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The method of the French doctrinaires

2004; Routledge; Volume: 30; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Francês

10.1016/j.histeuroideas.2003.08.005

1873-541X

Aurelian Crăiuţu,

Political Theory and Influence

Abstract This essay examines the method of the French Doctrinaires by focusing primarily on the historical writings of their most prominent representative, François Guizot (1787–1874). After a brief introductory presentation of the Doctrinaires’ group, the essay discusses the role of historical studies during the Restoration and provides an in-depth analysis of the Doctrinaires’ historical and sociological mode of argument. Special emphasis is put on the Doctrinaires’ distinction between social and political condition. In order to illustrate the Doctrinaires’ method, the essay examines Guizot's nuanced analysis of modern egalitarian society to be found in his book On Death Penalty (1822). Acknowledgements An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2003 Annual Meeting of the Society for French Historical Studies, Milwaukee, WI, April 3–5, 2003. Special thanks to Helena Rosenblatt and K. Steven Vincent for their comments and suggestions. Notes 1 Victor de Broglie, Personal Recollections of the Late Duc de Broglie, Vol. I (London, 1887), p. 389. For more information about the group of the Doctrinaires, see C.-H. Pouthas, Guizot pendant la Restauration (Paris, 1923); Luis Diez del Corral, El liberalismo doctrinario (Madrid, 1956); Pierre Rosanvallon, Le moment Guizot (Paris, 1995); Gabriel de Broglie, Guizot (Paris, 1990); Jaume, L’individu effacé, and Aurelian Craiutu, Liberalism under Siege: The Political Thought of the French Doctrinaires (Lanham, Md., 2003), Chapter 2. An excellent presentation of Guizot can be found in Laurent Theis, “Introduction biographique,” in Guizot, Histoire de la Révolution d’Angleterre, L. Theis (Ed.) (Paris: 1997), pp. vii–xxxiii. 2 For a negative view of the Bourbon Restoration, see Henri Michel's L’Idée de l’État (Paris, 1896) and Roger Soltau's French Political Thought in the Nineteenth Century (New York, 1959). For a different view that affirmed the importance of the Restoration see, Rosanvallon, Le moment Guizot. 3 For more information, see Guillaume Berthier de Sauvigny, The Bourbon Restoration (Philadelphia, 1966), pp. 328–362. 4 Here is what Goethe actually said about Le Globe: “Ich zähle den Globe zu den interessantesten Zeitschriften und könnten ihn nich entbehren… Was aber die Herren vom Globe für Menschen sind, wie die mit jedem Tage größer, bedeutender werden und alle wie von einem Sinne durchdrungen sind, davon hat man kaum einen Begriff. In Deutschland wäre ein solches Blatt rein unmöglich. Wir sind lauter Partikuliers; an Übereinstimmung ist nicht zu denken; jeder hat die Meinungen seiner Provinz, seiner Stadt, ja seines eigenen Individuums, und wir können noch lange warten, bis wir zu einer Art von allgemeiner Durchbildung kommen” (J.P. Eckermann, Gespräche mit Goethe in den letzten Jahren seines Lebens (Wiesbaden, 1949), 225). A detailed presentation of the Globe, its contributors, and philosophy can be found in Jean-Jacques Goblot, La jeune France libérale. Le Globe et son groupe littéraire (Paris, 1995); also see Eugène Hatin, Histoire politique et littéraire de la presse en France, Vol. VIII (Paris, 1861), pp. 495–508. 5 Quinet as quoted by Sauvigny, The Bourbon Restoration, pp. 328–329. 6 De Heaume as quoted in Paul Johnson The Birth of the Modern: World Society 1815–1830 (New York, 1991), p. 882. 7 As quoted in Bernard Guyon, La pensée politique et sociale de Balzac, 2nd edition (Paris, 1969), p. 35. 8 Lamartine as quoted in Paul Johnson, The Birth of the Modern, p. 141. 9 Nettelheim as quoted in Soltau, French Political Thought, p. 7. 10 Balzac as quoted in Paul Johnson, The Birth of the Modern, pp. 967–968. 11 On this topic, see Stanley Mellon, The Political Uses of History: A Study of Historians in the French Restoration (Stanford, 1958), pp. 1–30 and Douglas Johnson, Guizot (London, 1963), pp. 323–325. 12 François Guizot, Histoire de la civilisation en France, Vol. II (Paris, 1859), p. 368. 13 Madame de Staël, Des circonstances actuelles qui peuvent terminer la Révolution et des principes qui doivent fonder la république en France, Lucia Omacini (Ed.) (Geneva, 1979), p. 273. 14 Nietzsche elaborated on the distinction between the three types of history—monumental, antiquarian, and critical—in On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life, first published in 1874 (part two of Untimely Observations). For more details, see Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life, P. Preuss (Ed.) (Indianapolis, 1980), pp. 14–22. 15 Guizot, History of the Origins of Representative Government in Europe, Aurelian Craiutu (Ed.) (Indianapolis, 2002), p. 4. 16 Guizot, Du gouvernement de la France depuis la Restauration et du ministère actuel (Paris, 1820), p. 139. 17 I elaborated on this issue in my essay, “Tocqueville and the Political Thought of the French Doctrinaires,” History of Political Thought, Vol. XX (3), Autumn 1999, pp. 456–494. 18 Guizot, Du gouvernement de la France, pp. 1–2. 19 On Guizot's historical writings, see Douglas Johnson, Guizot, pp. 320–376; Rosanvallon, Le moment Guizot, 1985; B. Reizov, L’historiographie romantique française (Moscow, 1962); and Laurent Theis, “Présentation de l’Histoire de la revolution d’Angleterre,” in Guizot, l’Histoire de la revolution d’Angleterre, pp. xxxv–lxxiv. An excellent illustration of Guizot's historical method can be found in his inaugural lecture given at the Sorbonne in December 1812. An English translation is available in Guizot, Historical Essays and Lectures, pp. 3–17. Mellon's introduction to this volume (pp. xvii–xlv) is another good source of information. 20 Guizot, History of Civilization in Europe, Larry Siedentop (Ed.) (London, 1997), p. 201. 21 Guizot, History of Civilization in Europe, p. 65. 22 Guizot, History of Civilization in Europe, p. 65. 23 Guizot, History of the Origins of Representative Government, p. 366. 24 Guizot, History of Civilization in Europe, p. 13. 25 Guizot, History of Civilization in Europe, p. 16. 26 Guizot, History of Civilization in Europe, p. 13. 27 Guizot, History of Civilization in Europe, p. 17. 28 Royer–Collard was quoted by Guizot in the opening chapter of Histoire de la civilisation en Europe (ibid., pp. 22–23). 29 Guizot, History of the Origins of Representative Government, p. 221. 30 Guizot, History of Civilization in Europe, pp. 38–39. 31 Guizot, History of Civilization in Europe, pp. 43–44. 32 Guizot, History of Civilization in Europe, p. 45. 33 Guizot, History of Civilization in Europe, p. 96. 34 Guizot, History of Civilization in Europe, p. 203. 35 Guizot, History of Civilization in Europe, p. 28. 36 Guizot, History of Civilization in Europe, pp. 30–31. 37 Guizot, History of Civilization in Europe, p. 93. 38 Guizot, History of Civilization in Europe, p. 31. 39 The letter can be found in Barante's Souvenirs; here, I use the translation from Mary C. O’Connor, The Historical Thought of François Guizot (Washington, DC, 1955), p. 74. 40 Guizot, The History of Civilization in Europe, p. 183. 41 On Guizot's religious ideas, see Guizot, Méditations sur l’essence de la réligion chretienne. (Paris, 1864), and Pierre-Yves Kirschleger, La religion de Guizot (Geneva, 1999); on Guizot's views on the role of great individuals in history, see O’Connor, The Historical Thought of François Guizot, pp. 77–81. 42 See C.-H. Pouthas, Guizot pendant la Restauration, p. 168, 171, 2, pp. 230–232, 256–58; Reizov, L’historiographie romantique française, pp. 198–204. 43 Guizot, Memoirs to Illustrate the History of my Time, Vol. I (London, 1858), p. 154. 44 Guizot, Memoirs, Vol. I, p. 153. 45 Guizot, Lettres de M. Guizot à sa famille et à ses amis, Mme de Witt (Ed.) (Paris, 1884), p. 52. 46 On this issue, see John Lough, The Philosophes and Post-Revolutionary France (Oxford, 1982) and Guizot, Review of “Correspondance littéraire, philosophique et critique de Grimm et Diderot, Revue française, No. XI, September 1829, pp. 215–21. 47 Madame de Staël, Des circonstances actuelles, p. 273. 48 Guizot, Memoirs, Vol. I, p. 301. 49 Charles de Rémusat, Mémoires de ma vie, Vol. II, C.-H. Pouthas (Ed.). (Paris, 1959), p. 287. 50 Guizot, Memoirs, Vol. I, p. 300. 51 Guizot, Essais sur l’histoire de France, 4th Edition (Paris, 1836), pp. 83–84. Also see Guizot, History of Civilization in France, Vol. II, pp. 30–31, 98–101. 52 The alleged flexibility of the Doctrinaires was an upshot of their skepticism toward various forms of political radicalism rather than an expression of their alleged opportunism. 53 I developed a similar argument in Craiutu, “Between Scylla and Charybdis: The Strange Liberalism of the French Doctrinaires,” History of European Ideas, Vol. 24 (4–5), 1998, pp. 243–65. For a more detailed treatment of this issue, see my Liberalism under Siege: The Political Thought of the French Doctrinaires. Also see Larry Siedentop, “Two Liberal Traditions,” in The Idea of Freedom, Alan Ryan (Ed.) (Oxford, 1979), pp. 153–74. 54 For more details, see Guizot's third note in the appendix to his translation of Frederick Ancillon, De la souveraineté et des formes de gouvernement, François Guizot (Trans.) (Paris 1816). 55 Guizot, History of Civilization in Europe, p. 12. 56 Guizot, History of Civilization in Europe, p. 201. 57 See Guizot, History of Civilization in France, Vol. II, pp. 30–31. 58 This was, for example, the approach of James Mill and Jeremy Bentham. For more details, see the debate between Mill and Macaulay in John Rees and Jack Lively (Eds.) Utilitarian Logic and Politics: James Mill's ‘Essay on Government,’ Macaulay's Critique and the Ensuing Debate (Oxford, 1978). 59 Prosper de Barante, Souvenirs, Vol. II (Paris, 1893), p. 14. 60 Guizot, Des conspirations et de la justice politique. De la peine de mort en matière politique (Paris, 1984), p. 110. 61 Guizot, De la peine de mort en matière politique, p. 111. 62 Guizot referred to “cette société électrique où des millions d’hommes de condition pareille, de sentimens analogues, sans s’être jamais vus ni parlé, connaissent réciproquement leur sort” (ibid., pp. 113–114). 63 See Guizot, Des moyens de gouvernement et d’opposition (Paris, 1821), p. 8, pp. 119–120; also Guizot, De la peine de mort, pp. 102–105. 64 The whole passage is worth quoting for its sociological acumen: “Où sont maintenant ces chefs éminents, avoués, qu’il suffit de détruire pour détruire un parti? Peu d’hommes ont un nom, et ceux-là même sont peu de chose. La puissance a quitté les individus, les familles; elles est sortie des foyers qu’elle habitait jadis; elle s’est répandue dans la société tout entière; elle y circule rapidement, à peine visible en chaque lieu, mais partout présente. Elle s’attache à des intérêts, à des idées, à des sentiments publics dont personne ne dispose, que personne même ne représente assez pleinement pour que leur sort dépende un moment du sien” (Guizot, De la peine de mort, p. 102). Also see ibid., pp. 106; 110–112; 144–145; 166–169. 65 Guizot, De la peine de mort, 144, 170. 66 Writes Rémusat: “Nos mœurs sont emprunts d’égalité… C’est là, c’est surtout dans l’intimité de la vie privée, qu’elle reside, cette égalité tout attaquée, tout prônée, mais definitivement invincible” (quoted in Darı́o Roldán, Charles de Rémusat. Certitudes et impasses du libéralisme doctrinaire (Paris, 1999), p. 91; emphases added). This passage is taken from an unpublished manuscript written in the 1820's, in which Rémusat commented on the political ideas of Lammenais and Bonald. 67 In the manuscript on Lamennais and Bonald, Rémusat argued: “L’individu est entré en possession d’une indépendence qu’il regarde comme son premier bien et son premier besoin. [Il y en a quelque-uns qui vont] jusqu’à la confondre avec l’isolement et à se refuser à toutes ses associations” (ibid., p. 88). The affinity with Tocqueville's ideas is worth noting. 68 This passage is from Rémusat's essay “De l’égalité,” as quoted in ibid., p. 84. 69 This revealing passage is taken from Rémusat's unpublished manuscript on Lamennais and Bonald. Here is the original version: “S’il existe un fait universellement convenu, c’est que la société française et par sa composition comme par ses mœurs ne respire que l’égalité. Toutes les classifications hiérarchiques se sont effaces; toutes les habitudes de subordination se sont affaiblies” (ibid., p. 84; emphases added). 70 Writes Guizot: “On ne lutte point avec les faits sociaux; ils ont des racines où la main de l’homme ne saurait atteindre, et quand ils ont pris possession du sol, il faut savoir y vivre sous leur empire” (Guizot, De la peine de mort, p. 114; emphases added). 71 Writes Guizot: “Regardons la question sous son autre face; de l’établissement de la liberté passons à celui du pouvoir. Sa tâche est immense; des forces lui sont indispensables pour y suffire; il doit les trouver dans les institutions, dans les lois, dans les dispositions de la société à son égard” (Guizot, Des moyens de government, p. 13). 72 See Rémusat, “L’esprit de réaction: Royer-Collard et Tocqueville,” Revue des deux mondes, October 15, 1861, pp. 777–813.