Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T02:40:57.723Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

9 - ‘A Just and True Liberty’

The Idea of (Neo-Roman) Freedom in Francophone Counter-Revolutionary Thought (c. 1780–1800)

from Part III - Traditions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 February 2022

Hannah Dawson
Affiliation:
King's College London
Annelien de Dijn
Affiliation:
Universiteit Utrecht, The Netherlands
Get access

Summary

In this chapter, I find traces and articulations of the neo-Roman idea of freedom in an entirely different intellectual context than the one so eloquently analysed by Quentin Skinner in Liberty before Liberalism: the Francophone Counter-Revolution at the end of the eighteenth century. Like the neo-Romans, the counter-revolutionary authors studied here, François-Xavier de Feller and Charles-Alexandre de Calonne, stated that you can only be free as a citizen in a free state. However, a ‘free state’ for these authors did not mean popular self-government, but instead consisted of the monarchical rule of law and the moderate exercise of royal and clerical power. For these authors, the French Revolutionary Republic was the very opposite of a free state, a murderous despotism as well as anarchy without rules, that turned its subjects into slaves.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×