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

well-connected British political economist Nassau William Senior, described his ‘mission’ as ‘a devotion first to the Napoleonic dynasty, and then to France . . . His duty to his dynasty is to perpetuate it. His duty to France is to give her influence abroad and prosperity at home’ (Senior 1878 II: 115). Even when he relaxed with such old friends, his manner made it impossible for them to forget his rank. Moreover, he rarely spoke openly and unambiguously, and outside this narrow circle most contemporary assessments were provided by political critics.

Louis-Napoléon’s objectives would be spelled out in a letter to his cousin

Napoléon-Jérôme: ‘When one bears our name and is head of government, there are two things to do: satisfy the interests of the masses, and secure the loyalty of the upper classes.’ This would require a constant juggling act. His basic ideas were stated quite early in his career in a series of pamphlets. These included most notably Les Reflections politiques (1832), Les Idées napoléoniennes (1839) – based closely on the writings of Napoléon I and on Las Cases’ Mémorial – and L’Extinction du paupérism e (1844). Although the presentation was vague, imprecise and replete with contradictions, these writings, reflecting the utopian optimism of the 1830s and 1840s, were to serve as his ‘guiding ideas’ (Plessis 1985: 9–10, quoting a letter from Napoléon to Walewski in early 1859). His objectives can be characterised by a determination to eliminate the party divisions created by the French Revolution which he believed were responsible for political instability. As heir to the glories of the First Empire, he saw himself as the incarnation of patriotic unity. The role of a future emperor, his authority legitimised by ‘universal suffrage’, would be to 9

represent the nation. Although sharing with conservatives a determination to safeguard public order, Louis-Napoléon was distinguished by this apparent

commitment to ‘popular sovereignty’. Periodic plebiscites would serve to ratify the regime’s general policies, as well as to re-affirm the ‘mystical link between Emperor and people’ (Campbell 1978: 4). Through its vote the people would

delegate power to the Emperor and legitimise his authority (Emerit 1937: 198). The powers of representative assemblies – representative only of the particular interests of deputies (letter to Cornu, quoted in Girard 1986: 30) – were to be reduced to a minimum. A commitment to the principles of 1789, and particularly to equality before the law and to popular sovereignty, was thus combined with belief in the need for strong, centralised government. He assumed confidently that only the Bonapartist dynasty could represent effectively these twin principles of order and democracy. Internal and external policies would be closely related. Revenge for the defeats of France by the allies in 1814–15 and a rejection of the stipulations of the Peace of Vienna which followed were the essential means of reinforcing both the legitimacy of a future restored empire and the glory of France.

Our immediate need will be to consider the significance of the mid-century

crisis (1846–51) which created the circumstances in which Louis-Napoléon

Bonaparte was able, first to secure election to the powerful position of President of the Republic and, subsequently, to make use of the authority of this office in order to seize more permanent and unrestricted power through the re-establishment of the hereditary empire first created by his illustrious uncle. This Second Empire has usually been divided into two phases by historians – the authoritarian in which decisions were largely taken by the Emperor and his close advisors, ministers were responsible to the monarch rather than to a parliament which had very limited powers, the press strictly censored, political meetings banned, election results manipulated, and protest firmly repressed by police action, and the liberal resulting from a gradual easing of the restrictions on political activity. However, in spite of the onset of reforms from 1860, the regime remained far from liberal until the introduction of far-reaching constitutional reform in 1869. The repeated

descriptions of growing political difficulties, rising opposition, together with the exhaustion and increasing irresolution of the Emperor and leading ministers seems to offer a clear linear vision of inevitable collapse. However, this approach ignores the very real problems of regime transition once the regime’s leading figure(s) had taken the decision(s) to adapt to changing political circumstances. Would reforms which freed political activity and allowed strikes, and which thereby created a 10

sense of expectancy and demands for further change, provoke the collapse or, by reducing discontent, promote the re-consolidation of the regime? The current problems of post-Communist Russia illustrate the difficulties of transition from authoritarian to more democratic political systems.

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Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, President of the

Second Republic

The February Revolution of 1848 and its aftermath

The Revolution which overthrew the regime of Louis-Philippe (the so-called July Monarchy) and 1ed to the establishment of a Second Republic (1848–52) brought to power through acclamation by the crowds of insurgents a Provisional

Government composed of ministers, headed by the aristocratic poet Alphonse de Lamartine, who owed their republican credentials to parliamentary and journalistic activity. Inexperienced and cautious and being largely men of some substance themselves, they were determined to restore order to the streets and to resist pressure for immediate and substantial social reform. Instead of taking the political initiative, they preferred to await the election of a Constituent Assembly which would prepare a new republican constitution. This would be elected by manhood suffrage, a concession ministers had felt bound to make and which inaugurated a new era in politics, replacing as it did the very restricted electorate of previous regimes. The results were far from those which radical republicans and socialists had dreamed about and conservatives dreaded. The April elections saw the

nomination by the predominantly small town and rural electorate of a parliament with a large majority of moderate republican and conservative deputies drawn from the educated, property-owning classes. They, too, were anxious to re-establish public order which had been disturbed by the revolution and the immense wave of expectancy it had created among the impoverished popular classes, particularly the 12

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