University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 2013 Long Live the Revolutions: Fighting for France's Political Future in the Long Wake of the Commune, 1871-1880 Heather Marlene Bennett University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the European History Commons Recommended Citation Bennett, Heather Marlene, "Long Live the Revolutions: Fighting for France's Political Future in the Long Wake of the Commune, 1871-1880" (2013). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 734. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/734 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/734 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Long Live the Revolutions: Fighting for France's Political Future in the Long Wake of the Commune, 1871-1880 Abstract The traumatic legacies of the Paris Commune and its harsh suppression in 1871 had a significant impact on the identities and voter outreach efforts of each of the chief political blocs of the 1870s. The political and cultural developments of this phenomenal decade, which is frequently mislabeled as calm and stable, established the Republic's longevity and set its character. Yet the Commune's legacies have never been comprehensively examined in a way that synthesizes their political and cultural effects. This dissertation offers a compelling perspective of the 1870s through qualitative and quantitative analyses of the influence of these legacies, using sources as diverse as parliamentary debates, visual media, and scribbled sedition on city walls, to explicate the decade's most important political and cultural moments, their origins, and their impact. Within the interplay of electoral messaging, national political culture, and factional schisms, republicans wrested control of the state away from monarchists seeking to subvert the Republic, but they also sustained bitter internal divisions over the meaning of the Republic and its relationship to the Revolution's heritage. By 1880, the Moderate republicans had triumphed over the monarchists and their republican rivals but had to vigorously defend their nascent power--much of which depended on their narrative projections of the Third Republic's foundation, the assimilation of French and republican national identities, and their claims to the revolutionary heritage. The passage of a near- general amnesty for Communards, the official adoption of La Marseillaise, the vmo ement of government assemblies back to Paris, and the designation of Quatorze Juillet as the Republic's national holiday were not simply natural consequences of the republican political victory. Rather, the Moderates deliberately undertook each initiative to project the liberal Republic's triumph, to merge the identities of France and the Republic, and to implicitly close the revolutionary era. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group History First Advisor Thomas Childers Keywords Paris Commune, Third Republic Subject Categories European History | History This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/734 LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTIONS: FIGHTING FOR FRANCE’S POLITICAL FUTURE IN THE LONG WAKE OF THE COMMUNE, 1871-1880 COPYRIGHT 2013 Heather Marlene Bennett This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-ny-sa/2.0/ iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Once I settled on a topic and commenced the research process, I quickly became overwhelmed. Two competing thoughts came to my mind. The first was my revision of a familiar cliché: dissertating is a journey not a destination; this kept me calm as the path to this dissertation’s conclusion twisted and turned. The second was the thrill I had when listening to the course lectures delivered by the late Susanna Barrows and the engrossing conversations she and I had outside of the classroom long after I completed undergraduate studies. She made history come to life. Her enthusiasm and depth were inspiring and from this mentor I developed a deep fascination with late nineteenth- century France. I am incredibly grateful for her support in my decision to pursue the passion she ignited within me. I am equally indebted to many others who helped me along. No dissertation is completed in a vacuum, no matter how lonely the process may become; everyone is in debt to some circle of support I am no different. I would first like to thank my advisors. During my time in Philadelphia, Tom Childers never ceased to make me feel welcome and, most importantly, confident. I will never forget his advice to “pull the trigger” upon hearing that I was nervous to put forth my own ideas after having been trained so well to critique those of others. His warmth and intellectual generosity were integral to my success, especially during times of great personal difficulties. The same needs to be said for Kristen Stromberg-Childers who served as an early advisor to this project and has generously stayed in contact with me ever since. Early in this process, Lynn Hollen Lees graciously joined my committee and iv her detailed and thoughtful comments helped to shape a second year research paper into a more fully developed dissertation. Her commitment to my work was much needed reinforcement and I can never express enough gratitude for her close communication with me as I wrote most of this in California. Barbara Day-Hickman, who joined my committee in the final stretch, has also been incredibly generous with her time and detailed advice, without her encouragement, interest, and incisive critique I shudder to think what might have been included in the pages that follow. The research for this dissertation was supported through the University of Pennsylvania Dissertation Research Fellowship. The writing was supported through the William E. Lingelbach and, Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation Fellowships, and I particularly want to thank Walter McDougall for his help in securing these. My colleagues, friends, and family similarly deserve my gratitude. I will always be grateful for meeting Dawn Dodds on my first day of researching in the Paris police archives. Thank you for taking me to lunch, providing words of encouragement and insiders’ advice, and thank you for proof-reading so many of my painfully written pages. I hope you will be happy to see that one of our darlings made the cut. Special mention is deserved for the staff and archivists at the Archives of the Prefecture of Police in Paris, especially Olivier Accarie Pierson who was incredibly helpful, informative, and enthusiastic about my topic. Thank you to Edward Berenson who provided insight during an early presentation of my research that led me to expand the analytical focus and whose generous guidance on secondary source literature was crucial during the early phase of v my research. I also owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the Van Pelt-Dietrich library staff especially Nick Okrent whose enthusiastic and frequent assistance made researching from California less daunting. Marianne Golding also deserves special thanks for helping me translate scribbled declamations written in late nineteenth-century French slang late into the night. Thank you to my mother Sydney, whose perfect mix of tenacity and warmth is both inspiring and sustaining; my father Michael, for shooing me off to Paris for research despite his illness; Heather King, for helping to format with precision; my cousin Lisa Byrne, for filling in as my copy editor; and my aunt Cate Larsen for helping in the final stretch both financially and editorially even in the wee hours of the morning. Two final and deeply felt acknowledgements are in order for my partner David A. Rolleg and my sister Angel Anderson. I would never have been afforded the privilege to write these words of thanks had it not been for your support. David, thank you for manning the home front as I drifted off into dissertation oblivion, thank you for taking over all parental responsibilities when I was on multiple research trips in France, and for ceaselessly reminding Jude how much mommy loves him even when she is far away. Angel, thank you for rescuing me in every dark hour, for reminding me to “lean in” all the way, for never letting me give up, even when I pretended I wanted to, and for spending countless hours combing through every page of this dissertation to help me kill darlings and put semi-colons where they need to be; you above all, have been my steadfast companion and most ardent champion. I thank you. vi ABSTRACT LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTIONS: FIGHTING FOR FRANCE’S POLITICAL FUTURE IN THE LONG WAKE OF THE COMMUNE, 1871-1880 Heather M. Bennett Thomas Childers The traumatic legacies of the Paris Commune and its harsh suppression in 1871 had a significant impact on the identities and voter outreach efforts of each of the chief political blocs of the 1870s. The political and cultural developments of this phenomenal decade, which is frequently mislabeled as calm and stable, established the Republic’s longevity and set its character. Yet the Commune’s legacies have never been comprehensively examined in a way that synthesizes their political and cultural effects. This dissertation offers a compelling perspective of the 1870s through qualitative and quantitative analyses of the influence of these legacies, using sources as diverse