Living the Terror. The regime of uncertainty and social transactions in the pedagogical projects of the Year II

Résumé 0

The social and political upheavals of the Revolutionary period created a veritable regime of uncertainty, affecting status and hierarchies, ways of behaving and of perceiving, as well as the manner of speaking. This movement, which attained its apogee in 1793-94, led a number of persons to undertake strategic, indeed opportunistic, actions, concerning self-promotion and negotiation with political and cultural institutions. These actions were animated less by a desire to alter the course of Revolutionary events than by the purpose of achieving personal recognition and control over one’s private career. This article analyses the effects of this dynamic using a collection of pedagogical proposals addressed to the Convention in 1793 and 1794, or to its Comité d’instruction publique by “common persons,” to highlight the variety of personal trajectories, of talents and individual aspirations of the contemporaries of the Terror.