Conflicts in French Society: Anticlericalism, Education and Morals in the 19th Century

First published in 1970, Conflicts in French Society is a detailed study of the social history of anticlericalism. Its four chapters, based on original research, reinterpret the causes and extent of some traditional conflicts in modern French society. In ‘The Conflict of Moralities,’ Theodore Zeldin investigates the confession to discover what sins and pleasures of daily life were revealed and repressed by it. This provides rare insight into sexual behaviour in nineteenth-century France. In ‘The Conflict in Education,’ Robert Anderson shows us how different the pupils of church and state schools really were and challenges the view that the two systems divided France into hostile camps. In ‘The Conflict in Politics,’ Austin Gough describes the way the church organized a political following, and how the Bonapartists fought back. In ‘The Conflict in Village Life,’ Roger Magraw studies popular anticlericalism at the local level and shows how ideology was far from being the major cause of it. In doing so, he provides an intimate picture of village life. This book will be of interest to sociologists of religion and educationists as well as to those wishing to understand the politics and morals of France.