Face-covering accessory and rhetorical figure: The mask in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France and its legacy in contemporary French society

Abstract

This paper examines the pivotal role of the mask – both as a face-covering accessory and a rhetorical figure – in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France and its historical legacy in contemporary French society. It explores how Enlightenment thinkers, influenced by prevalent masking practices, used the metaphor of the mask – or what I call the ‘figurative mask’ – to navigate the moral, social, and cultural transformations of the period. It also shows how the revolutionaries wielded the metaphor of the mask as a weapon in factional conflicts and power struggles as the French Revolution radicalised. The paper argues that the often-overlooked historical significance of the mask in France is deeply intertwined with the fears and anxieties surrounding face coverings and the concealed face in contemporary France, as exemplified by the 2011 ban on face coverings and the fake letter, attributed to Madame de Sévigné, that surfaced on the Internet during the COVID-19 pandemic.