Disorderly families : infamous letters from the Bastille Archives / [compiled by] Arlette Farge and Michel Foucault ; edited by Nancy Luxon ; translated by Thomas Scott-Railton ; afterword to the English edition by Arlette Farge.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Farge, Arlette, compiler.

Foucault, Michel, 1926-1984, compiler.

Luxon, Nancy, editor.

Archives de la Bastille.

Standardized Title:

Désordre des familles. English.

Language:

English

French

Subjects (All):

Lettres de cachet.

Families--France--History--18th century.

Families.

History.

France--Social conditions--18th century.

France.

Social conditions.

Physical Description:

x, 331 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, [2016]

Summary:

"Drunken and debauched husbands; libertine wives; vagabonding children. These and many more are the subjects of requests for confinement written to the king of France in the eighteenth century. These letters of arrest (lettres de cachet) from France's Ancien Regime were often associated with excessive royal power and seen as a way for the king to imprison political opponents. In Disorderly Families, first published in French in 1982, Arlette Farge and Michel Foucault collect ninety-four letters from ordinary families who, with the help of hired scribes, submitted complaints to the king to intervene and resolve their family disputes. Gathered together, these letters show something other than the exercise of arbitrary royal power, and offer unusual insight into the infamies of daily life. From these letters come stories of divorce and marital conflict, sexual waywardness, reckless extravagance, and abandonment. The letters evoke a fluid social space in which life in the home and on the street was regulated by the rhythms of relations between husbands and wives, or parents and children. Most impressively, these letters outline how ordinary people seized the mechanisms of power to address the king and make demands in the name of an emerging civil order. Arlette Farge and Michel Foucault were fascinated by the letters' explosive qualities and by how they both illustrated and intervened in the workings of power and governmentality. Disorderly Families sheds light on Foucault's conception of political agency and his commitment to theorizing how ordinary lives come to be touched by power. This first English translation is complete with an introduction from the book's editor, Nancy Luxon, as well as notes that contextualize the original 1982 publication and eighteenth-century policing practices"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: Contents

Translator's Preface

Editor's Introduction

Presentation

The King's Orders

At the Family's Request

1728-1758: A Survey

1. Marital Discord

Putting and End to One's Misery

The Pact Broken

Debauch: Masculine Spaces, Feminine Spaces

The Gaze of Others

The Imprisonment Obtained or the Beginning of a Story

Obscure "Police Clarifications"

The Singular Status of Repentance

Documents 1. Marital Discord

Households in Ruin

The Imprisonment of Wives

The Debauch of Husbands

The Tale of a Request

2. Parents and Children

Conflicts of Interest

Disturbance

"Conflicts at the Threshold"

Departure for the Islands

The Honor of Families

Parental Ethics

Documents 2. Parents and Children

The Disruption of Affairs

Shameful Concubinage

The Dishonor of Waywardness

Domestic Violence

Bad Apprentices

Exiles

Family Honor

The Parental Ethos of 1728: The Importance of Sentiment

The Parental Ethos of 1758: The Duty to Educate

3. When Addressing the King

From Use to Abuse

Representation and Secrecy

The End of Lettres de Cachet

Afterword

Arlette Farge

Notes

Index to Names

Index to Places.

Notes:

Translated from the French.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version:

ISBN:

9780816695348

0816695342

OCLC:

964820082