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University Studies 



Vol. II OCTOBER, igoa No. 4 



I, — Influciice of the Breton Deputation and the Breton 

 Club in the Revolution {April-October, 1780) 



By CHARLES KUHLMANN 

 INTRODUCTION 



Con temporaries and later historians agree in ascribing 

 to Bretagne an extraordinary role in the Revolution, but 

 they have never even attempted to give us an exact and 

 complete account of what this role was or how it was per- 

 formed. Barthelemy Pocquet has in an excellent work, 

 Lcs Origines de la Revolution en Bretagne, led the way 

 to a correct understanding of it. His two volumes are, 

 however, concerned wdth the local revolution only. But in 

 reading them we seem in the midst of a French Revolution 

 in miniature, so far as its opening period is concerned. 

 There are the same parties with the same attitudes, the 

 same fundamental problems, the same ideas sustained with 

 even greater violence. When, on June 7, 1789, the deputy 

 Le Roulx wrote : "I imagine even that if you will recall 

 the propositions of conciliation which were made to your 

 six deputies at the Court relative to the affairs of Bretagne, 

 you will find between their conduct and that which we 

 should hold an evident analogy,"^ it Avas not a mere fancy 



'Two days before, June 5, he wrote: "Nous avons actuellemeat- 

 assemblee tous lcs soirs a la chambre provinclale. Divers members 

 des autres provinces s'y rendent, vue la position dans laquelle nous 

 nous trouvons et qui n'est cependant pas autre que celle dans laquelle 

 la Bretagne s'est trouvee avec la noblesse et le clerge." Kerviler 

 liecherches et Notices, art. Le Roulx. 



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