Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-dnltx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T16:00:22.027Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

III. English Ideals in French Politics during the Nineteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Theodore Zeldin
Theodore Zeldin
Affiliation:
St Antony's CollegeOxford
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The strength of the English ideal in France in the eighteenth century is well known, but its history in the nineteenth is far more obscure. Every reader of Montesquieu and Voltaire knows of their theoretical admiration for England and every student of French history has been told how their disciples were defeated at the Revolution. It is generally believed, nevertheless, that their day came at length with the fall of Napoleon, for then France seemed to follow in England’s footsteps with extraordinary fidelity. It emerged from a revolution and a military dictatorship as England had emerged in 1660 from the great rebellion and the rule of Cromwell; its restoration produced first a cautious king like Charles II and then a more violent one like James II; its glorious revolution of 1830, like that of 1688, ensured the victory of constitutional monarchy. The Jacobites found their counterparts in the legitimist conspirators; Walpole’s system of government by corruption and influence was reproduced by Guizot with his parliaments packed full of civil servants. France now conquered Algeria as England had conquered India: it underwent an Industrial Revolution as England had done, financed to a considerable extent moreover with English capital.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , March 1959 , pp. 40 - 58
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1959

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Cf. Renard, G., ‘L’Influence de I’Angleterre sur la France depuis 1830’ in Nouvelle Revue (1885), vol. XXXVI.Google Scholar

2 ****de Laborie, L. de Lanzac, J.–J. Mounier, sa vie politique et ses écrits (1887), 160.Google Scholar

3 Gougelot, Henri, L’Idée de liberté dans la pensée de Benjamin Constant (1942), 68–9, 73.Google Scholar

4 Guizot, F., Histoire des origines du gouvernement représentatif en Europe (revised edn. 1851), II, 264.Google Scholar

5 C., de Montalembert, De I’avenir politique de l’Angleterre (3rd edn. 1856), 295–6.Google Scholar

6 C., de Rémusat, L’Angleterre au XVIIIe siècle (1865), I, I.Google Scholar

7 ‘Mémoire de la main de l’abbé de Montesquiou’ published in M[oniteur] U[ niversel] (1815), 428–9.Google Scholar

8 Vade Mecum, ou manuel des Français de tous états et de toutes conditions (1822) (Le (3) 114 in Bibliothèque Nationale); declaration of 2 May 1814.Google Scholar Cf. J. P. T., Bury, ‘The End of the Napoleonic Senate’ in Cambridge Historical Journal, IX (1948), 165–89.Google Scholar

9 Lanjuinais, Comte, Constitutions de la nation française (1819), I, 69–71Google Scholar

10 F. A. J., Mazure, De la représentation nationale et de la souveraineté en Angleterre et en France (1821), 26.Google Scholar

11 A. E. de Genoude in Le Conservateur, vol. 5, 14 Oct. 1819, cit. J. H., Thomas, L’Angleterre dans l’oeuvre de Victor Hugo (1933), 55.Google Scholar

12 In Le National, 19 Feb. 1830: see J. M. S., Allison, Thiers and the French Monarchy (1926), 94, 102.Google Scholar

13 P., de Barante, [La vie politique de M. ] Royer-Collard (2nd edn., 1863), I, 226.Google Scholar

14 V., de Broglie, Vues sur le gouvernement de la France (2nd edn., 1872), xx.Google Scholar

15 Cf. particularly Constant and Guizot.Google Scholar

16 P., de Barante, Royer-Collard, II, 464–5.Google Scholar

17 F., Guizot, Mémoires [ pour servir à l’histoire de mon temps (1859–1864)], I, III, 318.Google Scholar

18 The art of government for him was the art of establishing harmony between king and parliament. This should not be secured by subordinating one to the other, for each had its own special functions. He advocated government by the king through parliament. ‘It is not the houses which govern, it is not the houses which make and unmake ministries; the truth is that the government, enlightened by experience on the danger of remaining outside the houses...very wisely decided to take its seat in the houses themselves, to establish the centre of its action there; in short, to govern in them and through them. Thus was the fusion of powers effected which is the sole means of achieving stability in mixed governments.’ Ministers should be simply the king' s instruments and parliament had no right to impose ministers on the king. The ministers must make the majority in parliament; it was not for the majority to make the ministers. ‘The true purpose, the real nature of representative institutions is therefore not to enslave the government to the uncertainties of the majority and so to make it the sport of the parties, but to compel it to be sufficiently just, sufficiently wise, sufficiently clever and sufficiently national to keep the majority despite the parties; and as legislators have foreseen that the temporary triumph of a faction is possible, they have supplied the government with resources against this danger, resources which are first the right to dissolve, and secondly the influence which the government ought to exert and which it necessarily exerts on the elections....’ He sings the praises of the system of influencing elections which he perfected under Louis Philippe. This, he insists, ‘is indispensable; by it the government roots itself in the heart of the people; without it, it would be exposed to continual revolutions which would not be long in destroying it; hence the greatest mistake it could commit would be not to know or not to dare to use it.... It is not to govern themselves, it is to be well governed that nations elect deputies to take part in public affairs; all the great means of government must therefore be placed in the hands of the power which governs...’. To ensure harmony between king and parliament, a government party must be created in parliament to give a permanent majority essential to the smooth conduct of business. When this had been done, stability would follow. It would remain only to keep a watchful eye on the men who would oppose such a system. These were, first, those hostile to this broadbottom method, and secondly, the ‘unsatisfied ambitions’, the outs, who would naturally seek to overthrow a government in which they could find no place.—F., Guizot, Du Gouvernement Représentatif en France en 1816, reprinted in Mélanges politiques et historiques (1869), 33–75.Google Scholar

19 F., Guizot, Mémoires, II, 19–20Google Scholar; cf. J. Barthélemy, L’Introduction du régime parlementaire en France (1904).

20 Napoléon-Louis Bonaparte, Prince, Des Idées Napoléoniennes (1839), 95.Google Scholar

21 Napoléon III, Oeuvres (1854), I, 342.Google Scholar

22 ibid. I, 243.

23 I.e. in Fragments Historiques: 1688 et 1830 (ibid. I, 235–350); M.U. 1863, p. 115, speech reported 26 Jan.

24 Ollivier, E., 1789 et 1889 (1889), 470–4; cf. also T. Zeldin, [The Political System of] Napoleon III (1958), 124, 151.Google Scholar

25 J., de Maistre, Les Soirées de Saint-Pétersbourg (Classiques Gamier, 1929), I, 347–8;Google Scholar cf. Lettres et opuscules du comte Joseph de Maistre (1851), I, 250.Google Scholar

26 F., Baldensperger, Le mouvement des idées dans l’émigration française (1925), II, 247—52Google Scholar; J., Barthélemy-St-Hilaire. Victor, M.Cousin (1895), I, 34–5Google Scholar, 304; Oeuvres complètes de Thomas Reid, trans. Jouffroy, T. (1829–1836), I, cxxvi, IV, 451.Google Scholar

27 P., de Barante, Des Communes et de l’aristocratie, (2nd edn. 1821), 16ff.Google Scholar

28 de Tocqueville, Le Comte, France, Pair de, De la Charte provinciate (1829)Google Scholar; J. Fiévée, Examen du rapport...du projet d’organisation municipale (1821); M. Dutertre-Desaigremont, ancien juge de paix, Projet de loi ayant pour objet le régime départementale....(1926);D. Nisard, ancien deputé, Les classes moyennes en Angleterre et la bourgeoisie en France (1850), 6.

29 P., de Barante, Royer-Collard, II, 132–4.Google Scholar

30 F., Guizot, De la démocratie en France (Jan. 1849), 2.Google Scholar

31 A., Trannoy, Le romantisme [politique] de Montalembert [avant 1843] (1942), 522Google Scholar, 539, 540.

32 Cf. Zeldin, , Napoleon III, 48–9, 163.Google Scholar

33 C., de Franqueville, Les institutions [politiques, judiciaires et administratives] de l’Angleterre (2nd edn. 1864), 15.Google Scholar

34 Trannoy, A., Le rornantisme de Montalembert, 532, 537Google Scholar.

35 de Franqueville, C., Les institutions de l’Angleterre, 19–20Google Scholar.

36 Bibliothèque Nationale, Lf (136) 10; Lf (136) 23; L1 (3) 80; L1 (I) 6; Lf (136) 24; and others in the Catalogue de l’Histoire de France in these sections.

37 de Broglie, V., Vues sur le gouvernement de la France, xii, xxviiGoogle Scholar.

38 Ordonnances of 19 Aug. 1815, 25 Aug. 1817 and 10 Feb. 1824.

39 Bachelin-Deflorenne, A., État présent de la noblesse française (5th edn. 1884), introductionGoogle Scholar; de Barthélemy, E., La noblesse en France avant et depuis 1789 (1858)Google Scholar; Révérend, A., Titres et confirmations de titres, 1830–1908 (1909), preface; Archives Nationales, BB (30) 255.Google Scholar

40 Mavidal, J., Archives parlementaires (1826), XLVI, 576–7.Google Scholar

41 Mémoires [et correspondance du comte] de Villèle, v, 142.

42 Mavidal's, Archives parlementaires (1826), XLV, 732Google Scholar. Cf. Peyronnet, garde des sceaux, ibid. p. 755.

43 Mémoires de Villèle (1888–9), v, 143–4.Google Scholar

44 de Barante, P., Des Communes et de l’ Aristocratie, 140Google Scholar.

45 de Balzac, H., Le Curé de Village (1839) (ed. Bouteron et Lognon, 1922), 216.Google Scholar

46 Mérimée Correspondance de P. (ed. Parturier, M., Toulouse, 1955), vol. VIII (i.e. 2nd series, vol. II), 344–6.Google Scholar

47 P. de Barante, Des Communes et de l’ Aristocratie, 110, 113—14, 140.

48 de Carné, L., ‘Du Gouvernement représentatif en France, Lettres à un membre de la Chambre des Communes’, in Études sur l’histoire du gouvernement représentatif en France de 1789 à 1848 (1855), II, 306, 317, 327.Google Scholar

49 F. Guizot, Mémoires, v, 7–8; idem, Histoire des origines du gouvernement représentatif en Europe (lectures of 1820–2, revised edn. of 1851), u, 243.

50 P. de Barante, Des Communes et de l’Aristocratie, 22, 72—3.

51 Chevalier, M., ‘La Constitution de l’Angleterre’, in Revue des deux mondes, I Dec. 1867, vol. 72, p. 554. Cf. D. Nisard, Les classes moyennes en Angleterre (1864), 35; Odilon Barrot, De la centralisation et ses effets (1861).Google Scholar

52 Robin-Harmel, P., Le Prince Jules de Polignac (1941), I, 45Google Scholar; de Polignac, J., Considérations politiques sur l’époque actuelle (1832), 71–2.Google Scholar

53 Mémoires de Villèle, v, 135–6,142. ‘Juge de paix’ and ‘justice de paix’ are translated literally here and throughout this article, the formermeaning the French trained and salaried legal official, while the latter is the English unsalaried amateur with administrative as well as legal functions.

54 V. de Broglie, Vues sur le gouvernement de la France, 177.

55 Picot, G., Concours de l’Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques (1901).Google Scholar

56 Leroy-Beaulieu, P.. L’ Administration locale en France et en Angleterre (1872), 59–61, 124.Google Scholar

57 V. de Broglie, Vues sur le gouvernement de la France.

58 He had been created a peer in 1819.

59 de Barante, P., Des Communes et de l’Aristocratie (1821), 140–219.Google Scholar

60 Taine, H., Notes sur l’Angleterre (1872), 216–18; H. Taine, sa vie et sa correspondance (1904), II, 263; L. Fayolle, ‘L’Aristocratie, le suffrage universel et la décentralisation dans l’oeuvre de Taine’ in R. Pelloux, Libéralisme, Traditionalisme, Décentralisation (1952).Google Scholar

61 The social foundations of political power are discussed at greater length in my book, op. cit., chapters 3, 4 and 12.

62 Copy of a letter from Montalembert to Flavigny in the Montalembert papers, reporting a conversation with Ancel, mayor and deputy of le Havre, 4 Nov. 1853.

63 Faucher, L., Correspondance et vie parlementaire (1867), I, 147.Google Scholar

64 Jollivet, A., Examen du système électoral anglais (1835), 7.Google Scholar

65 Ledru-Rollin, A. A., De la décadence de l’Angleterre (1850)Google Scholar. M. René Rémond is preparing a doctoral thesis on French public opinion on America, which will throw further light on this problem.