Swordsticks or lead-tipped batons: The culture and usage of “weapons hidden and secret” in Paris (1790-1800)
Weiss, Clément
Swordsticks or lead-tipped batons: The culture and usage of “weapons hidden and secret” in Paris (1790-1800) - 2018.
90
In literary and iconographic representation, the gilded youth of Paris during the Thermidorian and Directorial periods carried canes and batons adorned with a blade, a sword equiped with a leaden point, and a pistol as the favored arms of distinction and of the Reaction. The aim of this article is examine this politization of arms by considering their use and circulation in Paris between 1789 and 1800, and by studying their actual incidence in the violence committed in the section of the Palais Royal. In police discourse, the repression of these arms, whose use is presented as criminogenic and seditious, became towards the end of 1795 part of the denonciation of “jeunes gens” who might reject military service to form armed bands and dominate the streets. Beyond this political purpose, the subversive reputation of these arms also attests to the persistance since the Old Regime of a culture of self-defense that valued personal weapons, indeed personalized weapons.
Swordsticks or lead-tipped batons: The culture and usage of “weapons hidden and secret” in Paris (1790-1800) - 2018.
90
In literary and iconographic representation, the gilded youth of Paris during the Thermidorian and Directorial periods carried canes and batons adorned with a blade, a sword equiped with a leaden point, and a pistol as the favored arms of distinction and of the Reaction. The aim of this article is examine this politization of arms by considering their use and circulation in Paris between 1789 and 1800, and by studying their actual incidence in the violence committed in the section of the Palais Royal. In police discourse, the repression of these arms, whose use is presented as criminogenic and seditious, became towards the end of 1795 part of the denonciation of “jeunes gens” who might reject military service to form armed bands and dominate the streets. Beyond this political purpose, the subversive reputation of these arms also attests to the persistance since the Old Regime of a culture of self-defense that valued personal weapons, indeed personalized weapons.
Réseaux sociaux