Becoming BourgeoisBecoming Bourgeois describes the fortunes of three French families in the municipality of Vannes, in BrittanyGalles, Jollivet, and Le Ridantwho rose to prominence in publishing, law, the military, public administration, and intellectual pursuits over the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Revisiting complex issues of bourgeois class formation from the perspective of the interior lives of families, Christopher H. Johnson argues that the