L’Esprit de la révolution de 1789 nel pensiero politico di Pierre-Louis Rœderer

Object of this paper is the interpretation given to the 1789 Revolution by Pierre-Louis Rœderer, a French politician and theorist who, despite being active during the years of the Revolution and Empire, has usually been considered as a minor homme d’État. Documents, drafts and notes of his private archive as well as his publications deliver a more detailed image of his contribution to the Revolution. His personal experience and political thought enrich the field of French revolutionary studies and can serve as an additional mirror through which the Revolution can be seen. As a survivor of and actor in different regimes, Rœderer embodies the political figure known as girouette. In this perspective, his interpretation of the French Revolution, published on the dawn of the July Monarchy, – which he considers as the very last act of the bourgeois révolution of 1789 – offers further suggestions in the reconstruction of the revolutionary experience.