2 - Coming to terms with ‘democracy’

Summary

THE CHALLENGE

The granting of voting rights to all adult males in 1848 and the subsequent descente de la politique vers les masses (Agulhon) aroused great alarm. It appeared to threaten to replace elite dominance with that of ‘passionate, ignorant and unstable majorities’. It was still assumed widely within the social elite that only a small minority possessed the ability and knowledge necessary to take important political decisions. Thus, according to the Breton Legitimist Henri de la Broise: ‘Every citizen is equal, but it does not follow from this that every opinion has the same value. We cannot accept that the vote of an honest labourer might have the same authority as that of M.Thiers.’ Indeed, writing to the liberal politician, his close friend the historian Mignet warned that manhood suffrage would serve ‘in turn and at rapid intervals, [as] an instrument of anarchy and an instrument of servitude’. A senior education official, sharing his concern, admitted that ‘universal suffrage frightens me, as it frightens every honest man. It carries in itself the seeds of catastrophe, of a social revolution which will break out one day if we persist with it … No one should ignore the dangerous instincts and the burning passions of the lower classes.’