Writing against revolution. France and the negative tradition of the French revolution

Abstract

This article proposes a concept, that of negative tradition, and develops it historically from the example of France and the French Revolution. The objective is to show and explain on the basis of his writings how there are historical traditions that should be understood not so much in a positive key as in a negative or condemnatory one, in this case against or contrary to the French revolutionary event. To this end, the intellectual history and the memory contrary to the French Revolution of the last two centuries are reviewed and the different forms of influence, dialogue and updating among its main representatives are analysed, from Burke, Barruel or De Maistre to contemporary authors such as Secher, Chaunu or the collective work The Black Book of the French Revolution, passing through Taine, Cochin, Gaxotte, Bainville, Maurras or Talmon. Among other things, it is observed that this negative tradition is defined by its dynamism, its discontinuity, its plurality, its complexity, its pragmatic and aggregative character or different forms of porosity with the positive tradition of the French Revolution.