1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910778456803321

Autore

Hazareesingh Sudhir

Titolo

The Saint-Napoleon : celebrations of sovereignty in nineteenth-century France / / Sudhir Hazareesingh

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cambridge, Mass. : , : Harvard University Press, , 2004

ISBN

0-674-03844-4

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (xiv, 307 pages) : illustrations

Disciplina

944.07

Soggetti

Political culture - France - History - 19th century

Political customs and rites - France - 19th century

Bonapartism - France - History - 19th century

Festivals - France

Symbolism in politics - France

France History Second Empire, 1852-1870

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Illustrations -- Preface -- Introduction: Civic Festivities in Nineteenth-Century France -- 1 A Common Sentiment ofNational Glory -- 2 Variations on Provincial Themes -- 3 Proud to Be French -- 4 Honorable and Honored Citizens -- 5 Incidents, Accidents, Excesses -- 6 All the Majesty of the State -- 7 The Immense Space between Heaven and Earth -- 8 We Have Our Own Music -- 9 Eroding Bonapartist Sovereignty -- 10 Legitimist Coldness, Republican Enthusiasm -- Conclusion: Festivity, Identity, Civility -- Notes -- Primary Sources -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

In 1852, President Louis Napoleon of France declared that August 15--Napoleon Bonaparte's birthday--would be celebrated as France's national day. Leading up to the creation of the Second Empire, this was the first in a series of attempts to "Bonapartize" his regime and strengthen its popular legitimacy. Across France, public institutions sought to draw local citizens together to celebrate civic ideals of unity, order, and patriotism. But the new sense of French togetherness was fraught with tensions. Drawing on a wealth of archival evidence, Sudhir Hazareesingh vividly reconstructs the symbolic richness and political



complexity of the Saint-Napoleon festivities in a work that opens up broader questions about the nature of the French state, unity and lines of fracture in society, changing boundaries between public and private spheres, and the role of myth and memory in constructing nationhood. The state's Bonapartist identity was at times vigorously contested by local social, political, and religious groups. In various regions, people used the national day to celebrate their own communities and to honor their hometown veterans; but elsewhere, the revival of republican sentiment clashed sharply with imperial attitudes. Sophisticated and gracefully written, this book offers rich insights into modern French history and culture.