Les proscrits de l’intime

Abstract

Although the end of the eighteenth century is traditionnaly considered as the blooming of a literature based on privacy, memoirs and novels inspired by the Revolution are still an exception. The ego, especially when french émigrés decide to write, represent a forbidden or problematic topic since the laws of the Terreur erased aristocracy from the constitution and the national territory. How can noble authors share their experience or try to justify their exile as soon as they do no longer exist, or represent the enemy? Why is the intimacy such an impossible topic during the Revolution?

Keywords

• French Revolution
• emigration
• memoirs
• Chateaubriand
• Staël