Revolutionary rebirth

Use in the book

Gamelin notices that Herman and Fouquier resemble old-regime magistrates in outlook and manners; the narrator immediately explains that they were such magistrates. Their career continuity is concrete, and their characters have endured. His belief in revolutionary rebirth follows as the resistance to that visible continuity.

The mother and Brotteaux subsequently recognise the same persistence of justice through changing regimes. She venerates both forms of authority, while he despises both. Neither shared recognition produces a shared evaluation. Gamelin’s regenerative belief remains one position among these sharply differentiated responses.

The term also helps connect political and aesthetic hopes: new principles are supposed to produce art worthy of a free people. Yet the country painters all see through older masters. The comparison is a reading across the chapters, not a claim that the noun palingénésie itself occurs in the art scene.

Places to read

1. Chapter IX, paragraph 6Frenchla palingénésie révolutionnaire: Revolutionary rebirth. Gamelin believes in it despite noticing old judicial habits.
2. Chapter IX, paragraph 37Frenchla continuité de la justice: Continuity of justice. The mother’s reverent recognition of an enduring institution.
3. Chapter IX, paragraph 38Frenchla continuité de la justice à travers les régimes: Continuity of justice across regimes. Brotteaux recognises the same persistence with opposite feeling.
4. Chapter X, paragraph 15Frenchsous l’influence des principes nouveaux: Under the influence of new principles. Gamelin credits these with a renewed public art.

Translation in this edition

The edition’s “revolutionary rebirth” is a contextual rendering of the rare noun, not evidence that the source uses an ordinary French renaissance here. “But” before Gamelin’s belief preserves the tension with the preceding observations.