Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T18:24:29.620Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘Le Moment Libéral’: The Distinctive Character of Restoration Liberalism*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Laurence Jacobs
Laurence Jacobs
Affiliation:
King's College, Cambridge
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'
Type
Review Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , June 1988 , pp. 479 - 491
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Soltau, R., French political thought in the nineteenth century (London, 1931), p. xixGoogle Scholar. Histories of European liberalism have tended to ignore the restoration liberals, passing straight from the period of the French revolution to de Tocqueville. See, for example, Arblaster, A., The rise and decline of Western liberalism (Oxford, 1984)Google Scholar. There have been, of course, significant exceptions, notably Harpaz, E., L'ecole libérate sous la restauration (Geneva, 1968)Google Scholar.

2 See the important work of Mellon, S., The political uses of history (Stanford, 1958)Google Scholar. Mellon provides a thorough account of the Liberal defence of the revolution but tends to assume that the varied arguments deployed by the Liberals were interchangeable.

3 A. Jardin's work is the first modern French biography of de Tocqueville and Lamberti, J., Tocqueville et les deux démocraties (P.U.F., 1983)Google Scholar was the first ‘thèse d'état’ to examine his ideas. There have been, of course, many American studies of de Tocqueville which have focused on his assessment of democracy in America.

4 See in particular the work of Lefort, C. and Ferry, L., and Renaut, A., Philosophie politique: vol. III: Des droits de l'homme à l'idée républicaine (Paris, 1985)Google Scholar.

5 Furet, F., ‘Le XIX siècle et l'intelligence du politique’, Débat, Mai 1980, p. 125Google Scholar. Also see his recent work, Le gauche et la révolution au milieu du XIX siècle (Paris, 1986)Google Scholar.

6 Rosanvallon, P., preface to Philosophie politique, in Histoire de la civilisation en Europe, p. 307Google Scholar.

7 As well as Rosanvallon's study, see also Chevalier, J., ‘Les doctrinaires de la restauration’, Études et documents du Conseil d'État (Paris, 1964)Google Scholar and Johnson, D., Guizot, Aspects of French history (London, 1963)Google Scholar.

8 Du Gouvernement de la France depuis la restauration (Paris, 1820) p. 201Google Scholar. Rosanvallon is the first historian to provide such an extensive analysis of Guizot's ideas but also see D. Johnson, Guizot, ch. II, ‘political thought’.

9 Guizot, F., Philosophie politique, p. 322Google Scholar.

10 Guizot, F., Histoire des origines du gouvernement représentatif en Europe (Paris, 1851), II, 149–150Google Scholar.

11 Rosanvallon, P., Le moment Guizot, ‘Les signes et les preuves’, pp. 121–33Google Scholar.

12 Barante, P., La vie politique de Royer-Collard (Paris, 1861), I, 290Google Scholar.

13 Rosanvallon, P., Le moment Guizot, pp. 143–54, 265–70Google Scholar.

14 S. Gruner provides a very clear description of how the liberal analysis of class conflict developed as a response to Montlosier's, De la monarchie française, in ‘Political historiography in restoration France’, History and Theory, VIII (1969), 346–65Google Scholar.

15 One should, however, note the recent work of Welch, C. which deals with the ideologues and political economy in France, Liberty and utility: French ideologues and the transformation of liberalism (New York, 1984)Google Scholar. Also see Kaiser, T. ‘Politics and political economy in the thought of the ideologues’, History of political economy (1980), pp. 141–60Google Scholar, Siedentrop, L., ‘Two liberal traditions’, in The idea of freedom, ed. Ryan, A. (Oxford, 1979)Google Scholar, and le Van-Mesle, L., ‘La promotion de l'économie politique en France au XIX siècle’, Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine, XXVII (1980)Google Scholar.

16 Constant's, De l'esprit de conquête et de l'usurption (1814)Google Scholar was a sustained attack on Napoleon which appeared to adopt the legitmists' argument. This was reiterated in the famous article in 1815 where Constant described Napoleon as the new Khan, Genghis, Journal de Debats, 19 03 1815Google Scholar, and yet within a short period he became a councillor of state under Napoleon.

17 Constant, B., De l'esprit de conquête el de l'usurpation in Gauchet, M., De la liberté chez les modernes (Paris, 1980), p. 191Google Scholar.

18 Constant, B., Principe de politique, ed. Hofmann, E. (Geneva, 1980), p. 432Google Scholar.

19 Holmes does refer to this point, but he does not give it sufficient emphasis as part of Constant's general concern with the complexity of modern society. He notes Constant's, understanding that ‘void of conviction but unable to tolerate a rudderless state of mind, modern men became prétendus républicans’, p. 51Google Scholar.

20 Constant, B., Principe de politique, pp. 485, 499Google Scholar. To emphasize this point, Constant, like his contemporary Chateaubriand, used the image of revolution as a storm at sea and the need for careful navigation to master the dangers and to guide the ship back on course. ‘Conclura-t-on de ce que les volontés individuelles ont peu d'influence sur les causes des révolutions qu'au milieu de ces convulsions sociales, chacun battu par la tempête peut s'abandonner sans résistance à l'impétuosité des vagues…Je ne le pense pas. Dans les circonstances les plus orageuses, il y a toujours une route indiquée par la morale.’ Principe de politique, pp. 487–8.

21 For the idea that Constant was committed to a concept of negative liberty see Berlin, I. ‘Two concepts of liberty’ in Four essays on liberty (Oxford, 1969)Google Scholar.

22 Constant, B., ‘De la liberté des anciens comparée à celle des modernes’, in Gauchet, M.De la liberté, p. 513Google Scholar.

23 As Holmes notes, at this point Constant's democratic argument ‘went beyond the politiques by assuming that the contribution of sovereignty to liberty could be constitutive and not merely instrumental’. Holmes, S., Benjamin Constant, p. 246Google Scholar.

24 de Tocqueville, A., Démocratic en Amérique. Oeuvres complètes, I, II, 295Google Scholar.

25 Jardin, A., De Tocqueville, pp. 251–2Google Scholar. On the influence of the doctrinaires, see ‘Tocqueville et la pensée politique des doctrinaires’, Alexis de Tocqueville, livre du centenaire, ed. , C.N.R.S., (Paris, 1960)Google Scholar.

26 de Tocqueville, A., Démocratie en Amérique, II, 263Google Scholar.

27 J. Lamberti, Tocqueville et les deux démocraties provides a very clear analysis of this distinction between the democratic and the revolutionary idea.

28 De Tocqueville, Démocratic en Amérique, vol. I, p. 11Google Scholar.

29 See Furet's, F. outstanding essay, ‘De Tocqueville and the problem of the French revolution’, in Interpreting the French revolution (Cambridge, 1979)Google Scholar.

30 Démocratic en Amérique, II, 320.

31 Nevertheless, it is important to stress that de Tocqueville still believed in limiting political activity to a new aristocratic elite in democratic society. Constant by contrast advocated a widening of the electorate.

32 Revue des deux Mondes, XXII, 1840, 322–34. This article appeared in Démocratic en Amérique, as chapter XXI of Book 3.

33 See in particular, de Tocqueville, Souvenirs.

34 Also see Welch, C., Liberty and utilily and Boesche, R., The strange liberalism of Alexis de Tocqueville (Cornell University Press, 1987)Google Scholar.

35 A. Jardin in Le Libéralisme politique provides a very clear description of the transition between eighteenth and early nineteenth-century liberal thought in France and in particular he stresses the unprecedented influence of foreign ideas during this period. Also see L. Siedentrop, ‘Two liberal traditions’.

36 To some degree reassessments of the Scottish political economists have already challenged this idea. See, for example, Hont, I. and Ignatieff, M., Wealth and virtue (Cambridge, 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hirschman, A., The passions and the interests (Princeton, 1976)Google Scholar, and Pocock, J. G. A., Virtue, commerce and history (Cambridge, 1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37 Holmes, S., Benjamin Constant, p. 222Google Scholar.

38 For an important analysis of various current liberal arguments see Dunn, J., ‘The future of liberalism’, in Rethinking modem political thought (Cambridge, 1985)Google Scholar. In this essay J. Dunn argues for a conception of liberal prudence which is similar to the sceptical liberalism of Constant and de Tocqueville. Also see Sandel, M. (ed.), Liberalism and its critics (Oxford, 1984)Google Scholar.