The National Habitus (eBook)

lt;P>Marie-Pierre Le Hir, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA.

Introduction 11
Part I: The Revolutionary Field 43
Chapter I Olympe de Gouges’s Revolutionary Patriotism 45
1.1 Vive le roi! (1788–1791) 46
1.1.1 Bourgeois values vs. aristocratic ethos 47
1.1.2 Royal patriotism 51
1.1.3 Manifestations of the aristocratic code of conduct 54
1.1.4 Attitudes towards foreigners 57
1.1.5 The French Revolution as a breakdown of civility 61
1.1.6 Constructing the nation: the cult of great men 64
1.2 Vive la France! (1792–93) 66
1.2.1 From loving the king to loving the nation 66
1.2.2 “L’esprit français” 69
1.2.3 War: the catalyst of national sentiment 75
Conclusion 79
Chapter II Identity Lost and Found: Chateaubriand’s Culturalist Nationalism 82
2.1 The Historical, Political, and Moral Essay on Revolutions 86
2.1.1 The aristocratic sense of self and national identity 86
2.1.2 Christianity: the foundation of French identity 92
2.1.3 Against the Enlightenment and the French Revolution 97
2.2 The Genius of Christianity, or The Beauties of the Christian Religion 109
2.2.1 Chateaubriand’s case for Christianity’s modernity 109
2.2.2 Chateaubriand’s politics 117
2.2.3 Grounding identity in faith and soil 122
Conclusion 128
Chapter III Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism in Germaine de Staël’s Works 132
3.1 Delphine, an ambiguous critique of the aristocratic ethos 136
3.1.1 The aristocratic ethos of the Parisian salon 139
3.1.2 Bourgeois life in the countryside 142
3.1.3 Exile and war 147
3.1.4 Delphine’s reception 154
3.2 Divided allegiance: cosmopolitanism and nationalism in Corinne, or Italy 158
3.2.1 Cosmopolitanism and the national character 159
3.2.2 The national habitus in Corinne 165
3.2.3 Corinne’s reception 171
Conclusion 173
Part II: The Post-Revolutionary Field 181
Chapter IV Through Stendhal’s Eyes: The National Habitus in the Making 183
4.1 The French character in Chronicles for England 186
4.1.1 Of Frenchmen, old and new 187
4.1.2 Assessing change in Restoration France 197
4.2 Identity nationalization as inescapable universal process 215
4.2.1 On becoming ‘British’ 217
4.2.2 Obstacles to real democracy 226
Conclusion 233
Chapter V Looking Back: National Past and Culture in Mérimée 236
5.1 Mérimée and the invention of the national patrimony 239
5.2 A history of violence and superstition 248
5.2.1 Violence and religion in A Chronicle of the Reign of Charles IX 248
5.2.2 Taming the superstitious mind: the fantastic tales 253
5.3 Colomba: savage past and modernity 255
5.4 State and religion in The Mormons 264
Conclusion 272
Chapter VI National Belonging in George Sand’s Novels 276
6.1 George Sand and the Republic 277
6.1.1 Republican patriotism 278
6.1.2 George Sand’s project of national unity 282
6.2 Patriotism and nationalism at times of war 289
6.2.1 National identity in Nanon 292
6.2.2 Nationalism in Francia 295
Conclusion 305
Conclusion 307
Works cited 323
Primary texts 323
Secondary sources 327
Index of names 338
Index of subjects 343

lt;P>"Marie-Pierre Le Hir’s National Habitus will be of interest to nineteenth-century scholars and to all those interested in nationalism and its genesis. Her prose is controlled and clear, leading the reader seamlessly from one author to the next, from one epoch to another. Furthermore, her erudition comes to the fore in her wide-ranging treatment of authors and texts, including those less studied. Ultimately, Le Hir’s analysis allows us to turn a critical eye to our own national habitus and thus to begin a process of 'dishabituation' in order to avoid the pitfalls and follies into which nationalism has taken us in the twentieth century, and continues to do in the dawn of the present one."
Eduardo A. Febles in: Nineteenth Century French Studies 44,1-2 (2015/2016)