The Jacobin Legacy in Modern France
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See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259296814 Emulation through Decoration : A Science of Government? Chapter · January 2002 CITATIONS READS 3 65 1 author: Olivier Ihl University of Grenoble 179 PUBLICATIONS 278 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects: article View project History of Photography View project All content following this page was uploaded by Olivier Ihl on 15 December 2013. The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. The Jacobin legacy in Modern France Essays in Honour of Vincent Wright Edited by Sudhir Hazareesingh Vincent Wright 1937- 1999 OXFORD UN IVERS ITY PRESS CONTENTS Notes on Contributors ix 1. Vincent Wright and the Jacobin Legacy in Historical and Theoretical Perspectives Surfltir Hazareesingh 2. 'La Guerre Sainte': Debates about Just War among Republicans in the Nineteenth Century Karma Nabulsi 21 J. 'Honorable and Honoured Citizen s': War Veterans of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Eras under the Second Empire Sudhi,. Hazareesingh 4S 4. The Prefect, Politica! Functionary of the Jacobin State: Permanences and Continuities (1870-1914) Jean-Pierre Machelon 68 5. Fraternity, Solidarity, Sociability: the Grass Roots of the Grancl Orient cie France (1900-1926) Maurice Larkin 89 6. Reform, Conservation, and Adaptation: Sciences-Po, fram the Popu!ar Front to the Liberation Philip Nord 1 15 7. General de Gaulle and the Restoration of the Republic DOl/glas fohnsO/l 14 7 R. Emu lation Through Decoration: A Science of Government? Olivier lhl 158 9. The Republic and its Territory: The Persistence and the Adaptation of Founcling Myths Yves Mény 183 10. Making Citizens in an Increasingly Complex Soc iety: Jacobinisll1 Revisited Dom illique ScJ mapper 196 IIppenclix: The Works of Vi ncent Wright 2 17 Index 227 8 Emulation through Decoration: A Science of Government ? OLIVIER IHL F we include the Croix de Guerre of the Fifst and Second World Wars, the I official number of French men and wamen who have been awarded deco rations and are 'presumed alive' i5 estimated at avec 2 million. How is this hon ours table made up?The Légion d'honneur has more than 200,000 honorands, the Compagnons de la Libération just under 1,000 members, including five lowns and 18 regiments. There are Qvec 560,000 holders of the médaille mili taire and 130,000 of the Ordre du Mérite, to say !lathing of the swelling bat talions af t he Mérite Agricole, the Croix de Guerre, or the Palmes académiques. Just one look at these figures i5 enough to confer upon thesc modest emblems the status of a systematic instrument of governance. A Behaviour Police Yet the deference accordcd to such honours has been bitterly condemned ovec Ume, in a salvo of criticism fo r which Montesquieu vigorously opened the way. If you wish to form an opinion as ta the nature of a government, he sug gested to his readers, consider carefully how it rewards people. You will obscrve Ihat, under a despotic regîme, the moral value of the people is reduced to a material one: the prince 'can only offer money'. In a monarchy, on the other hand, honour encourages a cult of 'distinctions and preferences'. Dispensed by the sovcrelgn, these can certainly lead to fortune, but that is not what they are esscntially about. However, in a rcpublic, distinctions of honour are purely symbolic. Awarded by the whole of SOCiety, they serve ta sanction a virtue that is supposed to be sufftcient unto itself. And the model for this? The use that ancient Rome made of rewards of honour, that is to say, simple wreaths of laurel or oak which were worn as a sign of civil or mililary distinc tion. However, even under these last n'la regimes the use of such an expedient is for Montesquieu a sign of decadence. lt is 50 in a monarchy because the bait of material advantage ultlmately perverts everylhing, including Ihe sense of Emulation through Decoration 159 dignity, and it is so in a republic because the distinction of belng a citizen should be virtue's sole rewardl-which implies that in reality truc nobility is that of the soul and can be inherited only though education. Ouring the French Revolution, Mirabeau came to much the sa me conclu sion. In protest against the creation in the young American republic of the Cincinnatus Society, a new patrician body that was threatening ta tum itself loto a hereditary aristocracy, he wrote a virulent pamphlet. Aoodyoe, this badge of honour by means of wllich people sought recognition and distinc tion? Inoffensive, this medal in the fo rm of an eagle borne on a blue ribbon and surmounted by an inscription alluding ta the health of the republic? Quite the contrary. This was a frightening emblem, the weapon of an oli garchy aspiring to the privileges of nobility. Such, in his view, is the fatal power of 'opinion and petty human passions': 'the mos! frivolous symbols have played their part in tightening the chains that bind the people, have ennobled the powerful and, by enabling them ta afford ta be waited upon by the poor, have increased the servitude of the poor'. Is it not the case that to cavet a reward is in sorne way ta relinquish ta others one's own means of deftnlng oneself? And, for the sovereign, a means of gaining power over the course of a human Iife? After ail, those people who have been decorated become exemplars only through the sharc of power thal Ihey receive: that is to say, through the vîsibîlity conferred upon them by the sign that they wear and, consequently, tluough the respect that results from this. Whilst the dec oration provides visible proof of an action of sufflcient grandeu r as to be WOf thy of recompense, it is above ail a manifestation of the power of the persan awarding it. Ils value is ta be assessed in terms of a desire for power. This is why Mirabeau declares: 'The greatest of rewards lies in the esteem of one's (el1aw countrymen, for this is deserved and not exacted; the most glittering of deco rations is a virtue which can be seen for itself, and the most noble of charters is thal of a member of a collectivity which one has had the good fortune to enlighten though reason.'Z The warning did not fall upon deaf ears. For the French revolutionaries, Ihere could be no worse manifestation of tyranny than the unbridled com merce in ri bbons and distinctions. Not only did it stand in contradiction to the principle of equality but it had, moreover, 10st its pur pose with the demise of the nobility. The Constituent Assembly, convinced of just how noxious the custom was, abolished its essential mechanisms. This was the agenda of the cclebrated session of 17 June 1790, which was devoted to 'sigos dcnoting feu dalism'. From monarchie protocol to titles of nobility and from orders of chivalry to diplomatie ceremonial, a whole gamut of distinctions was , Montesquieu, IH l'Esprit d~· lois, ln ()nJvrt:'l compl~tes, ü., pre5entl'd and annOlat ..-d by !{oger Caillois (l'arls, 19S1). 302. The same assertion is \0 be found in a number of other writings, includ Ing those of François de Neufchâll'au, Charles Duclos, and Sébastien Merder. as weil as ln l 'Essai sur le mi r/ft n III vtrlu puhlished by DiderOI ln t NS. 2 Comle de Mirabeau, Opinion <lu C"Omu dt Mlrilbrnll sur la noblem rmdt'mtt n mooeme. CO/t.firf&lIfioll slir l'orr/re df Cinô"natus 01' ;lIlitllfioll ,J'WI pumpillet unglo-amérimi11 ... , (l'aris, 1815), 7 (lSt edn 178'1). 160 Olivier Ihl abolîshcd in a matter of hours. It was said that ail display of distinction had ta be abolished, along with ail extravagance of il sort likely to be remlniscent of a society founded upon the distribution of honours. 3 Proudhon was to take up the argument later: 'If citizens arc equal befoTe the ballot box and the law, there is no longer aoy reason fo r distinctions of nobility.'i Vet the fact is that decoratlon has indubitably become the essential instru ment for measuring mcrit. The France that was born out of the Revolution has instituted twelve times more honorary distinctions than her monarchical pre deccssor did in 500 years. Up to 1789, royalty had bccll 'satisfied' with four insignia, which, moreover, were farcly awarded: the crosses of Saint-Michel, Saint Esprit, and Saint-Louis, and the cross of military merit. In republican France iust after the Second World War, there we re ove! 60 offi cial di slinc tians. Medals were doled oui for an extraordinary variety of situations: 10 those who had reached the end of a professional career, to those who had per formed an act of bravery or suffered an in jury, and cven to those who had achieved saille prowess in sports or in the arts. In the form of stars, palm leaves, and medals, ail thesc people were rcwarded with visible emblems whose entire lustre was derived from the affirma tion of a superiority sanc tione<! by convention. The Republic founded the cult of equality. Bu t Il did sa only immediately ta set about universaliZing another principle, which deserves to be writ large across its monuments: emutation through decoration. How are we to explain this paradox, Ihat of il nation powerless to curtail a process whlch rocks the very princi ples of its citizenship? Rather than falling back on the perpetuai tmhiS01l des clercs thesis or conjuring up the ghost of a Republic of dukes and dupes, as a certain type of historiography has applied ÎtseU to dOing, 1 wo uld like here to go down anothcr route, which is Ihat of the majesty oftlle State.