1. Mathiez, Albert, Le club des Cordeliers pendant la crise de Varennes et le massacre du Champ de Mars (Paris: H. Champion, 1910), 148–49.Google Scholar Both Rudé, George in The Crowd in the French Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1959)Google Scholar and Vovelle, Michel in La chute de la monarchie, 1787–1792 (Paris: Seuil, 1972)Google Scholar use these figures.

2. See in particular the introduction to Mathiez, Le club des Cordeliers. For a recent treatment of the Champ de Mars massacre that eschews a socially deterministic approach, see Andress, David, “The Denial of Social Conflict in the French Revolution: Discourses around the Champ de Mars Massacre, 17 July 1791,” French Historical Studies 22 (1999): 183–209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3. For a discussion of the reciprocal nature of the language of the political, see Guilhaumou, Jacques, La langue politique et la Révolution française. De l'événement à la raison linguistique (Paris: Méridiens Klincksieck, 1989), 25.Google Scholar For another consideration of the rhetorical aspects of the concept of the law during the Revolution, see Troper, Michel, “Sur l'usage des concepts juridiques en histoire,” Annales ESC 47 (1992): 1176–78.Google Scholar

4. Certainly theory and practice diverged at points on this issue. For an explication of the traditional conception of the king as lawgiver, see Hanley, Sarah, The Lit de Justice of the Kings of France (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially chap. 13. Keith Baker discusses a moment of crisis in the absolutist model of rule that occurred shortly after Louis XVI's coronation, one that he interprets as foreshadowing certain questions that would be asked during the Revolution. See Baker's, “French Political Thought at the Accession of Louis XVI,” in his Inventing the French Revolution: Essays on French Political Culture in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially 114–16. For an interesting consideration of the limits of royal juridical authority, particularly with respect to property, see Kaiser, Thomas E., “Property, Sovereignty, the Declaration of the Rights of Man, and the Tradition of French Jurisprudence,” in The French Idea of Freedom. The Old Regime and the Declaration of Rights of 1789, ed. Kley, Dale Van (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994), 300–39.Google ScholarMaza, Sarah, Private Lives and Public Affairs: The Causes Céléebres of Prerevolutionary France (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993)Google Scholar, emphasizes the practical difficulties of maintaining the unity of the law in the last decades of the Old Regime, thus questioning the symbolic unity of king and law.

5. For a theoretical consideration of the process of legal change, see “Introduction” in History and Power in the Study of the Law: New Directions in Legal Anthropology, ed. Starr, June and Collier, Jane F. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989), 1–28.Google Scholar See also Falk-Moore, Sally, Law as Process: An Anthropological Approach (London: Routledge, 1978).Google Scholar

6. Penser la Révolution française (Paris: Gallimard, 1978), published in English as Interpreting the French Revolution, trans. Foster, Elborg (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981).Google Scholar See also the forum on François Furet's interpretation of the French Revolution in French Historical Studies 16 (1990): 766–802.

7. See, for example, Furet, Interpreting the French Revolution, 130, for a comprehensive vision of Revolutionary language. For another reading of Furet that emphasizes the totalizing aspect of language in his analysis, see Hunt's, Lynn review essay in History and Theory 20 (1981): 313–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8. Hunt, Lynn, Politics, Culture, and Class (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 21.Google Scholar

9. These two books, while they share certain notions about the study of the French Revolution, certainly differ on many points as well. While this is not the venue for a sustained comparison of these two authors' approaches, I would like to touch on a fewbasic points. Both authors reject the idea that the Revolution should be regarded as a mechanism that brought about certain long-term outcomes (such as the advancement of capitalism). They both also explicitly examine the political culture and political process of the Revolution. However, the two books do differ in tone and purpose as well as their positions on the Terror. Hunt's work includes a sociological study of politicians under the Revolution, while Furet's work pays much less attention to the sociological context of politics. Furet's analysis rests much more explicitly on the notion of the “plot” as one of the drivingforces of the Revolution, while Hunt does not emphasize this rhetorical device.

10. Hunt, Politics, Culture, and Class, 25.

11. Mona Ozouf takes a similar approach to the concept of “Terror” in her article “War and Terror in French Revolutionary Discourse (1792–1794),” Journal of Modern History 56 (1984): 579–97. However, Ozouf emphasizes the diachronic dimensions of this language by examining the use of the term “terror” by the National Assembly/Convention (as reflected in Le Moniteur Universel) over two years. She traces a transformation in the meaning of this word but does not examine its use at a specific moment in different contexts and by different groups.

12. On the importance of the concept of law during the Revolution, see Baczko, Bronislaw, “The Social Contract of the French: Sieyès and Rousseau,” Journal of Modern History 60, supplement (September 1988): S98–S125CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Duelos, Pierre, La notion de constitution dans l'oeuvre de l'Assemblée constituante de 1789 (Paris: Dalloz, 1932)Google Scholar; J. K. Wright, “National Sovereignty and the General Will: The Political Program of the Declaration of Rights,” in The French Idea of Freedom, 199–233; Philippe Raynaud, “La déclaration des droits de l'homme,” in The Political Culture of the French Revolution, ed. Colin Lucas, vol. 2 of The French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture, ed. Baker, Keith Michael (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1988), 139–49Google Scholar, as well as the primary sources to which these pieces refer.

13. Bourdieu uses the analytic concepts of fields (champs) and markets in many of his works. For his observations on language, see the collection of his essayspublished as Language and Symbolic Power, ed. Thompson, John B., trans. Raymond, Gino and Adamson, Matthew (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991).Google Scholar In his analysis of revolutionarylanguage and its relationship to events, Jacques Guilhaumou uses a similar, although less concretely grounded, approach to the uses of language. See his La langue politique.

14. Bourdieu, Language, 37.

15. Habitus and field are ways to describe the subjective and the social, respectively, although one of Bourdieu's projects is to efface the opposition between these two categories of understanding. Field expresses the “social topology” of the material world and the relations among its various elements. See Bourdieu, “Réproduction Inédite. La dimension symbolique de la domination économique,” Étude rurales 113/114 [1989]: 15–36. Habitas is the way in which individuals relate to and understand the social world and navigate its topology. It is a set of assumptions, norms, and practices that the individual uses to function in the social world. Part of habitus is a conscious use of strategies to produce certain outcomes in social contexts while part of it is unconscious norms that have been engendered in the individual to ensure social reproduction. Habitus refers to the ways in which individuals relate to and function in the social world, either by explicit reference to social norms and rules or by instinctively drawing upon individual knowledge. See Bourdieu, , The Logic of Practice, trans. Nice, Richard (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990)Google Scholar, especially bk. 1, chap. 3.

16. Bourdieu, Language, 46–49.

17. This is not to imply that either Hunt or Furet argue that some kind of master plan or scheme structured revolutionary language. However, Bourdieu's theoretical framework shows more clearly how uncertainty and individual understandings enter into the use of language.

18. Guilhaumou, La langue politique, 23.

19. See Censer, Jack, Prelude to Power (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976), 57Google Scholar, where he quotes Desmoulins explaining that the aristocrats are the enemies of both the king and the people. See also Popkin, Jeremy, A Short History of the French Revolution (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1995), 48.Google Scholar

20. Lefebvre, Georges, The French Revolution from Its Origins to 1793, trans. Elizabeth Moss Evanson (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1962), 133.Google Scholar

21. Le Moniteur Universel(18 July 1791), 4.

22. The Constitution was formally ratified on September 21, 1791.

23. Reinhard, Marcel, La chute de la royauté, 10 août 1791 (Paris: Gallimard, 1969), 129.Google Scholar

24. L'Ami du Peuple (18 July 1791), 3.

25. “Extrait de la procédure et informations relatives aux événemens [sic] du Champs de la Fédération” (Paris: Imprimerie de l'Assemblée Nationale, 1791), 5.

26. L'Ami du People (18 July 1791), 7.

27. Aulard, F. V. A., La société des Jacobins. Recueil de documents pour l'histoire du club des Jacobins de Paris (Paris: 1889–1897), 3:19–20.Google Scholar

28. Ibid., 20.

29. Bûchez, Philippe and Roux, Prosper, Histoire parlementaire dela Révolution française (Paris, 1833–1838), 11:114.Google Scholar

30. Ibid.

31. Ibid., 115.

32. The question of how many people signed the petition is vexing. It cannot be easily answered since the original petition burned in the Hôtel de Ville fire of 1871 that destroyed so many documents on the history of Paris. However, the contents of the petition, as well as the number of signatures, is known from the work of Phillipe Buchez and Prosper Roux, who saw the document before its destruction. They estimated, from this and other sources, that 50,000 people gathered on the Champ de Mars and 6,000 people signed the petition before the violence broke out. Albert Mathiez, after reviewing all available evidence, supports this figure, and it is the one that later historians of this event use.

33. Baczko, “Sièyes and Rousseau,” S100.

34. In addition to Baczko's article, see on this point Roels, Jean, Le concept de representation politique au dix-huitième siècle français (Louvain and Paris: Editions Nauwelaerts, 1969).Google Scholar Roels also discusses Sièyes's political thought. More recently, Gauchet, Marcel discusses the issue of sovereignty and representation in his La Révolution des pouvoirs. La souveraineté, le peuple et la représentation, 1789–1799 (Paris: Gallimard, 1995).Google Scholar Unlike Baczko and Roels, who emphasize political theories, Gauchet discusses these questions within the changing context of the Revolution and in the sphere of public opinion.

35. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, Du contrat social ou principes du droit politique (Paris: Garnier Frères, 1875), 306.Google Scholar

36. Translated by Baker, Keith Michael in Baker, ed., The Old Regime and the French Revolution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 392–93.Google Scholar

37. Ibid.

38. Crowd action influenced the momentum of the Assembly. The July 14 attack on the Bastille is often seen as saving the deputies of the Third Estate from the king's troops, thereby enabling them to proceed in reforming the government. The legitimacy of crowd action was a familiar fixture of the Old Regime. See Lucas, Colin, “The Crowd and Politics between Ancien Régimeand Revolution in France,” Journal of Modern History 60 (1988): 421–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39. Baczko, “Sièyes and Rousseau,” S103.

40. L'Ami des Vieillards (18 July 1791), 41.

41. This philosophy was certainly waning by the end of the Old Regime, but to some extent the extreme threat posed to the monarchy by the Revolution breathed new life into an idea that lent some certainty in a constantly changing environment. See, for example, the writings of Joseph de Maistre and Louis de Bonald, two advocates of a return to the fusion between religion and monarchy. Popkin, Jeremy discusses royalist publications in his The Right-Wing Press in France, 1792–1800 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980).Google Scholar See also Murray, William James, The Right-Wing Press in the French Revolution, 1789–92 (London: Boy dell Press, 1986)Google Scholar and the classic Godechot, Jacques, The Counter-Revolution: Doctrine and Action, 1789–1804, trans. Attanasio, Salvatore (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971).Google Scholar

42. Natural law is a complex concept that this essay cannot fully explore. In this context, the writer is trying to make reference to the basic political nature of France, based on both criteria of rationality and the country's history. For a discussion of natural law that looks at the term in a historical context, see the introduction to Berman, Harold J., Law and Revolution: The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983).Google Scholar

43. Gazette de Paris (19 July 1791), 1.

44. I have found no evidence that such a petition existed. It appears to be a rhetorical device created by the newspaper to forward its position rather than a popularly generated document in support of Louis.

45. L'Ami des Vieillards (19 July 1791), 65

46. Ibid. (18 July 1791), 52.

47. “Grand récit de ce qui s'est passé hier au Champ de Mars” (Paris: Imprimerie de l'Assemblée Nationale, 1791), 6.

48. “Grand récit,” 7. Emphasis in original.

49. Le Moniteur Universel, no. 200 (19 July 1791).

50. Censer, Prelude to Power, 9.

51. Ibid.

52. Rudé, The Crowd in the French Revolution, 85.

53. Censer, Prelude to Power, 64–65.

54. L'Ami du Peuple (19 July 1791), 2. Emphasis in original.In this passage Marat makes use of Rousseau's concept of the general will. The relationship between Rousseau's political and social ideas and the ideas and actions of politicians during the French Revolution is complex and has been the subject of much scholarly investigation. For a brief introduction to the issue, see Cranston, Maurice, “The Sovereignty of the Nation,” in The Political Culture of the French Revolution, 97–104.Google Scholar

55. “Grand récit,” 5.

56. Gérard, René, Un journal de Province sous la Révolution: Le “Journal de Marseille” de Ferréol Beaugeard (1781–1797) (Paris: Société des Études Robespierristes, 1964), 55–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

57. Censer, Prelude to Power, 48.

58. Le Courier de Provence (Avignon: 21 July 1791), 3–5; La Feuille Villageoise (Saint-Roch: 28 July 1791), 326–28.

59. Lefebvre, The French Revolution, 152.

60. Jordan, David, The King's Trial: The French Revolution v. Louis XVI (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), 41.Google Scholar

61. On the notion of “interests” and their place in the political culture of the French Revolution, see Scott, William, “The Pursuit of ‘Interests’ in the French Revolution: A Preliminary Survey,” French Historical Studies 19 (Spring 1996): 811–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

62. Furet, Interpreting the French Revolution, 11. My emphasis.

63. Hunt, Politics, Culture, and Class, 39–16.

64. For this reference to the momentum of the French Revolution as drawing on the metaphor of fraternity, see Hunt, Lynn, The Family Romance of the French Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992).Google Scholar