The Duchesse d'Elbeuf's Letters to a Friend, 1788-94

法国大革命在一般英语文化和历史学界一直占据着一个选择的位置。从托马斯·卡莱尔的《法国大革命》（1837年）、查尔斯·狄更斯的《双城记》（1859年）到奥尔奇男爵夫人的《猩红花》系列（1903年），再到最近的电视、电影和其他媒体——比如2015年备受争议的视频游戏《刺客信条》——人们特别关注的是普通人对大革命的个人经历。本项目介绍了一个可以直接从狄更斯或德奥尔奇的小说中走出来的人物：埃尔伯夫公爵夫人（1707-94）。科林·琼斯在巴黎国家档案馆发现了一套完全不为人知的六本笔记，以写给朋友的信的形式，记录了从1788年末到1793-94年恐怖时期的法国大革命的连续评论。它们之所以引人注目，不仅因为它们是以一位贵族女性的视角公开表达反革命观点，还因为它们主要是在她巴黎的家中——Hôtel d’elbeuf——创作的，那里离法国政府的所在地杜伊勒里宫（Tuileries Palace）只有几码远。最重要的是，它们作为一种独特的批判性评论，来自革命巴黎的核心，对革命的日常发展，特别是恐怖，写在一个政治上非正统或反革命观点日益被压制的时期，当这样的言论可能导致其作者上断头台的时候。该项目旨在将这份非凡的文件带入关于革命的学术讨论中，并使其在公众中广为人知。第一项任务是提供这些信件的完整抄本：它们将以法语全文出版，作为学术版本，并在一个开放获取的在线网站上提供精选段落的英文翻译。这项工作将结合调查信件的创作环境，以及手稿如何保存下来，重建作者的传记，并研究作者的声音和文本中出现的评论。然后，项目团队将尽可能广泛地传播这些信件的知识，以激发人们对它们的内容和它们所揭示的法国大革命的兴趣。学术团体将通过研讨会、讲座、会议演讲和同行评议期刊上的文章作为目标（除了第一次使信件随时可用）。该团队还希望激发跨学科的反思，更普遍地对革命进行反思，特别是通过一个以“历史见证”为主题的国际会议，针对文学和历史观众。此外，该项目将寻求激发公众，特别是实习历史学家、本科生和A-Level学生对法国大革命的兴趣和讨论。这将通过与伦敦大学学院艺术博物馆共同策划的展览来实现；在项目网站上提供英文翻译的精选信件；H-France针对研究生的“网络研讨会”；以及一场针对a - level教师和学生的会议。该博客将促进所有受众之间的对话，并为促进项目成果提供一个中心。刊登在《今日历史》等历史贸易杂志上的文章，是通过媒体发展更广泛影响的起点。最后，该计划将促进两名研究法国大革命的学者的发展，他们分别是该项目的联合研究员和博士后研究助理，他们都处于职业生涯的早期阶段。

The French Revolution has always occupied a place of choice within general anglophone culture as well as among the historical community. From Thomas Carlyle's The French Revolution (1837), Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities (1859) and the Baroness d'Orczy's Scarlet Pimpernel series (from 1903) through, more recently, to TV, film and other media - such as the controversial 2015 Assassin's Creed video-game - particular interest has focussed on the personal experience of the Revolution by ordinary people. This Project introduces into discussions and debates a character who could have walked straight out of a Dickens or d'Orczy novel: the dowager duchesse d'Elbeuf (1707-94). A completely unknown set of six notebooks in her hand in the form of letters to a friend, discovered by Colin Jones in the Archives Nationales in Paris, provide a running commentary on France's Revolution from late 1788 through to the violent turmoil of the Terror of 1793-94. They are remarkable not only for being written from the perspective of a woman of high aristocratic status articulating overtly Counter-Revolutionary views, but also for having been composed largely at her Parisian home, the Hôtel d'Elbeuf, situated a matter of yards from the authorities running France from the Tuileries Palace complex. Above all, they are of interest as a unique critical commentary from the heart of Revolutionary Paris on the daily development of the Revolution, and especially the Terror, written at a period when politically unorthodox or Counter-Revolutionary views were increasingly being silenced - and when such statements could lead their authors to the guillotine. The project aims to bring this extraordinary document into scholarly discussion of the Revolution and making it widely known among the general public. The first task is to provide a full transcription of the Letters: they will be published in entirety in French as a scholarly edition and select passages will also made available in English translation on an open-access online site. This effort will combine an investigation of the circumstances in which the Letters were composed, and how the manuscripts survived, with reconstructing the author's biography, and a study of the authorial voice and commentary which emerges from the text. The Project team will then seek to diffuse knowledge of the Letters as broadly as possible so as to stimulate interest in their content and what they reveal about the French Revolution. The scholarly community will be targeted via seminars, lectures, conference talks and articles in peer-reviewed journals (besides making the Letters readily available for the first time). The team will also hope to stimulate interdisciplinary reflection on the Letters and on the Revolution more generally, notably by an international conference on the theme, 'Historical Witnessing', targeted at a literary as well as a historical audience. In addition, the Project will seek to stimulate interest in and discussion of the French Revolution among the general public and in particular among trainee historians, undergraduates and A-Level students. This will be achieved notably through an exhibition to be co-curated with the Art Museum at University College London; by making a selection of letters in English translation available on the Project website; by an H-France 'Webinar' aimed at graduate students; and by a conference aimed at A-Level teachers and students. The Blog will facilitate conversations spanning all audiences and provide a hub for promoting Project outputs. Articles placed in history trade journals such as History Today as a starting point for developing wider impact through the media. Finally, the project will enhance the development of two scholars of the French Revolution - the Co-Investigator and the Postdoctoral Research Assistant attached to the project - both at an early stage in their careers.