ABSTRACT
This chapter examines three dictionaries that offer different views of the revolutionary period. The 'revolutionary' or innovative aspect of the lexicographical production is both a reflection of changes in the society and the expression of a changing view on language. The period between the Revolution of 1789 and the end of the Consular Republic is one of prodigious lexicographical activity. Gallais and Chantreau have given dictionaries which are not so much selective encyclopaedias of a major political and socio-economic event, but rather alphabetically dispersed commentaries on the referents and the connotations of words. Reinhard, the external observer, stands on a higher level: he looks down upon the uses and misuses of words, and marks off his description from the recorded speech. The use and abuse of words is a common theme of eighteenth-century philosophy of language, especially after 1740, and it received a new impetus from the revolutionary and counter-revolutionary practices.
