The Norman Fires of 1830
Incendiaries and Fear in Rural France
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8940883 |
|---|---|
| Authors | John M Merriman (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1976 |
| Volume | 9 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 451-451 |
| Publication date | 1976-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | French Historical Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0016-1071 • E-ISSN: 1527-5493 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/286231 |
| OpenAlex | W2320254882 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
While France's elite feared the consequences of political division in the spring of 1830, ordinary Frenchmen in western France feared fire. The fear of fire was endemic in Europe, even in the best of times. Houses, barns, stables, and even entire villages, particularly those with straw roofs, could go up in flames quickly-when lightning struck, when people were careless with fire, sometimes in extreme heat waves, or when people deliberately set them ablaze. The French rural community feared outsiders-malfaiteurs-coming to steal, pillage, or make trouble. Rumor could accentuate the fear of brigands and incendiaries; and the interplay of fear are recurring themes in French history-consider, for example, the Great Fear of 1789, the fear of the petroleuses of 1871, and the very recent rumor of Orleans.l In the spring of 1830, when bands of incendiaries appeared to be operating in western France, a panic spread which, although not at all the same phenomenon, recalled the Fear of 1789. Historians have thus far not gone beyond contemporaries' two principal explanations for these cases of arson. First, because the wave of fires came in the spring of 1830, it had important political overtones, as both liberals and Bourbons wildly accused each other. It is in this sense that the fires have been mentioned by historians of the period.2 Others believed that the fires were attributable to machinations of
Archaeology · Arson · Criminology · Elite · Political science · Politics · Rumor · Sociology · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,04 |
| Citation span | 1977 - 1993 (17) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |