Becoming Bourgeois : Love, Kinship, and Power in Provincial France, 1670-1880.
- 1st ed.
- 1 online resource (358 pages)
Becoming Bourgeois -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Correspondence and Its Limits -- Kinship, Class, Sociability, and the Interior History of the Bourgeoisie -- Love, Interest, and the Sibling Archipelago -- Gender -- PART I. THE ASCENT (1670-1800) -- 1. The Way of Print -- Talent and Marriage -- Cultural Capital -- Printers, Intellectuals -- 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 Paris -- 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) -- 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 Bourgeoisie -- 5. "Mon Adèle" -- Fulfillment and the Firstborn -- Establishment: A Joint Venture -- Public Service -- 6. Notre Adèle -- Settling In -- The Great Crisis -- Affairs Military and Domestic -- Living Class -- 7. Guadeloupe -- 8. The Chosen: Educating René -- Pont Sal -- Exile and Redemption: A Mother's Will -- Family Matters -- 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 Wed -- 10. The Legacy: Bourgeois Nation Building and Civic Leadership -- Nation Building by Kinship -- Civic Leadership -- The National Stage: Combating le Bretonisme -- Bibliographical Notes -- Index.
Becoming Bourgeois traces 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.