Revolution and Reaction

1848 and the Second French Republic

Roger Price

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN:
  9781032186085
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000535716
• Topic: Politique et relations internationales
• Subtopic: Politique

This book, first published in 1975, examines the events of the French Second Republic, the themes of protest and repression in particular. It analyses how popular discontent is mobilised and becomes political protest and revolution, and how the machinery of government operates in a crisis situation.

INTRODUCTION

In February 1848 a revolutionary movement in Paris led to the replacement of a constitutional monarchy by a republic. In the succeeding weeks and months the major problem facing the republican government was to control the course of events as some men sought major social as well as political reforms and others resisted the pressure for change. The history of the second republic is that of the development of an alliance between governments wishing to govern, and conservative social groups desiring a restoration of the social status and authority they had previously possessed. These aims led them inevitably into conflict with the proponents of reform. The combined power and influence of the state and the traditional ruling elite proved to be adequate to meet the challenge. This is a history of revolution, of reaction, and of restoration. The interest of the period is that the political struggles occurred in a society in the early stages of economic and social modernisation. These struggles exemplify both continuity and change in the patterns of social organisation and behaviour. They illustrate the way in which human beings in developing societies are subjected to a complex of pressures both old and new and the way in which change is mediated by an effort to integrate it into established cultural and organisational forms. However successful this may be, the process necessarily involves a modification of social structure and of human behaviour. This essay seeks to examine the roots of revolution in the social and political structure of the July Monarchy, and then to follow the process by which the republic became conservative and was eventually succeeded by a second empire.

I

During the July Monarchy contemporaries used the term ‘notables’ to describe a ruling group which seems in fact to have been composed of aristocrats, pseudo-nobles and members of the ‘grande bourgeoisie'. The reign of Louis-Philippe was also frequently described as that of the bourgeoisie, and in a certain sense it was. The 1830 revolution represented the failure of the nobility to restore itself to the place of eminence within society to which it aspired. It was followed by the withdrawal of many nobles from active political life. A new political elite appeared to have taken its place.

Economic development and growing wealth and prestige, combined with the political revolution gave a greater self-confidence to the ‘grande bourgeoisie'. Ennoblement was no longer necessary to round off a successful career. A new aristocracy came into existence, distinguished not only by its wealth, but as in the case of the old, by birth and the assumption of social responsibility. Its members included financiers, bankers, industrialists and merchants, landowners, the most successful members of the liberal professions, senior administrators and army officers. These were all men distinguished by wealth and the style of life which wealth permitted. They composed an oligarchy whose power depended on the combination of economic, social and political power. Membership depended upon wealth, in whatever form it was held, as increasingly those who possessed wealth sought opportunities for profit in whichever sector of the economy held promise. More than ever before bankers, landowners and industrialists joined to form a single, unified elite interested primarily in the politics of order, stability and peace. Whatever their varying ideological commitments aristocratic legitimists and bourgeois Orléanists could normally agree on these aims and particularly on the need to preserve their shared domination over the masses.¹

Although these grand notables tended to be attracted to Paris by the concentration of power there, in most cases this was so as to more effectively represent regional economic and political interests. For one essential aspect of their life style and the search for social status was the ownership of land. The ruling elite was distinguished in consequence by dual residence — a town house in Paris, or some other city, together with a chateau and estates. Whatever their other professions, in great majority this elite was orientated, by birth, residence, economic interest, by ideology and sympathy, towards rural France.

Amongst the privileges conveyed by wealth such as freedom from material want, access to secondary and higher education, and the possibility of avoiding conscription into the army by hiring a substitute, was the right to vote. Wealth in this oligarchical system was seen as a guarantee of the political independence of the voter, and of his personal commitment to the existing social system. The electoral law of 19 April 1831, in order to secure a more accurate representation of those with a real stake in the nation had reduced the direct tax qualification for enfranchisement from 300 to 200 f. per annum. Initially the electorate had been doubled, to about 200,000 voters, rising to around 250,000 by the mid 1840s. To be eligible for election one needed subsequently to pay only 500 f. instead of 1000 f. with the consequence that some 56,000 were eligible in the 1840s. Most of the wealth upon which taxation fell was still held in the form of land. The system of assessment for taxation reinforced this tendency for both electorate and candidates to be drawn primarily from the ranks of men who owned land.² As well as dominating the legislative, such men controlled the administrative organs of the state. Only wealth could purchase the necessary education, and permit one to establish the style of life and relations in proper society which made admittance to the upper levels of the bureaucracy possible. It was this combincation of legislative and executive power in the hands of the wealthy, which was the chief characteristic of the July Monarchy.

Another fundamental characteristic was the local source of power, usually due to ownership of land within a rural community, and to the prestige and reputation of one's family. It was because of this that many of the legitimist opponents of the regime were able to retain considerable local influence even when they had been deprived of political power. Obviously one should not attempt to directly correlate wealth with social prestige and influence, but it was a necessary prerequisite for both. The notable was someone with a name, and often a title. He possessed power as a landowner over tenants and labourers, as a dispenser of charity over the poor. His status was frequently reinforced by the possession of local administrative authority, particularly as magistrate, and also by activity related to national politics. A major role of the notable was intermediary activity, representing local and regional interests in regional and national centres of administration. This preponderance of notables corresponded to a world of rural communities and small market towns in which they were known personally, or at least by reputation; to a world in which the knowledge every individual possessed of kinship links, of clientele relationships, and of social hierarchy, permitted them to recognise the social status of other individuals.

A. J. Tudesq, to whom the preceding analysis owes a great deal, identifies the link between this oligarchical political structure and the predominantly rural character of French society, and additionally the relative weakness of central power which alone permitted a decentralised politics.

Already in economically and socially more advanced areas — in the north, northwest and Lyon regions — the social power of the traditional elites was being reduced as new groups acceded to wealth and to political ambitions. Moreover, it is always likely, where a heterogeneous social elite holds power, and where some of the groups which compose it assume, or appear to assume more power than others, that internal tensions will be created. This becomes especially likely if it comes to be believed that those who have the major share in political power are failing to exercise this in an efficient or proper manner.³

One clear weakness of the July Monarchy was the continued refusal of supporters of the regime overthrown in 1830 to recognise its legitimacy. Although the opposition of these advocates of yet another restoration of the elder line of Bourbon was generally muted in recognition of the shared interest of all men of property in social order, its continuation nevertheless served to weaken potential support for the government of the day when political crisis occurred. If, in economically advanced regions the major problem concerning administrators was already the possibility of conflict between bourgeoisie and proletariat, in more backward regions where historical traditions survived more completely, the hostility of aristocrats and bourgeoisie, enflamed during the Revolution, survived. In Languedoc in particular ideological oppositions still competed with those based upon economic interest, and aristocrats, bourgeois and the masses shared in a complex of variously motivated conflicts.

Actual fusion between notables and grande bourgeoisie was little advanced in most departments. Even in Paris where they mixed in society, intermarriage was rare and when it occurred, normally took place between the well endowed daughters of the wealthiest bourgeoisie and impoverished nobles. When resident in their town houses in Paris or particularly in provincial centres like Orleans nobles maintained a certain exclusiveness, forming a closed society resistant to change.

In most places the basis of the social and political influence of the nobility was ownership of land and the links of association, dependence and obligation this created with tenants, sharecroppers, debtors, and labourers. Their potential social power would not everywhere be capable of realisation. In many places the traditional acceptance by the masses of noble predominance created a psychological climate of subservience based as much on interpersonal relationships as economic dominance. This was the case in much of Brittany — in Finistère, Côtes-du-Nord and Morbihan. Elsewhere the absence of a climate of confidence between nobles and peasants limited their social influence. This was the case in Seine-et-Marne, or in a zone to the east of Lyon, areas where large noble owned estates were common. There is no simple correlation between economic power and social and political influence.

In the west Legitimists were able to base themselves on relatively stable rural societies, whose structures and the mentality of whose populations changed only very slowly due to isolation. They benefited additionally from old traditions of opposition to the central power. The other main regions of Legitimist strength were in the south, where often it was an urban phenomenon in contrast to its bases in the west. In Toulouse, Aix, Nimes, Montpellier, Montauban, Avignon and Marseille, Legitimist notables (both nobles and bourgeois) were able to appeal to a popular tradition of support for the Legitimate monarch and the Catholic Church against liberals, Protestants and the central government. At Toulouse for example Legitimist supporters included most of the landowners with town houses in the city, many of the members of the liberal professions and of the merchantile classes who depended on the purchases of the first two groups, and also of the clergy whose moral authority and charity they all supported. This alliance with the clergy was particularly important, providing a link with the masses, whose low literacy rates permitted the survival of a popular culture dominated by a militant Catholicism.

Thus a wealthy aristocracy gathered mass support by means of Catholic charity. Through membership of municipal councils, local agricultural and learned societies, and social intercourse in its salons it dictated the shape of social relations for the notables in general. Even the officers of the government it despised had no choice but to avoid offending these opponents if they were not to risk social ostracism.

In rural areas of the South also — in Ariége, Tarn, Tarn-et-Garonne, the arrondissements of Toulouse and Villefranche in Haute-Garonne, of Lambez in Gers, or Arles in Bouches-du-Rhòne the dominance of rich noble landowners seemed assured. In other regions of France — in mountainous areas of Haute-Loire, Cantal, Corrèze, Lozére, in towns like Lyon, Bordeaux, Moulins, Riom and Limoges, in town and countryside in Flanders and Picardy, influential Legitimists exerted varying degrees of influence, although not on a scale comparable with the main centres of influence in west and south. Every region with the exception of Alsace had its Legitimist notables, whose activity usually centred on a town with a royal lawcourt, where the old traditions of the parlements survived, or else on an ecclesiastical centre. The significance of noble political opposition really reflected their ability to attract the support of other social groups. This nobles gained not only through economic activities, and the gratitude of those to whom they dispensed aid, through the prestige conveyed by name, reputation, wealth and dignity, but also due to their habitual pose as the defenders of social order and especially of religion and morality.

The noble generally observed his religious duties down to the finest detail. He was inspired by a relatively simple and coherent ideology, negative in its essentials, denouncing the progressive moral decline of mankind, which only a return to hierarchy in society and submissiveness on the part of those to whom God had allocated an inferior place, might arrest. This truly theological outlook, a totalitarian view of social relationships, gave a certain unity to nobles based on a conception of life, of the correct organisation of society and of their own responsibilities within it. This moral outlook obviates to a large extent the problem of determining who were genuine and who pseudo-nobles. A group existed composed of men who shared a life style and opinions — who in practice conformed to the unwritten rules for good behaviour which determined social acceptability.

One consequence of their social ideology was to confirm to nobles their duty of providing leadership, both in the community and the nation. Their chosen careers tended in consequence to be landownership or else positions as senior government officials or army officers. The early years of the July Monarchy in particular temporarily altered this pattern. On principle, rather than serve the usurper Louis-Philippe, many Legitimists resigned their offices and commissions, others refused to participate in politics rather than give implicit recognition to the new regime. However, the longer a restoration was postponed the more difficult it became to preserve such purism. Isolation and idleness gradually led to a return to office and politics. The evident conservatism of the regime helped save uneasy consciences, whilst their reintegration into public life confirmed this conservatism. It remained the case however that many members of a very influential group lacked any sort of firm commitment to the July Monarchy.

Although apparently victorious in 1830, the grande bourgeoisie remained prisoners of two fears, on the one hand of reaction, of the Legitimists, and on the other of social revolution by the masses. Especially in the provinces liberals resented the survival of the aristocratic will to dominate, still felt the need to affirm their egalitarian hostility towards aristocratic hankerings after privilege, their faith in progress, their anticlericalism, their somewhat shaky confidence in modern society.⁴

In contrast with the moral conception of society presented by the Legitimists, with its paternalistic ethos, liberals stressed individual responsibility. An editorial in the Journal des Débats in 1847 expressed their typical belief that ‘the bourgeoisie is not a class, it is a position; one acquires that position and one loses it. Work, thrift and ability confer it; vice, dissipation and idleness mean it is lost.’⁵ Those who had succeeded in acquiring or maintaining superior status in society ascribed their success to their superior abilities. Conversely those who had been unable to raise themselves out of poverty were morally inadequate. This pathological explanation of poverty was one increasingly shared by all notables. Such an explanation of the existence of poverty obviated the necessity to ask whether the real cause might not be in the basic structure of a society in which to a large extent private property was the cause and a result of gross inequality at birth. If one accepted that inequality was God ordained, or resulted from unequal ability, then it tended logically to follow that criticism of the status quo, and especially of the social division of property was either blasphemy or perversity.

The notable assumed that he had a right to dominate other, weaker people. He recognised as superiors on earth only those whose wealth and reputation were greater. The ruling class was given a certain coherence by the secondary education it shared — classical in its fundamentals — based on Latin, law and rhetoric, preparing individuals for polite conversation and public debate. One member of the elite could thus easily recognise another by his manners and the class culture they both possessed. The political system was structured to maintain such distinctions, supported by the belief that political power must belong to an elite, identified by its stake in society and its worldly success.⁶

However the voting qualification established in 1830 at 200 f. in direct taxes did not result in a very uniform electorate. At the lower level it enfranchised much of what is often described as...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• Parisian Producers Associations (1830-51): The Socialism of Skilled Workers
• Economic Change and Artisan Discontent: The Tailors’ History, 1800-48
• The Paris Club Movement in 1848
• The Revolutionary Police of 1848
• Civil-Military Relations in Paris, 1848
• The People of June, 1848
• Radicalisation and Repression: a Study of the Demobilisation of the ‘Démoc-Socs’ during the Second French Republic
• Mask of Revolution: a Study of Popular Culture during the Second French Republic
• Modernisation and Insurgency in December 1851: a Case Study of the Drome
• The Prefects and Political Repression: February 1848 to December 1851
• The Coup détat of December 1851: Repression and the Limits to Repression