Parallel of the Stuarts and the Bourbons: The Four Stuarts of Chateaubriand at the time of "possible restoration

Abstract

Chateaubriand's Les Quatre Stuarts (1828) is part of a long discussion of the parallels between the Stuarts and Bourbons, which were of great concern in the early nineteenth century. The fascination or specificity of these comparisons lies in the tension between a completed history and one that was still underway. When Charles X's absolutistic tendency made more reference to the revolution of 1688 and the substitution of the King, Les Quatre Stuarts, tracing the tragic drama of the Stuarts, emphasized the fundamental difference between the English and the French Restorations and, pointing to the Charter of 1814, made its conviction about the Bourbons' future resonate. (In French)