Napoleon III and the French Second Empire, Roger Price [black books to read .TXT] 📗

that the regime was ‘inevitable and necessary’ (letter of 12 January 1852). In such diverse worlds as the relatively backward and overwhelmingly rural west with its Legitimist and clerical traditions, or the north with its advanced farming and rapidly developing industry, the mid-century crisis had reinforced the influence of local elites. They possessed multifaceted means of exercising social power, based upon control of access to the land, to employment and to the charity upon which so many people came to depend in a period of intense depression. However, they were willing to collaborate with an administration committed to protecting their status.

Typically, in the department of the Nord, most politicians assumed that to do anything else would result in their political isolation, given the widespread appreciation of the improved economic and social situation of the 1850s. In the 30

west and parts of the south, many Legitimist notables faced a sharp moral dilemma as a result of the re-establishment of the Empire. Traditional family loyalties could hardly be ignored. Most, however, were ‘realists’ and even if the majority did not rally with any real enthusiasm, their criticism of the new regime would, for some time, remain muted. In the Gard, for example, the spirit of cooperation was rewarded by the selection for the February 1852 elections of three Legitimists – the Duc d’Uzès and the Marquis de Calvières (with interests in both the land and industrial development) and the merchant Léonce Curnier – as official candidates.

The clergy also assumed that their interests would be served best by maintaining a close alliance with a regime which appeared to want to encourage the extension of clerical influence in education and society as a whole, as a means of inculcating sound moral principles and safe-guarding social order. This policy was given symbolic value through the attendance of government representatives at all public religious ceremonies, practical significance by means of increased stipends for priests, and substantial subsidies for church construction and repairs. For the government, this policy had the useful consequence of reducing the ability of the Legitimists, acting through the clergy, to speak to a mass audience. A much remarked upon manifestation of this weakening of popular Legitimism was

provided by the enthusiastic reception given to the imperial couple by parish priests and their flocks during their visit to Brittany in 1858.

Mass electoral support for the regime was partly the result of official election management degenerating at times into coercion and the ability to make use of the social influence of local elites and of the clergy. In most departments, given the small number of bureaucrats, the government acted through the existing elites and inadvertently strengthened their local authority. Rarely was use made of the predominantly middle-class electoral committees which were set up in many areas.

As a result, their members were soon discouraged. The opportunity to establish a committed Bonapartist party was missed. Napoléon himself, as well as his close advisors, were too closely integrated into ‘high’ society and committed to the established social order to be able to contemplate seriously the organisation of a

‘party’ as an alternative means of exercising influence. The brilliance of the imperial court at the Tuileries is evidence of a determination to reinforce these traditional links. This is, of course, in marked contrast to the party based systems of control introduced in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. In only a few areas, most notably former centres of démoc-soc strength in impoverished regions with relatively few resident notables (e.g. the Creuse or Basses-Alpes), was it judged 31

possible to appeal to the egalitarian instincts of the masses over the heads of established elites and on the basis of such issues as restrictions on peasant access to forests and the burden of usury. Bonapartism in these limited contexts might be seen as a democratising movement, a means of reducing the power of the ‘bigwigs’

( gros) over the ‘little people’ ( petits). However, the key factor in winning and retaining support for the regime in most rural areas, and for all social groups, was to be the establishment of strong and stable government and the greater prosperity which appeared to follow. Even if most of the rural population continued to take little interest in politics they were grateful for this, and also aware of the dependence of the regime on their vote. Napoléon III was ‘their Emperor’.

Although the Emperor and officials at all levels frequently expressed sympathy for industrial workers, their limited efforts to alleviate working and living conditions had little practical impact, while the constant efforts to repress workers’

organisations and strikes in order to safeguard the ‘freedom’ of economic activity were clearly favourable to employers. Even so, and although republican

historiography has attempted to minimise its significance, many workers were also attracted by the regime, especially in the Nord, Rouen area and Alsace. In part, this was due to the Bonapartist legend and mass propaganda presenting Napoléon III as the ‘poor man’s friend’. Relative prosperity, in spite of some difficult years, lent weight to this, as did the efforts of the administration to alleviate the effects of poor harvests, rising food prices and unemployment between 1853 and 1857. It also reflected clerical influence in some of the declining textile centres in the south, or else paternalistic pressures, as among the employees of the textile entrepreneur Seydoux at Le Cateau (Nord) and those of the ironmasters Schneider at Le Creusot (Saône-et Loire) and de Wendel at Hayange (Moselle). The many workers

employed in rural manufacture tended to share the views of the peasants among whom they lived. In addition, the waging of successful war was to be an important source of prestige for the regime. Even in such major centres of opposition as Paris and Lyons, events like the Emperor’s departure for Italy with the army in 1859

appealed to a bellicose popular nationalism.

Foreign policy

Napoléon’s foreign policy was that of the republican left of the time. It involved rejection of the treaties imposed on France in 1815 following