The Restraint of Violence and the Love of Human and Citizen Rights (1789-1792)
Modern anthropology and historiography, with their psychoanalytic influences, have often described the French revolutionaries as having had violent, deadly tendencies. This article attempts to demonstrate that the revolutionaries, in addition to being capable of controlling the violence, had a love for the Declaration of Human and Citizen Rights that was linked to their love of life, as in a beautiful day in someone’s life but also as in political life. Based on an examination of the revolutionary journal Le moniteur universel, this article shows that the French revolutionaries aspired to a non-violent revolution, and that they deliberated, prepared, and acted in political places where the politicization was particularly intense. Petitions and civic festivities bore witness to a love of rights that did not separate emotions from reason.