France,Patrie, Nation: figures de lutte et discours national (XVIème–XIXème siècles)

This article explores the conceptual changes and semantic shifts of ‘patrie’ and of nation from the Renaissance up to the French Revolution and the First Empire. It emphasises the causes and consequences of both concepts' occurrence and tries to discover their fundamental differences synchronically and diachronically. A brief comparison with other European countries allows us to understand that both concepts are not typically French and highlights the very fact that they are interactive, discontinuous, and at the same time evolutionary, since they are successively inserted in a specific historical context. Above all, ‘patrie’ and nation turn out to be used more often during national and international political conflicts, even though they did not have the same connotation and register. It is therefore interesting to consider precisely what characterises both concepts, and to reflect upon the origins of the modern meaning of nation.     

Le gouvernement de la loi est-il un thème républicain?

Liberty is submission only to laws. This idea, according to Turgot, is a very republican one, and it belongs indeed to the classical republican tradition. It is, nonetheless, a mostly modern idea, not necessarily a republican one. It appears in the criticism of absolute monarchy: the importance of making the law is granted, but that anybody could be above the laws is rejected. For Montesquieu, moderate monarchy is the rule of law, of standing laws which provide the individual action with the conditions its rationality requires. But Rousseau makes a republican system of the rule of law, by identifying self-government and autonomy. By linking liberty and law, he stresses the political existence of liberty: since Turgot, it has been objected, inside liberalism, that such a political device jeopardizes natural rights.     

Detecting Paris: The character of the city in Eugène Sue's Les Mystères de Paris (1842-1843)

Paris has been described as the central character of Eugène Sue's best-seller, Les Mystères de Paris. However, the opening image of la Cité, which evoked the slums as a dark continent for the intrepid bourgeois explorer to discover, has perpetuated the idea that Sue's Paris is limited to a stylised gothic underworld. This article investigates both these perceptions by examining the nature and contrasts of the capital as Sue presents it, and by suggesting some of the ways in which the city facilitates melodrama, intrigue and social comment. It argues that, despite focusing on isolated parts of the capital rather than the city as a whole, Sue's representation of Paris offers wider insights into the workings of the modern city which are often overlooked.     

Le Poète Évêque, Le Moine, Le Financier et L’Académicien

This article aims to analyze together several kinds of XVII ^th century correspondence which usually are studied separately: business letters, devotional letters, «literary» letters sent and received within a network of friends. In order to understand a strategy of epistolary writing, these letters and the various forms of their publication including scribal publication are here considered as tools used within the social world. This strategy implies, for every writer, an effort to gain social recognition for excellence in the art of writing. Literary institutions are indeed involved here, but put to use to further careers and various other operations. We see, for example, a conflict within a religious order settled, a man of letters recognized in the eyes of the law, a pious individual making his way in society, and the shaping of a bishop’s career grounded on influential social circles. These case studies allow us to grasp how social networks function, and to understand the specific role played by men of letters.     

Le Travail Artisanal En Chine (Xe–XIIe Siècles)

This study deals with collective representations of handcrafts, which were elaborated by the Song (960–1279) literati. Stirred by the strong demand of urban populations, this ideology was constituted combining the literati’s interpretations of the classical tradition, the social promotion of talent and technical know-how, and the standardization of specialized knowledge in response to government demands. This process had a long-term social impact, in terms of both the professional identity of workers, and the social perceptions of technical knowledge.     

A nineteenth-century Mediterranean union: Michel Chevalier’s Système de la Méditerranée

This article examines one of the nineteenth-century’s most revolutionary schemes for establishing a union of Mediterranean states. In 1832, Michel Chevalier set out a startling scheme that would bring to an end armed conflict in Europe through a confederation of European states and a subsequent alliance between Europe and the Ottoman Empire. His plan envisaged a vast infrastructure network of railways, canals, roads and shipping lanes that would link the major ports of the Mediterranean with Europe’s capital cities and those of the Ottoman and Russian Empires. The infrastructure network at the heart of Chevalier’s Système de la Méditerranée was conceived by him as the basis for a system of economic integration that would foster political harmony throughout Europe – anticipating by over one hundred years Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman’s plans for a European Union – but also between Europe and the Ottoman world. Harboured within Chevalier’s infrastructure scheme for the Mediterranean was one of the earliest and most complex nineteenth-century theories of networks ever devised. This article examines the centrality of the Mediterranean to Chevalier’s theory of networks, and explores the multiple dimensions of this complex theory, including the intimate connection he identified between networks as expressions of human creativity and the kind of unalienated human relations that would result in the end of conflict both between and within nations.     

Unions et désunions monétaires en Europe du Gold Standard au Système Monétaire Européen

La naissance de la Banque centrale européenne a suscité une discussion soutenue à propos des critères de convergence, de l'objectif d'inflation et de la flexibilitédes taux de change de l'euro par rapport aux autres monnaies-clés (dollar, yen). Un détour par les arrangements et unions/désunions monétaires passés s'avère pertinent en termes d'information à propos des conditions essentielles pour l'établissement et la gestion des politiques monétaires, non seulement du point de vue économique mais également du point de vue politique. Les lec¸ons principales qu'apporte l'Histoire indiquent que: inflation et taux de change constituent deux 'ancres', parmi d'autres, choisies en fonction d'une orientation idéologique plus marquée qu'il n'apparâ L t au premier abord; qu'àla fois les créditeurs et les débiteurs nets doivent être responsabilisés pour organiser un système durable; que l'intégration du marchéa toujours précédél'union monétaire; enfin, qu'un lien solide entre pays apporte une meilleure protection contre les chocs extérieurs qu'un ensemble de réactions individuelles non coordonnées. Néanmoins, une question importante reste en suspens: est-il possible pour une union monétaire de supporter la présence de parasites monétaires dans sa périphérie, hôtes indésirables qui ne participent pas au partage des coûts engendrés par l'union monétaire, mais qui s'invitent au sein du système et en profitent àtravers des alignements tacites sur la politique appliquée àla monnaie unique?