Vous consultezL’épuration de la police parisienne et les « origines tragiques » du dossier individuel sous la Restauration

The epuration of the police of Paris and the tragic origins of the personnel file under the Restauration
From 1814 to 1816, the police of Paris was affected by one of the deepest epuration in its history. Multiple petitions were send to the authorities, by policemen who had been revoked and asking for their reintegration, or individuals eager to get their position. The study of the arguments and material forms of these documents, often neglected, reveals how people conceived their relation with the job of policeman, the State and recent political history. Depending where they were send by revoked policemen, individuals looking for a new position or ex-policemen sacked by previous regimes, petitions mobilized various and often opposite repertories. The arbitrations made by the political and administrative authorities reveal a latent antagonism between the professional identity defended by Napoleon’s policemen, based on local implantation, the support of local communities, moral integrity and law abiding, and the newcomers’ demands for retribution and political affiliations. The bureaucratic treatment of the demands shows how in the troubled context of post-revolutionary France, the administrations invented new modes of classification and management of individuals, based on the registration and the scrutiny of biographical trajectories.

Keywords

France , Paris , Restauration , police , petitions , political epuration