Revolutionizing Property: The Confiscation of Émigré Wealth in Paris and the Problem of Property in the French Revolution

Abstract

The confiscation of émigré property reveals the many different, conflicting ways that property was used in Revolutionary France. Studying the question of property and the process of émigré confiscation from the perspectives of law, politics, administration, social relations, and economic activity, the dissertation shows that as the Revolutionary leadership reduced the legal limits of property to a right held by individuals, they continued to rely on other relationships secured by property in their vision of the revolutionized polity. Still, this vision conflicted with the ways that citizens used property to secure relationships and create wealth. The project contextualizes a core piece of global political and economic systems in the historical contingency from which it emerged, offering a new way to think about the French Revolution.