Republican Passions

Republican passions is an innovative study that demonstrates the crucial role of family and friendship networks in the creation of France's Third Republic. Drawing on the rich family archives of Léon Laurent-Pichat (1823-86), it rediscovers this major republican activist of the Second Empire, who became a Deputy and Life Senator following the establishment of the Republic in 1870. By exploring friendship networks, the book casts new light on republican masculinity. Moreover, it breaks new ground by looking beyond the masculine sites of republican politics to uncover the political dimensions of home and family and to demonstrate women's active engagement with the Republic. It reveals the republican home as a profoundly politicised space in which republicanism was absorbed, sustained and reproduced. The intimate and political realms were not 'separate spheres', therefore, but were deeply intertwined. Republican Passions weaves together the threads of political zeal and activism, family and friendship, love and intimacy to provide a vibrant new perspective on the foundations of the Third Republic.