Revolutionary Debts: The Politics of Financial and Moral Obligation in the French Revolution

我的项目将探讨债务在法国大革命中的作用。为此，我将把重点放在两个不同但又相互关联的登记册上的债务：1)债务作为财务义务，2)债务作为道德义务。这个项目的重点是基于这样一个信念，即经济生活总是有道德基础的。因此，对债务的历史研究必须努力捕捉手头的金融和道德因素。这种方法与法国大革命特别相关。随着1789年封建主义的废除，革命者不仅解散了一个金融机构和经济制度，还解散了一套特殊的道德准则和文化规范--一套构建封建社会的期望和义务。我的项目将调查革命者如何努力重塑道德义务与试图理清谁在财务上欠谁什么之间的紧张互动。我将根据雅克·内克尔、埃蒂安·克拉维埃尔和皮埃尔-约瑟夫·坎本这三位关键财长的著作，对这场革命进行“分期”研究。本文的结构将从旧政权末期的债务问题出发，到内克尔时期、克拉维埃时期、坎本时期，然后是后恐怖时期的财政

My project will explore the role of debt in the French Revolution. To do this, I shall focus on debt in twodistinct but interrelated registers: 1) debt as financial obligation, and 2) debt as moral obligation. Thefocus of this project is based in the conviction there is always a moral basis to economic life. A historicalstudy of debt, therefore, must endeavour to capture both the financial and moral elements at hand. Thisapproach is particularly pertinent to the French Revolution. With the abolition of feudalism in 1789,revolutionaries not only dissolved a financial apparatus and economic regime, but also a particular set ofmoral codes and cultural norms - a set of expectations and obligations that had structured feudal society.My project will investigate the tense interaction between how revolutionaries struggled to remake moralobligation and tried to sort out who owed what to whom in financial terms. I will undertake this study by"periodising" the Revolution according to the writings of three key finance ministers: Jacques Necker,Étienne Clavière and Pierre-Joseph Cambon. The structure of the thesis will proceed from the debtproblem at the end of the Old Regime, to the period of Necker, the period of Clavière, the period ofCambon, and then post-Terror finances