When the Pen was Mightier than the Barricade: Political Letters in France during the Crisis of May 16, 1877
Barrows, Susanna
When the Pen was Mightier than the Barricade: Political Letters in France during the Crisis of May 16, 1877 - 2014.
32
What did it mean to put pen to paper and write to the President of the Republic in 1877? This article explores part of the terrain of political commentary, seen through the lens of a single political crisis, captured in unpublished letters sent by ordinary citizens to their head of state. Its corpus consists of some three hundred letters, sent by mostly anonymous authors, to President MacMahon, in the fateful year of 1877. These missives offer insights into the political crisis known as the “coup du 16 mai” and to the “uncharted” revolution that this crisis engendered. MacMahon’s repression triggered the most thorough-going administrative purge of the French state since 1800. Despite heavy censorship, dissidents found other ways to express their fury at MacMahon’s coup. For citizens of all classes, the “crise de 1877” constituted a revolution without barricades, without violence, but nonetheless with a firm anchoring in French revolutionary history.
When the Pen was Mightier than the Barricade: Political Letters in France during the Crisis of May 16, 1877 - 2014.
32
What did it mean to put pen to paper and write to the President of the Republic in 1877? This article explores part of the terrain of political commentary, seen through the lens of a single political crisis, captured in unpublished letters sent by ordinary citizens to their head of state. Its corpus consists of some three hundred letters, sent by mostly anonymous authors, to President MacMahon, in the fateful year of 1877. These missives offer insights into the political crisis known as the “coup du 16 mai” and to the “uncharted” revolution that this crisis engendered. MacMahon’s repression triggered the most thorough-going administrative purge of the French state since 1800. Despite heavy censorship, dissidents found other ways to express their fury at MacMahon’s coup. For citizens of all classes, the “crise de 1877” constituted a revolution without barricades, without violence, but nonetheless with a firm anchoring in French revolutionary history.
Réseaux sociaux