Chauvin, le soldat-laboureur: contribution à l'étude des nationalismes

Chauvinist, chauvinism: the word has been widely used globally, from the east to west, by Lenin and American feminists, since its invention in the last century. But the word’s origins are little-known: the root comes from a certain Nicolas Chauvin, heroic soldier of the armies of the Revolution and the Empire, who is believed to have returned from battle, covered in wounds and military honors, to live in his native Rochefort for the rest of his life. The author attempts in this volume to research this Nicolas Chauvin and his glorious (and not-so-glorious) posterity. At the end of his investigation, the author discovered that, in fact, Nicolas Chauvin did not exist. He was a legend, formed under the Restoration and the July Monarchy, written by singers, vaudevillians, and historians. A story which resurfaced periodically during spurts of national ruralism, Chauvin nevertheless is the product of a long tradition, that of the laborer soldier, that dates from antiquity to Rousseauist legacy, which is at the origin of one of the most formative myths of French nationalism.