Helen Maria Williams' Political Writings on the French Revolution
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The access to the contents of this doctoral thesis it is limited to the acceptance of the use conditions set by the following Creative Commons license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/?lang=en “I Partake the Common Feeling”: Helen Maria Williams’ Political Writings on The French Revolution (1790-1827) Paula Yurss Lasanta PhD Thesis in English Studies “I Partake the Common Feeling”: Helen Maria Williams’ Political Writings on The French Revolution (1790-1827) Candidate: Paula Yurss Lasanta Supervisor: Dr Carme Font Paz Departament de Filologia Anglesa i de Germanística Facultat de Filosofia i Lletres Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona 2021 Acknowledgements First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor Dr Carme Font Paz for her support and encouragement throughout all of these years, including these stressful times of pandemics and lockdowns. Thank you, Carme, for all the work and effort you have put into this dissertation and your contributions to my research and my writing. I also appreciate your guidance for conferences, publications, and teaching. My sincere thanks to my colleagues at Project WINK for their encouragement during the last years of the PhD. I wish to mention Francesca Blanch Serrat in particular for always being there for me, both professionally and emotionally. I also want to acknowledge Jordi Coral Escola and Joan Curbet Soler for being part of my ‘seguiment’ (follow-up) doctoral committee and for their insightful comments and advice. I gratefully acknowledge Project WINK, European Research Council (StG Nr. 805436), under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, for granting me a predoctoral position and funding part of my research. I am also thankful to the Department of English Studies at the UAB for granting me the funds to share my research in the international conference “Reputations, Legacies, Futures: Jane Austen, Germaine de Staël and their Contemporaries” at Chawton House Library, Hampshire, UK, July 2017. It has also been a pleasure to take part in the ERASMUS+ scholarship that allowed me to conduct part of my research at Edinburgh University. I appreciate all the work that Dr Séverine Genieys-Kirk put into making my stay in Edinburgh possible. Likewise, I want to thank the Fulbright program for granting me the opportunity to grow professionally as a Teaching Assistant at Haverford College PA during the academic year 2018/2019. On a personal note, I want to thank my family for being by my side during this long process. Gracias a mi madre, mi padre y mi hermana por su apoyo incondicional y por inculcarme desde pequeña los valores feministas y el amor por la literatura. Gracias Dani por ser mi compañero y estar a mi lado tanto en los buenos momentos como en los más difíciles y por haber enfrentado juntos estos confinamientos. Gracias por visitarme y hacerme compañía durante mis estancias en Escocia y en USA. Quiero hacer una última mención a mi yayo, que vivió los inicios de este proceso con mucha ilusión. Note about Format This thesis has been written in general accordance with the Style Sheet of the Departament de Filologia Anglesa i de Germanística (UAB). Wherever the Style Sheet was inconclusive, the Modern Language Association (MLA) style guide (8th edition) has been followed. Table of Contents Acknowledgements Note about format Introduction ............................................................................................................. 1 i. Research Question .................................................................................................. 4 ii. Primary Sources .................................................................................................... 8 iii. State of the Art ..................................................................................................... 13 iv. Thesis Outline ....................................................................................................... 21 Chapter 1 The Historical and Intellectual Context of Eighteenth-century British Radicalism .. 24 1.1.The French Revolution Debate in Britain ........................................................... 24 1.2. Epistolary Writing .............................................................................................. 33 1.2.1. Habermas’ Theory of the Public Sphere...................................................... 34 1.2.2. Offering the Private to the Public ................................................................ 35 1.2.3. Epistolary Novels ........................................................................................ 40 1.2.4. Letters and Politics ...................................................................................... 44 1.3. Sensibility ........................................................................................................... 46 1.3.1. Moral Sense Theory .................................................................................... 46 1.3.2. Sentimental Heroines and Men of Feeling .................................................. 49 1.3.3. Radical Sensibility ....................................................................................... 51 1.4. Travel Writing .................................................................................................... 56 1.4.1. The Grand Tour: Travelling for Educational Purposes ............................... 60 1.4.2. Women’s Travel Writing ............................................................................. 63 Chapter 2 “The Golden Age of the Revolution”: Letters Written in France (1790) and Letters from France; Containing a Great Variety of Original Information (1792) .............. 66 2.1. The Fête de la Fédération: Politics as an Affair of the Heart ............................. 67 2.2. The Value of Direct Observation: Challenging the Anti-Revolutionary Forces in Britain ........................................................................................................ 75 2.3. Madame de Genlis: The Exemplary Aristocrat .................................................. 78 2.4. Du Fossés: A Revolutionary Tale with a Happy Ending ................................... 85 2.5. Letters from France; Containing a Great Variety of Original Information (1792-1793) ............................................................................................................... 89 2.6. The Golden Age of the Revolution is Gone ....................................................... 90 2.7. British Spectator of the Events in France ........................................................... 95 2.8. Conclusions for this Chapter .............................................................................. 99 Chapter 3 “The experience of a year of revolutionary government is equivalent to that of fifty years of ordinary life”: The Reign of Terror and Letters Containing A Sketch......... 102 3.1. “A silence like that of death”: Writing the Terror in Retrospective ................... 104 3.2. The Prison Community ....................................................................................... 109 3.3. Madame Roland: Martyr of the Revolution ....................................................... 114 3.4. Suspect, Prisoner and Fugitive ........................................................................... 121 3.5. “The Polluted Festival Instituted by a Tyrant”: Festival of the Supreme Being 124 3.6. The Authorities of Terror at the Guillotine ........................................................ 130 3.7. “Happy Revolution”: The Fall of Robespierre ................................................... 137 3.8. Conclusions for this Chapter .............................................................................. 144 Chapter 4 “I already behold everything around us with new optics”: The Beginning of the Napoleonic Era .................................................................................................... 147 4.1. A Tour in Switzerland (1798): Writing as a Political Act .................................. 147 4.1.1. A New Era in Swiss History: Supporting the Invasion ................................ 149 4.1.2. “The Mild Wand of Philosophy” .................................................................. 158 4.2. Sketches of the State of Manners and Opinions in the French Republic (1801) 163 4.2.1. Individual Happiness in the Age of Revolutions .......................................... 165 4.2.2. “On the State of Women in the French Republic” ....................................... 172 4.3. Conclusions for this Chapter .............................................................................. 182 Chapter 5 “The Testimony of a Witness will be Heard”: End of the Napoleonic Era and the Revolution in Retrospect ........................................................................................... 186 5.1. Narrative of the Events and Letters of the Events .............................................. 186 5.1.1. The Boulevards and the Battlefield .............................................................. 188 5.1.2. The Basilisk’s Eye: Napoleon