At the end of March we travelled to Clermont-Ferrand to attend an excellent doctoral event, hosted by Philippe Bourdin and Cyril Triolaire (CHEC, Université Blaise Pascal) before two days working on the Therepsicore project on French theatre in the provinces 1791-1813. In attendance were British students from Warwick, KCL and St Andrews, led by Kate Astbury and Katherine Hambridge, the Clermentois doctoral students from the Centre d’Histoire Espaces et Cultures (CHEC), and those from the Institut Histoire de la Révolution française (IHRF), Paris-I Sorbonne, with Pierre Serna and Jean-Luc Chappey.
The event was launched by two presentations on the CHEC’s databases. The first by Andoni Artola, who showed us his impressive database tracking the networks of the Spanish Revolutionaries. The second by Cyril Triolaire and a presentation of the Philador gateway which combines multiple research projects and databases, enabling researchers to track provincial artists during the Revolution and Empire. After the first of many wonderful lunches Kate Astbury also presented the Waddeston collection of Revolutionary prints, Warwick’s Marandet Collection, and the 100 Days virtual exhibition (www.100days.eu). The afternoon saw a start to the doctoral presentations, with Matthieu Ferradou (IHRF) who is working on human and intellectual networks between Ireland, France and the United States during the French Revolution. Then came the turn of Bruno Petit (CHEC) who is researching illegal printing of counterrevolutionary pamphlets in Switzerland and identifying their provenance. The day ended with Jeanne-Laure Le Quang (IHRF) and the presentation of her doctoral project on the police during the First Empire.
After the intellectual stimulation of Monday, Tuesday quickly followed suit. François Avisseau (IHRF) commenced the day by presenting his research on the postal system during the Revolution and the Empire in modern day northern Italy. Guillaume Colot (CHEC) then followed with an account of his project on Catholic newspapers and journalists during the Revolution, before Côme Simien (CHEC) finished the morning with a paper on ‘maîtres d’école’ and ‘instituteurs’ from the end of the ancien régime up until 1802. After yet another delicious lunch, Clare Siviter (Warwick) spoke on tragedy and the classical tradition during the Napoleonic era and the final presentation was given by Christie Margrave (St Andrews) on women and nature in the works of French female novelists 1789-1815.
This was an incredibly enriching event and thoroughly enjoyed by all. It was a great opportunity to meet French doctoral students working on similar subjects, learn about new research, discuss our Revolutionary research with excellent scholars, and as per usual we all had lots to talk about!
The Warwick team then had a presentation on database entry for the Therepsicore project which aims to create a database of provincial French theatre from 1791 to 1813. After this we spent Wednesday and Thursday morning going through archive photos: Kate and Katherine focused on Lille whilst Clare concentrated on the Vendée. We are hoping to work remotely tracing theatre personnel, performances and theatrical works to enter into the database during our next session in Clermont-Ferrand, hopefully in the Autumn with other contributors to the project.
Clare Siviter