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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

By
Matthijs Lok
Edited by
Hannah Dawson  and
Annelien de Dijn
Hannah Dawson
Affiliation:
King's College London
Annelien de Dijn
Affiliation:
Universiteit Utrecht, The Netherlands
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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.

Keywords

counter-revolutionrevolutionFrancethe Southern NetherlandsFrançois-Xavier de FellerCharles-Alexandre de Calonneancient constitutionslaverymonarchy
Type
Chapter
Information
Rethinking Liberty before Liberalism , pp. 178 - 193
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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