Full Description
Becoming Bourgeois describes the fortunes of three French families in the municipality of Vannes, in Brittany—Galles, Jollivet, and Le Ridant—who rose to prominence in publishing, law, the military, public administration, and intellectual pursuits over the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Revisiting complex issues of bourgeois class formation from the perspective of the interior lives of families, Christopher H. Johnson argues that the most durable and socially advantageous links forging bourgeois ascent were those of kinship. Economic success, though certainly derived from the virtues of hard work and intelligent management, was always underpinned by marriage strategies and the diligent intervention of influential family members.
Johnson's examination of hundreds of personal letters opens up a whole world: the vicissitudes of courtship; the centrality of marriage; the depths of conjugal love; the routines of pregnancy and the drama of childbirth; the practices of child rearing and education; the powerful place of siblings; the role of kin in advancing the next generation; tragedy and deaths; the enormous contributions of women in all aspects of becoming bourgeois; and the pleasures of gathering together in intimate soirées, grand balls, country houses, and civic and political organizations. Family love bound it all together, and this is ultimately what this book is about, as four generations of rather ordinary provincial people capture our hearts.
Contents
Introduction
Correspondence and Its Limits
Kinship, Class, Sociability, and the Interior History of the Bourgeoisie
Love, Interest, and the Sibling Archipelago
GenderPART I. THE ASCENT (1670-1800)CHAPTER 1. The Way of Print
Talent and Marriage
Cultural Capital
Printers, IntellectualsCHAPTER 2. Bourgeois de Vannes, Bourgeois de Paris
Kinsmen (and Women) to the Rescue: The Saga of Jean-Nicolas Galles
Kin and Connection in the Book Trade
Love and Agony in ParisCHAPTER 3. The Revolutions of the Galles
Economic Establishment: Veuve Galles and the Articulation of Power
Expanding Horizons
Cultural Leadership and Bourgeois Ascent
Political Establishment: Three Families Merge
Surviving the French Revolution (If Not Childbed Fever)PART II. BOURGEOIS CULTURE (1800-1880)CHAPTER 4. The Sibling Archipelago
Talented Royalists Accommodate Bonaparte
A New Generation and a Renewed Polity
A Sibling Courtship
Cousin Marriage and the Political Integration of Vannes's BourgeoisieCHAPTER 5. "Mon Adèle"
Fulfillment and the Firstborn
Establishment: A Joint Venture
Public ServiceCHAPTER 6. Notre Adèle
Settling In
The Great Crisis
Affairs Military and Domestic
Living ClassCHAPTER 7. GuadeloupeCHAPTER 8. The Chosen: Educating René
Pont Sal
Exile and Redemption: A Mother's Will
Family MattersCHAPTER 9. Into the World
La vie d'un polytechnicien breton
Aunt Marie: Power and Betrayal
The Kinship Elite
Career and Guidance
Weathering Revolution, Again: Adèle, femme politique
Fulfillment: René WedCHAPTER 10. The Legacy: Bourgeois Nation Building and Civic Leadership
Nation Building by Kinship
Civic Leadership
The National Stage: Combating le BretonismeBibliographical Notes
Index
