L'objet de la présente étude repose sur l'histoire de la gendarmerie dans le département du Gard. Cette histoire locale doit permettre de comprendre l'histoire générale de l'arme. Notre recherche s'appuie sur des archives manuscrites qui sont des correspondances entre les autorités locales, des lettres entre l'État et la Gendarmerie, des procès-verbaux, des registres, quelques pétitions des gendarmes. Les cavaliers de Maréchaussée puis les gendarmes se conforment aux lois issues du passé et obéissent aux nouvelles. Mais la Révolution distingue les pouvoirs de police, des pouvoirs de justice. Il faut concevoir des institutions capables d'en assurer la mise en œuvre. Quand est-il de la publication des lois et de leur diffusion? Les gendarmes obéissent à la loi. Les gendarmes doivent appliquer la loi et la faire appliquer. Comment empêcher l'exécution sommaire d'une personne lors d'une émeute de subsistance ? Notre travail, la naissance de la gendarmerie nationale dans le Gard se découpe en quatre parties. Dans un premier temps, j'ai essayé de répondre aux questions soulevées par l'implantation des gendarmeries dans le Gard. À travers la lecture des baux nous avons pu approfondir le rôle du procureur général syndic Griolet qui gère le maintien de l'ordre. Administrateur départemental, il gère le quotidien des gendarmes. La deuxième partie demeure un axe central de notre travail, il porte sur le salaire des gendarmes et leurs chevaux. C'est avec ces derniers qu'ils accomplissent les tournées journalières sur les grands chemins. La Convention Thermidorienne et le Directoire, malgré les conditions économiques désastreuses n'abandonnent pas les gendarmes. Dans la troisième partie, je me suis attachée à démontrer l'interaction de la gendarmerie et des événements politiques. La Convention est avertie du comportement suspect des gendarmes. À l'armée du Rhin, la contestation se manifeste par la désertion des gendarmes. Ils rentrent dans leur département sans congé, sans chevaux, sans manteau. Ces retours provoquent une incompréhension. Le Colonel Nacquard est accusé de fédéralisme, il est écroué. La dernière partie est centrée sur l'action des gendarmes. Leur intervention est au cœur du maintien de l'ordre et de la mise en application des lois. C'est un travail qui ressort du service ordinaire et extraordinaire. En conclusion, la gendarmerie est définitivement intégrée à l'armée, elle perd son indépendance et reste soumise au pouvoir exécutif. / The purpose of this study is based on the history on the history of the gendarmerie in the Gard department ; The local history is to understand the general history of the weapon. Our research is based on handwritten archives are correspondences between local authorities, letters between the state and the gendarmes, minutes, record, some petitions of the gendarmes. Riders of constabulary and the gendarmes comply with legislation from the past and obey the news. But the revolution distinguishes the police powers of the powers of justice. We must design institutions capable of ensuring implementation. When is the publication of laws and dissemination ? The gendarmes obey the law. The gendarmes should enforce the law and enforce it. How to disable the summary execution of a person during a riot of subsistence ? Our work : the birth of the gendarmerie in the Gard is divided into four parts. At first, I tried to answer the questions raised by the implementation of police stations in the Gard. Through the reading of the leases, we could deepen the role of the Attorney General Griolet which manages the law enforcement. County Administrator, it manages the daily gendarmes. The second part remains a central focus of our work, it covers the salaries of gendarmes and their herses. It is with them that they do daily tours on the highways. Thermidorian Convention and the Executive despite the dire economic conditions do not give the gendarmes. ln the third part I attached to demonstrate the interaction of the gendannes and political events. The Convention is notified of the suspicions behavior of the gendarmes. ln the army of the Rhine, the challenge is manifested by the desertion of the gendarmes. They leave without returning to their department, without herses, without a coat. These returns cause misunderstanding. The Nacquard colonel accused of federalism, it is emprisoned. The last part focuses on the actions of the gendarmes. Their intervention is central to the maintenance of order and the enforcement of laws. lt is a work that emerges from ordinary and extraordinary service. ln conclusion, the gendarmerie is definitely integrated into the army, it loses its independence and remains subject to executive power.

Le recours fréquent aux serments pendant la décennie révolutionnaire a déjà attiré l’attention de nombre d’historiens. Le serment civique a été surtout considéré en tant qu’acte significatif autour duquel semble s’être joué la légitimité révolutionnaire. Effectivement, du serment du roi et des députés de février 1790, à celui des prêtres adhérents à la Constitution civile du clergé, ou encore à celui que la troupe doit prêter après la fuite du roi, des formules constitutionnelles de 1791 et 1792 à celles de haine à la royauté de l’âge du Directoire, jusqu’aux variations apportées par Napoléon, le serment est un élément fondamental de la grammaire politique révolutionnaire. Mon projet de recherche se propose de considérer le serment dans une perspective plus vaste, en comparant la situation française aux expériences des Républiques Sœurs, en élargissant mon propos jusqu’à l’âge de la Restauration pour révéler l’importance du serment dans la culture politique contemporaine. / This thesis aims to study the characteristics of political trust and loyalty during the eighteenth century and the French Revolution. These characteristics are essential to understand the revolutionary culture, as they involve one of the most divisive issues of that time : civic oath. My thesis is aimed to clarify how the experience of oaths shaped the relationship between citizens and power during the revolutionary decade (1789-1799) in France and in Italy, and how this relationship is empowered by narratives taken from religion, the culture of honor, and ideology. From a wider, transnational viewpoint, my primary goal was to provide a deeper look into this key topic of the historiography of French Revolution.

Dans le sillage des problématiques posées par l’anthropologie historique du savoir et par les travaux sur la matérialité des pratiques savantes, la thèse questionne la dimension cognitive des collections d’histoire naturelle de Jean Hermann (1738-1800). Dès 1762, le naturaliste crée un riche cabinet ouvert aux trois règnes de la nature. Il est associé à une bibliothèque et à un jardin botanique dont il a la charge en tant que professeur de botanique de l’université de Strasbourg. Les trois formes de collections lui servent d’équipement pour la recherche et pour l’enseignement. L’objet de l’enquête est de cerner le rôle des objets dans la production et la circulation des savoirs naturalistes. Il s’agit également d’observer la construction sociale d’une figure savante. Le travail met au jour l’importance de l’économie d’échange des objets dans la constitution des collections et le rôle du dialogue des objets - échantillons, livres, images – dans le processus d’observation. Le dispositif visuel qu’est le cabinet est au centre de la fabrique du savoir. Les collections contribuent aussi à l’émergence d’une science publique, elles sont des supports d’enseignement et elles attirent de nombreux visiteurs. / Following the issues raised by the historic anthropology of the knowledge and the material turn, the thesis questions the cognitive dimension of the collections of natural history of Jean Hermann (1738-1800). From 1762, the naturalist created a rich cabinet composed of objects from the three kingdoms of nature. The cabinet was associated with two other forms of collections: a library and a botanical garden, which he managed as professor of botany of the university of medicine from 1783. All three forms of collections were used as his equipment for research and teaching. The investigation shall determine the role of objects in the production and the circulation of the naturalistic knowledge. Its objective is also to observe the social construction of a learned figure. The study points out the importance of the economy of exchange of objects in the constitution of collections and the role of the dialogue between objects - samples, books, images – in the visualization process. The visual device of the cabinet is at the core of the process of knowledge making. Collections contributed to the emergence of a public science; they were media of teaching and attracted numerous visitors.

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.

Cette thèse d’histoire repose sur un matérialisme génétique qui considère que tout fait institutionnel est l’expression d’une structure sociale historiquement déterminée par les luttes concurrentielles entre puissants pour le monopole du pouvoir et qui, en tant que structure structurée, demeure inscrite dans les corps et dans les esprits des agents sociaux, sous forme d’habitus et d’éthos. Ainsi, décrire l’institution militaire nécessite de faire porter l’analyse sur une catégorie spécifique d’agents, la noblesse d’Épée, que son histoire, sa position au sein du cycle fonctionnel absolutiste et ses intérêts portent à redéfinir les cadres de l’armée d’Ancien Régime entre 1789 et 1791. Saisir les fondements objectifs, historiques qui la structurent et, partant, l’ordre social né de la société révolutionnée, implique de s’intéresser à une configuration historique particulière révélée par la crise d’identité traversée par l’Épée entre 1750 et 1789. En tant qu’expression extériorisée de la défonctionnalisation du cycle absolutiste, la Révolution française aboutit à une brusque mutation des structures juridiques liée à l’introduction parmi les éléments actifs du corps social, d’agents porteurs d’un système de croyances hétérodoxes avivées par le processus révolutionnaire, et investies dans la refonte des institutions monarchiques sous la Constituante. / This history thesis is based on a genetic materialism that considers institutional fact as a reflect of a social structure historically determined by competitive struggles between elites for monopoly on power, a structure being structured which has always been and remains embedded in bodies and mind in the form of habitus and ethos. In this way, explaining the military institution's functioning requires staying focused onto one single category of social agents, the Nobility of the Sword that its story, its own position within absolutist functional cycle and self-interest lead to redefine the military institutional frameworks between 1789 and 1790. Grasping the objective and historical background that now structures such an institution and thereby, the social order born of revolutionary society, implies to accord special importance in the historical configuration revealed by identity crisis experienced by the Nobility of the Sword from 1750 to 1789. As an outer expression of the absolutist cycle’s end, French revolution result in a fairly sudden change in legal structures, related to the introduction among the active elements of society, of social agents sharing a system of heterodox beliefs heightened by the revolutionary process and invested in the recast of monarchical institutions under the Constituent.

This interdisciplinary thesis belongs to Marie Antoinette studies. The contemporary dissonant commodification of the controversial historical character of the last Queen of France, detected at her former home, Petit Trianon, drives the course of the thesis research. Considering the complexity and controversy of the subject, the thesis seeks to make a contribution to extant scholarship by clarifying important modern history issues through a fresh approach: by using art history as an indicator in assessing the historical truth of the narrative of Petit Trianon, the residence identified as home to the last Queen of France. The thesis examines Petit Trianon and Marie Antoinette in the context of four major narratives - the historical, cinematic, architectural and heritage narratives - relevant to the contemporary heritage interpretation of Petit Trianon as well as its visitor perceptions. In addition to sourcing evidence for the arguments originating in art history information, the thesis relies on the data collection provided by a tailor-made survey for the topic, placing the results in the wider context of a hermeneutical interpretation of data found in either history or contemporary popular culture. The array of Marie Antoinette’s images detected by the analysis charts the commodification of this historical character at Petit Trianon: its production and consumption. It is through the assessment of this commodification that the present thesis reveals the misconceptions surrounding the historical character best known as Marie Antoinette. The thesis argues that the true role of the last Queen of France was successfully obscured through juxtaposition with her perception by the French collective memory. In other words, the perception of Marie Antoinette had subverted historical truth. Furthermore, the commodification of her historical character is perpetuated in an endless chain of representations fuelled by postmodern consumerism.

The pamphleteers popularized the mythology of despotism by denouncing lettres de cachet and other supposed abuses of power that had little effect on most people. Historians like Funck-Brentano may be correct in arguing that the government was really moderate at this time, but it is important to show that radical propagandists were quite successful in convincing Frenchmen that thousands of innocent victims huddled miserably in <em >cachots for having inflamed the despotic passions of a minister. Moreover the prisons that were mythological for most Frenchmen had been terribly real for Brissot, Carra, Gorsas and many other writers, and this consideration also suggests the importance of the biographical approach. The Bastille may have been nearly empty, but it was a powerful symbol, effectively exploited by pamphleteers who dealt in symbols, declamation and distortions of political realities. They were highly successful in dominating public opinion, which exerted an influence on events that has been unappreciated in relation to the weak, irresolute rule of Louis XVI. The thesis attempts to develop this interprettion of the political importance of radical propaganda with reference to the scientific, financial and literary history of the period. It may seem weak on some ponts of these specialized fields, but it is hoped that it assimilates them successfully in its main attempt to contribute to an understanding of the last years of the Ancien Regime: its analysis of the character of radical propaganda in relation to the men who created it.