Destructions, « vandalisme » et protection du patrimoine à Bordeaux et en Gironde pendant la Révolution française

Abstract

Destructions, « Vandalism » and Protection of Patrimony in Bordeaux and Gironde during the French Revolution. The example of Bordeaux and the Gironde department should incite us to distinguish between several phenomena that the too classic term of « revolutionary vandalism » should not reflect alone. If there really were destructions properly described as revolutionary, others took place during the Revolution but had nothing « revolutionary » about them, and still others could be qualified as « acts of vandalism ». In this case, they express a point of view, a position for or against the Revolution. In the same way, preservation mesures taken by revolutionary authorities do not exclude the existence of mesures taken in a counter-revolutionary spirit or for non political reasons.