How to Police a Free People? The Paris Fédération Festival and the Invention of a New Form of Crowd Control (May-July 1790).

This article looks at the problems of public order posed by the festivals of the French Revolution, using the example of the Fête de la Fédération in Paris in July 1790. At the time, there was a growing awareness that crowd control and law and order could no longer be maintained in the same way as before 1789. The Parisian authorities had several objectives in mind : to prevent the disorder and accidents inherent in any large gathering, and to demonstrate the solidity of the regime, while at the same time inventing a form of crowd control suited to the ceremony of a free people. This article looks back at the debate on these devices that took place during the preparations for the festival. While some of the solutions adopted were an extension of architectural and policing ideas inherited from the late Ancien Regime, police action gave priority to their own visibility, personal safety and the management of a new entity, a people made up of equal individuals. An analysis of the festivities reveals the ambiguities of a celebration that silenced opposition. However, the organization invented in the emergency of 1790 continued to inspire subsequent revolutionary celebrations. In this way, the Parisian Fédération opens up a debate on how to regulate public demonstrations and large gatherings in a free country, a debate that is still ongoing.