rbzpr:Liberty trees (E. Liris)It was in 1792 that the Legislative Assembly « formalised » the planti
rbzpr:Liberty trees (E. Liris)It was in 1792 that the Legislative Assembly « formalised » the plantingof liberty trees, but, drawing inspiration from an account of the Moniteur, the Abbé Grégoire declaredthat the first tree was planted by Norbert Pressac, a cleric from Saint-Gaudensin Poitou, in May 1790. Does one have to link the planting of liberty trees tothe popular tradition of the arbres de mai?The reports of M.J. Godard and L. Robin attributed to the planting of maypoles,which were erected rather than planted, an insurrectional intention: Being «[s]igns of disobedience to the laws », they sometimes arose « in the form of gallows» and of the threat of death ; nonetheless, the dictionary of Achard only reportedthis « liberating » May tradition in certain communes, and the liberty treepresented a veritable specificity. Being a living tree instead of being dead woodor a pole, the plantation of a tree obeyed to a kind of ceremony that wascodified by François de Neufchateau, a ritual excluding any kind of violence: «I recommend you … the touching ceremony which has to accompany the plantingof Liberty trees ». The population « of both sexes is reunited », the tree ischosen, replanted with care, monitored, cosseted (one used the informal tutoiement), decorated with cockades andribbons, initially blessed by the constitutional clergy. Planted on squares orcrossroads, it became a place of « fraternal » gathering, and being the centreof a circle formed by the audience, it evoked equality. Rapidly, the plantingof a tree became a sign of political adherence, whereas the mutilation orfelling of a tree constituted a distinctive and punished counter-revolutionaryact. The tree, pertaining to nature which was more or less sanctified in apre-Romantic tone, came across as a very rich symbol within which one couldeasily identify, it was one of therevolutionary symbols which held the value of an archetype and which enduredbeyond the revolutionary decade. The tree, which was reborn each year, embodieda message which aimed to reunite individuals in order to make a community outof them. On the semiotic level, the tree corresponded to the opposition betweenthe ideal of a linear time, the one of tyranny which led to death, and of acyclic and repetitive time which is supposed to lead to immortality and toincarnate liberty. Keep reading -- source link
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