The City in French Writing: The Eighteenth-Century Experience

The eighteenth-century French city posed particular challenges to writer and citizen alike, presenting possibilities and pitfalls specific to the pre-Revolutionary decades. The eight essays in this collection--four are in French--consider everyday life on the streets of the metropolis, providing an outlook that is novel and markedly distinct. Most striking is the dramatic change in focus between the early and late decades of this troubled century. Initially, the city can be constructed as a space that allows individuals to evolve and flourish. Later in the century, the city is depicted textually as being unstable, in both moral and civic terms. In a stark transition, the city thus evolves from a place of great potential into a space of real danger, teetering on the verge of revolutionary chaos.