Live and die for the Constitution. Claude-François Cugnet de Montarlot, child of the French Revolution and «Mártirio de la Libertad»

Abstract

"Men are born and remain free and equal before the law", Article 1 of the Declaration of Human Rights lays the foundations for a new society in France. To anchor this common hope in time, young people are very quickly subjected to an intense civic education. Thus, for ten years (1789-1799), the children and adolescents of France built themselves on this ideal.

In Gray (Haute-Saône), at the end of childhood, Claude-François Cugnet (1778-1824) learned and assimilated these principles of equality and freedom with such force that he never ceased to celebrate and defend them, in France as in Spain during the Trienio liberal (1821-1824).

The study of the years of apprenticeship of Claude-François Cugnet, son of a miller from Comtois, aims to understand how the acquisition of a collection of theoretical principles is transformed in him, into a cause likely to animate every moment of his life. By his words, practices and political hopes constantly repeated, Claude-François Cugnet, a good student of his first educators, enlightens us modestly on the impact, permanence and adaptation of the revolutionary ideal well after the Revolution and well beyond national borders since he died shot after the failure of the liberal expedition of the Coloraos on Almería (September 1824).

Fecha de envío / Submission date: 24/07/2023

Fecha de aceptación /Acceptance date: 17/08/2023