3 - A society of equals: the liberal response

Summary

Unlike their royalist contemporaries, many liberal publicists of the Restoration period have escaped obscurity and are still read and commented upon today. Indeed, it is now generally recognized that the early nineteenth century was, as Laurence Jacobs expresses it, ‘a vital and creative period for French liberal thought’. The vitality and creativity of Restoration liberalism is generally attributed to this generation's need to develop a new outlook on liberty that distinguished itself from the Jacobins' republicanism, which had caused the Revolution to fail so dramatically. However, Restoration liberalism was also shaped in direct response to the royalists' aristocratic liberalism. In formulating their political doctrines, post-revolutionary liberals reacted as much against royalism as against Jacobinism, although they started out from a position that was quite close to that of the royalists.

THE ANACHRONISM OF ARISTOCRATIC LIBERALISM

In the immediate aftermath of the Revolution, many liberals turned – as Jacques Necker had done – to the English political model, which had shown itself capable of guaranteeing liberty as well as preserving a high degree of political stability during difficult times. Their admiration for the English example led several important liberal thinkers to adopt a position remarkably close to the royalists' aristocratic liberalism. If the English had been so much more successful at preserving liberty and stability than the French, they argued, this should be attributed first and foremost to their mixed constitution, in which an aristocratic House of Lords held the balance between a more democratic Commons and the king.