«Un coup d’État de Dieu». Approches catholiques du 2 décembre 1851, entre théologie et politique

This article proposes a new overview of the reactions of French Catholics, both lay and clerical, to the coup d'état of 2 December 1851. Firstly, it seeks to complete and enlarge the factual framework that historians have so far provided by adopting, thanks to the use of new documentary sources from private collections, a point of view located within the Catholic world itself. Secondly, it attemps to understand better the complexity and specificity of these reactions by analysing the rethorical and mental tools used by Catholics to explain to themselves, and to appropriate for their own use a major political event that was, nevertheless, not withous its ambiguities.