Réponse à Robert Descimon

Résumé En

A reply to Robert Descimon Following upon the polemical article by R. Descimon (supra), this article takes up the main aspects of the Ligue parisienne that were studied in my book Le Parti de Dieu... My method served to establish who were the leaders of the Ligue parisienne and thereby to chart the successive stages of its development. As to the organization of the Ligue parisienne, I maintain that it had a distinctly modern, partisan character that of an authoritarian "party" whose totalitarian core is quite obvious. With regard to the seizure of power and the means of action, most notably the use of revolutionary terror, the latter, according to R. Descimon, impossible in Ancien Régime France, but in my view, perfectly illustrated by the events of the Ligue. I perceive the roots of the motivation of the Ligue's members in the inseparable convergence of religious passion and social frustration : this explains both the make-up of the leadership as well as the dislocation of the party. This break-up was caused by the radicalization of advanced elements and the disengagement of the moderate ones. The model proposed in Le Parti de Dieu... provides a convenient frame of reference for the comparative study of revolutionary phenomena of this type.