Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Dominant classes: the social elites
- 2 Coming to terms with ‘democracy’
- 3 Aspiring social groups: the middle classes
- 4 Peasants and rural society: a dominated class?
- 5 Peasants and politics
- 6 The formation of a working class
- 7 The working-class challenge: socialisation and political choice
- Conclusion
- Select bibliography
- Index
2 - Coming to terms with ‘democracy’
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 August 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Dominant classes: the social elites
- 2 Coming to terms with ‘democracy’
- 3 Aspiring social groups: the middle classes
- 4 Peasants and rural society: a dominated class?
- 5 Peasants and politics
- 6 The formation of a working class
- 7 The working-class challenge: socialisation and political choice
- Conclusion
- Select bibliography
- Index
Summary
THE CHALLENGE
The granting of voting rights to all adult males in 1848 and the subsequent descente de la politique vers les masses (Agulhon) aroused great alarm. It appeared to threaten to replace elite dominance with that of ‘passionate, ignorant and unstable majorities’. It was still assumed widely within the social elite that only a small minority possessed the ability and knowledge necessary to take important political decisions. Thus, according to the Breton Legitimist Henri de la Broise: ‘Every citizen is equal, but it does not follow from this that every opinion has the same value. We cannot accept that the vote of an honest labourer might have the same authority as that of M.Thiers.’ Indeed, writing to the liberal politician, his close friend the historian Mignet warned that manhood suffrage would serve ‘in turn and at rapid intervals, [as] an instrument of anarchy and an instrument of servitude’. A senior education official, sharing his concern, admitted that ‘universal suffrage frightens me, as it frightens every honest man. It carries in itself the seeds of catastrophe, of a social revolution which will break out one day if we persist with it … No one should ignore the dangerous instincts and the burning passions of the lower classes.’
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- People and Politics in France, 1848–1870 , pp. 64 - 120Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2004