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French Historical Studies 2009 32(4):555-585; DOI:10.1215/00161071-2009-009
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Mountain, Become a Volcano: The Image of the Volcano in the Rhetoric of the French Revolution

Mary Ashburn Miller

This article establishes a relationship between the language of natural history and the political rhetoric of the French Revolution by tracing the iconography of the volcano throughout the revolutionary period. The volcano's connotations transformed with specific changes in the political realm. During the early years of the Revolution, it symbolized the potential for unbridled force and destruction. Yet for a brief period that began with the call for terror as the order of the day, the volcano became a positive symbol of revolutionary transformation, emblematic of patriotic passion and republican virtue.

En analysant l'iconographie du volcan pendant l'époque révolutionnaire, cet article établit l'existence d'un lien entre le langage de l'histoire naturelle et la rhétorique politique de la Révolution française. Les variations au milieu politique ont provoqué des variations dans les connotations du « volcan », un symbole équivoque pendant les premières années de la Révolution. A cette époque-là, le volcan symbolisait les forces débridées et la destruction potentielle. Néanmoins, pendant une courte période qui a commencé au moment où on instaure la Terreur à l'ordre du jour, le volcan est devenu un symbole à connotations positives, qui représentait la transformation révolutionnaire, les passions patriotiques et la vertu républicaine.


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