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

and smashing windows, and inevitably clashed with the police and cavalry called out to restore order. Some 500 arrests were made.

The rise of Republicanism

These developments, together with the belief that the final collapse of the imperial regime was inevitable and possibly their own political sympathies, have led many historians to exaggerate the strength of republican opposition. The results of the 1869 elections, if they say something about the support for avowed republicans, also suggest that there were definite limits to this. Moreover, it is not enough to explain these limits in terms of electoral manipulation by the regime or the political ignorance of the rural population – another old favourite. The precise nature of support for republicanism and the impact this might have had on wider political relationships need to be examined. The 1860s certainly had seen a considerable recovery from the depths of the early 1850s. With liberalisation, more of the 45

militants of 1848 had reentered the fray. Even though their ranks had been

considerably depleted by death, men whose reputations had been made during the struggles of the Second Republic like Bianchi and Testelain in Lille, and often too the family members who shared their reputations, continued to assume key

leadership roles. In Lille in 1870, one-third of the militants considered by the police to be dangerous were of the generation of 1848, and their influence was

substantially greater than this proportion would suggest. The social tension generated in rapidly developing industrial centres perhaps explains the militancy of many Lille political activists. In most provincial centres, as in Dijon, moderate bourgeois leaders, often from the professions and belonging to masonic lodges, appear to have dominated republican politics, although more radical and less solidly middle-class elements were pressing them hard by 1869. Apparently, this was a national trend and can be seen in the challenge to moderates of the older generation like Jules Favre, Hippolyte Carnot and Ernest Picard – men who had retained the vague religiosity of 1848 and who condemned violence and class conflict – coming from younger radicals like Gambetta, Allain-Targé and Vermorel whose formative experiences had been different and who were far more aggressive in their hostility to the regime, in their anti-clericalism and their demands for a measure of social reform.

The activities of these political leaders, from around 1863, were designed to restore their influence among former republican militants, as a prelude to the extension of organisation and agitation among the previously largely uninvolved younger generations. Much of the activity was localised and directed at winning urban municipal power. This was easier than might appear at first glance. The constituencies for municipal elections generally differed from those for general elections, in that their boundaries had not been drawn in order to submerge the suspect urban electorate in a mass of rural voters. Thus, it was possible to win control or establish a significant presence on a substantial number of town councils and use this as a base for wider political activity. At Auch (Gers) in 1865, two barristers, two notaries, a solicitor, a doctor, a merchant, a landowner and a banker were elected as republicans (Palmade 1961: 93). Republicans gained control of the Toulouse city council in 1866, and although the council was dissolved and replaced by a nominated commission after a period of tense relations with the local prefect, even this outcome had considerable propaganda value. However, success was not without its problems. Thus, it soon became clear that there was a very real danger that opposition might be moderated or even turned into collaboration once

councillors had been integrated into the broader administrative system. Practical 46

problem solving replaced political combat. The process of gaining republican converts could also be frustratingly slow – inevitably so given that past experience of repression made many potential sympathisers cautious. Nevertheless, a growing awareness of what was possible developed, particularly once the 1868 laws had enlarged the scope for legal political activity. As we have seen, this increased participation in opposition politics, particularly in Paris, was sufficient to cause a crisis of confidence in the future stability of the regime.

The organisational basis for republican activity, as it slowly developed, took much the same forms as in 1848, with the establishment of ad hoc electoral committees, made up mainly of professionals and businessmen, to select and then support candidates. These were frequently associated with local newspapers which performed crucial coordinating functions and with the politicisation of a complex of voluntary associations ranging from the predominantly lower and middle-class masonic lodges and cercles, the artisanal mutual aid societies to the more popular cafés and popular drinking clubs – the chambrées. During the electoral campaigns of 1869–70, these informal structures were supplemented by the organisation of specifically political meetings. There was a trend, moreover, as interest in public affairs intensified for temporary, informal and leisure organisations to become more political and permanent. Nationally, the republican ‘party’ suffered until 1868 from the lack of an obvious leader, although visits by peripatetic opposition deputies like Simon, Pelletan or Favre helped to establish some sort of national coordination and encouraged local groups to feel that they were part of a larger movement. In that year, however, Gambetta achieved fame through his

condemnation of the regime in highly publicised speeches made while serving as a defence lawyer in a series of political trials. In 1869, standing for election at Belleville, a working class district of Paris, and significantly against the veteran moderate republican Carnot, his programme with its vague promises of social reform was taken up by most of the republican press. This confirmed his

ascendancy.

The forms and content of republican propaganda inevitably changed in

response to political liberalisation. They became less dependent upon the illegal distribution of tracts and upon the oral circulation of information, although both remained important, and more upon the newspaper press. The diffusion of

propaganda was made much easier. Numerous provincial newspapers were

established – even if they frequently disappeared because of lack of support and financial difficulties.