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[[File:Ci-devant-IMG 1190.jpg|thumb|Ci-devant plaque at the {{ill|Hôtel de Nesmond|fr}} in [[Paris]]]]

In post-Revolutionary [[France]], '''''ci-devant''''' nobility were those nobles who refused to be reconstituted into the new social order or to accept any of the political, cultural, or social changes brought about in France by the [[French Revolution]].  They were often distinguished by their manners as much as by their political views, both of which remained loyal to the attitudes and values of pre-Revolutionary France.

==Meaning==
The term ''ci-devant'' {{IPA|fr|si.də.vɑ̃|}}, itself often derogatory, comes from the [[French language|French]], meaning "from before" and technically applied to members of the [[French nobility]] of the ''[[ancien régime]]'' ([[House of Bourbon|pre-Revolutionary French society]]) after they had lost their titles and privileges during the [[French Revolution]]. Despite the formal abolition of the titles of nobility by the [[First French Republic|First Republic]], most aristocrats did not accept the legality of this move and there are still numerous families in France with aristocratic titles today. "Ci-devant" may be compared to the [[English language]] term ''late'' (as in ''deceased''), as it expresses the (figurative) death of the nobility during the legislative agenda of the Revolution. Prior to the Revolution, the term ''ci-devant'' was a common expression, although then it was used to refer to aristocrats who had fallen into financial or social ruin - namely "people or things dispossessed of their estate or quality."<ref>[http://les.guillotines.free.fr/cidevant.htm Ci-devant] on les.guillotines.free.fr, accessed 16 April 2006. The French original of the quoted phrase is "…personnes et des choses dépossédées de leur état ou de leur qualité..."</ref>

==History==
[[File:Grande armée du ci-devant prince de Condé.jpg|thumb|Satirical cartoon of 1792: {{Lang|fr|Grande Armée du cidev[ant] prince de Condé}} ("Great Army of the [[Louis Joseph, Prince of Condé|From-Before Prince of Condé]]")]]
[[File:Libération de l'abbé Sicard, lors des massacres de septembre 1792, Paris. D.9086.jpg|thumb|Depiction of the liberation of the ''ci-devant'' [[Roch-Ambroise Cucurron Sicard|Abbé Sicard]]]]
During the revolutionary era, the connotations of the term were strictly derogatory, since it was typically used by people hostile to the nobility. For instance, one could say ''"le ci-devant comte"'' ("the from-before Count") about someone who held the title of a count during the ''ancien régime'', but was now, according to the Revolution, a mere [[citizenship|citizen]]. The term could also be used to refer to areas noted for their high levels of royalist sympathy or aristocratic communities - such as ''les ci-devants de Coblence'', with Coblence ([[Koblenz]]) being the town where many exiled aristocrats had fled during the first two years of the revolution and where many of their early plans to restore the monarchy were distilled. Hundreds of thousands of non-aristocratic French men and women, who were opposed to the revolution for political, cultural or religious reasons, also emigrated abroad between [[1789]] and [[1794]] and that, eventually, the term ci-devant came to be applied to them as well, indicating that their politics were "from before."

In French, the term still retains this negative connotation. Those sympathetic to the historical aims of the [[counter-revolutionaries]] or who do not wish to use a historical phrase that comes with so many perceived political connotations and judgements usually use the phrase ''Vieille Noblesse'' ("Old Nobility") to refer to the aristocracy that existed prior to 1789 - or those today whose family lineage stretches back to before the Revolution. In [[English language|English]], the usage of ci-devant is less clear. One might refer to ''ci-devant'' nobility simply to distinguish them from later nobility created by [[Napoleon Bonaparte]] under the [[First French Empire]] or by [[Louis XVIII]] and [[Charles X of France|Charles X]] under the [[Bourbon Restoration in France|Bourbon Restoration]].

==In literature==
Culturally, there have been some instances of ''ci-devant'' being used in a positive or sympathetic manner, mostly by those critical of the French revolution. For example, in the novel ''[[The Scarlet Pimpernel]]'' (1905), the [[Aristocracy (class)|aristocrat]] [[Baroness Orczy]] refers to "ci-devant counts, marquises, even dukes, who wanted to fly from France, reach England or some other equally accursed country, and there try to rouse foreign feeling against the glorious Revolution or to raise an army in order to liberate the wretched prisoners in the [[Temple (Paris)|Temple]], who had once called themselves sovereigns of France."<ref>Baroness Orczy, ''[[The Scarlet Pimpernel]]'' (1905). [http://www.4literature.net/Baroness_Orczy/Scarlet_Pimpernel/ The relevant passage] was accessed online 16 April 2006.</ref> Similarly, [[Joseph Conrad]] in ''The Rover'' (published 1923, set during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic period) wrote of a "hunter of the ci-devants and priests, purveyor of the guillotine, in short a blood-drinker."<ref>Joseph Conrad, ''[[The Rover (novel)|The Rover]]'' (1923), [http://gaslight.mtroyal.ab.ca/roverx03.htm Chapter III] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160425200611/http://gaslight.mtroyal.ab.ca/roverx03.htm |date=2016-04-25 }}, accessed online 16 April 2006.</ref> The character D'Hubert in Conrad's "The Duel" is also a ci-devant, though more sympathetically portrayed, and the term itself is not explicitly mentioned.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Conrad |first=Joseph |url=http://archive.org/details/setofsix0000conr |title=A set of six |date=1924 |publisher=Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday, Page |others=Internet Archive}}</ref>

==See also==
*[[Former people]]
*[[Incroyables and Merveilleuses]]{{-}}

==Notes and references==
<references />

[[Category:Groups of the French Revolution]]
[[Category:French nobility| ]]