Introduction
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Notes INTRODUCTION 1 The figures for these and other plebiscites and referenda are taken from Quid (Paris: Laffont, 1985) p. 626. 2 See J.-R. Tournoux, La Tragedie du General (Paris: Pion, 1967) p. 470. The full quotation illustrates the permanence of de Gaulle's vision of the nation state and of nationalism as decisive forces in world politics: 'Napoleon, the greatest captain of modern times, was defeated from the moment when, instead of using a national army against royal armies, he found himself facing nations with the name of Spain, Prussia and Russia.' 3 See Albert Soboul, La Revolution Franf(aise (Paris: PUF, 1965) 'Que sais-je?', p. 116. It is very comforting, after reading the account in William Doyle (see note 12 to Chapter 1) of how Anglo-Saxon historians have cast doubt on all the received wisdom about the French Revolution, to turn back to a historian who considers that the Revolution did take place; that it did destroy the remnants of the feudal system; that the French nobility did enjoy fiscal privileges; that it was a closed caste; that the nationalisation of the Church lands did create a class of peasant small-holders; that the Revolution itself was (p. 114) an 'etape necessaire de Ia transition generale du feodalisme au capitalisme' (a necessary stage in the general transition from feudalism to capitalism); that it was therefore a Good Thing; especially since the rising middle class would shortly be giving way to the triumphant proletariat. For a more up-to-date and less traditional account of what really mattered in the French Revolution, see T. C. W. BlanDing, The French Revolution: Aristocrats versus Bourgeois? (London: Macmil lan, 1987). This emphasises how large the French aristocracy was about 25,000 families, as against 250 members of the Peerage in eighteenth-century England - and what benefits an enterprising noble - not distinguishable in this respect from a member of the middle class - could derive from the disappearance of the ancien regime. Pointing out how much damage the Revolution - to say nothing of the Napoleonic wars - did to the French economy, Dr Blanning also observes (p. 47) 'that it seems an odd sort of revolution which can inflict so much damage on the most advanced sector, economically speaking, of the bourgeoisie'. 4 This aspect of Louis Napoleon's constitutional position is rarely mentioned, and Article 45 of the 1848 Constitution also insisted that neither the President himself nor his Vice-President nor any of his relatives were re-eligible. However, the constitutional lawyer Armand Marrast published in Le Moniteur Universe/ for 31 August 1848 a long analysis of the Constitution in which he made the point that the President could stand again for office once a four-year period had 160 Notes to pp. 2-12 161 elapsed after the end of his first mandate. See Maurice Deslandres, Histoire Constitutionnelle de Ia France de 1789 a1870 (Paris: Armand Colin, 1932) p. 367. For the remark about liberty, see J. M. Thomp son, Napoleon III (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1954) p. 251. 5 See Raymond Aron, Memoires (Paris: Julliard, 1983) p. 234. Aron had originally said in a lecture that the French carried out revolutions but not reforms. De Gaulle, in a conversation that took place in 1947, corrected him by reminding him of the reforms carried out after the liberation of France in 1944. 6 In a speech given on 13 December 1850. SeeR. P. T. Bury and R. P. Tombs, Thiers. A Political Life (London: Allen and Unwin, 1986) p.123. 7 De /'Ancien Regime et Ia Revolution, Collection 'Idees' (Paris: Galli mard, 1952) p. 236. 8 See S. E. Finer, The Man on Horseback (London: Pall Mall Press, 1962) p. 88. France, in this analysis, falls into the category of what Finer calls 'developed political culture', in the sense that 'the legiti macy of the procedures for transferring political power and the question of who or what should constitute the sovereign authority are both in dispute'. 9 The plebiscites were: (1) 10 May 1802, on Bonaparte being Consul for life; (2) 15 May 1804, on the establishment of the hereditary Empire; (3) 22 April 1815, on the Additional Act to the Constitution of the Empire (introducing a more liberal regime during the Hundred Days); (4) 2 December 1851, on Louis Napoleon being President for ten years; (5) 21 November 1852, on the re-establishment of the Empire; (6) 8 May 1869, on the liberal reforms introduced into the Second Empire. The referenda were: (1) 28 September 1958, on the Constitution of the Fifth Republic; (2) 8 January 1961, on self-determination for Algeria; (3) 8 April 1962, on the Evian agreements putting an end to the Algerian war; ( 4) 28 October 1962, on the election of the President by universal suffrage; (5) 27 April 1969, on the reform of the Senate and regionalisation. The first of the series in which the question asked by the Executive received the answer 'No' was also the last of the series. 10 For Nordlinger, see his Soldiers in Politics. Military Coups and Governments (New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1977) p. 210. For Toumoux, see his Secrets d'Etat (Paris: Pion, 1960) p. 449. For a comparable use of the adjective, see Jean Lacouture, De Gaulle (Paris: Seuil, 1969) p. 185, where de Gaulle is described as being '!'agent necessaire d'une brusque mutation vers l'age industriel: une operation qu'on qualifierait volontiers de "cesarienne"' (the necessary agent for a harsh change introducing the industrial age. An operation which one might well call 'Caesarian'). For uses of the word Caesarism by English-speaking historians, see Soldiers and Statesmen, edited by Peter Dennis and Adrian Preston (London: Croom Helm, 1976), in which Adrian Preston's Introduction describes the elevation of Wellington to Prime Minister as 'a clear 162 French Caesarism invitation to Caesarism or to civil war' (p. 9), and quotes Michael Howard in 'The Armed Services as a Political Problem' as talking about 'Caesarist ambitions' (p. 12). In 1879, General Wolseley was suspected of trying to establish an independent Indian Army, an attempt described as 'the closest thing to a drift towards Caesarism that the Victorian age experienced' (p. 31). Not all French people - nor all French historians and political commentators- immediately recognise or spontaneously use either the term 'Cesarisme' or its associated adjectives. A frequent reaction, on hearing the word explained, is to talk about 'l'homme providentiel'. De Gaulle expresses a similar idea on pp. 22-3 of his Memoires d'Espoir (L'Effort, Paris: Pion, 1971) when he writes, describing his own return to power in 1958: 'Une fois de plus, il serait arrive que, devant un drame national ayant pour cause premiere l'incapacite des partis, ceux-ci auraient feint d'abdiquer entre les mains d'un demiurge tout a coup charge du salut - ainsi: en 1914, Joffre; en 1917 Clemenceau; en 1940 Petain; puis, l'erreur reconnue, de Gaulle; en 1958 de Gaulle encore.' (Once again it has happened that, faced with a national drama whose primary cause is the incapacity of political parties, these have pre tended to abdicate into the hands of a demiurge suddenly entrusted with the task of ensuring salvation- thus, in 1914, Joffre; in 1917, Clemenceau; in 1940, Petain; then, the mistake acknowledged, de Gaulle; in 1958, de Gaulle again.) 11 Le Fit de /'Epee 1932 (Paris: Pion, 1971) p. 100. 12 Carnets II (Paris: Gallimard, 1964) p. 340. 13 For Paxton see his La France de Vichy, 1940-1944, translated from the English by Claude Bertrand (Paris: Seuil, 1973) p. 253. The enthu siasm which some very clever people felt for the Vichy regime is illustrated by an anecdote on p. 463 of J.-B. Duroselle's L'Abfme 1939-1945 (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1982). Jean Bichelonne, who had graduated from the Ecole Polytechnique with the highest number of marks ever awarded in the history of the institution, collaborated enthusiastically because his knowledge of mathematics enabled him to prove the inevitability of a German victory. For Weygand, see Henri Amouroux, La Grande Histoire des Franr;ais sous /'Occupation, Vol. u, Quarante Millions de Petainistes (Paris: Laffont, 1977) p. 344. 14 En France (Paris: Julliard, 1965) pp. 42-3. The quotation is preceded by the remark: 'Le general de Gaulle a parfaitement raison de croire qu'il incarne la France, il a tort de croire que cela soit flatteur pour lui' (General de Gaulle is quite right to see himself as the incarnation of France, where he is wrong is to think that this is flattering for him). Notes to pp. 11-27 163 CHAPTER 1 1 See Corelli Barnett, Bonaparte (London: Allen and Unwin, 1978) p. 48. This envigoratingly hostile account of Bonaparte's career never theless attributes most of his victories to good luck. There are said to be over 100,000 books on Napoleon, among the most recent the Dictionnaire Napoleon, edited by Jean Tulard (Paris: Fayard, 1987) with 1,769 pages. This contains the interesting information that one of the first accounts of Napoleon's career appeared in 1816, in Chinese. The permanence of the hostility towards him characteristic of French liberal and left-wing thinkers can be seen in Roger Caratine's review of the Dictionnaire Napoleon in Le Nouvel Observateur, 1209 (1988). He describes Napoleon's career as a 'national disaster' for France, but stops short, for reasons obvious to any reader in the closing years of the twentieth century, at the frankness of disapproval which led The Morning Post to call Napoleon, in the early nineteenth century, 'an indefinable being, half-African, half-European, a Mediterranean Mulatto' - quoted on p.