Ceremonial City: Toulouse Observed

From public executions to religious processions to political festivities, Toulouse's ceremonial life was remarkably rich in the decades prior to the French Revolution. Robert Schneider shows how Toulouse's civic and community life was represented in the stagings of various ceremonies. His inquiry is based on the unpublished diaries of Pierre Barthes, a Latin tutor who was both a devout Catholic and a monarchist, and who recorded forty years of public activity in ways that reflected the mounting social tensions of his times. By analyzing Barthes's accounts, Schneider demonstrates how the variety of ceremonial forms embodied different ritual dynamics and represented contrasting values. [Robert Schneider] has captured the festival in all of its color and diversity with an evocative style that stands as a significant contribution to cultural history. Readers will find the immediacy of place, pageant, and popular ritual behavior compelling.--Robert Forster, The Johns Hopkins University Systematic and long-term treatments of rituals in public life are rare. Robert Schneider significantly enlarges our understanding of eighteenth-century urban life and people.--Lawrence Bryant, California State University-ChicoSchneider, Robert A. is the author of 'Ceremonial City: Toulouse Observed' with ISBN 9780691034652 and ISBN 0691034656.