Thèse soutenue

Les mouvements de libre pensée en France pendant la Troisième République (1870-1940)
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Auteur / Autrice : Jacqueline Lalouette
Direction : Maurice Agulhon
Type : Thèse de doctorat
Discipline(s) : Histoire
Date : Soutenance en 1994
Etablissement(s) : Paris 1

Mots clés

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Résumé

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The first associations referring to freethinking appeared in france in the course of the second republic. Yet, it was in belgium that for the first time freethinking societies were formed after a model bound to become usual, the civil funeral societies. Reintroducided in france as soon as the early 1860s, those societies became fully successful only after the victory of the "republicans' republic" andgrew in number as far on the brink of the first world war. For more than three decades, freethinking stood in the forefront of the republican and anticlerical battle, as much on the national as on the local level. It was brought fame by some of the most illustrious names in politics (Aristide Braind, edouard Herriot, Marcel Sembat), in literature (Anatole France, Victor Hugo), in sciences (Paul Bert, Marcelin Berthelot) and in arts (Francis Casadesus). War stroke its decline. Affected by the departure of the men, by the sacred alliance and by the role women held within in french society during the hostilities, in the interwar years the freethinking societies could never recover the position they had hold in the political life between 1879 and 1914. Reconstituted in the 1920s and in the 1930s with difficulty, the freethinking societies had to disband from 1940. Freethinking, united in its republicanism and its anticlericalism, was yet divided over philosophical and religious matters. An atheistic and materalistic trend whose importance grew with the passing decades set itself against a spiritualistic and deitic trend, brought fame by people like jules simon and victor hugo. Anticlericalism itself took on various forms; the firm yet courteous anticlericalism of a ferdinand buisson or of a gabriel seailles contrasted with the coarse attacks of a Leo Taxil or an André Lorulot. It is probably the latter which deserved freethinking a repulsive image and. . .