History of France

What Dominique Pagani says

Dominique Pagani approaches the history of France mainly through his readings. With Michel Clouscard's L'Être et le Code, he traces the country's precapitalist history, from Charlemagne to the "double cracking" of the eighteenth century, the industrial revolution and the French Revolution. In his view, the human sciences have repressed this history1. He dwells on the edict of the Paulette, which opens up the sale of offices and creates the bourgeoisie of the robe. From that point on, the superstructure becomes causal. He also describes how the pacification of the kingdom leads from the Song of Roland to courtly love, and then, under Louis XIV, from Corneille to Racine1. He takes up this moment elsewhere: the king relies on the bourgeoisie against the nobility of the sword, with England as its model, until the final face-to-face settled by the guillotine2. In Nerval's Angélique, he finds history inscribed in the Valois: the opposition between Franks and natives that can be read in place names, the vase of Soissons as the origin of the monarchy, the Bastille, Danton, and the tomb of Rousseau, which encloses the Social Contract3.

1. 1Préface au mémoire de Simon Verdun, « La critique du néokantisme chez Michel Clouscard », soutenue à l’ENS DE Paris, sanctionnée par une mention très bien.5 Jul 2018
2. 29 #17 La métaphore géopolitique • Planck • Descartes • Clouscard • Dominique Pagani17 Mar 2021
3. 3#4.7 Angélique (de Nerval)12 Apr 2018

Introduction produced automatically from the 3 sessions on this theme, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the sessions.