The language of enlightened politics: TheSociété de 1789 in the French revolution

The Société de 1789 was a political club founded in early 1790 to propagate the ideals of the Revolution and the Enlightenment. A systematic analysis of the language found in the public discourse of the Société using simple quantitative techniques suggests important distinctions in comparison to the language found in a baseline sample, a selection of the General Cahiers de doléances of 1789. It is further argued that these differences represent an Enlightened reforming tradition that carried into the French Revolution.

Authors and Affiliations

1. ARTFL Project, University of Chicago, 60637, Chicago, IL, USA

   Mark Olsen

Mark Olsen is Assistant Director of the ARTFL Project at the University of Chicago and a doctoral candidate in French History at the University of Ottawa.

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