French Emigration To Great Britain In Response To The French Revolution (war, Culture And Society, 1750-1850)
by Juliette Reboul /
2017 / English / PDF
3.4 MB Download
This book examines diverse encounters between the British
community and the thousands of French individuals who sought
haven in the British Isles as they left revolutionary and
Imperial France. This painstaking research into the emigrant
archival and memorial presence in Britain uncovers a wealth
of underused and alternative sources on this controversial
population displacement. These include open letters and
classified advertisements published in British newspapers,
insurance contracts, as well as lists of addresses and passports
drawn up by local authorities. These sources question the
construction by British loyalists and French émigré
elites of a stereotyped emigrant figure and their use of the
trauma of forced displacement to advance ideological
agendas. In fact, public and private discourses on governmental
systems, foreigners, political and religious dissent, and
the economic survival of French emigrants, demonstrate
the heterogeneity of the responses to emigration in Britain.
Ultimately, this book narrates a story in which the emigrant
community and its host have been often unnoticeably yet
fundamentally transformed by their encounter, in both
practical and ideological domains.
This book examines diverse encounters between the British
community and the thousands of French individuals who sought
haven in the British Isles as they left revolutionary and
Imperial France. This painstaking research into the emigrant
archival and memorial presence in Britain uncovers a wealth
of underused and alternative sources on this controversial
population displacement. These include open letters and
classified advertisements published in British newspapers,
insurance contracts, as well as lists of addresses and passports
drawn up by local authorities. These sources question the
construction by British loyalists and French émigré
elites of a stereotyped emigrant figure and their use of the
trauma of forced displacement to advance ideological
agendas. In fact, public and private discourses on governmental
systems, foreigners, political and religious dissent, and
the economic survival of French emigrants, demonstrate
the heterogeneity of the responses to emigration in Britain.
Ultimately, this book narrates a story in which the emigrant
community and its host have been often unnoticeably yet
fundamentally transformed by their encounter, in both
practical and ideological domains.
