The People and Pierre Dolivier: Popular Uprisings in the Seine-et-Oise Department (1791-1792)
1979; Duke University Press; Volume: 11; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/286601
ISSN1527-5493
Autores Tópico(s)European Political History Analysis
ResumoPopular uprisings in the town of Etampes and in the Seine-et-Oise Department deserve to be counted among the campaigns leading to the Republic of 1792. Participants in these revolts, whose first, relatively modest objective was to enforce the just price and the customary rules of the market place, gradually came to formulate a more comprehensive political strategy. The republic they were beginning to envision was not a mere juridical form, but a new kind of society in which democratic practice would insure popular sovereignty and the right of subsistence. This development altered the posture of government authorities. Supremely confident in the fall of 1791 when the first disturbances occurred, they unhesitatingly demanded compliance with the laws of free trade. But during the winter, the grip of the monarchy was broken, and its representatives were isolated and helpless when faced with the much more formidable uprising of the following spring. Long before August 10, 1792, they had lost control of the region. Contemporaries were quick to take note of these events. In March and April 1792, many were interpreting the Seine-et-Oise disturbances as symptomatic of a general social breakdown. They especially decried the murder of Jacques-Guillaume Simonneau, mayor of Etampes, who was killed in the town market place on March 3. To the mayor's friends, this terrorist act symbolized all that was wrong in the nation, as the Revolution showed signs of going too far. On the other hand, the petition of a parish priest named Pierre Dolivier on behalf of the assassins set out to combine an ideal of direct democracy with the prospect of radical change in property relations.
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