ABSTRACT
Few French republicans shared Sade’s singular vision of family politics. They had found themselves advocating radical changes in family law and opening up fundamental questions about family arrangements as a consequence of their desire to break with the monarchical and aristocratic past. Yet they never imagined eliminating the family or severing the relationship between civic virtue and family obligations. The proposed constitution of 1793 insisted, “The fathers and mothers of the family are the true citizens.” 1 Even before the Terror ended and the Directory regime began its rollback of some of the most radical provisions in revolutionary legislation about the family, many republican officials had begun to seek ways of rehabilitating the family as the cornerstone of a republican regime.
