Un discours en Révolution : le projet des « publicistes patriotes » (1793)

Abstract

Emmanuelle Forner, Discourse Revolutionized : the project of the Patriot Pamphleteers. Between the fall of the Gironde and Frumaire Year II, the protagonists of the Salut Public pamphlet press such as Hébert, Roux and Leclerc benefited from a brief time period and space of freedom in which they acquired short-lived fame. They developed original discursive experience as they sought to link works and politics. In this article, the author studies the language theory that underpins this discours within the framework of an original rhetoric. The pamphleteers put an emphasis on a natural style, on the use of analogy and figurative language in order to find the truth through expressiveness as they struggled against verbal duplicity, sought to unmask their ennemies and to create a new order of things. They emphasised a plain discourse using metaphors and stereotypes which made it possible to economise on lengthy demonstration in their affirmation the universality of an truth acknowledged by all. Nevertheless, this discourse also developed the apocalyptic rhetoric of prophecy, announcing the eschatology of universal happiness and calling on notions of the supernatural. The spokesmen of this current were both the anonymous witnesses of a revelation and looked upon themselves as the Just, as the apostles and finally as the martyrs made in the image of Marat. Through poetics, they unified a message which was to be that of the universal community expressing a total and radical subversion. They proposed a totally revolutionised discourse because the Revolution was going on within the discursive process itself.