the Maximum and issues more assignats to control the resulting inflation. They put down various radical insurrections. And brought those radicals who had survived the White Terror in for questioning - some were then sent into exile, while others were accepted back into the political fold.

Elsewhere, the French army enjoyed successes in Europe, including their conquest of the Dutch Republic and subsequent establishment of the Batavian Republic.

France had been rid of the Regime of Terror and was ready of its replacement.

Max Adamo, ‘The Fall of Robespierre in the National Convention on July 27, 1794’ (1870)

The Constitution of Year III

On 22 August 1795, the Constitution of the Year III was drawn up. It aimed to prevent a return to the dictatorship of the Committee of Public Safety (headed by Robespierre) or a monarchy, and also to prevent rebellions from the sans-culottes. Additionally, it aimed for a return to a good justice system. The Constitution signalled an attempt to stabilise the governance of France and return its basis to pre-Terror revolutionary ideals.

It replaced the National Convention with 2 distinct Councils:

• Council of 500

  • Men over 30

  • Can initiate legislation

• Council of Ancients (250 of them)

  • Men over 40

  • Can approve or reject legislation

There were annual elections to both, with a third of their total members being replaced each year to minimise impact. By this time, there was an electorate in France of 30,000.

As for the Committee of Public Safety, it was replaced by an executive Directory of 5 men. These men were chosen by the Council of Ancients and they remained in office for 5 years. Each year, one was chosen to retire.

The Directory

However, none of this was implemented quickly. It wasn’t until the 25th October that the Convention declared itself dissolved and the Directory was established in its wake.

The Directory remained in power until 1799, when it was overthrown by Napoleon in the Coup of 18 Brumaire (10th November). For some reason I was convinced I’d written an article on this, but I have not… so expect it in about a year’s time!

During its lifetime, the Directory fought against several European coalitions, supported Napoleon’s military invasion of Egypt, and defeated another Royalist-led civil war in the Vendée. It put an end to the mass executions which had marked the Terror and Thermidorian Reaction and fought against various Jacobin uprisings. It also hardened measures against the Church and émigrés.

However, it was ultimately too weak to succeed. Some of its policies backfired - for example, in an attempt to curb restore French currency to its original value, the Directory decided to stop printing assignats. But in doing so, they created a new crisis: prices and wages fell, and economic activity all but stopped. Furthermore, while annual elections seemed like a good way of preventing the concentration of power, they succeeded only in created structural instability in the new system of governance. Lastly, there was no mechanism to resolve disputes between directors and the councils. This led to inaction and forced the directors to turn to the military for support. And this is how Napoleon ultimately got in…

Recommended reading

• Adams, Christine, ‘Venus of the Capitol: Madame Tallien and the Politics of Beauty under the Directory’, French Historical Studies 37 (2014), pp.599-629.

• Baczko, Bronislaw, Ending the Terror: the French Revolution after Robespierre.

• Brown, Howard, Ending the French Revolution: Violence, Justice and Repression from the Terror to Napoleon

• Brown, Howard, Miller, Judith (eds.), Taking Liberties: Problems of a New Order from the French Revolution to Napoleon

• Hunt, Lynn, et al, ‘The failure of the liberal republic in France, 1795-99’, Journal of Modern History, 51 4 (Dec 1979).

• Jainchill, Andrew, Reimagining Politics after the Trror: the Republican origins of French Liberalism

• Lefebvre, Georges, The Directory.

• Livesey, James, Making Democracy in the French Revolution

• Lyons, Martin, France under the Directory.

• Sydenham, M.J., The First French Republic.

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How did we get here?

On the night of 20-21st June, Louis XVI and his family tried to flee Paris in what became known as the Flight to Varennes. Fearful of the radicalisation of the Revolution and what that meant for his position, and his life, they attempted to escape to Montmédy, where Louis felt he could be kept safe under the protection of royalist troops. Ironically, this succeeded only in worsening public perception of him. Many believed that he had betrayed France and could no longer be trusted.

Marquis de Lafayette and the National Constituent Assembly attempted to subdue the growing unrest by creating a lie that the King had been kidnapped. Upon his return to Paris, they then forced him to agree to a constitutional monarchy, modelled on the British mode of governance. While this had been a well-considered option previously, the Flight to Varennes caused many to pause for thought, and the idea of a French Republic was rapidly gaining momentum.

The massacre

Contemporary print by an anonymous artist. The caption reads "Men, Women, Children were massacred on the altar of the fatherland at the Champ de la Fédération" (1791)

The Champ de Mars was (and still is) a large public green space in Paris, which was used throughout the Revolution for political demonstrations and celebrations. Arguably the most famous of which occurred on 17th July 1791, when a crowd of over 50,000 gathered to sign a petition calling for the King’s abdication. The Petition, drafted by the Cordeliers Club, demanded that the National Assembly remove the King from power. Or, failing that, they allow the future of the monarchy to be put to a national referendum. The Cordeliers felt this was the necessary next step in the progression of the Revolution, and of French society. They argued that, in fleeing to Varennes the month prior, the King had effectively abdicated already. This petition was essentially a Republican manifesto, and was backed by influential figures like Georges Danton, Jacques-Pierre Brissot, and Thomas Paine.

The demonstration was set to be held on the “altar of the fatherland”, which had been erected to celebrate the anniversary of the Bastille’s fall. But when the first trickle of supporters arrived in the early hours of the morning, they found 2 dishevelled men lying asleep underneath. Mistaking them for conspirators against their cause, they lynched the 2 men. Upon hearing of this, and fearing a more serious insurrection than that he had put to death in February, Lafayette ordered the National Guard to attend the scene.

Parisian mayor Jean Sylvain Bailly decided to institute marital law and ordered that Lafayette and his troops disperse the demonstrators. Their first attempt succeeded, and order was restored. But the crowds only returned stronger, and more determined in the afternoon. Lafayette tried again, but in retaliation the crowds threw stones at the National Guard. They fired some warning shots, but these failed to quell the crowd, so the Guard opened fire.

It is estimated that around a dozen people were killed, and more wounded. In the weeks that followed, Lafayette cracked down on Republican and anti-monarchist activities, and the supporters of this campaign decided to lay low. But they weren’t deterred for long.

As for Lafayette, our previously revered hero of the American Revolutionary War, well, his reputation never recovered. He was still an active figure in the Revolution after this point, but he had lost the people’s trust to lead it in the right direction.

Recommended reading

• Andress, David, ‘Massacre at the Champ de Mars: Popular Dissent and Political Culture in the French Revolution’, Royal Historical Society Studies in History New Series vol.17 (Royal Historical Society, 2000)

• Andress, David, ‘The Denial of Social Conflict in the French Revolution: Discourses around the Champ de Mars Massacre, 17 July 1791’, French Historical Studies vol.22 no.2 (Duke University Press, 1999)

• Andress, David, The French Revolution and the People (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2006)

• Rudé, George Frederick Elliot The Crowd in the French Revolution (Clarendon Press, 1959)

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How did we get here?

Mere weeks before the storming of the Bastille, the King had called for an Estates-General, a legislative assembly composed of representatives from France’s 3 Estates: the clergy (First Estate), the nobility (Second Estate), and the commoners (Third Estate). This was the first time and Estates-General had been called since 1614, and Louis XVI had hoped that it would help solve the country's fiscal and agricultural crisis. However, the group immediately ran into a problem: there was no proportional representation. Each Estate had the same voting power, meaning that while the Third Estate represented c.98% of the French population, it could be out-voted by the remaining 2%. Put simply, the system clearly favoured the nobility and clergy in a way which did not sit right with contemporary French society.

Realising that any attempt they gave at reform would be outvoted by the first 2 Estates, the Third Estate refused to sit in their delegated sections and instead banded together to form a group they called a National Assembly on 17 June. They were soon joined by some sympathetic members of the other Estates. A few days later, in an attempt to stop the Assembly from meeting, Louis XVI ordered the doors of the Salle des Menus-Plaisir (where the Estates-General was being held) to be locked and guarded by soldiers. Fearing that an attack against them was imminent, the National Assembly congregated in a nearby tennis court and drafted the Serment du Jeu de Paume (The Tennis Court Oath).

Tennis Court Oath

The Tennis Court Oath was drafted by Antoine Barnave and Isaac Le Chapelier. It was inspired by the 1776 United States Declaration of Independence and, according to some historians, represented the start of the French Revolution. All but one of the 577 members from the Third Estate took the oath. It read:

Nous jurons de ne pas nous séparer, et de nous rassembler partout où les circonstances l'exigeront, jusqu'à ce que la Constitution du royaume soit établie et affermie sur des bases solides.

We swear that we will not separate, and that we will come together whenever circumstances require it, until such time as the Kingdom’s Constitution is established and consolidated on solid foundations.

Translation by me.

Jacques-Louis David, ‘Le Serment du Jeu de paume’ (1791)

The oath, therefore, was a pledge. A pledge not to disband until France had a Constitution. It asserted that political authority derived from the people and their representatives rather than the monarchy. This was a radical undoing of the system of absolute monarchy which had governed France for so long.

In an attempt to prevent further meetings, the King’s brother: the count of Artois rented out the tennis court on the days following. But the newly-formed National Assembly simply relocated to the Versailles Cathedral. And by the 27th June, the King was forced to relent. He formally requested that voting occur based on head count, and he ordered the clergy and nobility to join the Third Estate in the National Assembly (an order which gave the illusion that he controlled it). This granted the Third Estate the power they desired, and gave credence to the notion of the power of the people, an idea which came to define the Revolution thereafter.

Recommended reading

• Alpaugh, Micah, ‘Part II - The French Revolution Radicalizes Social Movement’ in: Friends of Freedom: The Rise of Social Movements in the Age of Atlantic Revolutions (Cambridge University Press, 2021), pp. 223-430

• Fitzsimmons, Michael P., The Remaking of France: The National Assembly and the Constitution of 1791 (Cambridge University Press, 2009) [especially Part 1, pp. 1-140]

• Johnson, Eric F., ‘Tennis Court Oath, France, 1789’, in: The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest (John Wiley & Sons, 2009)

• Robinson, James Harvey, ‘The Tennis Court Oath’, Political Science Quarterly vol.10 no.3 (Oxford University Press, 1895), pp. 460-474

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Background

Ludwig II was born at Nymphenberg Palace in Munich on 21 August 1895.

Bedroom in which Ludwig II was born at Nymphenberg Palace, Munich [source: me]

After his father’s death in 1864, Ludwig ascended to the throne at age 19. But he was not a natural ruler: in fact, he rather disliked it. He avoided public events, social gatherings, and governance in general. He chose to retain his father’s policies and ministers, and largely distanced himself from the politics of ruling, rather choosing to concern himself with cultural pursuits. He was a patron of the arts, most notably of the composer Richard Wagner, and introduced European dramas like Shakespeare, Mozart, and Ibsen to Munich theatre-goers. Most famously, however, Ludwig built 3 magnificent castles.

After a visit to France in 1867, where Ludwig saw the Château de Pierrefonds and Palace of Versailles, he found Bavaria lacking in a comparable celebration of its culture. This is something he sought to fix through his equally ambitious and beautiful architectural endeavours:

Linderhof

Linderhof was the only of Ludwig’s palaces which was completed within his lifetime. It was built in neo-French Rococo style, and chocked full of extravagant gold decorations and iconography reflecting Ludwig’s fascination with the French absolutism of the Ancien Régime. He self-styled as the ‘Moon King’, a Romantic shadow of the earlier ‘Sun King’: Louis XIV of France.

Neuschwanstein

Neuschwanstein Castle is a Romanesque fortress situated in the Alpines of Bavaria, towering above Ludwig’s childhood home Hohenschwangau Castle, constructed by his father. The walls of Neuschwanstein are decorated with frescoes depicting scenes from the legends used in Wagner’s operas, and the castle itself is dedicated to Wagner and their friendship.

Ludwig imagined it as his permanent residence, and he moved into the (still unfinished) castle in 1884. However, he died only 172 days later. Constructed halted upon his death, and ultimately only 15 of the planned over 200 rooms had been finished.

Neuschwanstein Castle [source: me]

Herrenchiemsee

Ludwig intended Herrenchiemsee to be a tribute to King Louis XVI of France, and a partial replica of the Palace of Versailles. Similarly to Neuschwanstein, construction on the castle ended upon Ludwig’s death: this time, only the central portion of the castle had been finished, with 50 of the planned 70 rooms left empty.

Controversy and deposition

King Ludwig II, age 22, in 1867 [source: The Atlantic]

As I mentioned, Ludwig had never really taken an interest in politics, but as his reign progressed, he became increasingly withdrawn from central Bavaria and its government. He sunk more and more money into his creative projects. He did not take this from the state, however, but he fully exhausted his personal funds and the extra money he borrowed from his family. While this ruling situation caused tensions within the government itself, it seemed to have little impact on Ludwig’s popularity with the people. In fact, Ludwig’s castle projects provided employment for hundreds of local labourers and artisans and brought a considerable flow of money to the relatively poor regions in which his castles were built.

Despite this, Ludwig’s ministers were growing increasingly weary of his spending habits and absence from government. They had also been threatened with replacement by Ludwig himself, so they decided to act first. They decided to lobby for his constitutional deposition on the rationale that he was mentally ill, and therefore unable to rule. So, between January and March 1886, they assembled the Ärztliches Gutachten, a medical report which listed complaints, accounts, and gossip about Ludwig from those at court who disliked him. This detailed his bizarre behavioural habits, violent tendencies, and unbridled extravagance. The degree to which these accusations were true is unknown, although it is unlikely, since none of the men who signed it had examined, or in most cases even met, Ludwig. However, they were successful, and on 12 June 1886 Ludwig was formally placed into custody and deposed.

Suicide? Theories of death

The following day, Ludwig and his personal physician, Bernhard von Gudden, went on a stroll around the grounds of Berg Castle. After dinner, Ludwig invited him on a second walk along the shore of Lake Starnberg, this time unsupervised by their attendants. The pair were last seen around 6:30; they were due back at 8pm, but they never returned. A search party was sent out and both Ludwig and Gudden were found in the shallow waters of the lake around 10:30pm. Ludwig’s watch had stopped at 6:54.

Ludwig’s death was officially ruled a suicide, but this theory doesn’t exactly hold up. He had been a strong swimmer and expressed no suicidal tendencies prior to his death. Both men’s bodies were found with the water only up to their waists, and no water was found in Ludwig’s lungs. So how did he die?

Speculation exists that Ludwig was murdered by his political enemies during an attempted escape. One account, given by his fisherman, was that Ludwig was shot. But again, no mention of a bullet wound, or any other injuries for that matter, were detailed in his autopsy report.

But perhaps the theory of an attempted escape is not wrong in itself. Gudden was found with strangulation marks around his neck, so it is possible that Ludwig tried to murder him before taking off. But before he could, he suffered a natural death caused by the cool waters: potentially a heart attack or stroke.

From his disinterest in ruling Bavaria to his impressive architectural endeavours and mysterious death, Ludwig II is a fascinating historical figure. His castles are visited by millions each year, and the claims of his insanity remain the subject of much medical intrigue. I’d say that he is not deserving of the title of ‘Mad King’, but that he was a very creative, passionate, and slightly delusional man with an artistic vision for his Bavaria which he unfortunately never saw accomplished.

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Here’s my collection, in all its glory:

De Rerum Natura vol V, by Lucretius

Published 1909, Cambridge University Press

I picked this volume up from the basement floor of Waterstones in Gower Street, London for just £10. It is the fifth of a six-volume series and, by all accounts, is the best. Its well-formed ideas and sequential explanation of the origins of the world, life, and human society, make it a good starting point for those wishing to study Epicureanism.

Epicureanism is a philosophical system based on the teachings of Epicurus, an ancient Greek philosopher. It was founded around 300BCE, and focused heavily on the physics of atomism and materialism. It encouraged a religious skepticism, and challenged other philosophical systems like Platonism and Stoicism.

Little is known about Lucretius himself, but his poem De Rerum Natura was the first known transmission of Epicureanism to a Roman audience. It covers topics like the nature of the mind and the soul, the development of the world, and an explantion of both celestial and terrestrial phenomena. Most interesting to me, however, is Lucretius’ description of atomism, contained in this fifth volume. Epicrueus believed that the world was made up of 2 componants: body and void. Body is made up of atoms, too small for the human eye to see but present in everything, and constantly in movement.

The Antiquarian (Waverley Novels), by Sir Walter Scott

Published 1829, Simpkin and Marshell

I found this in a secondhand bookshop in Dorset for only £5. First published in 1816, The Antiquary is the third of Scott’s Waverley novels, so-called because he did not claim authorship of his books until 1827. The first of his novels was called Waverley, so every subsequent book was published under ‘the author of Waverley’. These books were among the most popular and widely-read in Europe for about a century.

The Antiquary focuses on a character named Oldbuck, an amateur historian, archeology, and collector. It is Scott’s favourite of his own works, and aims to showcase the reality of Scottish life in the late eighteenth century.

My copy is the third edition of this book. It contains an additional introduction and notes, as well as a revised version of the text, all produced by Scott himself. It is colloquially known as his ‘Magnum opus’ edition.

Rossetti’s Works, Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Published in 1897, Ellis and Elvy

The final book I want to talk about today is The Collected Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Volume 1: Poems, Prose-Tales and Literary Papers. This was a birthday gift from my boyfriend ♡

Rossetti was an English poet, illustrator, painter, translator, and co-founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. His early poetry was influenced by Romantics like John Keats and William Blake, but he soon found his own style, and largely focused on exploring the interconnection between thought and feeling.

He was also interested in combining his literary pursuits with his artistic ones. He often paired poetry with paintings or other designs, both for himself and his sister Christina Rossetti. This interest is evident here too, as Rossetti designed the floral motifs decorating the book cover himself.

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Gothic bookhands

After Caroline miniscule, we see a transition to a different kind of aesthetic, but one which was still deeply concerned with uniformity. There is also a huge increase in the number of manuscripts which survive from the 12thC onwards due to the establishment of more secular centres.

Proto-Gothic

12thC

First came proto-Gothic, the transitional script between Caroline miniscule and Gothic “proper”. Features to note include:

• Lateral compression

• More prominent serifs at the tops and bottoms of vertical strokes

• More weight to the script

• Headstroke of ‘a’ rises above the headline

littera textualis

13thC

Interesting to note that we can date this particular example t o the early 15thC, partially because of the script, but also because the ivy leaf border was a decorative feature only used from the late 14thC onwards!

This doesn’t look every so different from proto-Gothic, but you can see it becomes more concise and sharp. In particular, there is:

• Increased lateral compression

• Shortening of ascenders and descenders

• Reduction of space between letters

• Preference for ‘closed’ forms

• Fusion of facing contrary curves (known as ‘biting’)

The transition to Gothic bookhands did not happen all at once. There was some regional variation:

Northern textualis

Late 12thC; England, France, Low Countries

Northern textualis was angular, with rectangular proportions. It also featured a deconstruction of curve strokes: the arches of ‘m’, ‘n’, and ‘p’ are broken at the apex, reducing the letters to straight strokes.

Southern textualis

13thC; Italy, Iberian Peninsula, Scandinavia, & central Europe

The southern variant of the textualis script took on a preference for square proportions and round letter shapes (as in Caroline miniscule). It also featured an exaggerated contrast between broad and hairline strokes.

Gothic cursive

A cursive version of the Gothic script developed during the same period, and can be differentiated by the number of pen lifts. In cursive, there are fewer, and the writing speed is greater. The aspect is not as formal, but there is still some interest in uniformity.

It can be characterised by the following features:

• Stylised serif added to the left-hand side of ascenders

• ‘a’ with elongated head-stroke

• Appearance of loops to the right of ascenders

• Round ‘s’ with loop below the base line

Anglicana

13thC, England

San Marino (CA), Huntington Library, MS EL 26 C 9, f.1r [ref]. Just to note, this is actually an eg of bastard Anglicana, which mixes in some textualis features (here, it’s treatment of minim strokes) with the aspect & scale of Anglicana

The earliest form of standard cursive script in Europe was Anglican. It can be identified by:

• New forms of ‘a’, ‘d’, and ‘s’

• Forked / looped ascenders

• 8-shaped ‘g’

Secretary

Late 14th, but esp 15thC, England

A little later, Secretary emerged, also in England. Defined by its:

• Clear contrast of thick and thin strokes (use of angled nibs)

• Forked ‘g’

• Diamond shaped ‘a’

• Kidney shaped ‘s’

• Broken lobes of ‘d’ and ‘q’

Humanist

In the late 14thC, there was a conscious revival of Caroline miniscule as many criticised the Gothic script of becoming too stylised and difficult to read. Humanist scripts became characteristic of the 15thC and is a lot more reminiscent of modern handwriting styles. It too had both set and cursive hands.

littera antiqua

Florence (1410s) – Venice (1420s) – rest of Italy & France (1430s-) – England (1440s)

Cicero, Marcus Tullius, Opera nonnulla, Vat.lat.3245 [ref].

The set form of humanist script was littera antiqua, which made its way across Europe in the first half of the 15thC. It was characterised both by Caroline miniscule-esque letterforms, but also:

• Straight back ‘d’

• Tall ‘s’

• ‘a’ has a straight back

• Far fewer abbreviations

Also, in terms of layout, the text tended to begin on the first ruled line of a page. As opposed to Gothic scripts, it was also largely written in a single column.

Cursive

14th & 15th Cs

The final script I’ll be discussing is humanist cursive. It maintains the simplicity and clarity of its set counterpart, but with joined-up letters. It also has the following distinct letter forms:

• ‘f’ and ‘s’ have descenders

• ‘g’ is formed of 2 connected ‘o’s

• single compartment ‘a’

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I was so pleased to see such a positive response to this question! It’s very exciting to know that so many people are interested in what is quite a niche (but, I’d say, important!) job. So today I’ll just be providing a basic overview of what digital archiving entails, as well as answering a few of the questions I received from you guys. But I can’t cover everything in one post, so if you’re interested, I’d love to make this into a series! I’ve made a note of all the questions I’ve already received, but feel free to ask more. And please do like, comment, subscribe if you’d enjoy this post:

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What is a Digital Archive?

A digital archive comprises of digitised and born-digital content. That is to say digital objects which have been created from an original analogue object, such as scanned images of books, and objects which originated digitally, like films and music.

What does a Digital Archivist do?

The vast majority of archives have significant backlogs of material they need to catalogue, digitise, and otherwise tackle. In the context of digital archiving, this is usually in the form of objects being held in improper (read: obsolete) storage. On these devices, digital objects are not safe.

It’s a common misconception among the public and archivists alike that digital objects require less attention than analogue materials. But this couldn’t be further from the truth. Digital objects are actually less stable, and less likely to be happy if left alone: while a book can sit untouched on a shelf for decades, passively storing digital objects for just a few years can be highly detrimental. Remember: today’s new technologies are tomorrow’s obsolete media.

A historic lack of understanding of, and therefore lack of care for, these digital objects means that they are often in a pretty critical state. And even when they’re not, it’s still important that we act now, before it’s too late. And that’s where I come in. It is my job to make sense of, rescue, manage, and preserve these digital objects. Both because of their historical value, and also to ensure they remain accessible for current and future audiences.

It’s interesting that many of the questions I received under my Note didn’t ask about this, but rather were focused on the act of digitisation. This actually isn’t what a Digital Archivist does (generally). In smaller institutions like my own, this is often the job of volunteers, or it can be done by any member of an archival team. My role purely revolves around the digital objects themselves, and carrying out the actions which are necessary to keep them safe and happy.

Now, let’s get onto some questions:

Where / how do you store your archive?

From:

Our digital archive is held across a variety of modern and obsolete media, including cloud storage, CD-ROMs, film reels, hard drives, and cassette tapes. These latter items are held in a secure storage room underground.

Do you see digitising as more of a preservation tool, or is it more about wider access?

From:

Digitising is not preserving. Let’s consider that on two levels:

1. What is a digital surrogate? It’s a representation of a physical object in a digital format. Right. But what does that mean? It means that it is a snapshot of the visual components of an object at a single moment in its life. If I were to set the object on fire straight after taking the photo, it is no longer an accurate depiction of it. Of course, this is a rather extreme example, but change does happen. Also, a photo can only ever capture the visual elements of an object. It gives no sense of its size, weight, feel, smell, texture, etc. It is simply a surrogate: something that stands in the place of an original, but which is also separate from it, with its own unique (digital) properties.

2. Digitisation is, or at least can be, an invasive process. Without specialised equipment or a conservation department (which the vast majority of archives in the UK do not have), this means that digitisation may not be possible. And it may in fact be more preservation-friendly not to digitise the object.

So, digitisation is about widening access to the content contained within a physical object. And that’s no minor thing. In the UK, most archives don’t charge fees for viewing their material, but this doesn’t mean there aren’t any barriers to access. Location, physical ability, poor cataloguing, no web presence, or just the perceived social role of archives in a community are all limitations which restrict who can view certain objects. As a means of providing some insight into these objects, digitisation is therefore integral to widening access to, and fostering public interest in, historic collections.

On a related note: why don’t we just digitise everything?

From: me

Err, many reasons:

• Cataloguing backlog. If we haven’t figured out what an object is yet, what’s the point of putting it online?

• Stability. Would scanning the object damage it? What costs would be incurred by getting it reviewed, and perhaps worked on, by a conservator?

• Scale. The archive I work for is relatively small, but we still have tens, if not hundreds of thousands of physical objects.

• Manpower. Who’s scanning all this?

• Time. When?

• Equipment. With what specialised equipment, that they’d need training to use?

• Infrastructure. Do we have the systems and web presence capable of storing, preserving, and hosting these images?

• Rights. Even if we did, can we ethically display these images publicly? Or would that violate copyright / GDPR laws?

• And lastly: money. All this costs a lot, and money is something which the heritage sector famously does not have.

What efforts are being made in digital archiving practices to ensure the longevity of the preserved works?

From:

We’ve established that digitisation ≠ preservation. So what does it actually involve? Well, lots of things. But here’s a few:

• LOCKSS: Lots Of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe. We create backups. At least 3, stored across different media and kept in different geographical locations. But it’s important to note that storage still ≠ preservation! Making copies and putting them somewhere is pretty much useless without active management of them.

• Bitstream preservation. This is an example of active management. A bit is the basic unit of information in computing. It can have only one of two values commonly represented as either a 0 or 1. Every digital file is made up of a bitstream, or a sting of these 0s and 1s. If left alone, these 0s and 1s may change, randomly, and corrupt or otherwise damage the file. To ensure this doesn’t happen, we therefore need to capture and record the object’s original bitstream, and then repeat and check it at set intervals. If a deviation is found… well, that’s what backups are for! The original file can be restored using one of the backups.

• Monitoring. Storage devices, software, file formats, you name it: all digital products have an expiry date. When something is no longer supported (or preferably before that point), we need to migrate it to a newer, better-supported system, type, or device.

Thank you for reading about my little niche of the world, and please do let me know if you’d like me to go into any of this in greater depth.

The next, and final, post in the series will be coming on 25th April. Subscribe so you don’t miss it:

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In general, this was a period of experimentation / fluidity in Europe when it came to handwriting. There was a great deal of locaitonal and in-script variety. It is also important to note that the scripts discussed in the previous post, specifically Caroline miniscule, Uncial, and display capitalis, continued to be used throughout this period.

Leuxeil

590-752, Frankish

This script was created by an Irish missionary who travelled to set up monasteries on the continent. It is visually similar to Merovingian Chancery (discussed below) in terms of the compression of the script and its ascenders. Features to note include:

• Occasional use of uncial forms

• Use of &

• Two ‘c’s form an ‘a’

• Flattening at the top of letters like ‘g’ and ‘h’

• ‘t’ tends to have a pronounced bow on the head stroke

Corbie AB

c.660-onwards, Frankish

Corbie AB developed out of the Leuxiel script and continued to exist beyond it. It was written in single columns, and had a compressed, regular aspect. Features to note include:

• ‘b’ look like a ‘t’

• ‘a’ looks like ‘ic’

• Ligatures*

• ‘t’ often has a looped headstroke

* Ligatures are where 2 or more letters are joined together to create a single glyph, or letter shape

Merovingian Chancery

c.6th-9thCs (esp 7thC), Frankish

Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 193: Ambrose, Hexameron f2v [ref]

This script appeared primarily in diplomatic / chancery documents as opposed to books. It had a very spidery appearance, taking inspiration from Roman cursive scripts. It actually looks quite nice in the example above, but it can appear almost incomprehensible:

I think it’s my least favourite medieval script (sorry). It does have quite a distinctive appearance, but some specific features to note:

• ‘d’ both ascends (tend to be extreme, esp on first line) and descends

• Use of &

• Spacing between words is not standardised, but random

• “Ribbon” display capitals

Visigothic

8^th – 12^th Cs, Iberian Peninsula

Visigothic is the longest lived of all the national hands. It can be distinguished by the following features:

• Clubbed heads on the ascenders

• Some uncial remnants (esp ‘g’, also strict delineation between letters)

• Bizarre ‘x’ and ‘z’ forms

• Infrequent abbreviations

• Orthographic shift between ‘v’ and ‘b’ - inconsistent spelling

Beneventan

Mid 8th - 13th Cs, Italian penninsular

This is the most popular of the scripts discussed in today’s post, and became so common-place in Italy that it can almost be seen as its offical hand.

Features to note include:

• Generally round aspect

• Lots of ligatures

• Tall ‘e’

• Squat ascenders

• ‘a’ and ‘d’ retain their uncial forms

• ‘t’ has a curved headstroke

Insular

c.650 - 850 CE, British Isles

Of all the scripts discussed today, I’d say this is the closest to the unical form we looked at last time. It retains many of its features, but with a few key changes:

• Greater spacing between words

• Non-standardised and more frequent use of abbreviations

• ‘g’ has a flat top, with a squiggle descender

• Ligature of ‘nt’

And there we have it - all the so-called National Hands. Remember to come back for the final installment in this series on 25th April, when we’ll be talking about Gothic and humanist scripts.

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Ides of March

The Ides of March simply refers to the ‘ides’, or ‘midpoint’ of the month. In March, this was marked by several religious festivals, but it has now more commonly come to be associated with the murder of Caesar in 44BCE.

How did we get here?

Gaius Julius Caesar returned to Rome in triumph, having fully conquered the region of Gaul (in modern-day France) in the Gallic Wars (58-50BCE). But the Senate demanded that he return as a civilian, not a General or other kind of leader. But he refused, instead choosing to fight in what became known as the Civil War of 49-45BCE. He quickly defeated his opposition and was soon thereafter declared dictator perpetuo.

In this new position, Caesar decreed a number of reforms which significantly improved the lives of the Roman people, whose daily routines had been marked by violence and corruption. These reforms included migration of the poorest to new homes, cleaning up the city streets, setting up new employment opportunities, and hosting games for entertainment. While this meant that Caesar was near-universally adored by the Roman people, members of the Senate did not view him in the same light. They thought he was arrogant, and power-hungry. Rome did not have a good history when it came to kings, and they were wary of his near-tyrannical status.

Then, on 15th February 44BCE at the Lupercalia, with Caesar wearing a purple toga and golden wreath, he was presented with a crown by Mark Antony. He refused the gift, but it was unclear what his intentions were. Was this genuine? Or had it all been some staged attempt to test Rome’s reaction? Either way, he had already been named imperator, and his birthday made a public holiday. To the people, this may not have meant much: peace was more important to them. But to the Senate, this was the last straw. Caesar had become king in all but name, and to secure their place in the political landscape, they had to act now.

The plot

A conspiracy was born. At least 60 senators were involved in total, but the plot was spearheaded by 4 men: Gaius Trebonius, Decimus Junius Brutus Albinus, Gaius Cassius Longinus, and Marcus Junius Brutus.

Caesar seemed quite unaware of the danger he was in. He had dismissed his guards and taken to wandering the streets of Rome alone. Or perhaps he was aware and was trying to send a message: that he was just a man, and not the fearsome tyrant they believed him to be. Either way, this made him vulnerable.

The senators knew they had to act quickly; Caesar was scheduled to leave Rome on a 3-year campaign against the Parthians on 18th March. They therefore decided to attack him during a session of the Senate at the Theatre of Pompey a few days prior, on 15th March.

Assassination

Vincenzo Camuccini, ‘The Death of Julius Caesar’ (1806)

It is said that Caesar dismissed multiple warnings against going to the Senate that day. A seer, Spurinna, had warned him of ill fortune on the Ides of March. His horses were seen weeping on the banks of Rubicon. A bird flew into the Theatre of Pompey and was devoured by another. And lastly, his wife, Calpurnia, had a dream of him bleeding to death in her arms. This actually caused Caesar to delay a while at home, not believing in the vision himself but nevertheless wanting to comfort his wife. But a conspirator, Decimus, was sent to fetch him, and Caesar followed.

When he got to the Senate, 200 men were waiting for him. Conspirators and non-conspirators. Caesar sat on his throne. He was handed a petition. And then the men attacked. Caesar was stabbed 23 times and died at the foot off Pompey the Great in the Curia of Pompey.

Et tu, Brute?

Along with veni, vidi, vici (which Caesar actually did say), this is probably the most famous quote attributed to Caesar. However, this is a Shakespearean invention. According to ancient sources, he either said nothing at all, or the Greek phrase: καὶ σύ, τέκνον (Kai su, teknon?) which can be translated to ‘You too, child?’ in English.

The aftermath

Surprisingly, little happened in the aftermath of Caesar’s assassination. It seems the senators had not thought that far ahead. While they tried to depict events to the raging crowds of Rome in a positive light, as putting an end to tyranny, the city mourned the loss of their great leader. They burnt his body at a simple pyre outside the Senate and buried his ashes in his family tomb on the Campus Martius.

Due to increasing hostility from the people, the conspirators were forced to flee Rome. There was a brief truce, then a short scuffle for power, in which Caesar’s adoptive son Octavian emerged victorious. Rome did not return to a Republic as the senators had hoped but entered into new leadership under Octavian (later: Augustus) as the first Emperor of Rome.

Recommended reading

• Beard, Mary, SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome (Profile Books, 2015)

• Freeman, Philip, Julius Caesar (Simon & Schuster, 2008)

• Holland, Tom, Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic (London, 2003)

• Shakespeare, William, Julius Caesar (Penguin, 1996)

• Tranquillus, Suetonius C., The Lives of the Twelve Caesars (Project Gutenberg, 2006), trans. Alexander Thomson

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How did we get here?

The revolution was now in full swing. Between 1789 and 1791, there had been a flurry of reforms which changed the social and political landscape of France. Crucially, these included the abolition of the nobility in June and the Civil Constitution of the Clergy in July 1790. Despite attempts to set up a constitutional monarchy, the French people were becoming increasingly disillusioned with the royal family. And the King himself, along with many of the nobles, were turning against the idea of revolution. As a result, many nobles / aristocrats had begun feeling Paris and seeking aid in foreign countries. Those who remained were unhappy, and there were rumblings of a potential royalist counter-revolution. It was in this context of fear and turmoil that a rumour was born: the King was planning to follow the example of his aristocratic peers and emigrate.

This rumour gained momentum in early 1791, when the municipality voted to restore the dungeons of the Château de Vincennes to accommodate more prisoners of the revolution. However, this was quickly viewed as a cover-up, intended to conceal the King’s plan to construct a secret tunnel between his residence at the Tuileries Palace and the Château. In an effort to prevent this, a group of workmen decided to storm the Château and tear it apart with pickaxes… as you do. In response, the National Guard and its Commander-in-Chief Marquis de Lafayette were sent to stop the mob.

The Day of Daggers

But this meant that the National Guard were no longer present at Tuileries to protect the King. Fearing for his safety, a staunch group of around 400 royalists marched into the Palace themselves, concealing daggers and swords beneath their clothes. They gained access easily, as most of them were aristocrats and could therefore enter the grounds without question. However, when their intentions became more apparent, Lafayette and the National Guard were forced to turn back and return to the Palace. Tensions were high, after all, and this could have signalled a counter-revolutionary insurrection. They ordered the King’s supporters to lay down their weapons and leave the Palace.

Significance

While this was a relatively minor incident in the story of the Revolution, it does serve to highlight the growing tensions between monarchists and revolutionaries at this time. Tensions that were only deepened by the King’s apparent disregard for his own supporters. It is also evidence of Lafayette’s loosening grip on the crowds of Paris, and the King’s own disillusionment with the Revolution. And, just a few months later, he genuinely did try to flee the country in the Flight to Varennes (20-21 June 1791). So maybe there was some truth to those rumours after all…

Recommended reading

• Caiani, Ambrogio A., Louis XVI and the French Revolution, 1789-1792 (Cambridge University Press, 2012)

• Henderson, Ernest F., Symbol and satire in the French Revolution (1912)

• Tackett, Timothy, ‘Conspiracy Obsession in a Time of Revolution: French Elites and the Origins of the Terror: 1789-1792’, The American Historical Review vol.105 iss.3 (2000), pp.691-713

The next instalment will be on 21st March. Make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss it!

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What is *palaeography?

pā-lē-ˈä-grə-fē

the study of ancient or antiquated writings and inscriptions : the deciphering and interpretation of historical writing systems and manuscripts

Ref. Merriam-Webster

The legacy of antiquity

I’m not going to spend much time discussing Roman scripts, but I’ve included them as a visual reference point, against which future palaeographical developments can be compared. The key thing to note is that, at this point, there was no standardisation in letter forms.

Old Roman cursive

c.1st-4thCs

British Library, P. Lond. I 229, Papyrus 229 f1 [ref]

This script may not initially appear to be cursive by our modern definitions - i.e. the letters aren’t joined up - but it is so named due to the rapidity of the writing style.

It is also a majuscule script, meaning that the letters are generally capitals, and all roughly the same size.

New Roman cursive

c.2nd-6thCs

Pap.Vat.lat.6 f1 [ref]

By contrast, later Roman cursive is a miniscule script. Its letters are lower case, with ascenders and descenders (e.g. stalk of an ‘l’ and bottom of a ‘g’) extending above and below the core line of text.

Fun fact: Roman cursive scripts were (re)discovered during Napoleon’s Egyptian Campaign in 1798!

Capitalis

Late Roman, reintroduced in 12thC

Vat.lat.3225 f66v [ref]

This is the most formal of ancient Roman scripts and was based on the letter forms found on architectural monuments. It is another majuscule script, and one which is comparatively easy for the modern reader to understand.

New scripts for Christian texts

Now we get onto the formation of new scripts in early medieval period. The origin of these scripts is unclear due to the paucity of surviving Latin manuscripts prior to the 4thC, but we can infer that they developed under the influence of both Roman capital and cursive scripts.

Uncial

5th-7thCs

Uncial developed in Britain and Ireland following their conversion to Christianity, and thus their reception of the Latin language. There were some variations in how this script type presented, but it generally looked like this:

Quite different to the Roman scripts we saw above. Its main features are as follows:

• Almost no variation in letter shapes

• Greater contrast between thick / thin strokes

• Rounded, majuscule

• Distinguished by its ‘a’, ‘d’, ‘e’, and ‘m’s

This script also indicates an effort to make text more legible. There are greater spaces between both individual words and the text blocks themselves: see the wide margin between the 2 columns in the above example.

Uncial fell out of fashion after the 7thC, but it continued to be used past this point in a more limited form: namely, to highlight important segments of text and for ornamental features.

Caroline miniscule

c. late 8th-11thCs

In the latter part of the 8thC, monasteries in the Carolingian realms of France began o develop a script which was more uniform and consistent in form. This was happening under the patronage of Charlemagne, whose reform programme sought to bring about a ‘cultural revival’ in the Carolingian Empire. This was known as the Carolingian Renaissance. As a result of this, the script known as Caroline miniscule emerged.

St Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 294, f4 [ref].

In this example, we can see a continuation of the spacing found in Uncial scripts, showcasing a continued desire for simplicity and legibility. In addition to this, Caroline miniscule has the following characteristics:

• Retains many features of late Roman cursive, but with fewer abbreviations

• Simplification of letter shapes

• Distinct ‘a’, ‘d’, ‘e’, ‘g’ and ‘s’s

That’s all for this week, but in the next post on this topic I’ll be talking about the ‘National Hands’ which developed in different parts of Europe across the 7th-12thCs. As a reminder, that will be out on 21st March.

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How did we get here?

War between France and the rest of Europe had been ongoing since the Revolutionary Wars began in 1792. The Russian campaign fell somewhere in between the Fifth (1809) and Sixth Coalitions (1812-14) of the Napoleonic Wars, and its causes can be dated back to the Fourth Coalition (1806-07).

It was 1807, and Napoleon had just enjoyed a victory against Russian forces at Friedland. He entered into an allyship with Tsar Alexander I of Russia in Treaty of Tilsit, which also forced Russia to adopt the Continental System, a blockade aimed at Britain. But after just 3 years, economic problems pushed the Tsar to withdraw his support. This significantly weakened the system and, alongside some other factors, inspired Napoleon’s decision to invade Russia. He was probably feeling pretty good about his chances here too, given the crushing defeat of Austrian and Russian forces he had enjoyed at Austerlitz in 1805.

In 1811, he moved his Grande Armée of c.700,000 men into Poland, along the Russian border. The Tsar did not retaliate, and so on 24 June 1812, the Grande Armée continued on its way and passed into Russian territory.

Russian campaign

Napoleon wanted the Tsar to surrender. To do so, he aimed for Moscow, not the country’s current capital (that was St Petersburg) but the “heart” of Russia. On his way, a lot went wrong.

He had studied Russian geography and history in great depth, and by this point had seen military success throughout Europe. However, it was precisely because of these two facts that the Russian campaign failed. Napoleon’s mind was set on repeated the successes of the past, and he entirely overlooked the conditions into which he was marching his men. In previous campaigns, the Grande Armée had lived off the land, but the scarcity of natural resources, poor connecting roads, and fluctuating weather conditions meant that this time, it was not possible. After just a few days in Russia, Napoleon had lost thousands of horses, guns, and military supplies.

The situation only worsened. Thunderstorms in Lithuania delayed and prevented supply carts from reaching the army, and a wave of dysentery and fever struck his men, who had become susceptible to disease as a result of their swampy living conditions. Napoleon lost around 25,000 men in the first week of his campaign. Over the next 2 weeks, 100,000 more died. And after just 6 weeks, he had lost around half of his original invading force.

But the Grande Armée marched on, and over the next couple of months, fought in 2 decisive battles: the Battle of Smolensk (16–18 August) and the Battle of Borodino (7 September). Somehow, both battles were technically French victories. However, they did not result in Russian defeat, with the Tsar recalling his forces both times. Due to depleted numbers and the ongoing bouts of illness among his troops, Napoleon was unable to engage in the forced pursuit that had marked his previous campaigns. Instead, he remained on the battlefield on both occasions, thus allowing the Russian forces to retreat and regroup. They were on Russian soil, after all, and any lost forces could be quickly replenished by a set of new men, given Russia’s massive population. This effectively destroyed Napoleon’s chance of definitively defeating the Russian army.

After resting for a few days at Borodino, Napoleon finally led his army into Moscow on 14th September…

The city was abandoned, and ablaze. Its population of c.270,000 ordered to evacuate.

Napoleon stayed in Moscow for 5 weeks, taking advantage of the unusually tepid climate as he awaited a Russian peace treaty. But this offer never came, and he was forced to retreat.

But the start of November brought with it much colder conditions. Their journey back was delayed, and the already weakened army endured further losses due to food shortages, as well as guerilla warfare from Russian peasants and Cossacks along the way. The army engaged in another battle at Krasnoi (14-18 November), losing even more men, before Napoleon chose to flee. On 5th December, he deserted his men and returned to Paris alone.

The Grande Armée was left to drag itself home and lost an additional 20,000 men to cold and disease before it finally exited Russia on 14th December 1812.

Sign of what was to come?

There has been considerable debate over the exact number of casualties during Napoleon’s Russian campaign, but a median estimate is: Napoleon entered Russia with over 450,000 men, c.380,000 of which had been lost by the end.

This was his 1798 Egyptian campaign all over again. I won’t get into exactly what happened there as I may write a full post on it in future, but essentially, the underlying reasons for his failure were the same: he underestimated his opponent, failed to account for the weather, and abandoned his men to sickness and disease. But this time, the consequences were far greater. He lost more men, more battles, and significantly, his reputation. He was no longer invincible, and perhaps this gave the Sixth Coalition the strength it needed to defeat him.

Adolph Northen, Napoleon's Retreat from Russia (1851)

Well, defeat was pretty certain by the time of the Sixth Coalition, given the fact that most of Europe had united against him. But Napoleon’s weakness had been shown, and surprisingly, he seemed not to have noticed. For he made the same mistakes again at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. And as we all know, this battle was the one that ended him (until his return, anyway). But that’s all for another day, and another post.

Recommended reading

• Driault, Édouard, ‘The Coalition of Europe Against Napoleon’, The American Historical Review vol24 no4 (Oxford University Press, 1919), pp. 603-624

• Palmer, Alan Warwick, A Brief History of Napoleon in Russia (Robinson, 2003)

• Parker, Harold T., ‘Why Did Napoleon Invade Russia? A Study in Motivation and the Interrelations of Personality and Social Structure’, The Journal of Military History vol54 no2 (Society for Military History, 1990), pp. 131-146

• Riehn, Richard K., 1812: Napoleon’s Russian Campaign (McGraw-Hill, 1990)

• Schneid, Frederick C., ‘The Dynamics of Defeat: French Army Leadership, December 1812-March 1813’, The Journal of Military History vol63 no1 (Society for Military History, 1999), pp. 7-28

• Ségur, Phillipe Paul, comte de, Napoleon’s Russian Campaign (Time-Life Books Inc, 1980)

• ‘Chapter 9 - War and Disease: Napoleon, Dysentery, and Typhus in Russia, 1812’ in: Snowden, Frank M., Epidemics and Society: From the Black Death to the Present (Yale University Press, 2019), pp. 140-167

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How did we get here?

After Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the Americas in 1492, Spanish and Portuguese conquistadors started a campaign to build a colonial empire in the Caribbean in what became known as the Age of Discovery [sigh]. This was spearheaded by men like Hernán Cortés and Afonso de Albuquerque, and over the next few decades, the West took control of the Aztec and Incan Empires, much of central America and Mexico, and later set up colonies in South America, India and Africa.

These colonial settlements became referred to as the ‘New World’. However, it was precisely this “newness” that the Spanish wished to stamp out, through war, forced labour, and religious conversion. The violence of their campaign sparked backlash among some European groups, and in 1550, a debate was set up in Colegio de San Gregorio, in the Spanish city of Valladolid, between Bartolomé de las Casas and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda.

las Casas was a Dominican friar and priest who had spent over half of his life in the New World. He argued for the fair treatment of people in the Indies, and he was a major influence backing the New Laws of 1542, which provided some legal parameters for the conquistadors’ actions, including limiting the encomienda system. On the other side was humanist scholar Sepúlveda, whose argument rested on the idea that the Indigenous people were barbaric. He argued that they were morally and culturally inferior, and thus required subjugation by any means necessary.

It’s important to note here that this was not a debate over whether colonialisation or conversion were morally or politically correct, for both men agreed that they were. Rather, it focused on the question of how the Spanish ought to conduct themselves in the New World, and how they ought to treat the Indigenous people.

The debate was unique in that its two primary participants never met face-to-face. Despite this, it remains an unparalleled instance of an imperial power at its height sponsoring a probing and passionate public debate about the legitimacy of its overseas conquest.

Now, let’s get into how each man used ancient antecedents to argue their viewpoint:

Sepúlveda & the Romans

Erasmus famously considered the imperial phase of ancient Roman history a prime example of the dangers of unlimited autocracy and wars of territorial expansion. But Sepúlveda disagreed, instead defending the pursuit of glory as an act synonymous with public service. From this patriotic standpoint, he could therefore argue that Spanish military victory was worthy of taking its place alongside that of the ancient Romans’. [Interestingly, he also accused those who opposed it as hypocrites, saying that they themselves were seeking glory as writers (hey, it wouldn’t hurt, right Substack?)]

José Maea, Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda (c.1796) [source]

He laid out his arguments in the ‘Democrates Secundus’, written in 1547 in response to the New Laws and las Casas’ own public denunciation of Spanish activity in the New World. This work focused at first on the legitimacy of the original conquest, arguing two main points:

• that just wars were permitted by natural law, and that what is permitted by natural law is also permitted by divine law

• that it is necessary to subdue by war those whose natural condition is to obey others.

The first is a religious argument, but the second pulls directly from the ancient tradition. More specifically, it recalls Aristotle’s doctrine of natural slavery. Sepúlveda argues that the inhabitants of the New Worlds fit Aristotle’s definition of a natural slave due to their barbaric practices: cannibalism, human sacrifice, etc - they were to the Spanish as “monkeys to men”. This proved that they are deficient in reason and unable to govern themselves, and thus that the Spanish conquest was actually a charitable act. Eliminating these barbaric cultural practices would therefore not only save the Indigenous people from their own poor governance, but it would also clear the way for their conversion to Christianity.

In the second book of his ‘Democrates Secundus’, Sepúlveda turned his focus to the method of colonisation, including the treatment of the Indigenous people by occupying forces. Defending Spanish violence and “conversion by sword”, he drew a direct parallel to ancient Rome: the Romans, he argued, made excellent models for restraint in warfare. While some provinces were destroyed, Roman troops often left others with their autonomy intact and reduced some to provinces under their authority. If the Spanish conquistadors followed suit, this method of conversion would not only be successful, but also fair.

Sepúlveda’s frequent and direct comparisons to the glory of his Roman forebears was unmistakably influenced by the Italian humanist circles among which he had spent most of his adult life.

las Casas & the Romans

By contrast, las Casas believed that the Indigenous people should be conquered, occupied, and converted to Christianity without force. His argument was an attempt to construct a regulated dosage of Roman imperial prestige for Spanish royal dominion in the Indies while at the same time denying both the juridical appeal to Roman world dominion and the kind of respect for ancient Roman behaviour that Sepúlveda expressed so eagerly. Having lived in the New World for over half his life, much of las Casas’ argument rested on his own experiences.

Félix Parra, Fray Bartolomé de las Casas (1875) [source]

His ‘Apologia’ starts with a definition of the ‘barbarian’, which is heavily indebted to ancient Roman belief. It is split into four categories:

• Cruel, wild, merciless people

• People without writing or learning

• Primitive people with no real states, rulers, or laws

• Non-Christians

While it is true that the people of the Indies were non-Christians, it was las Casas’ aim to prove that this was the only way they fitted the definition, and thus that a forceful conversion was not necessary.

To do so, he focused on the religious practices of natives in the New World, since this is what most deeply shocked European sensibilities and informed much of Sepúlveda’s argument for their barbarianism. las Casas argued that their cultural maturity was similar to that of both the early Spanish, and the ancient Romans, for both of these apparently “superior” groups also practiced human sacrifice. If the Spanish were to exalt both themselves and their ancient forebears, their reason for doing so could not be this. But las Casas takes this argument even further, stating that the practice of human sacrifice constituted in itself a rational, if misguided, expression of proper religious feeling. The natives of the New World were therefore not barbaric - they had good intentions, and just needed a helping hand.

He argued that the evils of war outweighed the lesser evil of allowing human sacrifice to continue until peaceful conventions put an end to it. In fact, if the Spanish insisted on a forceful occupation and conversion, they would become barbarians by definition: cruel, and merciless. Why would that be worthy of praise, but the Indigenous people worthy only of punishment?

las Casas’ was an argument of emotion, and to me, logic.

It wasn’t until 1557 that most of the judges submitted their opinions on the matter of who won the Valladolid debate. Unfortunately, most these statements have not been recovered. However, we do know that violence in the New World did not end, but then neither were the restrictions put in place by the New Laws overturned. All in all, the debate basically… did nothing.

Despite this, it is a fascinating example of Western philosophers and politicians using past examples to make sense of a present issue. Not only that, but the events at Valladolid symbolise a turning point in Western discussions about human rights and the morality of occupation. And I don’t think I have to tell you how that is still relevant today.

Recommended reading

• Beard, Mary, ‘Mary Beard: why ancient Rome matters’, The Guardian (2015)

• Lupher, David A., Romans in a New World: classical models in sixteenth-century Spanish America (University of Michigan Press, 2003)

• Pharo, Lars Kirkhusmo, ‘Chapter 7 - The Council of Valladolid (1550–1551): a European disputation about the human dignity of indigenous peoples of the Americas’ in: The Cambridge Handbook of Human Dignity (Cambridge University Press, 2015), pp.95-100

• Urbano, Francisco Castilla, ‘Chapter 9 - The Debate of Valladolid (1550–1551): Background, Discussions, and Results of the Debate between Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda and Bartolomé de las Casas’ in: A Companion to Early Modern Spanish Imperial Political and Social Thought (Brill, 2020), pp.222–251

• Also, the BBC Radio 4 podcast In Our Time has done an episode on the Valladolid Debate

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This article will focus on late 18th century Britain, in a time before universal standards of care and diagnostic requirements. It was a period marked by experimentation, in which newly established asylums operated on a largely independent basis and thus their rules and conditions varied greatly. But it also saw a rise in sensibility, and along with it, a new scientific authority given to diagnoses like “hysteria”.

Male physicians on the female body

What was medical “hysteria”?

In a medical sense, “hysteria” has its origins in Ancient Greece, when it was associated with the humours and a wandering womb. Unsurprisingly, this definition remained unchallenged, and so persisted into the early modern era. Some physicians even claimed that its link to the female reproductive system meant that women could pass their hysteria onto an unborn child:

Johnstone, John, Medical jurisprudence: on madness (1800), p9. Source: The Wellcome Collection

Despite this, the aetiology of the condition came under scrutiny in this period and by 1800, it was increasingly viewed as a disorder of the nerves. Women were regarded as more susceptible to the hysterical condition as a result of the:

Rowley, William, A treatise on female nervous hysterical, hypochondriacal, bilious, convulsive diseases: apoplexy and palsy; with thoughts on madness, suicide, etc., in which the principal disorders are explained from anatomical facts, and the treatment formed on several new principles (1788), p56. Source: The Wellcome Collection

This created a link between the physical structure of the female body and their minds, implying that inherent weakness in one was evidence of inherent weakness in the other. This therefore gave new scientific authority to the traditional idea that women were inferior to men.

Symptoms of hysteria

Rowley, William, A treatise on female nervous hysterical, hypochondriacal, bilious, convulsive diseases (1788), p52. Source: The Wellcome Collection

Whytt, Robert, Observations on the nature, causes, and cure, of those disorders, which have been commonly called nervous, hypochondriac, or hysteric. To which are prefixed, some remarks on the sympathy of the nerves (1765), p102, Source: The Wellcome Collection

Suggested treatment

Perfect, William, Cases of insanity, the epilepsy, hypochondriacal affection, hysteric passion, and nervous disorders, successfully treated (c.1780), p80. Source: The Wellcome Collection

Whytt, Robert, Observations on the nature, causes, and cure, of those disorders, which have been commonly called nervous, hypochondriac, or hysteric (1765), p443. Source: The Wellcome Collection

These sources provide fascinating insights into how physicians viewed and treated hysteria at the end of the 18th century. However, there was little consensus in their reports, and Heather Meek argues that “hysteria” became a ‘productively malleable term’ during this period [Meek, ‘Medical Discourse’, p186]. It was used to mean whatever the male physician wanted it to. This argument is supported by asylum records at the time, which were dominated by single and menopausal women. “Hysteria” was therefore not necessarily viewed as a condition requiring treatment, but as a medical means of incarcerating society’s unwanted women.

The female perspective

The same sensibility which gripped the medical world inspired a similar interest in hysteria among women. Barred from practicing as physicians, they instead explored this condition through fiction. Namely, Gothic fiction.

The Gothic genre emerged at the end of the 18th century in response to the social and political changes of the period. Its unsettling storylines and vivid imagery were criticised for their seductive powers and were even viewed as contributing to the overactive imagination and anti-social behaviour of their (mostly female) readers. However, writers of Gothic fiction sought to reverse this narrative, instead using their novels to present hysterical behaviour in women as a result of their patriarchal oppression.

Ann Radcliffe’s The Romance of the Forest [1791]

The heroine of Radcliffe’s work, Adeline, is a perfect representation of the 18th century hysteric. She is an unwanted woman who is affected by irrational desires and an overactive imagination. However, it is not until she stays at a deserted Abbey that these symptoms really take hold. For it is here that she meets the Marquis, who constantly and aggressively expresses his desire to wed her. Adeline flees, suffering from ‘feverish symptoms’ and later sinking ‘into a state of stupefaction’ [full text here].

Interestingly, the novel ends on a positive note: Adeline marries Theodore, a man she seems to genuinely love. I think this is a great ending as it emphasises that Adeline was not rebelling against marriage itself, and therefore not trying to subvert social norms. Rather, her hysterical symptoms were caused by the Marquis and the patriarchal power dynamic he was attempting to trap her in.

Mary Wollstonecraft’s Maria, Or the Wrongs of Woman (1798)

Like Adeline, the heroine of Wollstonecraft’s novel, Maria, suffers from symptoms which are typical of hysteria: she is anxious, paranoid, and plagued by insomnia: ‘so accustomed was I to pursuit and alarm, that I seldom closed my eyes without being haunted by Mr. Venables’ image […] I woke, in violent fits of trembling anxiety, to assure myself that it was all a dream’ [full text here].

She is ‘haunted’ by the image of Mr. Venables, her husband, who is revealed to be an absent, abusive, and uncaring man. He is a heavy drinker, excessive gambler, and is completely disregarding of Maria. He disposes of her in an asylum at the start of the novel, ripping her away from her child and worsening her symptoms.

Maria is the novelistic sequel to Wollstonecraft’s political pamphlet: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman produced in 1792. The novel is therefore more overtly political in nature and furthers her argument that marriage as a legal union was detrimental to the social position and mental wellbeing of women. Maria’s sufferings are a direct result of her husband’s behaviour. Not only this, but it was also because of her marital status that Mr. Venables was able to institutionalise her: as she was his legal property. In this way, the asylum emerges as a physical symbol of female imprisonment by the hands of her patriarchal oppressors.

St Luke’s Hospital, Cripplegate, London: the interior of the woman’s ward, with many inmates and a member of staff. Coloured aquatint by J. C. Stadler after A. C. Pugin and T. Rowlandson (1809). Source: Wellcome Collection

Concluding remarks

I’m siding with the women on this one: “hysteria” was a uniquely female malady, but one which manifested itself socially, not biologically.

Unfortunately, women continue to suffer from a lack of research, representation, and care in the medical world:

• Diagnosis quality and time. The waiting time for an endometriosis diagnosis has reached 9 years in the UK [ref]. Women with dementia receive worse medical treatment than men with the same condition [ref].

• Lack of research and testing. Only 1% of healthcare research and innovation is invested in female-specific conditions beyond oncology [ref]. Women are up to 3x more likely to suffer whiplash injuries when in a car accident due to crash test dummies being based on the male physique (before 2022) [ref]. Women are overmedicated as drug testing is commonly restricted to men [ref].

• The pain gap [ref]. Women who are in acute pain are less likely to be given opioid painkillers than men [ref], and they are half as likely to receive painkillers after surgery [ref]. Women are 50% more likely to be misdiagnosed following a heart attack [ref].

• We have to prove that it’s not all in our head - our symptoms really are that bad. We have to prove that taking the birth control pill or a nice bath won’t solve our chronic pain. We have to prove that this is still a real issue. [anecdotes: ref, ref]

And outdated, gendered terminology like ‘hysteria’ continue to be used as a means of oppressing women socially:

• In 2018, Republican Senator Benjamin Sasse used the word ‘hysteria’ 3 times in reference to women who disputed Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court, citing their fear of losing abortion rights as irrational [ref]. Of course, when this fear was proven to be justified, it was their reaction that was then classed as ‘hysterical’ [ref]. This is gaslighting, and as argued by Dahlia Lithwick, cases of ‘hysterical’ overreactions by women are usually warning signs [ref].

• Earlier this year, Former Trump White House attorney Ty Cobb criticized Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent on the high court’s presidential immunity ruling, saying: ‘I thought her dissent was a little hysterical, and it really offered no analysis, a lot of…screaming, no analysis, and I think that was unfortunate,’ [ref].

It is incredibly sad that the same issues which plagued the medical world in the 18th century continue to affect half the world’s population today. And this section barely scratches the surface: think about the combined gender and racial inequality faced by women of colour. The discrimination against disabled people. More feminine-presenting people. Lower-class women who can’t afford to skip the queue. Women living in 3rd-world countries.

Recommended reading

• Bronfen, Elisabeth, ‘Hysteria, Phantasy and the Family Romance: Ann Radcliffe’s Romance of the Forest’, Women’s Writing 1 2 (1994), 171-180

• Foucault, Michel, The History of Sexuality, vol. 1, An Introduction, trans. from the French by Hurley, Robert (1980)

• Gamer, Michael, Romanticism and the Gothic: Genre, Reception, and Canon Formation (Cambridge University Press, 2009)

• Hoeveler, Diane Long, ‘Reading the Wound: Wollstonecraft’s “Wrongs of Woman, Or Maria” and Trauma Theory’, Studies in the Novel 31 4 (The John Hopkins University Press, 1999), 287-408

• Houston, R A, ‘Madness and Gender in the Long Eighteenth Century’, Social History 27 3 (Routledge, 2002), 309-326

• Laqueur, Thomas, Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud (Harvard University Press, 1990)

• LeGates, Marlene, ‘The Cult of Womanhood in Eighteenth Century Thought’, Eighteenth- Century Studies 10 1 (1976), 21-39

• Meek, Heather, ‘Medical Discourse, Women’s Writing, and the “perplexing Form” of Eighteenth-Century Hysteria’, Early Modern Women 11 1 (2016), 177-186

• Meek, Heather, ‘Of Wandering Wombs and Wrongs of Women: Evolving Conceptions of Hysteria in the Age of Reason’, ESC 35 2-3 (2009), 105-128

• Porter, Roy, Madmen: A Social History of Madness, Mad-doctors and Lunatics (Stroud: Tempus, 2006)

• Showalter, Elaine, The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English Culture, 1830-1980 (Pantheon Books, 1985)

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How did we get here?

The storming of the Bastille was a bloody and disorganised protest, but it was also a success. It demonstrated the power of the people and inspired in them a desire for real change. But before we get into what that change looked like, let’s get caught up on the events which occurred in the weeks following the Bastille:

• consequences of harsh winters, hailstorms, & inflated prices were felt in the French countryside

  • Expense of bread meant that people did not have enough money to buy other goods, leading to a trade / manufacturing slump

  • Speculation about the rich hoarding grain caused peasants to stop paying taxes and even burning charters / feudal documents

• 17 July 1789 - Louis XVI travelled to Paris and reluctantly donned the tricolour cockade, symbolising his support of the revolution. Also, the Bastille was demolished

• 4 August 1789 – abolition of feudalism

What had started as a popular protest against socio-economic hardship had quickly turned into a more cohesive movement, one armed with a distinct ideology and a desire to abolish the old order. It is within this context that the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen was written.

Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen

The Declaration was originally drafted by Marquis de Lafayette in collaboration with Thomas Jefferson, but much of the final draft came from Abbé Sieyès, who wrote the massively influential pamphlet ‘What Is the Third Estate?’ in 1788. Like Sieyès’ own political philosophy, the Declaration was heavily influenced by Enlightenment ideas, in particular the doctrine of natural rights championed by the likes of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Natural rights can loosely be defined as rights which are fundamental and universal, and are not dictated by the laws or customs of any particular place or time.

The Declaration was formed of 17 articles (found here), and can be summarised as follows: property, liberty, and life are the natural rights of all active citizens. The role of the government is to recognise and secure these rights. The work of the government should be carried out by elected representatives.

Having discussed these articles in sessions since the 20th, the National Assembly officially decreed the Declaration on the 26th of August. It was accepted by the King. It was later used as the basis of the 1852, 1946 and 1958 French constitutions.

Immediate reaction

The Declaration was conceptualised as a legal model towards which humanity should aim. It was not a reflection of current French society, nor was it viewed as something which they could achieve as soon as it was legalised. Its ideals were far beyond anything that was present in contemporary European society, so it’s hardly surprising that it was met with significant opposition.

It was viewed as unabashedly radical. In some parts of Europe, its concepts of democracy and individual rights were even seen as synonymous with anarchy. In England, it was the idea of universalism which terrified conservatives like Edmund Burke, who famously rejected the Revolution as a dangerously abstract form of freedom in his 1790 pamphlet: ‘Reflections on the Revolution in France’. He wasn’t completely wrong, of course: when the Revolution devolved into Terror in 1793-94, his pamphlet was retrospectively viewed as prophetic.

Start of civil rights?

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen was undoubtedly a groundbreaking document. As I see it, it was the foundation of modern human rights. While some would argue that this actually started in 1776 with Jefferson’s ‘Declaration of Independence’, I disagree. For a few reasons:

1. As argued by French historian Georges Lefebvre, the two Declarations differed in intent: Jefferson saw the Constitution as fixing the American political system at a specific point in time, whereas the French Declaration was intended to provide an aspirational vision for the future. The American Declaration is therefore less radical by design and does not touch on several key points: such as universalism and feudalism.

2. The American Declaration was never enshrined in law.

3. The French Declaration heavily influenced popular conceptions of liberty and equality worldwide. It inspired similar legal texts in European and Latin American countries, and notably sparked the slave uprisings in Saint-Domingo and Haiti.

However, even in its idealised form, the French Declaration may still be considered backward by our modern standards. Its primary drawback is its limitation of political participation to active citizens.

‘Active citizens’, as opposed to passive, were Frenchmen who were at least 25 years old, paid taxes, and could not be defined as servants. As such, French civil rights applied to male property owners. This was because the National Assembly believed that only those who held tangible interests in the nation could make informed political decisions. It therefore omitted a huge number of the population: including women, the poor, slaves, children, and foreigners.

This differentiation posed a problem throughout the Revolution, with passive citizens often lobbying for their own rights rather than supporting active citizens in protests, legal change, or even war. Women were particularly vocal in this and played a significant role in the civic sphere: by forming social movements and participating in popular clubs, they gained societal influence in spite of their lack of direct political power. Women like Olympe de Gouges and Madame Roland established themselves as strong political proponents of the gender equality movement. This is a topic I will expand on in a future article.

Despite this, I do believe that the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen should be seen as the foundational document of civil rights in the West. We cannot expect a law written in 1789 to reflect our modern ideals exactly, especially when its articles were deemed so radical at the time. However, if we look past its restrictions, it’s easy to see how its core principles of social equality, political representation, and universal, natural rights are foundational to our modern ideas of civil rights.

Recommended reading

• Andress, David, The French Revolution and the People (London, 2004)

• Best, Geoffrey (ed.), The Permanent Revolution: The French Revolution and Its Legacy (London, 1988)

• Doyle, William, ‘From Ancien Regime to Revolution’, Historical Journal 33.2 (1990).

• Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution (Harvard University Press, 2005)

  • ——, Colony of Citizens: Revolution and Slave Emancipation in the French Caribbean, 1787-1804 (University of North Carolina Press, 2004)

• Hunt, Lynn, Desan, Suzanne and Nelson, William (eds.) The French Revolution in Global Perspective (Cornell University Press, 2013)

• James, C.L.R., Black Jacobins: Toussaint-Louverture and the San Domingo Revolution (New York: Vintage Books, 1989)

• Kolla, Edward, Sovereignty, International Law, and the French Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2017)

• Lefebvre, Georges, The Coming of the Revolution (Princeton University Press, 2015)

• Margerison, Kenneth, ‘History, Representative Institutions, and political rights in the French pre-revolution, 1787-1789’, French Historical Studies 15 1 (1987).

• Van Kley, Dale, The French Idea of Freedom: The Old Regime and the Declaration of Rights of 1789 (Stanford University Press, 1994).

• Woloch, Isser, ‘Deputies, voters and factions in French revolutionary political culture’, Historical Journal 42 1 (1999), pp. 277-283.