Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Master's Theses Graduate School 2005 Defining modernity: mentality and ideology under the French Second Empire Gavin Murray-Miller Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_theses Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Murray-Miller, Gavin, "Defining modernity: mentality and ideology under the French Second Empire" (2005). LSU Master's Theses. 2507. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_theses/2507 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Master's Theses by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. DEFINING MODERNITY: MENTALITY AND IDEOLOGY UNDER THE FRENCH SECOND EMPIRE A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts In The Department of History By Gavin Murray-Miller B.A., Hunter College 2002 May 2005 Acknowledgements This thesis was completed under the guidance and supervision of Dr. Benjamin F. Martin, chairman of the examining committee meeting on 4 April 2005. Additional committee members included Dr. David F. Lindenfeld and Dr. Suzanne L. Marchand. ii Contents Acknowledgements . ii Abstract . iv Introduction: At the Crossroads of Modernity . 1 Chapter One: The Apotheosis of Science . 22 Chapter Two: The Unsentimental Education . 63 Chapter Three: Old Ends and New Means . 113 Conclusion: Aspirations, Realization, and Transcendence . 157 Works Cited . 168 Vita . 180 iii Abstract This study intends to examine the relationship between popular conceptions of modernity and Republican ideology during the Second Empire, 1852-1870. With the advent of the industrial revolution in France, scientific knowledge came to be equated with notions of progress and innovation, leading intellectual elites to design philosophical and social systems predicated upon the authority of scientific analysis and objectivity. Influenced by the intellectual currents under the Second Empire, a new generation of Republican political theorists incorporated notions of science into their ideological outlook, ultimately engendering a moderate brand of Republicanism which played a significant role in the founding of the Third Republic after 1870. The efforts of intellectuals and Republican elites formulated a social program which utilized popular conceptions of science and progress to promote democratic and secular values, as well as discourage political violence. In defining their vision of modern society, the jeunes républicains consciously created an ideological system that comported with the hegemonic ambitions and social outlook of the new French bourgeoisie coming of age under the Second Empire. Thus, the exaltation of science, industry, and progress proffered by intellectuals and moderate Republican theorists constituted an affirmation of urban bourgeois values, with the subsequent social visions derived from such considerations reflecting and legitimizing, in part, these values and principles. In evaluating the conflicts and dilemmas which faced Republicans under the Second Empire, this study seeks to reveal the importance of the imperial period in shaping the ideological outlook of the Third Republic. Offering a comprehensive view of modern society based upon popular notions of science and progress, Republican elites iv were able to establish a progressive and democratic political program which formulated a conception of modernity consistent with the interests and outlooks of the urban bourgeoisie seeking primacy under the Second Empire. The establishment of the Third Republic in 1870 and subsequent political victories in the 1880s signaled the triumph of the ideals and objectives devised by moderate Republicans between 1852 and 1870. v Introduction At the Crossroads of Modernity Observing the displays of French art at the Exposition Universelle of 1867, the critic Théophile Thoré detected a feeling of transition and change as he walked through the exhibition halls. “We are between two worlds,” he wrote, “. between a world that is ending and a world that is beginning.”1 Thoré’s critique could have been extended to the entirety of the Second Empire. The near two decades of imperial rule bore witness to the material progress and technological advancements brought to the nation by the industrial revolution. Trains and rail lines now facilitated travel and transportation throughout the country; telegraph lines expedited the flow of communication; mechanized production turned out moderately priced goods at a rapid rate while modern credit systems provided the capital needed for industrial ventures; in almost every sector of life under the Second Empire, modernity was impinging upon the familiar world to which Frenchmen had been accustomed, and, in conjunction with the growth of capital, one of the primary forces bringing this new world into existence was science. “It is not an exaggeration to say that science contains humanity’s future,” claimed the theologian Ernest Renan, “that it alone can speak the words of destiny to him and 1 Théophile Thoré, “Exposition Universelle de 1867,” Salons de W. Bürger, 1861 à 1868 (Paris: Renouard, 1870), 2:385. 1 reveal the way in which to reach his end.”2 The praises sung to the benefits of science were not only to be found in the intellectual and academic circles of the period. The government commission appointed to draw up plans for a colonial venture in Mexico during the 1860s posited as one goal of the intended expedition to spread civilization and the “scientific spirit” among the primitive inhabitants of the country.3 In the mind of the mid-nineteenth-century Frenchman, science connoted an expansive concept, a form of modernity which promised innovation and progress, the withering of provincial attitudes, the promoting of technological advancement, and even the perfecting of the human intellect. At the heart of cultural and intellectual outlooks, modernity became a living idea in the popular imagination, and science was increasingly seen as its harbinger. Despite these feelings of growing expectation and optimism, however, the Second Empire remained, as Thoré’s comment affirmed, situated at the crossroads of modernity, a point between an old and dying world fading into twilight and the more modern and innovative nation yet to be born. While the Second Empire satisfied modern economic expectations, politically and socially the regime stood upon the threshold of modernity, remaining ill-equipped to take the necessary steps to complete such a profound transformation. Vaunting a progressive political agenda and encouraging industrial development throughout the country, the regime nevertheless felt it imperative to give unwavering support to the maintenance of the status quo, persistently associating change with the pernicious force of revolution. Napoleon III’s hope of eventually founding a liberal and progressive regime was quickly diminished by conservatives’ zealous 2 Ernest Renan, The Future of Science (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1893), 38. 3 Paul N. Edison, “Conquest Unrequited: French Expeditionary Science in Mexico, 1864- 1867,” French Historical Studies 26, no. 3 (Summer 2003): 471-74. 2 obsession with political and moral order and by the influence of clerical officials on the state. Reactionary policies mixed with public declarations in support of progress produced mistrust and skepticism. Able neither to empathize with that older, moribund France nor to embrace the democratic and modern France emerging under his very nose, Napoleon III dithered between the two. What the Bonapartists were unable to guarantee the oppositional Republicans were more than willing to offer. That Republicans were able to capitalize on the growing sentiments of transition and change during the 1860s was not surprising. The intellectual milieu of the Second Empire had furnished them with a new faith and new principles after the failures of the Second Republic. In a period obsessed with notions of science, progress, and modernity, Republicans drew broad parallels between prevalent intellectual currents and their own political objectives, allying their cause with the defense of a certain France that belonged to the near future but which the Second Empire proved reluctant to embrace. Science, as the young activist Gustave Tridon claimed, was the product of a civilization which manifested man’s “genius,” a force of “life and progress” which had to be defended from oppression and ignorance.4 The Republican poet Victor Hugo extolled the panorama of modernity he found surrounding him, a world “whose arteries are railroads, and whose nerves are electric wires.”5 Professing a strong belief in the value of scientific progress and human potential, Republicans successfully established themselves as the most innovative party of the political opposition during the 1860s. 4 Gustave Tridon, “La Force,” Œuvres diverses de Gustave Tridon (Paris: Allemane, 1891), 115. 5 Victor Hugo, Napoleon the Little (New York: Sheldon, 1870), 301. 3 By the fall of the Second Empire in 1870, the efforts of theorists and activists during the preceding decade had supplied Republicans with a set of strong and unequivocal ideological precepts suited to the founding