The women were saying that the intention of the conspirators was to poison them by introducing into Paris a certain quantity of flour prepared to this effect. I hope that this is nothing but a suspicion of patriot women; but could it not be that the aristocrats are intentionally spreading this rumour in Paris, to inspire the people to defy the provisioning that is already in placeâŠto lead them surely, and in some respects, voluntarily, towards famine . 1
Report by PerriĂšre, 1 germinal, year II
Rumours flourish in times of anxiety; they thrive on ambiguity and uncertainty, filling the void left by lack of information. They are an articulation of anxiety, of threat or of hope. Rumours spread because they are believed, at some level, to be true; in expressing them, communities are able to share a collective concern. As such, the subject of a rumour , and the reaction of the participants to that rumour, can reveal a great deal about societyâs fears, values and desires.
An examination of the role of rumour during the French Revolution, therefore, reveals the collective concerns of the communities that lived through it. It raises questions about what stories were believed and why; the ways in which they spread; and what repercussionsâif anyâfollowed. It raises questions of trust and of group dynamics: whose story is the most plausible and why; and how does the acceptance or rejection of a rumour unite or isolate members of a community. It also allows us to investigate how rumours were recorded and interpreted and why.
The above report, supplied by one âcitizen observerââone of the network of spies employed by the Minister of the Interior during a period from 1792 to 1794âcontains many elements characteristic of rumours and of official attitudes towards rumours and the way in which they were recorded at this time. It refers to the group sharing the rumourââthe womenâ. It refers to the protagonists of the rumourââthe conspiratorsâ, (in this case, the recently arrested HĂ©bertistes ), whose alleged plot to poison the city by the introduction of contaminated flour is the subject of the rumour . It also reveals the authoritiesâ uncertainty about the origins of the rumour: has it been conjured up from the collective anxieties of âthe patriot womenâ or is it evidence of something more sinisterâa counter-revolutionary tactic to destabilise the citizenry by spreading suspicion about the provisioning of the city? Is rumour a medium in itself, and if so, is it anodyne or dangerous?
Rumour Studies
First, some definitions are in order: rumour is not simply a synonym for gossip, although rumour and gossip can be connected. Recent scholarship suggests that even among specialists there is no consensus about how the two differ, and so for the purposes of this study, I will attempt to establish some parameters. 2 Rumour is not only transmitted by word of mouth, but can be communicated through any media: in print, in song, through popular imagery and cartoons, or through satire. There is a popular perception that rumours are spread by gossiping women, 3 thus belittling both the rumours and the participants equally, but rumours can and have been transmitted by authoritative news sources as easily as by individuals. 4
Gossip and rumour have some qualities in common, but also some fundamental differences. Gossip may or may not be true, but this is ultimately less important than its content. Gossip usually concerns individuals known to the participants, whether personally or public figures. It serves as a means of social exchange , bringing together the participants for the duration of the conversation. The individual who supplies the gossip enjoys a certain status âat least for the period of time in which he or she holds the audience in thrall: traditionally the town gossip was not held in universal respect. Patricia Meyer Spacksâs Gossip provides a very entertaining analysis of gossip from a literary perspective. 5 She identifies a spectrum of gossip, from the outright malicious (identifying Shakespeareâs Iago as the epitome of the malevolent gossip and, in so doing, subverting the notion that purveyors of hurtful gossip are exclusively women) to more thoughtful, serious interchanges. The latter, although still focussing on individual behaviours, allows the participants âto reflect about themselves, to express wonder and uncertaintyâŠto enlarge their knowledge of one anotherâ although their conversation may still contain âthe stuff of scandalâ. Ultimately, however, Spacks sees something valuable in the exchange of gossip, describing it as âa crucial means of solidarity and self-expressionâ. 6
Rumour shares some of these qualities, but differs from gossip on several counts. The most important of these is that rumours spread because they are believed at some level to be true, or at least to contain an element of truth. In this way, they come to embody shared beliefs, hopes or fears, and thus have the potential to provoke or galvanise collective behaviours. 7 In addition, there is an important temporal feature of rumour, which does not apply to gossip. Rumour is, at its most basic, a shared piece of information that has not yet been confirmed, but is believed at the point of transmission to be true. It is therefore not the content that characterises or defines a rumour, but the fact that the content has not been verified. Rumours are, put simply, âunsecured information â 8 ânot inherently or necessarily false, but, for a time, at least, unstable. For this reason, a rumour should, in theory, be finite: once a story has been proven or disproven, it ceases to be a rumour and becomes either fact or falsehood. The reality is less straightforward. Even if proven to be false, it does not negate, or erase, the historical fact of the rumour itself. It is now a matter of historical record , evidence of the concerns and beliefs of a particular place and time, but one which can be resurrected and co-opted as necessary, its new incarnation legitimised by historical precedent.
But if rumours are merely âunsecure informationâ, unconfirmed stories that may eventuallyâbut not necessarilyâbe revealed as falsehoods, why are they important, and what can they tell us about the society that shares them? As Bronislaw Baczko writes in Ending the Terror:
A false rumour is a real social fact; in that it conceals a portion of historical truthânot about the news that it spreads, but about the conditions that make its emergence and circulation possible, about the state of mind, the mentalities and imagination of those who accept it as true. 9
Here it is important to reprise the two elements that Spacks identifies as important to gossip: self-expression and solidarity . Participating in the spread of rumour allows a community to express its âstate of mindâ, its âmentalities and imaginationâ. A community reveals its anxieties and fears through the rumours that it spreads. The conditions that allow these rumours to spreadâfrequently times of uncertainty or anxietyâcan also, paradoxically, bring communities together in solidarity. By sharing and spreading a rumour, a community gives voice to, and shares, or even acts upon its emotions.
The study of rumour first began to be taken seriously in the nineteenth century, with the development of modern psychology. 10 However, rumour was not seen to be particularly significant until World War II, when social scientists began to address the effects of enemy propaganda and seditious talk. The most notable of these were Robert Knapp , whose âA Psychology of Rumourâ was published in 1944, the result of work for the Massachusetts Committee for Public Safety, 11 and Gordon Allport and Joseph Postman , whose influential The Psychology of Rumor, based on studies undertaken for the US Office of War Information, was published three years later. 12 More recently, rumour has been studied in relation to urban myths , the contemporary versions of traditional folk tales , with their updated versions of scapegoats and bogeymen. 13
Knapp describes how, earlier in the twentieth century, rumour had been the preserve of folklorists, considered only as a form of oral story-telling, and in relation to myth and legend. However, wartime experiences made the US government aware of rumourâs potentially detrimental effect on public morale, and it became a legitimate subject for study, particularly with the aim of identifying solutions for controlling it. Knappâs study concluded that rumours flourish in an informational void. Wartime is thus the obvious environment in which rumours will proliferate, as secrecy, for reasons of security, and state censorship create a vacuum of official information.
Knapp identified several key characteristics of rumours in his study:
- 1.Rumours are transmitted verbally, and are thus vulnerable to distortion.
- 2.Rumours provide information, and relate to a specific person, place or event. They often include very precise details that seem to impart authority, which often evolve and become exaggerated with the development of the rumour. 14
- 3.Rumours provide satisfaction; they explain the inexplicable, or meet an emotional need. Of these Knapp identified wish fulfilment (âthe war will be over by Christmasâ); fear (of the enemy, or of another identifiable bogey or âotherâ); and hostility (what he calls âwedge-drivingâ), i.e. identifying a scapegoat as a way to express aggression. (In the twentieth and twenty-first century this often manifests itself as racism or religious bigotry.)
Rumours during the French Revolution are no exception, and all of these elementsâdistortion, (mis)information and satisfactionâare present and often co-exist within the same story.
Later studies of rumour in the immediate post-war period developed Knappâs ideas, always with the aim of finding solutions to curtailing rumour. Allport and Postmanâs 1947 article, âAn Analysis of Rumourâ, cites a prevailing government opinion that in wartime, âRumourâŠflies in the absence of newsâ and ...