2024/01/01 by Michaela Kalcher · 2 voices · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Psychology · #Art #French Historical and Cultural Studies #History #Psychoanalysis #Psychology #Shadow (psychology)
paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/hwj/dbae026
openalex publication_date 2024/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Céléstin Guittard de Floriban did not leave much of a mark on history. Born in 1724 in the Champenois village of Evergnicourt, he married but remained childless, moving to Paris at the age of 45, where he lived the comfortable life of a bourgeois rentier, lost his wife in 1783, and wrote the diary that is the only reason we know anything of his otherwise unexceptional existence today. This diary, however, is a remarkable source. Surviving across generations as a manuscript in private possession, it was eventually passed down to a history enthusiast who edited it for publication in 1974.1 One of relatively few existing diaries from the revolutionary period, it provides access to a dimension of the past that has hardly been studied: the day-to-day subjective experiences of ordinary individuals living through the French Revolution and the Terror. Written when the elderly bourgeois was living at Place Saint-Sulpice in the heart of Paris, Guittard’s diary covers the period from 1791 to 1796, rarely ever skipping a day.2 Guittard kept his ‘book of information’, as he titled it, as a memory aid for himself, since he noted with frustration that he was becoming so forgetful that he would never remember anything if he did not write it down.3 Accordingly, he used his journal to record a mix of things that seemed important to him. He chronicled the weather, his social activities, his illnesses, his financial affairs, and crucially also revolutionary politics as they were unfolding around him. He assiduously wrote down political developments, kept up with news from the National Convention, described revolutionary festivals and uprisings in Paris as he witnessed them – and as the Revolution descended into the Terror, he documented its victims. In the first half of 1794, when Paris experienced the greatest numbers of executions, Guittard’s diary was transformed into a logbook of the condemned. Amid the usual updates from his social and business life, he started keeping meticulous lists of all those executed on any given day, writing down the names, ages, professions, and origins of sometimes over sixty victims per day, nearly always without commenting on them in any other way. These lists were occasionally accompanied by simple drawings of people resembling stick figures on guillotines, in line with the small scenes Guittard frequently sketched throughout his diary related to the events he was recording. Springing from the question of why he felt the need to fill pages upon pages of his journal with lists and drawings of the dead, my article analyses Guittard’s subjective experience of living through the French Revolution. Unlike previous historians, I approach his diary not just as a source of information about revolutionary Paris.4 Instead, I attempt to understand how Guittard’s self was changed by living through the momentous and violent events he describes, and, conversely, how our understanding of these events might change by taking a closer look at his individual self. For this purpose “self” refers broadly to the entire being inside a person’s body, including both conscious and unconscious processes and characteristics, while “sense of self” is defined more narrowly as a person’s conscious, reflexive stance towards the self, including their internal autobiographical narrative, their understanding of who they are in relation to the world and their feelings about aspects of it that are important to them, and their identifications with, and attachments to, certain values and communities, which form the basis of their various identities.5 In recent years, the historiography of the French Revolution has increasingly shifted towards the history of the self and of the emotions. The turn towards studying the lived experience of Revolution has provided particularly fertile ground for scholarship analysing the day-to-day experiences of political elites, and the ways in which these shaped their selves and influenced their choices.6 However, outside of this realm, personal writings that could provide similar insights into the experiences of ordinary individuals remain relatively underexplored.7 Those works that have centred on the analysis of such sources have mostly focussed on the ‘veritable flood of memoirs’ produced in the aftermath of the Revolution, rather than on contemporary texts such as diaries.8 Partly, this by the that the self in diaries is to In a of French Guittard’s diary are and personal on the events he a which was the Terror. For this reason the who the manuscript Guittard as a of and the of the of the diary in their that while it insights into the of life Revolution, it its into the of Guittard’s I that and to much of the subjective experiences in a diary in which they are a of I by Guittard’s as a of the Revolution at the of his journal in he increasingly in with political I that he this in his journal through of his and as as through his I turn to the of his diary – the meticulous lists of victims – and the simple he to how his self was by the experience of living through the Terror. I that his and his of scenes are as to which he was of without his as a who – his at the – remained to the revolutionary and its The and in Guittard’s self that from this of his diary how being to the subjective experiences frequently in of on more sources such as crucially our about the the of his diary in Céléstin Guittard de Floriban in the Revolution, and a of in and need to he much for keeping up with revolutionary politics and in its and In the the of the revolutionary and the he was living on of over from various and across as as in a he his at Place Saint-Sulpice only with his However, his diary his social life, of with in the and with in Paris – including a who have been his on the that sometimes in the diary and might Guittard wrote in his diary day, with few he his with a the of the and of the and the on the and his He this the of the in including of the Revolution, he could not of the and to the it by the of as as the and sometimes the to the Guittard’s of his that he was in being in his he was a of the National he was in his and to to its in and he as as a to the National as a of his the He was a who but as He who the the to to the and for the National Guittard’s was in 1791 for his diary of I people who are not Guittard assiduously kept his journal up to with and political developments, down relatively news from the National such as the of internal for the Terror, he also occasionally on and and did not to his In he noted that the passed a the of and from and the of He also the of the which he as a the of the Terror, Guittard’s as a revolutionary was a of his self that was both important and for he as who was in the Revolution, and who was in his to understand and revolutionary developments, which to him. the throughout Guittard’s journal not with but with his first these to to revolutionary but they a in his self that when he not have been conscious of Guittard frequently his through writing about his In his the was to the and was as a of the entire Guittard from he as and as as from other over the of the of the in his journal and of his various such of was not the since in the was not a but rather a of which was to and the individual the for his on However, the of such was to them to to a and is that Guittard used his journal to Guittard’s diary is not only but also the only of his journal that was in otherwise For when he about his various from a in he wrote that he was For I have been so of in the a that at and into a to for without of I those who have the to have a this in his The of these of Guittard’s that they a for that the of attempt to of his about his and his towards as as his that he was to Guittard’s he did not only his journal as a memory to have a of for to his and by a of his self and his understanding of the Guittard’s journal with this in up the of of his of as of his at various in the Revolution. the of a of the with access to a to which we when up in of Guittard’s illnesses, as as his from this the in his self. a in his Guittard would have experienced and of his and However, certain in his diary that he at from defined as of in which important the events in Guittard’s diary which he experienced as the for were both by of he narrowly in the at the de on when National at the the on his Guittard described it just the He noted that he was a and and in the to the by and the of he witnessed the of in the and the of the throughout the without understanding was which In his of the he this through of his his were and he felt and a which over the as the were of people and and people were In the of the he noted that this my which is of my Guittard his feelings through the experienced in his these is a for his internal over the years, as the Revolution from and and towards the Terror. Guittard’s of self more as he to the towards the and the that being a revolutionary increasingly to of as to values and attachments to communities, we how the that to in Guittard’s diary around from the of his revolutionary with his as a of the French Guittard was to revolutionary values and he was also to his and his were the he with in the and in his he also defined as a to the never the revolutionary of the and to write about in his journal the in revolutionary he did not it, Guittard have been by the of and the of the the on One Guittard was by his to the of this political of Paris by taking on the of However, his previous he this with to his is of that Guittard was his diary of any in the and much in his social life and business it that Guittard used his as a to with a which just in events that have been to to his to the that his was to the of these few he noted in his journal that have felt for over a I a and in the that he did not his as but rather that his need to his only in the of by the of the and that he used his as a to the in the this to taking on that would have in the the while a revolutionary in his This in Guittard’s self over his to the on the and to the Revolution on the is also in of the he in his In the understanding of the were in the of and, Guittard them as of and However, his also to the he experienced as his of self by the of the Revolution towards the Terror. In the of and of the of the who been by a for in of the Guittard a in which he felt by from as he was he felt as if people were around his and his from all he I was of the I if that I it is a that I the few he did in a which would for he did not which people he about in with his it that he was to the of the previous of these and so in ways that were on his of Guittard described the in that a was not to his but he being by at the revolutionary the of the a on Guittard described with his he a in in his He as a certain otherwise and it have been for a and it is did not he up this of his he a while I have to that I not much This and the that he other similar for a to Guittard’s at this he not of being in not since the aftermath of the of his not to have from experience of it unconscious to the increasingly political in the been as a for the of political and over the previous Guittard to occasionally of its victims. with the of the the first of the National were becoming victims of the Terror, including such as Guittard Guittard’s just a when he in previous the Revolution on the of the of the However, in he this to have been to to the on which the been the previous the on which the and the and the to into the of the of the National where they for and from where they were to the where they did not leave The was to on Guittard’s journal of his at the of the Revolution by this his experience of is through his at the of the such from his in 1794, he did not write about his at all for over only about why his this while he kept social and financial he in when he was by other events to on his with his and his of his for to as he keeping lists of was he to the of the to in the of that this of writing the Guittard’s and of are from his journal at the of the Terror, that he was without important for his and for the his as a revolutionary and his to values and which with the Revolution. The of Guittard’s diary changed in 1794, as he lived through a period of which he to have been to In Paris, the its greatest of the and of of the on the Place de about a from Guittard’s and on the towards his in the on the this Guittard kept lists of the victims in his on with the of the and with the of and his at the of the first lists in his journal noted the of individuals such as and in Guittard’s it is that Guittard writing them as of his usual of However, as the more the lists changed and lost their For on the sixty people to by Guittard and and as as the and of these were and the into on of the and of these victims hardly the of important did it any for since the of the were in and his journal around a such the names, ages, professions, and of origins of the Guittard kept them with while in and he only a few in he wrote them nearly day, skipping only of executions, and the the of in he wrote a for the – of in the on which these he the of executed in Paris, a these lists by day, of and their of the that Guittard his and his as as his and to them that his was by In this need could have from a in revolutionary lists of important in the Guittard as as the in his drawings of executions, from that Instead, they that he was to which we would as and which he could not to both and internal on his Guittard’s in this of the diary is from the of his it is not his lists of victims are of the in including the but the of the the This his of and which were in revolutionary but which Guittard used only to the revolutionary not at all of the revolutionary for such as for In the of his journal this period which he are in a the as as the of the of the on in political Guittard nearly always his lists of victims with the they the of rather than which in the he from the he also frequently a of how were the he also noted that the including of and of This of of people that their particularly to him. occasionally were of towards the these insights into which he and how he to to the Revolution. In a of he wrote lists of executed rather than These were all figures who were executed as of to their the the and other as as and his Guittard to have in the existence of these the for he noted that is a that this was in and that he all the been his occasionally that he not only of these executions, but felt by of Guittard wrote journal about the of the of the Paris who the of the and of the of Paris who and his the Guittard been a of revolutionary he he been by the of Paris in the he only these feelings his the of were to his other journal and he the – – that all and festivals been at various in his However, that his feelings with the politics of a revolutionary which he them Guittard’s is when writing about the of the who that was and and in his they all which they when the of the Paris at the of the was Guittard a for the the Guittard the in Paris by the as a to a it is to to to such but they it is to the than that he he was by the is only from the of he his journal and from his on the of the in his diary when the was on 1794, and Guittard at this of to as of the greatest events ever these that Guittard of of the the as The personal he used to them in to the other victims he did not record in his For the of his were not but they to have been only did he of and writing to these lists by – as to them from – but he also to have and to he the of those to I them in a is that this ever and a few he to the in his diary, first in form only that on a certain they executed and by in the lists of and he kept that he felt to the of the in his personal This the to of people who have experienced The to the of the of as as the it – particularly for a from – that at the of the Guittard was to experiences so that the usual for with were The of is in of the aspects of Guittard’s diary this period of the that a analysis provide insights into the of who lived of to towards the of the For has that the of the for analysing the French Revolution is was not of the at the towards the that of have for similar in to in the of the as the as and the for have aspects of the French Revolution with to In his analysis of the politics of the National through the of has of to that is experienced as a to that it existing a in the of the of the this is particularly the individuals who were to who have experienced a becoming more over who feelings of in the source of the Guittard was by all of these is frequently as to a of and Guittard’s journal just his lists of from taking the of a of events in his has noted that about a of and This is for understanding Guittard’s of victims in as as his of the Terror, in which drawings are always in of and the is never as being The simple and Guittard throughout his diary are of the of the These drawings events that him. In the period of them were accompanied by diary that their for at the of the at the attempt to leave the the to at the of the of The to The to of the of the the Terror, Guittard’s of was to but he at scenes to his lists of victims These about his experience of the political around that could not in them, I have on analysis of from the which a to private drawings of In analysing the of such on is from them, and on where they of the of the of the 1794, of 1794, of the 1794, 1794, from the manuscript in 1794, from the manuscript in of the of of including 1794, it is that Guittard’s for revolutionary festivals his drawings of are not at For his of the of the not as in but in a all of them and victims that when the outside and it from its to their experience and it look closer to their this the that Guittard a of his need to the of the executions, in which upon the other in a In the of his which more the he wrote the to the of that day, as as his of of victims in line for their the with the of in were a form of on a in the of a to for by them as of the of the Place de the National and the of Guittard’s drawings are In them, are and only victims in with the over in his drawings the towards their their Guittard’s scenes of to the of the as the victims are down and their turn in a world that is to them and the Guittard’s are always in the of his drawings of in never the of In the only throughout his diary which a violent as it is the of the of in from Guittard’s life of all the he experienced to his while such as the news about a are and in in a narrative, are in of the of the around were for Guittard to and as of a the however, they were for to in his of them in of and in lists of provided by Guittard’s experiences of living through the were by the they on his self, as he to with the Revolution at the as he was by This is in his which of scenes on the and of revolutionary and on the the of the – his of including to their – Guittard sketched the in the on the of the of the He over a individual figures in to the he used for more of the including National and their on a He accompanied this with of the which for the past all over Paris, were in the to their and as a a and and Guittard was to in this of revolutionary in the 1794, He also to have in the of the Revolution. the National all in the he described it as a people was a at to this he to it in of that of Guittard’s at these events is remarkable he lost all of his in the which the he to mark the of a and of the at The first of these is since it the revolutionary values of and in small of a and of 1794, at in of the of 1794, in Guittard’s drawings the is a the of his scenes and his other while the are of victims with the the are including of people and them in their as as revolutionary and National This that in to and aspects of life in their never including scenes and in the Guittard’s a similar In his the of the in the of the Revolution is of as of them of their as political and revolutionary not only his but also his and to the in his understanding of a Revolution towards which he He remained to revolutionary and he to the revolutionary as a for his the Terror, Guittard to have the revolutionary given the in political it would have been for to his if it been However, he could have he did not to described them as he for with the of the with the of the in the Instead, he for the revolutionary he was at the of the and the as a who been and the as a by the with other of his he to the to these of the on the on their when he experienced in 1794, he to to the of in Guittard his at the of the and only a few he their However, his about their not at all that he them as for the of the Terror. the reason why he felt so by their was he them to have the Revolution, with he In his diary, Guittard the that was he a to at such a is he used his diary to to where has Guittard’s journal in this a subjective experience of as the of the but he to as a revolutionary values and of the of the Revolution. This in his self to his to write a of the Terror, since his and at the of the Revolution would have his as a revolutionary and a of the The of revolutionary this revolutionary a person’s internal and to a of of In this Guittard’s journal to his to the in his self by to lists and drawings the events he could not into a of his understanding of the Revolution without his and to in his of self. The of Guittard’s diary how much the experience of living through the Revolution changed and it also the of subjective experience through texts such as rather than through in the of Guittard eventually of the period of the Terror. This not only the executions, but also the and festivals that he In and he wrote of the French Revolution, that the it only has to look at The that these to at Guittard’s feelings about the Revolution in the of the is is that the they as the of the while the was the not as a but in of the Revolution, as it been but as a the French it is to how the texts produced in the aftermath of the were this not only to the political but also to how their feelings and past events might have changed in The of how individuals their past experiences and at In to with experiences and the of the of past events to and that from how the events were Guittard’s of the Revolution in to have been not a of but rather a of his the the of the as a Guittard’s unconscious need to his of at been a of its have been However, only on his to how he experienced the Revolution would with the day-to-day he documented in his diary the to a understanding of the and subjective experiences that living through the Revolution and the for him. Guittard’s journal in this also about how our understanding of events might when we them through the individual subjective experience of who would the of the This approach how otherwise frequently aspects of the including the experiences of ordinary and the by those living through of have to into if we to write of these also such as those about In Guittard’s the self which from his journal any understanding of revolutionary his experiences of and internal to into any of the by a and he a a a is he a he of towards the Revolution without is he of the figures much of who turn with is of these to him. the self that from Guittard’s diary their and that we of on such individuals who and Céléstin Guittard de Floriban mark on history. by – by by – he of his self in his how and of his at first I would to with this article is that these have the to a to our understanding of if only we to they is a of the French Revolution and the is towards at the of over sixty diaries to the subjective experiences of ordinary and across living through the revolutionary