The Grub Street Style of Revolution: J.-P. Brissot, Police Spy

Robert C Darnton

doi:10.1086/240206

Abstract

Previous articleNext article No AccessThe Grub Street Style of Revolution: J.-P. Brissot, Police SpyRobert C. DarntonRobert C. Darnton Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Modern History Volume 40, Number 3Sep., 1968 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/240206 Views: 6Total views on this site Citations: 6Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1968 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Innes M. Keighren Circulating Seditious Knowledge: The “Daring Absurdities, Studied Misrepresentations, and Abominable Falsehoods” of William Macintosh, (Jan 2017): 67–84.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44654-7_4MARK CURRAN BEYOND THE FORBIDDEN BEST-SELLERS OF PRE-REVOLUTIONARY FRANCE, The Historical Journal 56, no.11 (Feb 2013): 89–112.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X12000556Sébastien Charles From Universal Pyrrhonism to Revolutionary Scepticism: Jacques-Pierre Brissot de Warville, (Feb 2013): 231–244.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4810-1_16Leonore Loft Brissot, Jacques Pierre (1754-1793), (Apr 2009): 1–3.https://doi.org/10.1002/9781405198073.wbierp0247SIMON BURROWS Despotism without Bounds: The French Secret Police and the Silencing of Dissent in London, 1760-1790, History 89, no.296296 (Oct 2004): 525–548.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0018-2648.2004.t01-1-00311.xJohn R. Gillis Political Decay and the European Revolutions, 1789–1848, World Politics 22, no.33 (Jul 2011): 344–370.https://doi.org/10.2307/2009601

Highlights

Brissot's life seems a parable of his time: as one authority put it, "II est, des sa jeunesse, l'image complete de toutes les aspirations d'une generation."' This picture of the complete prerevolutionary man comes from Brissot's memoirs, where he appears steeping himself in Rousseau; publishing denunciations of decrepit institutions; forming secret revolutionary cabals; comparing insurrections with radicals of Geneva, the Low Countries, England, and the United States; reading; writing; plotting; living and breathing for the fourteenth of July
Brissot's prerevolutionary career seems most vulnerable to inspection at its most critical point, the two months he spent in the Bastille duringthe summer of 1784
It must have seemed to Brissot, as he contemplated the world from a window in the Bastille, that the evil powers of the Ancien Regime had united to crush him

Summary

Introduction

Lameth retaliated with a smear campaign, according to the attack on him that Brissot published in Le Patriote FranOais of March 7, 1791: "Un homme digne de foi m'assure que vous avez dit que j'e'tais paye par M. la Fayette, et que j'ai ete espion de police, et que vous en avez des preuves." Having challenged Lameth to produce his evidence and having received no reply, Brissot continued, "Je lui donne donc un dementi formel; je le somme de publier ses preuves, et s'il ne le fait pas, le public doit le regarder comme un vil calomniateur."[38] In this case, too, Brissot had aroused the hostility of the right wing, for he was on the verge of preaching republicanism while the Lameth brothers, 36 Journal de Paris, Mar. 13, 1792.

Results

Conclusion