ABSTRACT
Since, upon first inspection, the themes of fun and festivity are so visible, it is easy to judge the entire Fin-De-Siècle age in France as superficial – a mecca for dilettantish tourists and frivolous sensualists. The sheer number of cultural fields that underwent creative transformation during the years 1870–1914 is remarkable, as are the horizontal cultural interconnections among developments in the arts, sciences, and philosophy. Perhaps the most remarkable features of the French artistic revolution of the Fin-De-Siècle are its duration and variation. The Fin-De-Siècle in France brought entirely new disciplines of knowledge into existence. French Fin-De-Siècle society also had a third and darker side, one that was deeply complicated both culturally and psychologically. The age of decadence, decline, and degeneration complemented the French Fin-D e-Siècle's optimistic celebration of progress. The most enduring source of French resentment toward their conquerors, however, was the loss of Alsace and Lorraine.
