« Almanach des honnêtes gens » (1788) de Sylvain Maréchal, ou penser un calendrier révolutionnaire avant la Révolution

The article presents the history and analyses the form of Almanac des Honnêtes Gens [Almanac of Good People] by Sylvain Maréchal (1750–1803), published a year before the Revolution. This work is pioneering in relation to the revolutionary calendar of 1793 — it proposes a very similar idea of breaking with the Christian calendar and introducing a new system of values and for measuring time in human history. In his Almanac, Sylvain Maréchal replaces the names of saints and patrons of the Catholic Church with those of philosophers, artists, writers, and politicians who, because of their lives and works, deserve eternal memory of their posterity. The idea of “new saints”, symbols of human wisdom and the power of the spirit, anticipates the dechristianisation movement and the idea of a “new time” that was soon to be promoted by the Revolution.