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With deftness, wit, and great erudition, Michael Sonenscher traces the complex and unexpected pre-Jacobin history of the phrase 'sans culottes' to its origins in the rivalries and concerns of the Parisian salons. This probing history brings to life the patronesses, philosophers, wits, and hacks of the ancien regime and illuminates the contending uses of ancient philosophy and visions of society and personal virtue that circulated among them. The analyses of competing Ciceronian and Cynical views of fashion, and of the gulfs between Rousseau and his self-designated acolytes, are particularly powerful. This book will be sure to transform irrevocably our understanding of the notorious emblem of Jacobinism. -- Jennifer Pitts, author of "A Turn to Empire" With this book, Michael Sonenscher establishes himself as one of the most significant authors in the world today writing on the French Revolution. Focusing at the outset on the apparently unpromising question of how the revolutionary sans-culottes got their name, Sonenscher takes his readers on an extraordinary journey of discovery to the heart of the French Enlightenment and revolutionary politics. A brilliant tour de force, based on a dazzling command of eighteenth-century political and economic writing and razor-sharp analytical skills, this book will be required reading for any scholar or student interested in the origins and outcomes of the revolution. -- Colin Jones, Queen Mary, University of London A pathbreaking account of the emergence of the concept of republican citizenship in the eighteenth century, Michael Sonenscher's Sans-Culottes is also one of the most ambitious, original, and satisfying accounts of the eighteenth-century resonance of Rousseau's arguments regarding human nature, culture, and politics that I have encountered. -- E. J. Hundert, professor emeritus of history, University of British Columbia Drawing on a dazzling array of texts--from the most well known to the totally arcane--Michael Sonenscher reveals that the sans-culottes of revolutionary France were the cultural offspring of a deep and densely argued eighteenth-century philosophical divide. The story is utterly fascinating and will come as a surprise, especially to social historians. There are few scholars working today who can rival the breadth or depth of Sonenscher's command of eighteenth-century European intellectual culture. -- Carla Hesse, University of California, Berkeley

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations vii Acknowledgements ix Abbreviations and a Note on Translations xi Chapter 1: Introduction: "One of the Most Interesting Pairs of Breeches Recorded in Modern History" 1 Chapter 2: An Ingenious Emblem 57 New Year's Gifts and an Eighteenth-Century French Joke 57 Fashion's Empire: The Moral Foundations of Salon Society 77 A "Poor Devil": The Short, Unhappy Life of Nicolas-Joseph-Laurent Gilbert 101 Mercier and Rousseau: Vitalist and Contractual Conceptions of Political Society 110 Chapter 3: Diogenes and Rousseau: Music, Morality, and Society 134 Diogenes and the Ambiguities of Cynic Philosophy 134 Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Politics of Public Opinion 147 Rousseau and His Cynic Critics 164 John Brown and the Progress of Civilisation 178 "That Subtle Diogenes": Immanuel Kant and Rousseau's Dilemmas 195 Chapter 4: Property, Equality, and the Passions in Eighteenth-Century French Thought 202 Reform, Revolution, and the Problem of State Power 202 Property and the Limits of State Power 221 Physiocracy, Reform, and the Fruits of the Tree of Life 248 John Law's Legacy and the Aftermath of Physiocracy 260 Dominique-Joseph Garat, the Modern Idea of Happiness, and the Dilemmas of Reform 273 Chapter 5: The Entitlements of Merit 283 Visions of Patriotism 283 The Army and Its Problems in the Eighteenth Century 288 Constitutional Government, Taxation, and Equality 296 Political Liberty, Public Finance, and Public Worship 305 Etienne Claviere, Law's System, and French Liberty 315 Feuillants and Brissotins 324 Antoine-Joseph Gorsas and the Politics of Revolutionary Satire 338 Chapter 6: Conclusion: Democracy and Terror 362 Politics and History in Jacobin Thought 362 Rousseau and Revolution 367 Mably, Rousseau, and Robespierre 372 Epilogue 407 Bibliography 425 Index 475

About the Author

Michael Sonenscher is a fellow of King's College, University of Cambridge. His books include Before the Deluge: Public Debt, Inequality, and the Intellectual Origins of the French Revolution (Princeton); Work and Wages: Natural Law, Politics and the Eighteenth-Century French Trades; and The Hatters of Eighteenth-Century France.

Reviews

"This is intellectual history as free jazz. Sonenscher rips and riffs through the links to be made between all manner of ideas across several generations of salon conversation and erudite writing... This work's contribution ... to illuminating the complexity of eighteenth-century French intellectual history cannot be gainsaid."--David Andress, Times Literary Supplement "Close attention to his text will be repaid with a deepened awareness of the variety and power of the political writing in circulation in the late monarchy. He succeeds completely in establishing that political life was in most respects richer and more full of nuance than we might imagine."--James Livesey, American Historical Review "Sans-Culottes is a challenging read, not least because of its style and structure. Sonenscher juggles a dizzying array of primary sources... That said, the payoffs to reading this book are tremendous."--Charles Walton, H-France Forum "Sonenscher is brilliant... He is equally path-breaking... Sonenscher provides the most convincing account of the nature of the ideological divisions of 1789?91... In providing an overview ... Sonenscher shows what has been missed by historians of the French Revolution."--Richard Whatmore, Reviews in History "Sonenscher's insights into the moral and economic history of prerevolutionary France are wide ranging and extremely well documented; few can rival his breadth."--Julia V. Douthwaite, Eighteenth-Century Studies "As someone who has transformed himself during this period from a distinguished social historian to a leading expert on eighteenth century political thought, Sonenscher's professional career mirrors the trajectory scholarship of the Revolution has taken in his lifetime... [T]he new book is the result of twenty-five years' patient advancing of what it is possible to know about the French Revolution and, at its heart, the elusive sans-culottes."--Ruth Scurr, Modern Intellectual History "[T]he author succeeds in forcing the reader outside the comfort zone of more traditional approaches in an intellectual tour de force that no historian of the Revolution can safely ignore."--Hugh Gough, Historian "Sonenscher's opera magna constitute an enormous achievement. Revealing a new face of eighteenth-century intellectual history and recovering a myriad of forgotten works, they are sure to be read--indeed to be used as references--for years to come."--Carolina Armenteros, French History