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Liberalism, Nationalism and Socialism: The Birth of Three Words

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

G. de Bertier de Sauvigny
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Extract

Three powerful ideologies emerging in the first half of the nineteenth century combined to destroy the Old Order in Western Europe and shape its future: liberalism, nationalism and socialism. Little is known about the genesis of the three words that served to designate these ideologies. The most casual research will reveal astonishing contradictions among the recognized authorities, the lexicographers, not to speak of some glaring mistakes that appear in the writings of notable historians. For such shortcomings there is no lack of excuse. Indeed, in order to produce a sound and indisputable history of these three master words, it is necessary to sift so much material—no less than the whole printed output of the age—that the task appears quite hopeless. The present essay, therefore, is clearly open to criticism and revision; it has no other purpose than to suggest some guidelines of approach and to patch together some of the scraps of evidence now available. All this, let it be well understood, being confined to the French language and scene. Similar probes in the English or German soil would undoubtedly reveal different patterns.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , April 1970 , pp. 147 - 166
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1970

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References

1 This is in the process of being done for the vocabularies of Rousseau and Robespierre. See Tournier, M., “Le vocabulaire de la Révolution,” in Atmales historiques de la Révolution française, XLI (01–03, 1969), 123 fGoogle Scholar. Another more recent venture by Cotteret, and Moreau, used computers to analyze Le Vocabulaire du général de Gaulle (Paris, 1969)Google Scholar.

2 Hatzfeld, Adolphe and Darmesteter, Arsène, Dictionnaire général de la Langue française … précéde d'un traité de la formation de la langue (Paris, 1890), p. 99Google Scholar.

3 Baldensperger, F., ““Romantique,” ses Analogues et ses Equivalents,” Harvard Studies and Notes in Philology, XIX (1937), 13–105Google Scholar.

4 Nyrop, Kristofer, Grammaire historique de la langue française (Copenhagen, 1908), III, 158Google Scholar.

5 Damourette, Jacques and Pichon, Edouard, Des mots à la pensée: Essai de grammaire de la langue française, 1911–1927 (Paris, 1968), I, 384–385Google Scholar.

6 Veuillot, Louis, Mélanges, 2d series, VI (Paris, 1860), 12Google Scholar.

7 Éimile Littré, Dictionnaire de la Langue Française, at the word Libèral.

8 This proclamation was worded by the philosopher and physician Pierre-Jean-Georges Cabanis.

9 This suggests that the word could be found in the vocabulary of the crypto-royalist propaganda in the last stage of the Directory period.

10 This quotation, as well as the preceding one, in Brunot, Ferdinand, Histoire de la Langue française, IX, Part II (Paris, 1937), 661Google Scholar.

11 Brunot, ibid., X, Part II (Paris, 1943), 817.

12 The history of this “liberal” opposition has recently been told by de Villefosse, Louis and Bouissounouse, Janine, L'opposition à Napoléon (Paris, 1969)Google Scholar.

13 For example by Schapiro, J. Salwyn, Liberalism, Its Meaning and History (New York, 1958)Google Scholar. Schapiro, it seems, oversimplifies in ascribing to the Spanish episode the origin of the word liberalism. A closer analysis reveals it as only one out of several other factors.

14 Oxford English Dictionary, at the word Liberal.

15 Bibliothèque Nationale, Lb48 830.

16 See the recent and exhaustive work of Harpaz, Ephraim of the Hebrew University, L'École libérale sous la Restauration (Geneva, 1968)Google Scholar.

17 Bibliothèque Nationale, Lb48 1273.

18 Referring to the party of the Indépendants.

19 This underlines the derogatory sense of the suffix isme.

20 Bibliothèque Nationale. Catalogue d'Histoire de France, III, 394.

21 To this definition Boiste adds: “se dit ironiquement des partisans de l'égalité de fait, du partage des terres.” Ironic indeed, in another way for us, that libéralisme could at one time be the name given to its mortal enemy, socialism.

22 Antimémoires.

23 In La Révolution française, LIX (07–12, 1905), 262–263Google Scholar.

24 Note by Schmidt, Charles, in La Révolution française, XLVI (01–06, 1904), 244–245Google Scholar.

25 Dictionnaire alphabétique et analogique de la langue française (Paris, 1951)Google Scholar.

26 This belies the statement of Maurras, Charles: “On comprend que nationalismus ait paru d'abord en Allemagne.” In Dictionnaire politique et critique (compiled by Chardon, Pierre), III (Paris, 1934), 159Google Scholar.

27 To this it might be objected that there was, in 1829, a newssheet entitled Le National; but just as in the earlier case of Le Libéral, the word was still an adjective, qualifying the unexpressed substantive Journal.

28 The dictionaries of Robert and Bloch-Von Wartburg give 1808 as the date of appearance, but unfortunately they do not quote their source. Dauzat, Albert in his widely used Dictionnaire Etymologique (Paris, 1938)Google Scholar refers to Mozin for assigning to 1812 the appearance of nationalisme. This obviously is the result of some misreading; the present writer can testify that Mozin's dictionary does not mention nationalisme, but only nationality.

29 Archives du Ministère des Affaires Étrangères. Correspondance politique, Rome 959.

30 Quoted in Robert, Dictionnaire … de la Langue française.

31 Scritti editi ed inediti, VII (Imola, 1910), 344 and 346Google Scholar.

32 Scritti (edition of 1861) VI, xiGoogle Scholar. Mazzini seems to have adopted more currently, as he went, this word. In the quoted article of March, 1836, there is another interesting paragraph, where he takes to task those French writers of the time who under the banner of cosmopolitisme were in fact seeking to make their own country the center of the civilized world.

“Ils ne détruisent pas les nationalités, Us les confisquent au profit d'uru seule; ils ont tous un peuple elu, un peuple-Napoléon; et toutes leurs négations couvrent au fond une nationality envahissante…”

When Mazzini himself made an Italian translation of this old article for the great publication of his collected works which he supervised in his last years, after 1860, nationality envahissante was rendered by nazionalismo invadente. The quotation is also suggestive for its allusion to the ancient English meaning of nationalism, that of an elected people. And the reference to Napoleon raises the imperialistic aspect of French nationalism.

33 Venturi, Franco, “Socialista e Socialismo nell'Italia del Settecento,” in Revista Storica Italiana, LXXI (05, 1963)Google Scholar.

34 To support this supposition we may adduce a very curious fact mentioned by Laurent, Gustave in a short note published in Annales Historiques de la Révolution Française, II (1925), 412–416Google Scholar: the notorious Drouet, the man responsible for the arrest of Louis XVI at Varennes, wrote to the Directory, in 1797, complaining that he had not been appointed as chief commander of the gendarmerie, and deploring that a socialiste had been chosen instead. The context shows that for Drouet, a socialiste was a counter-revolutionary, or a monarchist. This is very close to the meaning of socialista in Giuliani, namely, a person hostile to the theories of Rousseau and to democracy. Quite obviously Drouet could not have read Buonafede or Giuliani. Where could he have gathered the word if not, directly or indirectly, from some French author of the late eighteenth century?

35 Quoted in Lalande, A., Vocabulaire technique et critique de la philosophie, 9th ed. (Paris, 1962), p. 1278Google Scholar.

36 Ibid. If this was the quotation alluded to by Lichteim, G. in The Origins of Socialism (New York, 1969)Google Scholar he gravely misinterpreted its relevance.

37 Much confusion was created by Leroux himself, when, later, he re-published some of his earlier articles, partially rewording them. Thus, while according to the later version, he is supposed to have used socialisme in a Discours sur la situation de la société et de l'esprit humain, as early as August 1832, if one refers to the original article in the Revue Encyclopédique it is not to be found there.

38 Quoted in Lalande, , Vocabulaire … de la philosophie, p. 1278Google Scholar.

39 I owe this piece of information to a private communication from M. Gans, to whom I wish to express my gratitude.

40 Gans, Jacques, “L'origine du mot socialiste,” in Revue d'Histoire economique et sociale, XXXV (1957), 79–83Google Scholar.