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Celebration of the Revolutionary Festivals under the Directory: A Failure of Sacrality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Joseph F. Byrnes
Joseph F. Byrnes
Affiliation:
professor of history in Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma
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Extract

The French Revolutionary festivals were planned as ritualized celebrations (speeches, tableaux, parades/processions, and music) of a revolutionary myth (new nation, elect community, pantheon of political heroes) with strong resemblance tothe traditional myth and ritual celebrating creation and redemption. This myth and ritual in the case of theweekly festivalswas then placed on a day set aside in the same fashion as previously Sunday had been set aside, mythologized, and ritualized. Under the Directory government, however, the festival celebrations went into steep decline, and only the Commemorationof 14 July survived the revolutionary decade. Even so, almost twenty years ago, in a brilliant and all-encompassing essay that has become the reigning paradigm, Mona Ozouf argued that the experience of the sacred central to the Old-Regime Catholic feasts was transferred to the revolutionary festivals, and from the revolutionary festivals to the revolutionary (and post-revolutionary) government. In a chapter entitled “Popular Life and the Revolutionary Festival” she presented evidence that popular religious sentiment (love of bells, crucifixes, Maypoles, and so on) remained alive and well; and in a chapter entitled “The Revolutionary Festival: A Transfer of Sacrality,” evidence that fundamental humanconcerns (biological, social, and civic) once alive in a religious context lived on in a political context.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 63 , Issue 2 , June 1994 , pp. 201 - 220
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1994

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References

The author wishes to acknowledge gratefully the Oklahoma Foundation for the Humanities for two grants supporting research and travel and Bryant T. Ragan and Elizabeth A. Williams for their help on earlier versions of this study.

1. In Pratiques religieuses: Mentalités et spiritualtiés dans l'europe révolutionnaire (1770–1820), ed. Lerou, Paule, Dartevelle, Raymond, et Plongeron, Bernard (Paris, 1988)Google Scholar, the following studies may be consulted for details on festivals celebration: Benoit, Bruno, “Les Fêtes révolutionnaires à Lyon,” especially pp. 383–386;Google ScholarDenis, Jean-Pierre, “Les Fêtes révolutionnaires dans le département du Maine-et-Loire,” pp. 394–404;Google ScholarOry, Jean-Marie, “Les Débuts du culte révolutionnaire dans le département des Vosges (1792–1795),” pp. 411–419.Google ScholarIn Les Fêtes de la Révolution: Colloque de Clermont-Ferrand (juin 1974), ed. Ehrard, Jean et Viallaneix, Paul (Paris, 1977)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, the following may be consulted: Trenard, Louis, “Les fêtes révolutionnaires dans une région-frontiére: Nord—Pas-de-Calais,” especially pp. 213–221.Google ScholarBut see also Trenard, Louis, “Lille en Fête durant la Révolution,” Revue du nord 69 (1987): 591–604.Google ScholarOn the varying roles of festivals within a culture and the mutations of festival forms, see Vovelle, Michel, Les Métamorphoses de la fête in Provence de 1750 à 1820 (Paris, 1976)Google Scholarand La Mentalité révolutionnaire: Société et mentalités sous la Révolution française (Paris, 1985).Google ScholarI present a representative sample of legislators' speeches and writings on festivals during the Directory period in an unpublished paper, “Discourse on the French Revolutionary Festivals: Promoting, Regulating, and Rejecting Sacrality under the Directory”; for an abstract see Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Western Society for French History, 19 (Riverside, Calif., 1992), pp. 159–160.Google Scholar

2. Ozouf, Mona, La Fête révolutionnaire, 1789–1799 (Paris, 1976).CrossRefGoogle ScholarFor an appreciation of the considerable merits of the text see Hunt, Lynn, “Forward,” Festivals and the French Revolution, by Mona Ozouf, translated by Sheridan, Alan (Cambridge, Mass., 1988).Google Scholar

3. See Colpe, Carsten, “The Sacred and the Profane,” The Encyclopedia of Religion, vol. 12, edited by Eliade, Mircea (New York, 1987) for an overview of the discussion of the sacred in the works of Rudolph Otto, Mircea Eliade, and Roger Callois among others.Google Scholar

4. The French transfert may be translated “transfer” or “transference,” and is, in fact, the word used for psychological transference in French translations of Freud. I reserve the translation “transference” for my concluding argument.Google Scholar

5. Joseph F. Byrnes, Review of Festivals and the French Revolution, by Ozouf, Mona, History and Theory 28 (1989): 112–125.Google Scholar

6. (Paris, 1903).Google Scholar

7. A presentation of the earlier, successful festivals is found in Mathiez, Albert, Les Origines des cultes révolutionnaires, 1789–1792 (Paris, 1904)Google Scholar, Aulard, A., Le Culte de la Raison el le culte de l'Etre suprême, 1793–1794 (Paris, 1892), and, of course, Mona Ozouf, La Fête révolutionnaire.Google Scholar

8. There were to be seven annual festivals according to this law: the foundation of the Republic (1 vendémiaire), Youth (10 germinal), Spouses (10 floréal), Gratitude (10 prairial), Agriculture (10 messidor), Liberty (9 and 10 thermidor), and Old Age (10 fructidor). Three more festivals soon were added: Anniversary of the death of Louis XVI on 21 January, the Fall of the Bastille, and the Fall of the Monarchy on 10 August. The Anniversary of the Death of the King was regulated by the laws of 23 nivôse an IV (13 January 1796) and 24 nivôse an V (13 January 1797). The festivals of 14 July and 10 August were decreed anew on 10 thermidor an IV (27 July 1796). There was further regulation of the system when the festival of the Sovereignty of the People was decreed for 30 ventôse and an annual commemoration of the coup of 18 fructidor was instituted by the laws of 13 pluviôse an VI (1 February 1798) and 29 thermidor an VI (16 August 1798) respectively. Other one-time-only festivals were occasionally celebrated, such as the funeral celebration of General Hoche and the memorial of the French representatives assassinated after the Congress of Rastadt.Google Scholar

9. The basic study of the formation and fortunes of the calendar across the entire revolutionary decade is Friguglietti, James, “The Social and Religious Consequences of the Revolutionary Calendar” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1966);Google Scholarmy conclusions do not contradict Friguglietti's, but I have researched anew and interpreted the data with different questions in mind. For a discussion of the festivals in the context of the government education program, see Kennedy, Emmet, A Cultural History of the French Revolution (New Haven, Conn., 1989), chapter 11.Google Scholar

10. Baczko, Bronislaw argues that the question facing the Post-Thermidorian Convention, “How to be done with the Terror?” developed into “How to end the Revolution?”Google ScholarSee Baczko, , Comment sortir de la Terreur: Thermidor et la Révolution (Paris, 1989), especially chapter five and the conclusion.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11. This situation is outlined in Lucas, Colin, “The rules of the Game in Local Politics under the Directory,” French Historical Studies 16 (1989): 345–371.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12. See Hufton, Olwen, “The Reconstruction of a Church, 1796–1801,” Beyond the Terror: Essays in French Regional and Social History, 1794–1815, edited by Lewis, Gwynne and Lucas, Colin (New York, 1983), pp. 345–371.Google Scholar

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14. Rédacteur, 14 vendémiaire an VI (5 October 1797), reprinted in Aulard, Alphonse, Paris pendant la réaction thermidorienne et sous le Direcloire: Receuil de documents pour l'histoue de l'esprit public à Paris, 5 vols. (Paris, 1898–1902), 4: 363–368.Google Scholar

15. See Archives Nationales BB3 87, Rapport du Bureau central du 11 vendémiaire an VI (2 October 1797), reprinted in Aulard, , Paris pendant la réaction thermidorienne, pp. 362–363.Google Scholar

16. The Directory had special commissaires that surveyed the activities of the departmental administrations and then reported back to the Directory. I believe that my evidence and interpretation counters the Ozouf argument that the government functionaries misunderstood the religious dynamics at play, minimal though they were. It is quite evident that there were no, or only negligible, religious dynamics. Ozouf, La Fête révolulionaire, pp. 261–268.Google Scholar

17. In the Archives Nationales (hereafter AN) the relevant series are F1C, Ministere de l'Intérieure: administration générale—Esprit public; AFIII, Archives du pouvoir exécutif (1789–1815): Directoire exécutif (an 8–1815). In the various archives départmentales (hereafter AD) data has been drawn from series L, Documents spécialement relatifs aux administration de départment, de district et de canton (1790–1800). The Ministers of the Interior in the Directory government were the following: Pierre Bénézech, from 3 November 1795 (12 brumaire an IV); Nicholas-Louis François de Neufchâteau from 16 July 1797 (28 messidoran V) to 10 September 1797 (24 fructidor an V), when he was appointed to the Directory, but he filled the position a second time from 17 June 1798 (29 prairial an VI); Letourneaux was Interior Minister for the interim.Google Scholar

18. AN FlCIII Seine 25.Google Scholar

19. AN F1CIII Seine 25, l'administration centrale du département de la Seine au Ministre de l'Intérieure, 2 fructidor an VI (18 August 1797).Google Scholar

20. AN F1CIII Seine 25, Le commissaire du Directoire exécutif, 10e arrondissement, canton de Paris au ministre de l'Intérieur, 28 thermidor an V (15 August 1797).Google Scholar

21. AN F1CIII Seine 25, Les administrateurs du département de la Seine au ministre de l'Intérieur, le 28 frimaire an VII (13 December 1798).Google Scholar

22. AN F1CIII Seine 25, anonymous communication from the corps de musique, garde nationale, inserted in the covering document, Le ministre de l'Intérieur à l'administration municipale du cinquiéme arrondissement du canton de Paris, prairial an VII (May–June 1799).Google Scholar

23. An F1CI 84, Archives du directeur d'instruction publique, projet et esquisse de perspective par Tourment, thermidor an IV (July–August 1796).Google ScholarFor a study of festival architecture, see Leith, James A., Space and Revolution: Projects for Monuments, Squares, and Public Buildings in France, 1789–1799 (Montreal, 1999).Google Scholar

24. AN F1CI 85, Pétition de traiteur au théatre de l'Estrapade, Cardinaux au citoyen ministre de la Police générale, 6 prairial an VI (25 May 1798).Google Scholar

25. AN F1CI 84, Analyse des travaux du bureau des fêtes nationales, des théatres, et des monuments [a document reworked and extended in the office of the Ministry of the Interior] depuis le 12 brumaire jusqu'au 30 floréal an V (19 May 1797).Google Scholar

26. Ibid.

27. AN AFIII 109, dossier 503, Transmission des lettres relatives aux difficultés apposées par les ministres de culte par le ministre de l'Intérieure à la commission des institutions républicans, le 23 messidor an VI (11 July 1798).Google Scholar

28. Ibid., Lettre de l'administration municipale de canton de Creigny (Yonne), 10 prairial an VI (29 May 1798).

29. Ibid., Lettre de l'administration municipale de Toucy (Yonne), 20 prairial an VI (8 July 1798).

30. AN AFIII 109, dossier 503, Lettres et pétitions demandant au corps législatif de fixer les modalités de célébration du décadi et provenant des habitants du canton d'Autun (Saône et Loire), vendémiaire-brumaire an VII (September-November 1798).Google Scholar

31. Ibid., Lettre provenant du juge de paix du cauton de Caumont (Calvados), 22 frimaire an VI (12 Dec. 1797).

32. Ibid., Lettre provenant du citoyen Dotar de Paris, 18 messidor an VI (6 July 1798).

33. Ibid., Lettre provenant de l'administration du Lot et Garonne, nivôse-pluviôse an VI (December-February 1797–1798).

34. Ibid., Lettre du commissaire du Directoire exécutif prés le canton de Cérilly (Allier), le 15 nivôse an VI (4 January 1798). Indeed, it is clear from Annales de la religion, official journal of Grégoire and the constitutional clergy, that the décadi were a principal worry of the clerical hirearchy. They were especially adverse to making the fêtes décadaires religious: “We are not ignorant of the fact that the enemies of our holy religion would like to destroy our worship and abolish the celebration of Sunday.” By urging the transferral of devotional feasts to the décadi “while making a show of the preservation of Sunday,” the government actually placed the décadi in competition with Sunday: “they induce the Christian people to error by making them believe that the décadi has become a religious festival, whereas it is a civil festival.” See Annales de la religion 8.5:26 (volume 8 is divided into five parts each having its own pagination); the journal was published in eighteen volumes from 1795 to 1803. I have analyzed a series of reflections on the festivals by the constitutional (and the refractory) clergy in “Discourse on the French Revolutionary Festivals” (see n. 1).Google Scholar

35. AN F1CI 86, le Directoire exécutif au Conseil des Cinq Cents, ventôse an VII (February–March 1799).Google Scholar

36. Ibid.

37. AN F1CI 86, le commissaire du Directoire exécutif prés l'administration centrale du départment des Ardennes au ministre de l'Intérieur, 5 pluviôse an VII (24 January 1799).Google Scholar

38. AN AFI1I 109, dossier 503, Pétition pour la célébration du décadi et la mise en place des institutions républicaines provenant des habitants d'Autun (Saône et Loire), 14 pluviôse an V (2 January 1797) [perhaps an VI (1798), because all the other petitions are from an VI].Google Scholar

39. Ibid., Pétition par des habitants de Versailles (Seine et Oise), 27 frimaire an VI (17 December 1797).

40. Ibid., Pétition par Belos, président d'âge du tribunal civil de la Seine, 3 nivôse an VI (23 December 1797).

41. AN AFIII 109, dossier 503, Transmission du ministre de l'Intérieur à la commission d'instruction publique de piéces relatives à la résistences des prêtres catholiques à la célébration du décadi: l'administration de Gironde, observations de Fisson-Joubert, 25 frimairean VI (15 12 1797).Google Scholar

42. AN F1CIII Seine 25, Rapport au Ministre, an VII (1798–1799). This summary of reports is accompanied by reports from all the arrondissements. A portion of it is reprinted in Aulard, Paris pendant la réaction thermidorienne 5: 196–197. Aulard says that he has not found the material in the AN, referring instead to A. Schmidt, Tableaux de la Révolution française, vol. 3. I have found this material, and so readers should note the archival reference given here.Google Scholar

43. Ibid.

44. Ibid.

45. Documentation from four departments was examined, following the example of Hunt, Lynn in Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution (Berkeley, Calif., 1984), to see how the festivals were evaluated by administrations in generally republican (left) and anti-republican (right) departments of the Northwest (Seine-Inférieure), Massif Central (Haute Vienne), Southeast (Isére) and South (Hérault). Differences and similarities between Seine-Inférieure and the Isére are given here.Google ScholarThe bibliography for Seine-Inférieure is Sanson, Victor, Repertoire bibliographique pour la période dite “Révolutionnaire” 1789–1801 in Seine-Inférieure, 5 vols. (Rouen, 1911–1912).Google ScholarNo such bibliography exists for the Isére, though readers may consult Champollion-Figeac, Aimé, “L'Esprit public de départment de l'Isére aprés le 9 thermidor et jusqu'au Directoire,” in Chroniques dauphinoises III, first published in 1880 (Marseilles, 1973).Google Scholar

46. When a statistical base is available, it is advisible, even necessary, to study a religious belief, practice, or experience in all the departments. See Tackett, Timothy, Religion, Revolution, and Regional Culture in Eighteenth-Century France: The Ecclesiastical Oath of 1791 (Princeton, N.J., 1986).CrossRefGoogle ScholarOn the other hand, sufficient data can be found to reconstruct the religious world of one department and interpret its significance for the rest of France. See Desan, Suzanne, Reclaiming the Sacred: Lay Religion and Popular Politics in Revolutionary France (Ithaca, N.Y., 1990).Google Scholar

47. For example, the letter from the police administration in Paris in the departmental records of Seine-Inférieure and the decrees from the central administration of the Isére: AD Seine-Inférieure, L 361, Lettre du ministre de la police générale aux administrations centrales et municipales, aux commissaires du Directoire exécutif prés de ces administrations, 26 frimaire an VII (16 December 1798); AD Isére L 255, le Président de l'Administration centrale du département de I'Isére, 6 vendémiaire an VII (27 September 1798).Google Scholar

48. AD Seine-Inférieure, L 361, Président de l'administration municipale du canton de Creil au président de l'administration centrale du département de la Seine-Inférieure, 19 brumaire an VII (9 November 1798).Google Scholar

49. AD Seine-Inférieure, L 361, Le commissaire du Directoire executif prés de l'administration municipale du canton du Creil du départment de la Seine-Inférieure à l'administration centrale du cet département, 12 frimaire an VII (2 December 1798).Google Scholar

50. Ibid.

51. Ibid.

52. AD Seine-Inférieure, L 1806, District de Gournay—instruction publique, prospectus du décadaire chantant ou d'un receuil d'hymnes patriotiques pour toutes les fêtes de l'année, n.d.Google Scholar

53. Ibid.

54. AD Isére, L 255, Président de l'administration municipale du canton d'Eybens à l'administration centrale du département de l'Isére, 23 frimaire, an VI (13 December 1797).Google Scholar

55. AD Isére, L 255, Extrait du procés verbal de l'administration municipale du canton d'Eybens du 20 frimaire an VI (10 December 1797).Google Scholar

56. AD Isére, L 255, L'administration municipale du canton urbain de Voiron au président d l'administration centrale du département de l'Isére, 24 frimaire an VII (14 December 1798).Google Scholar

57. AD Isére, L 255, Rapport du commissaire du Directoire exécutif de Voiron sur la décoration du temple décadaire, 26 fructidor an VI (12 September 1798).Google Scholar

58. When all was said and done, the Ministry of the Interior never managed to effectively direct Esprit public to a new celebration and a new calendar. The Government could only monitor the situation and try to interpret civil festivals in the best possible light. This is evident from the police reports preserved in the cartons of the Ministére de Justice, série BB 3. These and other relevant materials are reprinted in Aulard, Paris pendant la réaction thermidorienne et sous le Directoire, vols. 4 and 5.Google Scholar

59. Byrnes, , “Discourse on the French Revolutionary Festivals” (see n.l).Google Scholar

60. de Thionville, Merlin, Opinion surles fêtes nationales, 9 vendémiare an III (15 July 1799) (Paris) p. 4.Google Scholar

61. For a summary of the broad consensus of historians of religion, psychologists, and anthropologists on the roles of myth in human society, see Bolle, Kees, “Myth,” The Encyclopedia of Religion, 10:261–273.Google Scholar

62. For a summary of the broad consensus of scholars on the role of ritual in society, see Zuesse, Evan M., “Ritual,” The Encyclopedia of Religion, 12: 405–422.Google ScholarI am well aware that historians of religion are still elaborating myth and ritual theory. Catherine Bell notes that the discussion has gone through at least two phases, one in which there is a separation of thought and action (assigning thought to myth and action to ritual), and another in which the two are integrated. She warns us that our theories form us as observers of others' rituals, making it difficult to find the participants' own dividing line between thought and action—if, in fact, there is anything of the sort.Google ScholarSee chapters one and two of her Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (New York, 1992).Google Scholar

63. See Zerubavel, Eviatar, The Seven Day Dircle: The History and Meaning of the Week (New York, 1985), chapters two and three.Google Scholar

64. Smith, Jonathan Z., To Take Place: Toward Theory in Ritual (Chicago, 1987), p. 95.Google Scholar

65. Ibid., p. 117.

66. Zuesse, , “Ritual,” p. 408Google Scholar, referring to Warner, W. Lloyd, The Living and the Dead: A Study of the Symbolic Life of Americans (New Haven, Conn., 1959).Google Scholar

67. Laplanche, J. and Pontalis, J-B., Language of Psychoanalysis. Translated by Smith, Donald Nicholson (New York, 1973), p. 460.Google Scholar

68. For a presentation of the development of definitions of transference and transference techniques from Freud to the present day, see Gill, Merton M., Analysis of Transference, 2 vols. (New York, 1982).Google ScholarJones, James W. reconsiders transference specifically in order to develop a viable psychoanalytic approach to the sacred in Contemporary Psychoanalysis and Religion: Transference and Transcendence (New Haven, Conn., 1991).Google Scholar