ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the affective power that theatrical reenactments of the grandes journées exerted during the Revolution. Rituals had the ability to appeal directly to the emotions, and provide the revolutionary government with a means to foster affective ties between citizens and the state beyond reason. The chapter demonstrates the way in which theater played a mediating role in this process through its reenactment of key public events. Revolutionary oaths and oath-taking in particular supplied playwrights with a powerful means by which to join personal and public sentiments both on stage and in the audience. The chapter presents the way in which the federative oath at the center of the 1790 Festival of Federation, and of Jean-Marie Collot d'Herbois's play. Sentimental comedies such as Collot's La Famille patriote reflect the transfer from a traditional patriarchal model of the family to a more egalitarian one founded upon mutual affections and duties.
