Premium
‘La Tige Monarchique [et] l'Arbre de la République’: Trees and the Body Politic in Revolutionary France
Author(s) -
Pacini Giulia
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
journal for eighteenth‐century studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.129
H-Index - 11
eISSN - 1754-0208
pISSN - 1754-0194
DOI - 10.1111/1754-0208.12559
Subject(s) - creatures , body politic , politics , royalist , sociology , humanities , political science , geography , art , law , archaeology , natural (archaeology)
This article studies the encounter of two competing and yet deeply interconnected expressions of the French body politic in revolutionary France: the monarchic body and the republican tree. It traces contemporary fears about the king or other royalist creatures damaging the nation's young liberty trees, and ultimately analyses the material and political significance of the latter's health and handling. In particular, the discourse about planting and tree‐nurturing that characterised the Directory promoted new representations of la patrie in environmental terms: as a sacred soil and landscape, a site of memory marked by human culture.