Children of the Revolution Read online

  THE NEW PENGUIN HISTORY OF FRANCE

  THE GREAT NATION:

  France from Louis XV to Napoleon Colin Jones

  CHILDREN OF THE REVOLUTION:

  The French, 1799–1914 Robert Gildea

  LA VIE EN BLEU:

  France and the French since 1900 Rod Kedward

  ROBERT GILDEA

  Children of the Revolution

  The French, 1799–1914

  ALLEN LANE

  an imprint of

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  ALLEN LANE

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

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  First published 2008

  1

  Copyright © Robert Gildea, 2008

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  All rights reserved Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book

  978-0-14-191852-5

  to Rachel, Georgia, William and Adam

  Contents

  List of Illustrations

  Acknowledgements

  Maps

  Introduction: The Children of the Revolution

  Part One: France, 1799–1870

  1. Revolution or Consensus?: French Politics, 1799–1870

  2. Discovering France

  3. A Divided Society

  4. Religion and Revolution

  5. ‘Le Malheur d’être femme’

  6. Artistic Genius and Bourgeois Culture

  7. The French in a Foreign Mirror

  Part Two: France, 1870–1914

  8. War and Commune, 1870–1871

  9. Consensus Found: French Politics, 1870–1914

  10. Reconciling Paris and the Provinces

  11. Class Cohesion

  12. Secularization and Religious Revival

  13. Feminism and its Frustrations

  14. Modernism and Mass Culture

  15. Rebuilding the Nation

  Conclusion: 1914

  Notes

  Index

  List of Illustrations

  Photographic acknowledgements are given in parentheses.

  1. Fête de la Fédération, Champ de Mars, Paris on 14 July 1790. Engraving by Lecoeur based on contemporary drawing by Jacques Swebach-Desfontaines (akg-images)

  2. Robespierre guillotining the executioner, having guillotined all French people, 1793 (The Art Archive)

  3. Madame de Staël, by François Gérard, c. 1810, Château de Coppet, Switzerland (akg-images/Erich Lessing)

  4. François-René de Chateaubriand, engraving by Aubry-Lecomte after Girodet-Trioson, 1823, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris (Roger-Viollet/ Topfoto)

  5. Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, portrait by Ary Scheffer, c. 1830, Musée Condé, Chantilly (akg-images/Erich Lessing)

  6. Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, portrait by Matthew Harris Jouett, c. 1825, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution (Scala/Art Resource)

  7. A street in old Paris by Gustave Doré, engraving, c. 1860 (Mary Evans Picture Library)

  8. Building the avenue de l’Opéra, Paris, during Haussmann’s civil engineering project, c. 1870, photograph by Marville, private collection (The Art Archive/Marc Charmet)

  9. Louis-Adolphe Thiers, undated engraving by Bosselman (Mary Evans Picture Library)

  10. Eugène Delacroix, self-portrait, 1838, Musée du Louvre, Paris (akg-images/ Erich Lessing)

  11. Félicité de Lammenais, undated portrait by Paulin Guérin, Châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, Versailles (Roger-Viollet/Topfoto)

  12. Victor Hugo, photograph by Charles Hugo, c. 1853–5 (adoc-photos)

  13. Saint Jean-Marie-Baptiste Vianney, curé d’Ars, engraving, 1855 (Roger-Viollet/Topfoto)

  14. Peasants of the Auvergne, anonymous nineteenth-century print (HIP/ Topfoto)

  15. Delphine Gay (Madame Émile de Girardin) by Louis Hersent, 1824, Châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, Versailles (Roger-Viollet/Topfoto)

  16. George Sand and Ledru-Rollin, caricature of the election for president of the Club des Femmes, 1848, Musée George Sand et de la Vallée Noire La Châtre (The Art Archive/Gianni Dagli Orti)

  17. The Salon of Marie d’Agoult by Jean Béraud, private collection (Mary Evans/Rue des Archives)

  18. Spectators applauding at the theatre, lithograph by Benard and Frey, 1837, Bibliothèque des Arts Decoratifs, Paris (Archives Charmet/The Bridgeman Art Library)

  19. Ernest Renan, lithograph by A. Fabre, 1865 (Mary Evans Picture Library)

  20. Gustave Flaubert, photograph attributed to Nadar, c. 1870 (akg-images)

  21. Louise Michel, undated photograph (adoc-photos)

  22. Leon Michel Gambetta, undated carte de visite (Mary Evans Picture Library)

  23. Edouard Détaille, The Battle of Villejuif, 1870, Musée d’Orsay, Paris (akg-images)

  24. Barricade de l’Entrée du Faubourg du Temple, 18 March 1871, photograph attributed to Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri (akg-images)

  25. Aristide Briand, caricature by Pohier, c. 1890s (copyright © Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris)

  26. Étienne Alexandre Millerand, undated photograph (Roger-Viollet/Topfoto)

  27. Joseph Caillaux, undated photograph (Mary Evans/Rue des Archives)

  28. Madame Caillaux shoots dead Monsieur Gaston Calmette, Editor of Le Figaro, front cover of Le Petit Journal, 29 March 1914, Musée de La Presse, Paris (Lauros/Giraudon/The Bridgeman Art Library)

  29. Trouville, beach view with the casino and the terrace of the Great Salon, photograph, 1900 (Roger-Viollet/Topfoto)

  30. Louis Renault in the driver’s seat of a Voiturette Renault 13/4 hp, 1899 (National Motor Museum/HIP/TopFoto)

  31. Marguerite Durand, portrait by Jules Cayron, 1897, Bibliothèque Marguerite Durand, Paris (Archives Charmet/The Bridgeman Art Library)

  32. Madeleine Pelletier dressed as a man, May 1912, private collection (Archives Charmet/The Bridgeman Art Library)

  33. French huntsmen meet in the forest of Chantilly, c. 1900 (Mary Evans Picture Library)

  34. Striking button-makers with the flag of the CGT, Méru, Oise, 1909 (Roger-Viollet/Topfoto)

  35. Charles Péguy, photograph, c. 1897, Centre Charles Péguy, Orléans (akg-images)

  36. Marc Sangnier, c. 1910, Archives Larousse, Paris (Giraudon/Bridgeman Art Library)

  37. Raïssa Maritain, 1905, photograph from Jacques Maritain, Carnet des Notes

  38. Ernest Psichari, 1912 (Roger-Viollet/Topfoto)


  39. Émile François Chatrousse, Joan of Arc and Vercingétorix, painted plaster sculpture, 1870, Musée Roger Guilliot, Clermont-Ferrand (Roger-Viollet/ Topfoto)

  40. Lyautey presiding over the meeting between General Gouraud and General Baumgarten, at the time of the French Protectorate, May 1914 (Mary Evans/ Rue des Archives)

  41. Little Red Riding Hood, caricature of the Fashoda crisis in Le Petit Journal, 1898 (The Art Archive/Gianni Dagli Orti)

  42. Speech of Jean Jaurès on 25 May 1913, during the demonstration against the Three Year military service law, Pré-Saint-Gervais (Roger-Viollet/Topfoto)

  43. French troops transported by taxi to the front, battle of the Marne, September 1914 (Roger Viollet/Topfoto)

  Acknowledgements

  First and foremost I would like to thank Ruth Harris, my fellow traveller in nineteenth-century French history, for her close reading of much of this book and her insightful advice. Belinda Jack encouraged me to write a history that would be of use to modern linguists as well as to historians. Julian Wright kindly invited Colin Jones, author of The Great Nation, and myself to discuss our approaches at an event on ‘The New Cobbans’ that he organized at the University of Durham in 2006. I would like to acknowledge the debt I owe to Theodore Zeldin, who supervised my thesis over thirty years ago, and whose revolutionary approach to French history stimulated some of my thinking about this book. My thanks go to Simon Winder, my editor at Penguin, for his guidance which was both firm and good-humoured, and to my agent Catherine Clarke for her sharp judgement and unfailing enthusiasm. Cecilia Mackay presented me with a vast range of rich images, only a sample of which are used as illustrations here. I am grateful to the editorial team at Penguin, notably to Peter James for his skilful copy-editing and to the editorial manager, Richard Duguid. I would like to thank Lucy-Jean for her support and affection, as ever. This book is dedicated to my children in the hope that they will learn a little more about the country they love.

  Maps

  1. France, 1790–1811

  2. Occupation of France by the Allies, 1815

  3. French and minority-language/patois-speaking departments, 1863

  4. Principal new streets in Paris built between 1850 and 1870

  5. The Franco-Prussian war, 1870–71

  6. Religious practice in France, c. 1880

  Introduction: The Children

  of the Revolution

  On every generation to which it gave birth the French Revolution left its mark. A mark of hope for a new dawn, a new order of the world, but also a mark of tragedy, of a project that came to grief in anarchy, bloodletting and despotism. It proclaimed the power of man’s reason to achieve progress and happiness in the world, the rights of man to liberty and equality which every government should protect, the sovereignty of the people, the virtues of self-government, and the duty of French citizens to spread liberty among oppressed peoples abroad. And yet the Revolution spawned new tyrannies, the tyranny of the masses who insulted and abused their elected representatives, a revolutionary dictatorship that terrorized its enemies and the plebiscitary dictatorship of Napoleon Bonaparte who appealed to the disgruntled masses over the heads of the politicians. Liberty was sacrificed to equality, and difference was eliminated in the name of the public interest. The fanaticism attributed to religion was replaced by a revolutionary fanaticism that persecuted its enemies and then consumed its own in a fratricidal struggle. Revolutionaries spawned new armies that set fire to Europe for a generation in the first manifestation of total war.

  The Revolution divided the French into two irreconcilable camps. Each had its own defined sense of what France should be, claimed total legitimacy for itself and demonized its opponents. One camp dreamed of bringing back the Ancien Régime, monarchy by divine right, a social hierarchy dominated by a noble caste, and the supremacy of the Catholic Church which sanctified the monarchy and was protected by it. It abhorred the Revolution, forgetting that for three years monarchy, Church and Revolution had coexisted, denouncing the violence it had unleashed from the taking of the Bastille on 14 July 1789, when the head of its governor was paraded on a pikestaff by the mob. Attempts to reform the Catholic Church quickly gave way to its destruction, the closure of churches, the massacre of priests and nuns, the silencing of bells. The monarchy was overthrown by a republic, and the Republic executed the king. A reign of Terror was orchestrated against the enemies of the Revolution, using the guillotine, grapeshot and drownings, and putting rebel provinces to fire and sword. For the counter-revolutionaries no compromise was possible with the Revolution: it would be terminated and those who had promoted it, beginning with the regicides who had voted for the king’s death, would themselves be put to death. Neither could there be any deal with the regime of Napoleon to which the Revolution gave rise: he was regarded as a despot, a usurper and a warmonger.

  The other camp, with the same passion, believed that the Revolution had been necessary to overthrow an Ancien Régime that had refused to reform itself and had violated the right of every man to liberty and self-government. The forces of the Ancien Régime had not given way but had brought in foreign armies and fomented civil war in the provinces. The Revolution had had to defend itself against its enemies, deposing a tyrant, crushing nobles and clergy who stirred up counter-revolution. The Republic was considered the perfect political order, enshrining liberty, equality and fraternity. It educated its citizens in patriotism or civic virtue – the sacrifice of their selfish interests to the common good – by a combination of republican schooling, participation in public festivals celebrating the Republic, and military service. Enrolled in revolutionary armies, citizens drove out the armies of kings and aristocrats who tried to destroy them and brought liberty and fraternity to peoples who were still oppressed. If the Republic came to an end in 1804 and the Revolution seemed to be over in 1814–15 with the restoration of the monarchy, this was because the education of citizens had not been thorough enough or because opposition had not been suppressed decisively enough. The Revolution and the Republic were unfinished business for revolutionaries, who returned to them repeatedly in the nineteenth century, in 1815, 1830, 1848 and 1871, in order to achieve them completely, permanently, better than before.

  Each generation through the nineteenth century wrestled with these problems in their own way. Generations were not so much biological, born at the same time, as historical, shaped by the same events. These events might be the revolutions of 1789, 1830, 1848 and 1871. They might be the Hundred Days of 1815, when Napoleon returned briefly from exile to power until his overthrow at Waterloo, or defeat in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, or the challenge to French power of British aggression in 1898 or German aggression in 1905 or 1911. These events gave shape to successive generations which differed because of the different events they experienced in their formative years, or later in life. The birth dates of a generation would gravitate around a key year, although individuals defined by the same event might actually be born ten years before or after, so long as they reacted in the same way, most as peers, others as masters or disciples. Not all members of the same generation responded to the same events in the same way. Some, for example, would be swept up in the revolutionary fervour, while others would be turned against it by persecution, the loss of loved ones or enforced exile. The great challenge of the nineteenth century was whether rival or even enemy units of the same generation could find common ground on which to build a political consensus and lay to rest the painful conflicts inherited from the Revolution.1

  Five key generations were responsible for the making of France during and after the Revolution, and in turn were made by successive revolutions and wars. The Revolution of 1789 was propelled by a generation born around 1760, although the revolutionary decade 1789–99 drew in a range of age-cohorts born between 1750 and 1770. Initially it seemed as if the French people, subjects of absolute monarchy and divided into the two privileged legal orders of clergy and nobility and the unprivileged third estate, woul
d be reconciled in a new nation of free and equal citizens. In his 1789 pamphlet What is the Third Estate? the Abbé Sieyès invented a new civic concept of the nation as ‘a body of associates living under the same law and represented in the same legislature’. Elected a member of the Estates General called by the king to resolve the government’s financial crisis, he proposed a motion on 17 May 1789 that the three chambers for clergy, nobles and third estate become a National Assembly in which they all came together to make a constitution for the new France. The apotheosis of national consensus was the Fête de la Fédération of 14 July 1790, when 350,000 national guards formed from the citizen body assembled on the Champ de Mars in Paris to swear oaths to the nation, the law and the king. The masters of the ceremony were two members of the privileged orders who had thrown in their lot with the nation: Talleyrand, bishop of Autun, who said mass, and the Marquis de Lafayette, who had led French armies in the American War of Independence and as head of the Paris National Guard did his best to persuade the king to accept the Revolution.

  The new order inaugurated by the revolutionaries reached into all parts of French life. They replaced the division of France into provinces and a multitude of other jurisdictions by division into eighty-three more or less equal departments, run by elected local administrations. The Catholic Church was reconciled with the Revolution by a Civil Constitution of the Clergy which permitted the election of priests and bishops by the citizen body, while the monopoly of the Catholic faith was ended by toleration accorded to Protestants and Jews. The abolition of privilege opened careers to talent, the abolition of primogeniture established the equal right of all children to family property, and the sale of church lands to solve the government’s financial crisis spread property-ownership in French society. Women were emancipated through the legalization of divorce and the dissolution of religious congregations in which many of them traditionally spent their lives and they entered the political arena as agitators if not as citizens. Finally, freedom of the press and theatre unleashed political debate on an unprecedented scale.