Jean-Clément Martin was a pupil of Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie. From 2000 to 2008 he was the director of the Institute for the history of the French Revolution, a center of academic research and teaching, connected to Pantheon-Sorbonne University. Since then he is professor emeritus.
He studied the Vendée as a "memory space".[1] For some years his research has focused on understanding violence, the contribution of gender history and the role of religion and religiosity in the revolutionary process.
He is opposed to considering the operations ordered in Vendée by the convention (whether the infernal columns, or the drownings of Nantes) as genocide. In his opinion, "there were war crimes and abominable battles, it is clear, but in no case a genocide".[2]
In 2016, he categorically denies (calling it "sacrificial"), the interpretation of the Marseillaise that "qu'un sang impur abreuve nos sillons!" (Let an impure blood water our furrows!) means in truth that the Fédérés of 1792 were proud to pour their own blood for their homeland.[3][further explanation needed]
Contribution to the history of the French Revolution
In particular, he studies the Vendée as a lieu de mémoire. In recent years, his research has focused on understanding violence, the contribution of gender history and the role of religion and religiosity in the revolutionary process.
He refuses to consider the operations ordered in Vendée by the National Convention, whether the infernal columns or the drownings at Nantes, as genocide.[4] For him, "there were war crimes and abominable battles, that's clear, but in no way genocide" during the Vendée wars, the French Revolution having been an episode of civil war with all that that means in terms of a vacuum of State, competition for power and an explosion of violence2. A purely political reading of the episode cannot therefore account for this dimension, which is linked not to a particular ideology but to an institutional, political and social mechanism that is encountered in other circumstances.
Works
Vendée-Chouannerie, Nantes, Éditions Reflets du passé, 1981 ISBN2865070085.
La Vendée et la France, 1789-1799, Éditions du Seuil, 1987 ISBN2020095513.
La Vendée de la Mémoire, 1800-1980, Éditions du Seuil, 1989 ISBN2020105640.
La Loire-Atlantique dans la tourmente révolutionnaire, Éditions Reflets du Passé, 1989.
Le Massacre des Lucs, Vendée 1794 (en collaboration avec Xavier Lardière), Geste Éditions, La Crèche, 1992.
Une région nommée Vendée, entre politique et mémoire, Éditions Geste, 1996 ISBN2910919358.
La Révolution française, étapes, bilans et conséquences, Éditions du Seuil, collection Mémo, 1996 ISBN2020231271.
La Vendée en 30 questions, Geste Éditions, La Crèche, 1996.
Contre-Révolution, Révolution et Nation en France, 1789-1799, Éditions du Seuil, 1998 ISBN2020258722.
Le Puy du Fou en Vendée, l'Histoire mise en scène (en collaboration avec Charles Suaud), L'Harmattan, 2000 ISBN2738449514.
La Guerre de Vendée, Éditions Geste, 2001 ISBN2020095513.
La contre-révolution en Europe siècles. Réalités politiques et sociales, résonances culturelles et idéologiques (ouvrage collectif), Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2001 ISBN2868475604.
La Révolution française, 1789-1799, Éditions Belin, 2003 ISBN2701136970
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