Description
Book SynopsisInvestigates the regicide's pivotal role in French intellectual history and political mythology. This book examines how thinkers on the right and left repudiated regicide and terror, while articulating a compassionate, humanitarian vision, which became the moral basis for the modern French nation. It focuses on the fluidity of political myths.
Trade Review"Written with a clear focus, a strong narrative line, and a critical tone, Susan Dunn's book mobilizes an array of contemporary writers and political theorists to provide a counter-voice, which modulates into her own voice, to nineteenth-century French intellectuals."
—Michael Walzer, Institute for Advanced StudyTable of ContentsForewordAcknowledgmentsIntroduction3Pt. IPolitical MythsCh. 1Louis XVI and the Cult of Human Sacrifice15Ch. 2Louis XVI and Joan of Arc38Ch. 3Michelet and Lamartine: Regicide, Passion, and Compassion67Pt. IILiterary MythsCh. 4Louis XVI and His Executioners95Ch. 5Victor Hugo, Kingship, and Louis XVI116Ch. 6Camus and Louis XVI: A Modern Elegy for the Martyred King140Conclusion165Index171
