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。为了做到这一点，我将集中在两个不同但相互关联的登记册债务：1）债务作为财务义务，和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，即经济生活总是有一个道德基础。因此，对债务的历史研究必须努力抓住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年封建制度的废除，革命者不仅瓦解了金融机构和经济制度，还瓦解了一套特定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，并试图在金融方面理清谁欠谁什么之间的紧张互动。我将根据三位主要财政部长的著作来对革命进行“分期”，他们是雅克·内克尔、艾蒂安·克拉维埃和皮埃尔-约瑟夫·康邦。本文的结构将从旧制度末期的债务问题开始，到内克尔时期、克拉维埃时期、康朋时期，再到后恐怖时期的财政问题

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