Déchristianiser le temps : le calendrier républicain en tant que palimpseste

The 1793 Republican calendar is rightly considered one of the most obvious manifestations of the Revolution’s struggle against the Christian religion. However, this article seeks to show the extent to which the Revolutionary attempt to change time resembles the meaning and purpose of the Christian Church’s calendar. It is a matter of proving a similar motif of a turning point in world history, which becomes a new epoch in human civilization. In this sense, the authors of the revolutionary calendar act like medieval palimpsest makers: they scrape off the contents of an old manuscript in order to write a completely new text on it, but in fact they use the same piece of parchment. This article analyses both the aesthetic form and content of the 1793 calendar itself and the theoretical texts of its revolutionary authors.