La présente étude trouve son point de départ dans le sentiment de malaise et de déception que la France éprouve vis-à-vis des Deux-Siciles entre 1734 et 1792, alors qu’un Bourbon, cousin du roi de France, est roi des Deux-Siciles. En effet, malgré sa puissance, la France ne parvient guère à s’imposer face aux Deux-Siciles, ni sur la scène politique européenne, ni à un niveau plus local, méditerranéen, côtier, où se jouent des intérêts économiques assez mineurs pour les Français. Cette thèse, qui étudie les relations entre la France et les Deux-Siciles du seul point de vue de la France, vise en premier lieu, à travers un parcours chronologique initial, à retracer les conflits et à faire apparaître les pierres d’achoppement qui attestent la difficulté et la dégradation de la relation bilatérale, qui expliquent le mélange de déception et d’irritation ressenti et qui mettent en même temps sur la piste des erreurs d’appréciation commises par les serviteurs du roi de France. Se plaçant, précisément, du point de vue de ces acteurs, l’étude a ensuite pour ambition de saisir ces erreurs d’appréciation, et donc de montrer comment la prétendue victime est, à bien des égards, l’auteur de son propre malheur : comment, en d’autres termes, le tour pris par les relations entre la France et les Deux-Siciles renvoie, à un niveau plus profond que celui des événements, à un constant défaut de lecture des réalités napolitaines et siciliennes. Ce constat établi, il s’agit, enfin, de comprendre pourquoi le roi de France, qui dispose pourtant de représentants nombreux, n’est pas en mesure de parvenir à une meilleure appréciation de la situation et donc à une action plus profitable et plus incisive sur ce partenaire a priori plus faible que lui. / The starting point of this thesis is the sense of discomfort and disappointment that France feels vis-à-vis the Two Sicilies between 1734 and 1792 when a Bourbon king, a cousin of the king of France, rules the Two Sicilies. Despite its power, France is unable to assert itself over the Two Sicilies on the European stage or at a local scale, that is on the coast, where French economic interests are rather low. The purpose of this thesis is to study the relationship between France and the Two Sicilies from the French point of view. First, conflicts and stumbling blocks are presented in chronological order. This analysis shows the difficulties and the deterioration of the bilateral relationship, that explain French disappointment and annoyance and that put us on the track of misconceptions prevalent among many French king’s servants. Then the study focuses on these misconceptions and shows how the alleged victim is the author of his own misfortune. In other words it shows how beyond all the incidents, France fails to understand Neapolitan and Sicilian realities. After that, this study investigates the reasons why the French king and his many representatives are unable to improve the knowledge of the situation and therefore to carry out an appropriate policy.

Circonscription fiscale se superposant presque exactement, en pays de taille personnelle, à la paroisse, la communauté d’habitants forme, avec la seigneurie, le pole principal d’encadrement de la vie rurale. Bénéficiant d’une grande indépendance aux premiers temps du XVIe siècle, les villages de Forez sont très faiblement institutionnalisés et la vie institutionnelle repose sur une confusion de toutes les obligations communes en un seul lieu de délibération : l’assemblée. Ils vont cependant être confrontés à l’effort de centralisation entrepris par la monarchie. Leur fonctionnement institutionnel, rudimentaire, reposant sur une assemblée générale unique, et sur des consuls élus pour remplir les obligations collectives du village, ne va pas résister aux contraintes que leur imposent l’Etat moderne et le poids toujours croissant de sa fiscalité. L’autonomie des villages de Forez va donc décliner à mesure que s’affermit la monarchie absolue. Ainsi, jusqu’aux années 1670, la vie institutionnelle des villages de Forez est essentiellement interne au village. L’empiètement croissant des autorités extérieures amène cependant à un meilleur contrôle sur l’effectivité des obligations qui pèsent sur le village. De cette double contrainte d’obligations plus lourdes et d’un contrôle accru, résulte une transformation des institutions villageoises qui vont renforcer leur structure mais perdre la spontanéité qui présidait à leur fonctionnement aux premiers temps de l’Ancien Régime. Leur organisation sera alors plus identifiable, mais le fonctionnement radicalement différent : la compacité qui caractérisait le village s’est perdue dans une participation institutionnelle. / Tax district almost overlapping the parish in a land of personal taxes, the rural community is, with the lordship, the main pole framing the rural life.Enjoying considerable independence in the early days of the sixteenth century, the villages of Forez are very weakly institutionalized and the life of their institutions is based on a confusion of all bonds in one common place of deliberation. However they will be faced with the centralization effort undertaken by the monarchy. Their institutional functioning, rudimentary, based on a single meeting, and consuls elected to fulfill the collective obligations of the village, will yield to the constraints imposed on them by the modern state and its ever-increasing weight of taxation. The autonomy of villages will therefore decline as an absolute monarchy was strengthened.Thus, until the 1670s, the institutional life of the villages of Forez is essentially internal. The increasing encroachment of outside authorities, however, leads to greater control over the effectiveness of the obligations imposed on the village. This double bind, more onerous obligations and increased control, brings transformation of village institutions. Their organization will be more identifiable but operating in a radically different way : compactness that characterized the village was then lost in an institutionalized participation.

During the final months of the Great War, the loss of human life was not confined to the battlefields of Western Europe. The Spanish influenza virus was rapidly spreading around the globe¸ and would ultimately leave millions dead in its wake. Some American groups, both public and private, saw the pandemic as a blessing in disguise. They interpreted the pandemic as a sign that their work, whether religious, political, commercial, or health, was more vital to the world than ever before. Influenza reinforced their existing beliefs in the rightness and necessity of their causes, and used the pandemic as a call to increase their activities. American missionaries interpreted the pandemic and its spread as a sign of the backwardness of native peoples, and they argued that the United States and Americans had an increased duty after the War and pandemic to help foreign populations with education, sanitation, and religion. For American diplomats, the pandemic was a nuisance to their work of promoting and expanding American trade. Although it devastated societies, it was not destructive to international commerce. It did, though, provide an opportunity for Americans to teach foreign peoples about better health to protect them from future diseases, and to strengthen commercial ties with the rest of the world. The U.S. Government was greatly distracted with the war effort when the epidemic hit, and refused to take it seriously. They appropriated a small amount of money to the United States Public Health Service (PHS) to deal with the epidemic. This appropriation, although small, continued a trend of the federal government becoming more involved in health efforts at the expense of states, and was used as a justification for later federal health initiatives. The PHS actively used the influenza epidemic to push for their own expansion, arguing that their success in combatting influenza showed their merit, and used it to ensure that they would maintain their power and authority after the epidemic ceased. For all of these groups, the Spanish influenza epidemic provided an opportunity for their work, and reinforced their beliefs that their efforts were needed and vital to the nation and world.

The political career of Gaius Marius (ca. 157-86 BC}, which spans the years between 120 and 86 BC, was memorable not only for its unprecedented personal and public triumphs, but was also of momentous significance in the whole history of the Roman Republic. At precisely the time that Marius achieved a supreme position in the state, the military might of the Romans, hitherto invincible at least in fairly recent times (second century}, had been dealt a series of humiliating setbacks abroad. Firstly, in North Africa by a rather minor despot, Jugurtha the king of Numidia. Secondly, much closer to home in Illyria and in southern Gaul by the migrating Germanic tribes, the Cimbri and the Teutones. Against this background of quite unremitting disaster, Marius obtained a place in republican political life which had not been witnessed before. In his pursuit of senatorial offices, Marius initially experienced both victories and disappointments (success in the tribunician elections but failure in elections for the aedileship) before finally winning the prestigious consulship in the elections held in 108. Thereafter, he was consul a further six times, and five of these consulships were held in successive years between 104 and 100. Just as he was dominant on the field of battle against the Numidians and the Germanic tribes, so, too, did he control the politics of the city during the decade from 108 to 99: The chapters which follow below set out to trace Marius' long rise to preeminence, his contribution to the intricate tribunician legislation of the period in which he flourished and, moreover, his involvement with other senior political figures who were his contemporaries. Furthermore, this biographical study seeks to fully expose the fact that, as a result of his participation in the politics of the time, Marius' career became an obvious example which other equally ambitious politicians (for instance, Sulla, Pompey, Crassus, Caesar and Octavian) sought to emulate or even to surpass. Consequently, Marius may not have realised the extent of the dangers which he bequeathed to the res publica but, inadvertently or not, he caused the beginning of the fall of the Roman Republic. / D. Litt. et Phil. (Ancient History) / History

The political career of Gaius Marius (ca. 157-86 BC}, which spans the years between 120 and 86 BC, was memorable not only for its unprecedented personal and public triumphs, but was also of momentous significance in the whole history of the Roman Republic. At precisely the time that Marius achieved a supreme position in the state, the military might of the Romans, hitherto invincible at least in fairly recent times (second century}, had been dealt a series of humiliating setbacks abroad. Firstly, in North Africa by a rather minor despot, Jugurtha the king of Numidia. Secondly, much closer to home in Illyria and in southern Gaul by the migrating Germanic tribes, the Cimbri and the Teutones. Against this background of quite unremitting disaster, Marius obtained a place in republican political life which had not been witnessed before. In his pursuit of senatorial offices, Marius initially experienced both victories and disappointments (success in the tribunician elections but failure in elections for the aedileship) before finally winning the prestigious consulship in the elections held in 108. Thereafter, he was consul a further six times, and five of these consulships were held in successive years between 104 and 100. Just as he was dominant on the field of battle against the Numidians and the Germanic tribes, so, too, did he control the politics of the city during the decade from 108 to 99: The chapters which follow below set out to trace Marius' long rise to preeminence, his contribution to the intricate tribunician legislation of the period in which he flourished and, moreover, his involvement with other senior political figures who were his contemporaries. Furthermore, this biographical study seeks to fully expose the fact that, as a result of his participation in the politics of the time, Marius' career became an obvious example which other equally ambitious politicians (for instance, Sulla, Pompey, Crassus, Caesar and Octavian) sought to emulate or even to surpass. Consequently, Marius may not have realised the extent of the dangers which he bequeathed to the res publica but, inadvertently or not, he caused the beginning of the fall of the Roman Republic. / D. Litt. et Phil. (Ancient History) / History

Les juges et consuls : que sont-ils ? Qui représentent-ils ? Qui sont-ils ? L’analyse d’une affaire survenue à Angers, au-delà d’une querelle de préséance, pose en réalité cette question d’état relative à leur définition et donc à leur importance dans la ville. Si l’arrêt intervenu en 1736 les reconnaît comme députés de la juridiction consulaire, le débat est sans cesse relancé, notamment lors de l’application de la réforme Laverdy. Car, élus par leurs pairs, pour une charge initialement annuelle, pour rendre la justice de l’ordre des marchands au nom du roi, ils sont concomitamment les mandataires d’une compagnie coutumière des anciens, qui se prétend de justice, d’un corps des marchands, sorte de fédération des différents ‘corps des marchands de’ dont les membres sont éligibles au consulat, et dans les grandes villes d’une « corporation des négociants libres ». En effet, les « ayant passé par les charges » s’instituent membres de droit du conseil d’administration de ce corps des marchands, tout en s’en estimant distincts car encore revêtus de la dignité de la judicature, et ce rôle ne leur est contesté que par les gardes de certaines communautés unies dont ils sont par ailleurs également issus en grande partie. Cette représentation multiple est clairement assumée dans un jeu de pouvoir avec la ville, notamment en raison d’une compétence partagée du service public économique. Ils évoquent l’édit de Cremieu pour s’imposer de droit dans les assemblées générales de la cité et pour s’autonomiser de liens originels ; par ailleurs, ils sont souvent membres de droit des chambres particulières de commerce et jouent un rôle non négligeable dans la désignation des députés du commerce. Défenseurs naturels du commerce, ils veillent à ce que les marchands, le plus souvent des membres de leur compagnie, soient élus au sein des différentes institutions de la ville. Issus d’une sanior pars différente selon les villes et évoluant selon un mouvement de pas chassé, ils veillent à ce que la survivance de la dignité de la judicature efface les qualités personnelles selon le principe intangible de l’ordre de la matricule. La désignation des membres de leur compagnie suit une logique’ d’oligarchisation’, parfois subie, maintenue par une parfaite maîtrise du processus électoral. Un noyau dur est formé par certains anciens bénéficiant d’un cumul des charges à la fois en interne et de manière essaimée, posant la question de la multi-appartenance et des conflits d’intérêts. / Judges of the “juridictions consulaires”: what are they? Who do they represent? Who are they? A case occurred in Angers, beyond a quarrel over precedence, pose actually the question of their state and social and legal importance in the city. If the judgment reached in 1736 recognizes them as members of a jurisdiction, the debate is constantly revived, especially during the Laverdy reform. In fact, elected by their peers, initially for annual responsibility to render justice, they are simultaneously representatives of a customary former company that aspires to be of justice, of a united corporation of various “merchants of… communities” whose members are eligible for the Court, and in major cities of a “free trading community”. Indeed, “having passed through the charges” are established ex officio members of the board of these institutions, while considering themselves different because still dressed in the dignity of the judicature. This role is disputed to them by some unified communities guards. This multiple representation is clearly assumed in a power game with local authorities, mainly because of a shared competence of public economic service. They evoke the edit of Cremieu to impose themselves in the general assemblies of the city and to empower original links; moreover, they are often ex officio members in the “chambers of commerce” and they play a significant role in the appointment of the “députés du commerce”. Natural defenders of the business, they ensure that the merchants, most often members of their company, are elected in the various local institutions. Stemming from a different sanior pars according to cities and evolving to a movement of “pas chassés”, they ensure that their survival dignity of judicature erases the personal qualities according to the inviolable principle of the order of the roll. The elections of the members of their companies follow a logic of “oligarchisation”, sometimes suffered, maintained by a perfect control of the electoral process. A core is formed by some formers enjoying simultaneously loads, both internally and in a spray-out way, raising the question of multi-membership and conflicts of interests.