Temps et Révolution. De l’Almanach des Honnêtes Gens (1788) au Calendrier des Républicains (1793) de Sylvain Maréchal

The aim of this paper is to show the evolution of the ideas of the French Enlightenment author, Sylvain Maréchal. In 1788, he writes an almost revolutionary work, The Honest Man’s Almanac, in which he breaks with the Christian axiology of time, and thus with the Gregorian calendar. He proposes a new system of measuring time, and replaces the names of saints and patrons of the Catholic Church with those of philosophers, artists, writers and politicians who deserve eternal memory of their posterity. In 1793, during the French Revolution, he creates another piece, The Calendar of Republicans. Retaining the main idea of his work of five years earlier, the author this time proposes a republican calendar, created under the influence of the revolutionary events in France. He fundamentally changes the list of the ‘new saints’, taking as his criterion their dedication and sometimes even the sacrifice of their lives to the idea of the republic in the history of humanity. He thus anticipates the cult of the ‘martyrs’ of the republican cause, which will develop in the revolutionary France in 1793.