| Tocqueville once noted that members of the nobility he was unacquainted with could nevertheless be recognized as such, through "invisible signs". With the intent to locate those elusive signs, this dissertation analyzes the representations of the French nobility in modern literature and culture through a multidisciplinary approach (literature, sociology and cultural history). Post-revolutionary literary representations of the class display a surprising continuity not only with the ancient tradition of handbooks of courtly behavior in portrayals of the manners of the nobility, but also with many literary works from the Old Regime. In the field of literary representations, the nobility has survived the Revolution nearly unscathed. This particular discourse contributes to the theory first conceived by Tocqueville that the post-revolutionary era was much closer in structures, sensibilities and discourses to the Old Regime than it was generally assumed. And those "invisible signs" are in fact the keys to the comprehension of the return to symbolic power of the nobility. Through close textual analysis from Chateaubriand to Balzac, Sand, and Proust, I demonstrate that beyond the mere signs of distinction lies in fact an essence of distinction, grace, which is at the core of the noble habitus. Through a rigorous educational process which consists in covering culture with the illusion of nature, the nobility as a group was able to acquire a secular form of grace, whose distinctive value remained unsurpassed for most if not all of the Nineteenth century. As a result, even after the loss of its economic and political domination, this class was able to continue to reign on the symbolic field, just as it had for centuries. Essence of distinction, grace became the double body of the nobility, enabling the group to outlast the political time of revolutions. |
