Republicanism at Home and Abroad

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Republicanism at Home and Abroad

• Dr Chris Pearson

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Antoine-Jean Gros, Figure allégorique de la
République (1794)
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Delacroix, Liberty leading the people (1830)
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The rise of the Republic

• 1st Republic (1792-1804), 2nd Rep (1848-51)
• 3rd Rep est. 1870 but dominated by conservatives
  and monarchists for much of 1870s (but 1875
  universal male suffrage granted)
• 1879- Jules Ferry becomes PM, Gambetta head of
  Chamber, seat of government moves back to Paris
• 1880 Bastille Day, return of Communards

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Jules Ferry (1832-93)
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Lecture outline

• Anti-clericalism
• Republicanism and education
• Overseas expansion

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A brief history of anti-clericalism

• Catholic/secular divide a major faultline in
  nineteenth century France
• Revolutionary attacks on the church (seen as a
  bastion of tradition and hierarchy) by
  sans-culottes and revolutionary governments,
  including the Terror (1790s)
• Catholic armed resistance especially in the
  Vendée

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1801 Napoleon signs the Concordant with the Pope
normalizes state-church relations after decade
of revolutionary upheaval
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Republican beef with Catholicism

• Tradition and superstition v. reason and science
  (Charles X and the royal touch)
• Catholics reactionary and monarchist -
  undemocratic
• Pope Puis IXs Syllabus of Errors (1863)
• Ultramontanism and Jesuits- unpatriotic and
  malignant influence over French society

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The seductive Jesuit

• How many convents have opened the door to them.
  Deceived by their sweet voice and now they speak
  firmly there, and everyone is afraid, everyone
  smiles while trembling, and everyone does what
  that say.
• Jules Michelet and Edgar Quinet, quoted in
  Verhoeven, Neither Male nor Female, 45

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The (alleged) power of Jesuit education

• Under the Second Empire they have made
  enormous progress in our country, and have
  particularly sought to take control of the
  education of our youth, in order to destroy the
  principles which our society is built on and to
  mould the new generations in the ideas of
  clericalism.
• Larousse encyclopaedia (1877)

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The Sacré-Coeur, Paris
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• For eighty years two world views have been
  present, dividing hearts and minds and fomenting
  conflict, a desperate war in the heart of
  society. The lack of unity in education means
  that we have been continually thrown from revolt
  to repression, from anarchy to dictatorship,
  without any chance of stability
• Léon Gambetta

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Republicans promote secularization

• Clericalism is the enemy Gambetta in 1877
• Petitions, celebrations of Voltaire, hero of the
  enlightenment
• Anticlerical decrees e.g 29 March 1880 Jesuits
  dissolved
• Lay education in state-run schools

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The secular education laws

• Jules Ferry Law of 16 June 1881 education free
  in public primary schools and teachers must
  possess brevet
• Jules Ferry Law of 28 March 1882 education
  compulsory and secular
• State training colleges for female teachers
  (Camille Sée Law of 1881)

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Impact of Ferrys Laws

• Schoolhouse became a secular, republican space
  within the village
• Literacy rates increased to 90 by 1900 and
  school attendance rose to 95 (although some
  child labour continued)

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Anon. PELLERIN Cie(imprimeur, éditeur),
NOTRE-DAME DE LOURDES, third quarter of
nineteenth century print
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Loudres grotto in 1858
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Loudres grotto in 1914
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Brunos The tour of France by two children
(1877) quasi-religious patriotism.
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The end of the Concordat

• Emile Combes and Republican campaign against
  Catholic Church 1901-1905
• Law of Associations (1901)
• Law of December 1905 separates the church and the
  state
• Creation of the république laïque secular
  Republic

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The French Empire before 1870

• Napoleon Martinique and Guadeloupe in the
  Caribbean, Guyana in South America, the city of
  St Louis in Senegal
• July Monarchy (1830-1848) and the Second Empire
  (1851-1870) Senegal, SE Asia
• Charles X orders conquest of Algeria in 1830
• Louis-Philippe (1839) Algeria is a land forever
  French.

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Nationalist opposition to colonialism
I have said it before and I repeat that before
going to plant the French flag where it has never
flown, we should replant it where it has flown
before, where we have all seen it with our own
eyes. Paul Déroulède (1884)
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Colonial expansion into Africa under the Third
Republic

• Expedition into Tunisia (1881), making the
  country a virtual protectorate
• Senegal becomes French West Africa in 1895
• Madagascar becomes colony in 1895
• Establishment of the French Congo after
  expedition by Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza

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Colonial Expansion why?

• Economic reasons new markets to make good the
  disadvantages of protectionism
• Maintaining Frances status as a great nation
  (Ferry)
• Ernest Renan in 1871 colonization was a
  political necessity a nation that doesnt
  colonize is irrevocably destined for socialism.
• Colonial lobbies

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Colonialism as a way of rejuvenating the French
nation?
Not only because of a taste for adventure and
travel am I a committed colonialist I have found
in our colonies the finest practical school
where, as in a crucible, our race can be tempered
and recast. Marshal Lyautey (1907)
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Ferry on the civilizing mission

• We must say openly that indeed the higher races
  have a right over the lower races ... I repeat,
  that the superior races have a right because they
  have a duty. They have the duty to civilize the
  inferior races.... In the history of earlier
  centuries these duties, gentlemen, have often
  been misunderstood and certainly when the
  Spanish soldiers and explorers introduced slavery
  into Central America, they did not fulfill their
  duty as men of a higher race.... But, in our
  time, I maintain that European nations acquit
  themselves with generosity, with grandeur, and
  with sincerity of this superior civilizing duty.

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The paradox of democratic empire

• Take the civilizing mission seriously
• Revolutions legacy of universal rights and
  Frances role in spreading them inspired Third
  Republic
• France would bring light to unenlightened
  Africa
• But on the ground racism and oppression
  co-existed with universalism/rights
• See Conklin, Colonialism and Human Rights,
  American Historical Review (1998)

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A racist republic?

• The Third Republic simultaneously invested in
  political universality and particularity.
• Belief in republican ideas co-existed alongside
  racism and a fear of difference
• Assumption that the colonized were inferior to
  Europeans prevented the former from becoming
  citizens
• See G Wilder, The French Imperial Nation-State
  (2005)

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The civilizing mission at home and abroad

• Educating supposedly backward peoples in
  Algeria and the Massif Central (see Colonna)
• Fighting filth in France and Vietnam (see Barnes
  and Vann)
• Catholic involvement in the civilizing mission
  complicates Rep/Cath divide narrative

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Conclusion

• Importance of viewing metropole and empire in
  tandem and as interlinked
• Similar processes afoot in France and its
  colonies (a legacy from Revolutionary
  republicanism) state centralization,
  bureaucratic administration, specialized
  governmental knowledge.
• France an imperial nation-state, (Wilder, 2005)