Conjugating the present times. Temporal figures of the european counter-revolution (1789-1814)

Abstract

The French Revolution had a brutal impact in the consciousness of their peers. The events were unfolding at great speed, causing a feeling of bewilderment. The revolutionary wars generated a climate in which crossed the hope, the fear and uncertainty by favoring the religious speeches to acquire a messianic-apocalyptic tone. The need for security and protection reactivated a powerful symbolic imaginary which remained latent within Christian culture itself. The counter-revolutionaries tried to understand the present times through traditional cultural frameworks that were soon overwhelmed by the exceptionality of the times in which they were living. Operating in reality, the categories were purchased new functional values, they were transformed. History magistra vitae was not able to assimilate an event that was seen as the ultimate horror, such as violence sublime, only explainable in supernatural terms, as a manifestation of the divine will, a providential punishment. In this way, while overflowed this way of seeing the story, the prophetic speeches and millennialism became consolidated at the same time that stressed the exceptionality of revolutionary event.