La mise au pilori de l'abbé Maury: Imaginaire comique et mythe de l'antihéros pendant la Révolution Française

This survey mainly deals with the issue of the symbolical violence during the French Revolution. This violence is analysed through the humorous tone of the satirical press and the popular press denouncing priest Maury at the time of the Constituent Assembly. Being the leader of the counter - revolutionary right wing, he becomes the target of a mockery campaign from Winter 1789 onwards. The evolution of these comic attacks is analysed from Camille Desmoulins's newspaper Les Révolutions de France et de Brabant. Between December 1789 and February 1790, Camille Desmoulins provides the main elements of the myth denouncing Maury. Later, during the carnival (February - May 1790), a great deal of lampoons and satirical periodicals are exclusively dedicated to him. But the campaign against Maury reaches its peak between September 1790 and May 1791 with the birth of the popular press and more particularly with the different versions of Le Père Duchesne. In three of them, we are presented a comic confrontation between le Père Duchesne, symbolizing people of modest means and priest Maury : in about a hundred issues, the authors present a play scene in which the first one is victorious whereas the second is punished and humiliated. The notion of popular sovereignty is progressively introduced by these authors. But, at the end of the Constituent Assembly, the character of Maury disappears from the lampoonist stage and is replaced by the characters of the Queen and the King who become the favourite targets of the comic and ludicrous popular press.