Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Bureaucrats and Beggars: French Social Policy in the Age of the Enlightenment

Bureaucrats and Beggars: French Social Policy in the Age of the Enlightenment

Adams, Thomas McStay

Hardcover

French HistoryGeneral SociologyGeneral World History

ISBN10: 0195051688
ISBN13: 9780195051681
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: Jan 31 1991
Pages: 416
Weight: 1.75
Height: 1.21 Width: 6.36 Depth: 9.16
Language: English
In the mid-eighteenth century in France, the royal authorities launched a new campaign to sweep beggars from the streets, pinning their hopes on the creation of a uniform royal network of lock-ups in which anyone found begging might be detained. In this study, Adams probes the accomplishments and the failings of these so-called dépôts de mendicité, as seen by critics of the experiment (including learned judges and influential spokesmen of the provincial Estates) and as seen by those responsible for its success: the provincial intendants, the royal engineers, the doctors, the inspectors, the contractors, and various givers of advice. He shows how the debate--both internal and external--over the operation of the dépôts contributed to the intellectual ferment of the Enlightenment and the Revolution. The resulting web of reasoning and empirical data gave support to Montesquieu's principle that the state owes every one of its citizens a secure subsistence, suitable food and clothing, and a manner of life that is not contrary to good health.

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