Napoleon III and the French Second Empire Roger Price (novels to read .txt) 📖

Nièvre); south-west (Lot-et-Garonne, Gers) and especially the south-east (Drôme, Ardèche, Basses-Alpes, Hérault, Var) – i.e. in a minority of rural areas south of a line Biarritz–Pithiviers (Loiret)–Strasbourg. These were regions in which small-scale peasant farming predominated and which were

experiencing the effects of growing population pressure on the land. The difficult situation within them was made all the worse by the persistent difficulties of market-orientated activities like vine and silk cultivation, forestry and rural manufacture. To the north and west of this line, in the departments of western France, the north, north-east and most of the Paris region, there was little disorder.

These were mostly either areas of larger-scale commercial farming in which more advanced industrial development did something to relieve population pressure, or zones in the west characterised by economic backwardness and intense poverty.

They were regions in which traditional elites, generally enjoying the support of the church, retained considerable influence.

The insurrections provided further justification for a settling of accounts. Over 26, 000 démoc-soc militants were arrested throughout France, rather than simply where insurrections had occurred. The authorities were anxious to eliminate the radical republican leadership, irrespective of whether individuals had been involved in resistance to the coup or not. The official statistics on those arrested revealed that 10.6 per cent belonged to the middle-class professions (including 1, 570 rentiers, 325 doctors and 225 lawyers) and that the largest group were artisans and workers in the traditional trades (builders, shoemakers, tailors, etc.), followed by peasants (5, 423 cultivateurs, 1, 850 journaliers, etc.), although peasants made 20

up a far higher proportion of the rank-and-file (Price 1972: 289). The coup allowed the authorities to complete the work of repression without paying too much

attention to the rule of law. The fright they had received, their bitter hatred of the left and their inability to comprehend its motives is evident from the insulting phraseology contained in the interrogation records. The insurrection was explained by the authorities in terms of the poor and ignorant being led astray by the greedy, envious and perverted. That many of the démoc-soc leaders were educated and comparatively well-off bourgeois, were in effect class traitors, was almost beyond comprehension. Throughout France republican leaders were arrested, exiled or discredited. Their followers, if they had been arrested, were usually soon released, but most had been frightened into political quiescence, throwing themselves on the mercy of the authorities as the only means of protecting themselves from

retribution, and the terrifying arbitrariness of police and military action. The contrast between this situation and their dreams of the social and democratic republic which was to have been established following electoral victory in 1852

were only too marked. Nevertheless, it was during the Second Republic, and in spite of the early onset of repression, that the idea of the Republic gained precision and mass support. Although substantial differences had appeared within the

republican movement, between moderates and démoc-socs, to an important degree they still shared the universalistic ideals of the revolutionary years of 1789 to 1794.

The insurrection of 1851, which in some respects had much in common with the archaic, ‘primitive’ traditions of popular protest, was inspired nevertheless by political ideology. La République démocratique et sociale had been presented, with some success, as the means of alleviating misery and insecurity and of creating a more just and egalitarian society. More broadly, the Second Republic represented an important stage in the process of mass politicisation. Historians have frequently associated politicisation with a vote for the left and against traditional social elites, but whether they voted for republican or conservative candidates large numbers of people, previously excluded from political activity, were now persuaded of its relevance to their daily lives. The introduction of manhood suffrage had stimulated political organisation and mobilisation. Doubtless, many soon relapsed into apathy, but others would continue to take at least an episodic interest in affairs outside their own communities. During the Second Empire the accelerating

development of education, communications, urban reconstruction, regular (even if stage-managed) electoral campaigns, and the growing governmental intervention within communities which all this required, would reinforce these trends.

21

Towards an imperial restoration

Most of the population even in those regions in which resistance did occur had responded to news of the coup with indifference or delight. Among notables, initial reservations about the replacement of a liberal parliamentary regime by a

Bonapartist military dictatorship were short lived. The acts of resistance to the coup were taken to confirm its necessity as a means of preventing a future socialist revolution. According to Morny (quoted in Dansett 1961: 366), the insurrections were clear evidence of the ‘social war which would have broken out in 1852’.

Grossly exaggerated accounts of démoc-soc atrocities (the murder and mutilation of gendarmes, pillage and rape) and presentation of the insurrections as a form of mindless violence ( jacquerie) were used to heighten conservative fears. After long years of economic crisis and political instability, the promise of strong government proved to be attractive to many people. Whatever their political principles, monarchist notables rallied to the cause of social order (or at least remained silent).

The Church gave thanks for deliverance with solemn Te Deums. Salvation, in the short term at least, clearly lay in the hands of the police state. Even after the martial law which had been imposed in 32 departments ended on 27 March 1852, a

complex of old and new laws facilitated administrative repression and effectively deterred political opposition. Lists of potential opponents were maintained in each department to facilitate further arrests should these be judged to be necessary.

Detailed military contingency plans were prepared to deal with any future mass insurrections in Paris and Lyon. Censorship of the press and the surveillance of former militants and their likely meeting places continued. Control of the press was a major pre-occupation for the authorities, who blamed much of the disorder of the Second Republic on its corrupting influence. The new press law of 17 February 1852 codified the