Scylla and Charybdis: Italian moderates between absolute monarchy and the sovereignty of the people 1843 – 1861.

The French Revolution and Napoleon introduced a new era not only for France but also for Europe and beyond. A considerable part of the message of 1789 and succeeding years had already been announced in the British and American Revolutions, but now it was to come over in complete form and at full blast. The rights of man were now given wider publicity than ever before, as was the vocabulary of modern politics. Admittedly, the rhetoric outweighed the implementation, and there is even a case for saying that the revolution turned full circle, for France in 1815 in many respects resembled the France of 1789. On the other hand, the weight of the past is such that high hopes for immediate and complete reversal of an old order can never be fully realised, and in the space of a few years absolute monarchy and many of its feudal trappings were swept away. Just as the sons of Charles I had found it impossible to make the Stuart restoration complete, so the brothers of Louis XVI discovered enormous obstacles in the path of restoring the inheritance of the Bourbons. While there is some truth in the argument that Napoleon developed tendencies towards centralisation and even the increase of state power that were already implicit under the old regime, they could not be maintained by absolute monarchy. If the myth of the French Revolution has been greater than the thing itself, the myth grew from the happenings of 14 July 1789and their sequel. Before we return to an assessment of the great days, therefore, we must attempt to describe the manner in which they unfolded. As we do this, moreover, we must not forget that they would not have taken place in the way they did had not France been affected by developments beyond its borders. Bearing this wider setting in mind, let us now consider events in France under the following headings: Constitutional Monarchy, 1789–92; Republic and Terror, 1792–4; Thermidor and the Directory, 1795–9. Late in 1799, the opportunity presented itself for Napoleon Bonaparte to assume power as first consul. Before briefly examining his domestic policies, we will look at the French Revolution and Napoleon’s rule in the international context.KeywordsAustrian EmperorFRENCH RevolutionBritish GovernmentNational GuardAmerican RevolutionThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

This work consists of the analysis of human rights from a historical and juridical perspective of its theoretical statute. A consequence of humanity’s historical and social progress, human rights has a gradual affirmation, varying according to the political, juridical and axiological transformations carried out by the action of institutions and men in the course of the historical process. The glorious revolution, the North American Independence, the French Revolution, the emergence of the first constitutional letters, the constitution of Liberal States, the World Wars, the emergence of Interventionist States and the legitimating crisis of the Lawful Social Democratic States were paradigmatic events to understand the process of formation and consolidation of human rights in its various levels. The first level rights (political and civil rights) were materialized in a bourgeoisie liberal constitutionalist model. It is about a rationalizing model, the basis that support the bourgeoisie in power, that is based on contemplating rational premises from humanism, rationalism, secularism, and scientificism, in opposition to the monarchic regime, absolutist and sacred of the Modern States. This juridical paradigm is based on the protection of the individual freedom and security and introduces to the world a for-mal conception of Constitution based on two fundamental characteristics: the Idea of the State’s division of powers, and the idea of negative rights declaration – right of opposition and resistance against the State. However, this bourgeoisie-individualist liberal juridical model goes into crisis: with the development of the capitalist economy (and its social tensions), with the formation of economical monopolies at the end of 19th century, with the possible insurgence from socialism and, due to market’s inability of self-regu-lation, the State was faced with innumerable difficulties to keep the same passive structure, and with the distancing from the social expectations, such as those proposed by the principles of economical liberalism. The Capitalist State founded on liberal premises, as a political, social and economical posture, needed to be reformulated and open to the social influences in order to preserve the structural fundaments and the legitimating of the Capitalist State. These are the basis for the transformation of the Liberal State into the Social State and the progressive institutionalization of second level rights (economical, social and cultural rights based not only on freedom, but also on equality). With such an institutional reformulation, and in name of the preservation of the capitalist system itself, the State starts, from the perception of insufficiency of the Liberal State model, to provide material equality and social inclusion, a more interventionist and managerial face – conciliation of the capitalist development with its necessary legitimization. With time, the Lawful Democratic Social State, the support of emancipating transformation, starts to demonstrate signs of crisis due to the increasing expenditure in the administration of the State machine and in the conduction of the public thing (public deficit), added to the financial inability of the State to comply with its institutional obligations. In this period of crisis of the providing State model (post-interventionist), the transnationalization of the economy and the markets lead the State and the Law to directly suffer the influxes and the imperatives of the globalized economy, the interests of the financial market, the neo-liberalism and the increasing emphasis on rationalization of the trans-nationalized capitalist economy. This reality produces an intense process of delegitimating of the democratic system. Concomitantly to this crisis, perhaps due to the necessity to recover the values of the contemporaneous democracy, appears in the social scene a new cate-gory of rights. They are the third level rights, representative of the new aspirations of fraternity (solidarity rights relative to development, peace, the individual and peoples self-determination, and the environment). These are human rights translators of the existence of a minimum consensus about some demands that are inherent to the human condition itself. The third level rights appear as the result of the demand to rescue the democratic system working, legitimization and effectiveness, with the incorporation of new expectations born from social consensus – direct expression of the popular will and participation and of a project for democracy’s progressive and mutual action to be carried out in an international level.

History, despotism, public opinion and the continuity of the radical attack on monarchy in the French revolution, 1787–1792

Giovanni Paisiello's Barber of Seville, although no longer an opera that is frequently performed, was very popular in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Based on a play by Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, Le barbier de Seville (1775), was translated into many different languages, and performed by companies all over Europe and America. Paisiello's work was so successful that Mozart, inspired by the idea, wrote a sequel in 1786, The Marriage of Figaro in collaboration with Da Ponte. When Rossini presented his own version of Barber of Seville in Rome in 1816, the public hissed with indignation and outrage to demonstrate a predilection for Paisiello. Giovanni Paisiello (1740 - 1816) was a Neapolitan composer who worked at St. Petersburg, Russia from 1776 - 1784 in the court of Catherine II where he was appointed Kapelmeister of Italian opera. The composer chose the French play by Beaumarchais as his point of departure, having it adjusted and rewritten in Italian verse in order to please his patroness. Due to the restrictions set upon the duration of the spectacle and the subject matter, the comedy was shortened and its socio-political critique eliminated. Thus Le barbier de Seville, which the Empress essentially considered democratizing and harmful to the absolute monarchy, was transformed into an opera buffa, Il barbiere di Siviglia, that involved harmless clowning. Il barbiere is significant because its creation demonstrates how Italian opera buffa became a vehicle to distract the public from considering the issues that were in the air prior to the French Revolution. This thesis examines the many contradictory factors involved in allowing this sort of entertainment at the Imperial Court. The study explores Catherine the Great and her character, as well as her clever ability to maintain a successful image as an Enlightened Despot. The differences and similarities between the French play and the Italian libretto are surveyed in order to demonstrate the simplifications that had to be made. A discussion treating the shift of focus that resulted by moving attention away from Figaro toward Dr. Bartholo, will indicate how the play was transformed into a libretto which proved to be emasculated and irregular. The music and how the composer dealt with the text will be discussed. Paisiello's buffo characterization of the old miserly doctor will be considered through use of musical examples. Additionally, the composer's setting of ensembles will be examined given their particular prominence in this work. The use of unifying elements will also be surveyed. The ideas of the era of Enlightenment affected both the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy. However, each group interpreted education and rationalism in its own way. While the members of the middle class attempted to change the structure of society (ancien regime), the authorities needed to maintain it. Through Italian opera buffa, however, both seemed to find the middle ground for compromise. It was acceptable because it was…

How did the French Revolution become thinkable? Keith Michael Baker, a leading authority on the ideological origins of the French Revolution, explores this question in his wide-ranging collection of essays. Analyzing the new politics of contestation that transformed the traditional political culture of the Old Regime during its last decades, Baker revises our historical map of the political space in which the French Revolution took form. Some essays study the ways in which the revolutionaries' break with the past was prepared by competition between agents and critics of absolute monarchy to control the cultural resources and political meanings of French sought before 1789 to reconstitute their body politic; and by the invention of 'public opinion' as a new form of political authority displacing notions of 'representation', 'constitution', 'sovereignty' - and of 'the French Revolution' itself - the ambiguities, tensions, and contradictions that were to drive the revolutionary dynamic in subsequent years. The result is a substantial and unified set of studies, stimulating renewed reflection on one of the central themes in modern European history.

Until recently Bhutan (Drukyul - Land of the Thunder Dragon) did not fit into the story of the global triumph of democracy. Not only the way it came into existence but also the manner in which it was interpreted made the process of democratization exceptional. As a land-locked country which is bordered on the north by Tibet in China and on the south by the Indian states Sikkim, West Bengal, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, it was a late starter in the process of state-building. Nevertheless, it seems that the last, reclusive Himalayan kingdom started a silent transition from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy by introducing parliamentary democratic elements.

Anne-Louise Germaine de Stael devoted her works to the idea of freedom, particularly for women and slaves. As an intellectual and a writer of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in France, she judged not only her community but its political regimes according to the principles of feminism and abolitionism. As a woman, she had only two possible ways to play a public role: to hold a salon like her mother, or to publish books. She did both, and through these acquired considerable influence. De Stael was a feminist whose work queries the subordination of women to men, and her strong liberal position led her to equate the condition of women with that of slaves. De Stael's liberalism was a product of the Enlightenment and early Romanticism. Although she never departed from the Enlightenment's principles, she displayed a more Romantic attitude when she promoted 'enthusiasm' and emotion, which were reflected in her art, politics and love life. Feminism De Stael's most important struggle was her fight for the rights of women to education and freedom of thought. She was a feminist who questioned the organisation of society and the place of women in it. During the French Revolution, despite claims advocating gender equality and social justice, the status of women regressed rapidly. Like her feminist contemporaries, she advocated that women ought to be judged by the same liberal code as men while she also praised the positive aspects of female gender roles. De Stael was a moderate feminist who celebrated the feminine. She believed that if educated women retained their traditional female values, they could play an effective role in society. Slavery The European slave trade peaked in the eighteenth century, and feminists were among those campaigning for its abolition. Probably initially influenced by her father's stand against slavery, de Stael fought against it in life and in many of her writings. She took a pragmatic and political position when she addressed the subject in her literature, when she supported the campaign of William Wilberforce, and the fight of the leader of the Haitian Revolution, Toussaint Louverture. Intersection of Feminism and Slavery in Madame de Stael's Writings There is a strong link between abolitionism and feminism in de Stael's work, as in the works of other turn of the nineteenth-century feminists. Feminism was closely related to abolitionism as married women, especially from the upper classes, could identify with slaves because they too lacked certain civil rights and were treated as property. While de Stael fought for women to be treated fairly, she also introduced the notion of 'enslavement' to strong emotions which was as distressing as the physical and cultural restrictions enforced on women, and could be used to reinforce those restrictions. In her novels and treatises, she demonstrates that to be in the throes of passion is destructive, causing a loss of autonomy, identity and self-control, the same predicament suffered by slaves. While numerous biographers of Madame de Stael have noted the impact her work has had on a range of political, social and historical matters, few have considered the way her feminism and abolitionism interacted and intersected in her work. This study analyses de Stael's work in the context of her times and demonstrates that not only did she advocate passionately for abolitionism and feminism, but that she saw how the repression of women and enslavement of Africans were linked in the society of eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries France.

On the eve of the French Revolution, Dupont de Nemours became infatuated with constitutional issues that had hitherto been the exclusive domain of some of his fellow physiocrats, in particular Le Mercier de La Riviere. He was convinced of the necessity of creating a new political regime that would take the features of a moderate monarchy. The prince would be submitted to constitutional rules, sovereignty transferred to the nation and the legislative power exercised by its representatives. However, the representatives of the nation should not exercise their prerogatives outside a clearly established, defined constitutional framework. Partly consistent with the original physiocratic theories, Dupont de Nemours identified constitutional norms that should be promoted and protected from abuses of the legislature. He decided to entrust the heavy burden of controlling legislative activity to political instances, namely, successively, the people and the monarch. Although the omnipotence of the revolutionary legicentrism seemed incompatible with such a system of verification of the norm, it remains that Dupont de Nemours was part of a current which considerably developed during the XVIIIth century and which found a certain resonance in the decade following the Revolution.

Martin Luther King, Jr is the most recognisable face of the black Civil Rights movement in America in the 1950s and 1960s. His ‘I’ have a Dream’ speech, given in 1963 as part of the march on Washington, has been identified as a key moment in American history, beyond just its importance to the Civil Rights movement. King's lasting place in American history has recently been codified in the declaration of his birthday as a National Holiday by the Reagan Administration in 1986. Unlike other Civil Rights leaders, King gained support from black and white communities for his program of change. In fact, King's major successes in gaining Presidential support for Civil Rights Bills in 1964 and 1965 resulted from his ability to win the support of Northern white liberals for Federal intervention in Southern race relations. Although considerable work has been done on the methods through which King's campaigns sought to tap white support for Civil Rights, scant attention has been given to one of the central vehicles through which King was able to mobilise white support, his language. Despite the publication of two recent studies on King's rhetoric, (Miller 1992; Lischer 1995) scholars have largely ignored King's rhetoric as a source of study. In this paper, I seek to fill some of this gap by analysing the key rhetorical strategies King employs to win support from his predominantly white audience in his speech ‘Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution’.

New reference works on a period as complex as the French Revolution are usually to be welcomed, and there is much in this volume that is of value — some clear (though not innovative) maps, a substantial chronology, and a great deal of generally well-presented information. However, one thing that is required of such a work is that it be reliable and, as far as possible, comprehensive. Unfortunately, a well-informed reader does not have to advance very far into the alphabetical sequence of entries offered here before serious doubts arise on this score. Indeed, the first paragraph of the first entry, on ‘Absolute Monarchy’, asserts both that ‘Absolutisme […] is a caricature of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century realities’, and that ‘[i]t was a matter of blood and inheritance, since the king personified the absolutist state, and was accountable to God for it’ (p. 1). As here, it often seems as if entries, even substantial ones, have been roughly cut down from much longer originals. The selection and titling of topics, in a book with no detailed contents list (or, indeed, index of entries) can also appear arbitrary: for instance, the third entry is ‘Administrative Framework of France, 1790’, but there is no corresponding entry for the same topic at any other stage of events; the fourth entry is ‘Alliance of Throne and Altar’, a brief summary of Church–State relations since the 1500s, but who would know to find it under such a title? The choice of subtopics to cover within articles often seems arbitrary too: that on ‘Assignats’, for example, offers no details on their history between late 1790 and February 1797, glossing over the consequences of their inflation in a single, vague sentence. The entry ‘Bastille, Taking of the’ manages in its first paragraph to scramble both the material causation and the political responsibility for the events of 11–14 July. Further on, there is an entry for ‘Caen in Rebellion (1793)’, and both Lyon and Marseille have entries for their Federalist episodes in that year; Bordeaux, however, has no entry at all. This pattern is continued throughout: an article on ‘Naval Officers’ but not one on the Navy; one on ‘Army’ but not on military officers; an article on ‘Public Opinion on the Eve of the Revolution’ that invokes freemasonry but not academies, scurrilous pamphlets but not the Society of Thirty, Habermas (in passing) but not Darnton. The entry for ‘Restaurants’ is as long as that for ‘Representatives on Mission’. Students searching for clarification on the cahiers de doléances will find it, eventually, under the heading of ‘Statements of Complaint’, a translation so unusual that Google's only citation of it is this volume. This is one of many entries that fail to provide references to obvious further reading. Although, unusually, this dictionary uses endnotes and a bibliography, its range of secondary suggestions is narrow and inconsistent. Overall, then, this is not a title that can be recommended.

When the Qing court moved to support constitutionalism after 1905, both ordinary officials and high officials were extremely enthusiastic. In general, they saw in constitutionalism a real transformation of the Chinese polity: a rationalization of rulership, a new disciplinary order, and a source of national unity and strength. Many officials, though not all, spoke of locating sovereignty in the emperor. This created an appearance of continuity (the imperial order), but actually radically severed the monarchy from its old cosmological moorings. The official project was to ”nationalize” and ”citizenize” the masses. Officials also tended to be optimistic about the basic fitness of the people, once properly educated, to be qualified citizens. They seemed confident that education would not only turn the people into diligent, loyal, and patriotic citizens understanding both their rights and their duties, but also give them protection from the ”heresies” of the revolutionaries. Surveillance and discipline on the one hand, and education and patriotism on the other, were intimately related. Still, the utopianism and idealism that surrounded officials' rhetoric on constitutionalism marked a great break from the past. We see some insistence on preserving imperial power. But there was a stronger notion of the emperor as just one function of the constitution. At a kind of utopian extreme, some officials thought that a constitution would fully unify the people and their rulers. At the very least, improved access to public opinion would allow rulers to make better decisions. Historians have emphasized the conservatism of the Qing court. This was not wrong, but it ignored that by the early 1900s a sense of the state as the shared property of all Chinese had become widespread. We need to remember that, even for practical officials, the turn of the century was a utopian moment. Indeed, at least to a degree, revolutionaries, constitutionalists, local elites-and even officials-shared a kind of mystical sense of the ”one body” of the modern nation-state.

Combining the intellectual history of the Enlightenment, Atlantic history, and the history of the French Revolution, Paul Cheney explores the political economy of globalization in eighteenth-century France. The discovery of the New World and the rise of Europe's Atlantic economy brought unprecedented wealth. It also reordered the political balance among European states and threatened age-old social hierarchies within them. In this charged context, the French developed a science of commerce that aimed to benefit from this new wealth while containing its revolutionary effects. Montesquieu became a towering authority among reformist economic and political thinkers by developing a politics of fusion intended to reconcile France's aristocratic society and monarchical state with the needs and risks of international commerce. The Seven Years' War proved the weakness of this model, and after this watershed reforms that could guarantee shared prosperity at home and in the colonies remained elusive. Once the Revolution broke out in 1789, the contradictions that attended the growth of France's Atlantic economy helped to bring down the constitutional monarchy. Drawing upon the writings of philosophes, diplomats, consuls of commerce, and merchants, Cheney rewrites the history of political economy in the Enlightenment era and provides a new interpretation of the relationship between capitalism and the French Revolution.

The new Dutch republic hovered between restoring feudal institutions or installing absolute sovereignty. The provincial States took authority upon themselves after separating from Spain. But, the delegation model proved unsuited to cope with the exigencies of (foreign) policy. A fight for power emanated between stadhouder and raadspensionaris. Absolute rule prevailed, when the stadhouder representing the nobility took the authority of raadspensionaris upon himself. The Dutch case differed from England where Long Parliament was restored after the civil wars. Dutch vigor disappeared, when repeated purges diminished elite ranks and installed a corrupt parasitic regime. The republic’s military role was played out after 1672 and leadership moved to the English. Religious dissidents had moved to the republic, but the Pilgrim Fathers took sail, when they did not obtain civil rights. Cities declined, when a small landed elite appropriated surpluses. Discourse ended, when deviant views were punished. The republic fell into Napoleon’s hands without much opposition. But, French ruled did not restore rights. Absolute monarchy was installed after Napoleon’s defeat. Constitutional monarchy was only established in 1848, when a new constitution came into effect.

日治時期台灣的「文學」概念演變

DURING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, awash with reform in 1791, Olympe de Gouges set forth the Declaration of the Rights of Woman, exhorting deputies in the National to reform past practices and guarantee rights to women. Man, are you capable of being just? Tell me, what gives you the sovereign power to oppress my sex? Alongside men in the monarchic state, women must be constituted into a National Assembly in order to privilege equally the acts of women and the authoritative acts of men, because in past centuries the scorn of men for the natural, inalienable, and sacred rights of has caused both public misfortunes and the corruption of governments. In her view, No society has a constitution without the guarantee of rights and the separation of powers. At this moment of potential structural change enabled by the drafting of a new constitution, Gouges posed a critical question anchored in historical memory: Do you [women] fear that our [new] French legislators, correctors of that [old] morality enshrined in political practices now out of date, will say to you once again, 'Women, what is there in common between you and us?' Likening the civil status of French women maritally contracted into servitude to that of Africans sold into colonial slavery, she negated both slavery and marriage as then construed. Gouges posited the necessary reform: her Form for a Social Contract between Man and Woman held wife and husband equal partners in a marriage freely entered, co-parents of all children propagated, and equal shareholders in family property even upon marital separation.' In the same year, Etta Palm d'Aelders set forth her Address from French Women Citizens to the National Assembly, calling on legislators to reject past practices that tyrannized women. In a challenge to deputies proposing new laws at that moment, she said, You must no longer allow woman to groan beneath arbitrary authority. Justice ... calls all individuals to equality of rights without discrimination of sex. Jogging their memories, she indicted past practices still in force. For too long, ...