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From the Enlightenment to the Romantic period, many writers transformed Christianity into a religion of temporal salvation. Whether they manifest, in their writings, a will to destroy it (Voltaire, Helvetius, d'Holbach, etc.) or to surpass it (Leroux, Lamennais, Hugo, etc.), all refer to its dogmas as a paradigm of argumentation from which they suggest a new explanation of the world and, most important, they all propose a transformation of the society. The goal of my thesis is to offer a new analysis of this period that spreads from 1750 to 1848. In my hypothesis, I stipulate that before 1789, the philosophers of the Enlightenment never undertook a real "de-Christianisation" and that at the turn of the century, the writers did not return exactly to Christianity. Far from taking the position that the argumentation had transformed itself in a manner that radically differed during this historical period that preceded and followed the French Revolution, my goal is to show that a same will to ameliorate the human condition on earth was manifested in comparable ways throughout these different discourses. The thought of these authors is rather a testimony of a new "sacralisation" of which finality is now on a temporal level: sin is not necessary and, more importantly, it is possible to abolish it through social reformations. This desire of a better world is the most important message that Christianity passed on to the thinkers of this period. By viewing human existence in this way, modernity could be defined not as the end, but rather as the inheritance of Christianity or, to say it all, as its humanization.

This study investigated one central aspect of the political views of John Withexspoon: His steadfast belief in the right of resistance. A product of the Reformation and Enlightenment movements, this doctrine offered justification for questioning the authority of magistrates acting contrary to their sovereignty: it further compelled disobedience to unjust laws and the removal of unjust officials to protect the instituted social order. The context of post-Union Scottish society provided a distinct setting for Witherspoon's introduction to resistance theory. As a devout Scottish Presbyterian and a learned Enlightenment scholar, Withexspoon commanded a thorough understanding of this civil-religious right and duty to protect society.Through his education at Edinburgh University, Witherspoon became acquainted with the substance of Scottish Enlightenment philosophy. Edinburgh instructors utilized the writings of Commonwealth theorists and the classical writers to construct their views of society and social obligation: Society was a constituted civil order, restrained by law, preserved by the efforts of every individual citizen. Witherspoon's Scottish ecclesiastical heritage served to vindicate his Enlightenment education by echoing a similar view of restraint and balance.Covenant Pianism, the product of the 16th-Century reformer John Knox and the Westminster Assembly of the 1640s, invoked the supremacy of a sovereign God over all instituted states. In the Scotsman's view, human depravity and selfish ambition would destroy government if not for the diligent vigil of involved, virtuous citizens. Members of society were thus obliged to oppose tyranny -the unjust, illegitimate exercise of civil-religious authority. Hence, both academic enterprise and doctrinal conviction provided Witherspoon a firm theoretical foundation to support the right of resistance.As President of Princeton during the Anglo-American crisis of the 1770s, Witherspoon directed the education of many future leaders of the new American nation. He was certainly not an idealistic crusader nor a reluctant follower, but consistently argued for the right of American colonists to resist the tyranny of England's Parliament. An early supporter of independence, Witherspoon was the only clergyman to sign Jefferson's Declaration. His most significant contributions, though, were made as a committee member in the Second Continental Congress. / Department of History

How can we use modern X-ray technology to raise awareness of the information that is hidden in historic upholstery? The materials and techniques add information to the history object in question and  about a profession that is sparsely documented in our country. The knowledge we have today has largely been obtained by studying damaged upholstery, or by removing the show cover and upholstery, a technique which involves high risk of damaging the upholstery. X-ray technology offers  a non- intrusive way to examine historical upholstery. Through case studies, I examined four artefacts. The artefacts went trough an inititial visual exam before being transported to The National Heritage Board in Visby where they underwent a thorough X-ray exam. This thesis investigates the process of X-raying historical furniture and gives examples of how to interpret the images. As part of the result, I have begun to create a manual that is intended to present a method that can be used in the process of documentating upholstered furniture using  X-ray. / Hur kan vi med hjälp av röntgenteknik öka kunskapen om den information som göms i historiska stoppningar? De använda materialen och teknikerna tillför en mängd information till stolens historia och berättar om en yrkesgrupp som är sparsamt dokumenterad i vårt land. Den kunskapen vi har till stor del inhämtats genom att man studerat skadade stoppningar, eller att klädsel och stoppning öppnats upp, en teknik som innebär en stor skaderisk. Röntgentekniken ger möjligheten att undersöka en historisk stoppning, utan att göra åverkan på möbeln. I fallstudier har jag undersökt fyra föremål från ca 1750 - 1800 genom en inledande okulärbesiktning, för att sedan transportera föremålen till Riksantikvarieämbetet i Visby där de genomgått en röntgenundersökning. Jag visar på en metod för hur man kan gå till väga i arbetet med att röntga kulturhistoriskt intressanta möbler samt ger exempel på hur man kan utläsa information i bilderna samt vilka för- och nackdelar som förknippas med tekniken. Som ett resultat av undersökningen har jag påbörjat arbetet med att skapa en manual som visar hur man kan använda sig av röntgen som verktyg i dokumentation av historiska stoppningar.

This thesis examines the portraiture and patronage of Marie Thérèse Louise de Savoie-Carignan, the princesse de Lamballe (1749-1792). It is the first comprehensive and detailed study to be undertaken of the princess's activities as patron. Lamballe was Marie-Antoinette's longest-serving confidante and Superintendent of the Queen's Household. Through close formal analysis of the portraits combined with careful consideration of the sitter's personal circumstances and the wider cultural and historical context, the thesis challenges scholarly assumptions that the princess had only negligible influence as a sitter and patron. As a case study of an independent, professionally ambitious and childless widow, it identifies a wider range of motives and cultural meanings than has previously been ascribed to female court patronage of this period. The first chapter demonstrates that the early depictions of Lamballe as a docile and grieving princess were largely dictated by her father-in-law, an identity the princess subsequently discarded when she assumed a professional role at court. Chapter two examines portraits executed during the princess's rise to political and social prominence and shows that her attachment to the queen and the length of time she spent in her company and service, together with her publicly visible roles as freemason and salonnière, made her a figure of considerable renown and influence and thereby a highly significant patron at the French court. This was enhanced by the princess's international reputation as a talented amateur artist in her own right and by her financial and social support of aspiring artists and art institutions. The princess's engagement with the cult of sentiment and advocacy of women artists is allied to the sorority encouraged by Marie-Antoinette within the women of her select circle. Complementary chapters on the princess's previously unknown anglophile inclinations (discussed in Chapter three) and her private collections, library, and musical and literary patronage (considered in Chapter four) further reveal that Lamballe was an informed and cultivated female patron who operated at the very centre of Marie-Antoinette's circle.

Doctorat en philosophie et lettres / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Since 1801 the British government has counted the population once every ten years. Only the Second World War has interrupted this practice, making the census one of the most enduring administrative institutions of the modern British state. This dissertation is about why legislators and political economists first sought to quantify demographic change in the early nineteenth century. The first chapter explains the administrative organisation of census-taking under John Rickman, who directed the first four censuses. The second chapter examines the legislative origins of census-taking in eighteenth-century Britain. It compares the efforts of two backbenchers, Thomas Potter and Charles Abbot, to establish a national census in 1753 and 1800. The third chapter analyses the pre-census empirical basis of fiscal policy during the 1790s, paying patticular attention to William Pitt the Younger's use of political arithmetic to estimate the yield of Britain's first income tax. The fou1th chapter examines the function and limitations of the population data used by four national accountants - Benjamin Bell, Henry Beeke, J. J. Grellier and Patrick Colquhoun - in their responses to Pitt's new tax. The fifth chapter re-assesses the economic and social thought of Robet1 Southey, whose opposition to T. R. Malthus's Essay on the pr;ndple of populahon, and especially its commitment to poor law abolition, arose from a fundamental disagreement about the state's role in welfare provision. The sixth and seventh chapters consider the relationship between information gathering and state formation. Chapter six quantifies the number and range of printed accounts and papers produced by the House of Commons in the early nineteenth century. It challenges previous analyses which have used public expenditure and statute-making as measures of state formation. The final chapter explores how census data was used to determine the redistribution of parliamentary representation that took place as a result of the 1832 Reform Act. Employing a diverse range of methodologies and sources, this study contributes to histories of economic thought and state formation by revealing the extent to which political arithmetic converged with Smithian political economy during the French revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. This convergence proved sho1t-lived, however, and early nineteenthcentury political arithmetic was consigned to historical oblivion by the world 's first professional economist, John Ramsay McCulloch. Nonetheless, reasoning by 'number, weight, or measure', paiticularly in respect of population, challenged and transformed the conduct of parliamentary business in this period, leading to the legislative dissolution of the existing electoral system in 1832.

Using a combination of public institutional records and private personal records, this thesis explores how a newly emerging America constructed its ideas of physical disability in the era of the War for Independence. In the colonies, physical disability never stood alone as an independent category of difference, but was anchored in discourses of poverty and morality. However, the tumultuous events that occurred during the period 177 5 to 1818 forced this developing nation to confront physical disability to an extent that had not previously been required. The result was a conceptual and legislative shift, which caused the understanding of physical disability to be fundamentally redefined and become something identifiable in its own right. To analyse how, and why, this happened, this thesis looks at the public, cultural discourse of disability through this period, and examines the legal developments and the lived experiences that were occurring alongside it. By considering how disability was used in public commentaries to allegorise the split with Britain, it highlights the complicated environment and conceptual tumult which faced disabled Revolutionary War veterans on their return. Analysis of the trajectory of disability pension legislation suggests an infant nation testing the waters with early welfare programmes, often with limited success. However, these early initiatives were the progenitors of the first. national pension program. These developments created a distinct legal construction of disability that was seemingly at odds with the negative representation of disability in the public arena and, through medical and legal classifications, created a more formal platform for the conceptualisation of disability to emerge. To complement the institutional perspective, this thesis explores the lives of 523 disabled Revolutionary War veterans, using information they gave in their applications for a disability pension. This experiential approach expounds the ways in which disability was managed, how it shaped - and was shaped by - pre-existing expectations of gender roles, and how these experiences were often determined by class. Pertinent topics include family life, work life, and the ways in which veterans understood and employed their identities as disabled pensioners. Unlike the post-Civil War period a Revolutionary War disability never became the symbol of patriotism and bravery that the empty sleeve of the Civil War amputee did. Using the experiences of disabled former Revolutionary servicemen and contrasting this with the public discourse and national memory of the war, this thesis presents the reasons why this was the case.

Jeanne Bécu, an illegitimate child from the Vaucouleurs area in France, ascended the ranks of the Ancien régime to become the Countess du Barry and take her place as Royal Mistress of Louis XV. During her tenure as Royal Mistress, Jeanne amassed a jewel collection that rivaled all private collections. During the course of the French Revolution, more specifically the Reign of Terror, Jeanne was forced to hatch a plot to secure the remainder of her wealth as she lost a significant portion of her revenue on the night of 4 August 1789. To protect her wealth, Jeanne enlisted Nathaniel Parker Forth, a British spy, to help her plan a fake jewel theft at Louveciennes so that she could remove her economic capital from France while also reducing her total wealth and capital with the intent of reducing her tax payments. As a result of the theft, her jewelry was transported to London, where she would travel four times during the French Revolution on the pretext of recovering her jewelry. This thesis examines her actions while abroad during the Revolution and her culpability in the plot. While traveling to and from London, Jeanne was able to move information, money, and people out of France. Jeanne was arrested and charged with aiding the counter-revolution, for which the Revolutionary Tribunal sentenced her to death. Madame du Barry represented the extravagance and waste of Versailles and of Bourbon absolutism, and this symbolic representation of waste was what eventually inhibited Jeanne’s success.

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