The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History

The author’s entire methodology hinges on the importance of examining the attitudes of ordinary individuals in 18th-century France. This approach is in keeping with the histoire des mentalités school of thought to which Darnton belongs. This stands in opposition to event history, in which the history of the world is viewed through the lens of major conflicts and power exchanges, most of which he argues have little long-term effect on the lives of ordinary individuals, particularly the peasantry. Of French peasants, Darnton writes, “Despite war, plague, and famine, the social order that existed at village level remained remarkably stable during the early modern period in France” (23).

This approach is best reflected in the primary sources upon which the author consistently relies. For example, he draws conclusions about the lives and attitudes of French peasants from the folktales they shared orally for centuries. In examining the intellectual class, Darnton devotes a great deal of energy to parsing the police dossier of an un-extraordinary—if not exactly typical—inspector. Elsewhere, he pores through the book requests sent by letter from an exceptionally erudite yet historically insignificant merchant. His dissection of the bourgeois comes from an obscure document written by a man whose name is lost to history.