ABSTRACT
The failure of historical repetition came to a tragic conclusion in the war between France and Prussia in 1870 to 1871. Ironically, the results of the third Napoleon’s attempt to relive the gloire of the first—the collapse of his government, the Republic that succeeded it, and the Paris Commune—seemed closer to a historical repetition of the First French Revolution than any intervening series of events. Yet the British response was, I shall argue, different, less because of any perceived change in France and the French, than because Britons were coming to perceive themselves differently, both ethnically and, to some extent, politically. Geographically, France remained Britain’s closest neighbor (although 1870-1871 also saw the continuation of Ireland’s struggle to be the larger island’s neighbor rather than its property); but British writing begins to explore new kinds of kinship, notably with the Anglophone world, through an increased emphasis on the role of language in history.
