French Studies: A Quarterly Review

Scholarship on the rhetoric of the revolutionary era has long revolved around a paradox: just as the power of the spoken word to change the world reached unprecedented levels, the tradition of rhetoric as a subject of scholarship and education lost much of its relevance, signalling the end of what Marc Fumaroli called 'l'âge de l'éloquence'. Originating in a workshop held in 2021, the volume under review contributes to these debates by tracing the emergence of new models of eloquence during the Revolution and its long aftermath. It examines these developments in terms of three major tensions: between the classical rhetorical tradition and the exigencies of the (post-)revolutionary world; between the spoken and the written word; and between the affirmation and rejection of new modes of revolutionary eloquence. As often happens in projects of this nature, the contributions vary widely in quality and scope and the attempt to bring them into dialogue is not always successful. Whilst the book offers a wide range of topics, some common themes emerge. Most contributions focus on a single individual, tracing their reflections on or practice of rhetoric. Many are familiar names (Robespierre, Louis Antoine Léon de Saint-Just, Jacques Necker), but in examining them through a rhetorical lens the essays manage to unearth some surprising new insights. For example, few will have thought of Sade as an orator, as Stéphanie Genand presents him here in her investigation into his activities at the Section des Piques meetings. Besides such biographical analyses, there are studies of particular spaces (parliaments, clubs, the theatre), literary genres (historiography), or modes of rhetoric (toasts). Hélène Parent reiterates her argument about the readaptation of the Ciceronian model of the vir bonus dicendi peritus, while Michel Biard explores the Convention nationale's debates from a semantic perspective, exploring how the conflation of the adjectives 'révolutionnaire' and 'extraordinaire' served to legitimize exceptional measures for exceptional times. The diverse range of themes and approaches reflects the variability of arenas, actors, and modes of rhetoric [End Page 348] in the revolutionary era, even if such variations and their interrelations are not addressed systematically in this volume. Surprisingly, given the volume's title, almost all chapters focus on the Revolution itself. Its aftermath is addressed in Jean-Numa Ducange's account of Jaurès as a 'revolutionary orator', and in Corinne Saminadayar-Perrin's plausible if not very surprising argument that the myth of revolutionary eloquence was a product of the nineteenth century. Although the contributors hail from different disciplines, the volume's main thrust reflects the editors' background in literary studies. As a result, the dialectics between the spoken and written word are given particular attention. In the chapters on revolutionary theatre and historiography, relations between different spaces and media are productively explored. Yet the institutional, spatial, political, economic, and social aspects of the various arenas of public speech are mentioned only in passing, as are the interactions between different speakers and their audiences. In general, this volume represents a respectable addition to existing scholarship, rather than a new departure.