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THE INTELLECTUAL ORIGINS OF TOCQUEVILLE'S L'ANCIEN RÉGIME ET LA RÉVOLUTION*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2008

ANNELIEN DE DIJN
ANNELIEN DE DIJN*
Affiliation:
University of Leuven
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Abstract

This essay shows that the central core of Tocqueville's book, its condemnation of the centralist state of the Old Regime, can be placed in a specific tradition in French political thought—the legitimist critique of centralization. Long before the publication of L'Ancien Régime et la Révolution, the legitimists had made the problem of centralization into one of their central themes, and they had come to attribute all of France's ills to the centralist legacy. As this essay illustrates, the particular vocabulary and arguments used by the legitimists to describe the nefarious effects of centralization on the French body politic showed a considerable resemblance to the language used by Tocqueville in L'Ancien Régime et la Révolution. Indeed, this resemblance is so striking that, while direct influence is difficult to pinpoint, the legitimist publicists and political thinkers discussed in this essay—many of whom were friends or acquaintances of Tocqueville's—contributed in an important way to shaping the linguistic universe in which L'Ancien Régime et la Révolution was created.

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Articles
Information
Modern Intellectual History , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , April 2008 , pp. 1 - 25
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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References

1 François Furet in particular has played an important role in the rediscovery of Tocqueville's work in France; see his Penser la Révolution française (Paris, 1978). Gauchet's, Marcel seminal article on Tocqueville is available in Mark Lilla, ed., New French Thought: Political Philosophy (Princeton, 1994), 91–111Google Scholar. The Tocqueville revival in France is discussed in Françoise Mélonio, Tocqueville and the French, trans. Beth Raps (Charlotsville, 1998), 189–208; and Serge Audier, Tocqueville retrouvé. Genèse et enjeux du renouveau Tocquevillien français (Paris, 2004).

2 François, Furet, Interpreting the French Revolution, trans. Elborg, Forster (Cambridge, 1981), 16–17Google Scholar.

3 Robert Gannett, Tocqueville Unveiled: The Historian and His Sources for The Old Regime and the Revolution (Chicago and London, 2003), 27.

4 Mélonio, Tocqueville and the French, 107.

5 The neglect of the legitimist contribution to the debate about centralization in France is especially pronounced for the Restoration period and the July Monarchy, on which this paper focuses. Recently, Sudhir Hazareesingh has published an excellent study of the debate about decentralization in the Second Empire, From Subject to Citizen: The Second Empire and the Emergence of Modern French Democracy (Princeton, 1998), in which the legitimist contribution to the debate about centralization in the Second Empire receives ample attention. For an equally informed, if more traditional, account of legitimist decentralist thought under the Second Empire see Kale, Steven D., Legitimism and the Reconstruction of French Society 1852–1883 (Baton Rouge and London, 1992)Google Scholar.

6 On this subject see also Dijn, Annelien de, “Aristocratic Liberalism in post-Revolutionary France,” Historical Journal 48 (2005), 661–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Constant, Benjamin, Réflexions sur les constitutions, la distribution des pouvoirs, et les garanties, dans une monarchie constitutionelle (Paris, 1814)Google Scholar.

8 On the royalist party see Oechselin, J. J., Le Mouvement ultra-royaliste sous la Restauration. Son idéologie et son action politique (Paris, 1960)Google Scholar.

9 On the royalists’ initial enthusiasm for decentralization see von Thadden, Rudolf, La Centralisation contestée, trans. Hélène, Cusa and Patrick, Charbonneau (Paris, 1989), 158–77Google Scholar; Burdeau, François, Liberté, libertés locales chéries! (Paris, 1983), 83–9Google Scholar.

10 On Fiévée's political thought see Jeremy, Popkin, “Conservatism under Napoleon: The Political Writings of Joseph Fiévée,” History of European Ideas 5 (1984), 385–400Google Scholar; Yvert, Benoît, “La Pensée politique de Joseph Fiévée,” Revue de la société d'histoire de la Restauration et de la monarchie constitutionnelle (1990), 11–25Google Scholar. Fiévée's career is discussed in Jean Tulard's Joseph Fiévée, conseiller secret de Napoléon (Paris, 1985).

11 Quoted in Popkin, “Conservatism,” 392.

12 Joseph Fiévée, “Réflexions sur la Constitution à venir, relatives aux biens des Communes et à la liberté compatible avec la Monarchie,” Correspondance politique et administrative, commencé au mois de mai 1814; et dédié à M.le comte de Blacas d'Aulps 1 (1815), 4.

13 Ibid., 11.

14 Fiévée, Joseph, “Du pouvoir souverain et de l'isolement des français,” Correspondance politique et administrative 1 (1815), 79–97Google Scholar.

15 Ibid., 87.

16 Ibid., 89–90.

17 Fiévée, Joseph, Correspondance politique et administrative 3 (1816), 76Google Scholar.

18 Ibid., 21.

19 Anon., Considérations sur quelques doctrines politiques de M. Fiévée (Paris, 1816).

20 Anon., De l'Administration financière des communes de France, avec quelques applications à la ville de Bordeaux (Paris, 1816).

21 Joseph de Villèle, Archives parlementaires de 1787 à 1860. Receuil complet des débats législatifs des Chambres françaises. Deuxième série (1800 à 1860), ed. J. Mavidal and E. Laurent, 68 vols. (Paris, 1862–1912), 21: 618.

22 On the debate about decentralization in the July Monarchy see Burdeau, Liberté!, 118–26.

23 On this subject see Rials, Stéphane, Le Légitimisme (Paris, 1983)Google Scholar.

24 Charles de Montalembert frequented the same salons as Tocqueville in the 1830s, and in 1833 Beaumont and Tocqueville even considered starting a review with Montalembert. See Jardin, André, Alexis de Tocqueville 1805–1859 (Paris: Hachette, 1984), 185–6 and 362Google Scholar.

25 Félicité de Lamennais, “Des Doctrines de l'Avenir,” L'Avenir, no. 53, 7 Dec. 1830.

26 Anon., “De l'Organisation communale et départementale,” L'Avenir, no. 349, 30 Sept. 1831.

27 H., “Des Bases naturelles d'une réorganisation politique,” L'Avenir, no. 79, 3 Jan. 1831.

28 Anon., “De l'Organisation communale et départementale [second article],” L'Avenir, no. 351, 2 Oct. 1831.

29 Burdeau, Liberté!, 108–13, discusses the legitimist enthusiasm for decentralization.

30 Among his publications are Lois municipales de l'Italie dans l'antiquité, dans le moyen âge et dans les temps modernes (Paris, 1852); De l'Administration intérieure de la France (Paris, 1851); Droit municipal au moyen âge (Paris, 1861–2); Etudes administratives, municipalisme et unitarisme italiens (Paris, 1862); Autonomie et césarisme: Introduction au droit municipal moderne (Paris, 1869).

31 Béchard's book was reissued in 1845 under the title De l'Administration de la France, ou Essai sur les abus de la centralisation.

32 Béchard, Essai sur la centralisation administrative, 2 vols. (Paris and Marseille, 1836–7), 1: 67.

33 Ibid., 1: iii.

34 Ibid., 1: v.

35 Ibid., 1: 48.

36 As far as I am aware, Béchard was the first publicist to use the term “individualism” to describe the effects of centralization on French society. On the origins of this term see Koenraad Swart, “‘Individualism’ in the mid-nineteenth century (1826–1860),” Journal of the History of Ideas, 23 (1962), 77–90; Gregory Claeys, “Individualism, Socialism and Social Science: Further Notes on a Process of Conceptual Formation, 1800–1850,” Journal of the History of Ideas, 47 (1986), 81–93.

37 Béchard, Essai, 1: 53.

38 Ibid., 1: 57.

39 Ibid., 1: 277–307.

40 Ibid., 1: 295.

41 Ibid.

42 These reforms are discussed in Burdeau, Liberté!, 96–8.

43 Thierry, Augustin, Lettres sur l'histoire de France pour servir d'introduction a l'étude de cette histoire (Paris, 1868; first published 1827)Google Scholar, esp. Lettre XIV, 203–22, and Lettre XXV, 382–401.

44 Augustin Thierry, Dix ans d'études historiques (Paris, n.d. (18??)), 266–74.

45 Ibid., 237–43.

46 Augustin Thierry, Essai sur l'histoire de la formation et des progrès du Tiers Etat suivi de deux fragments du recueil des monuments inédits de cette histoire (Paris, 1860), 221.

47 Ibid., 219.

48 Ibid.

49 The pro-centralist discourse of the July Monarchy is also discussed by Pierre Rosanvallon in Le Modèle politique français. La Société civile contre le jacobinisme de 1789 à nos jours (Paris, 2004), Part 2; and by Lucien Jaume in his L'Individu effacé ou le paradoxe du libéralisme français (Paris, 1997).

50 Carné, Louis de, Etudes sur les fondateurs de l'unité nationale en France, 2 vols. (Paris, 1848), 1: xlixGoogle Scholar.

51 Ibid., 1: lxv.

52 Ibid., 2: 311–49, 329.

53 Ibid., 1: lxviii.

54 Ibid., 2: 330–49.

55 The close connection between Kergorlay and Tocqueville is attested by the collected volumes of their correspondence, edited in the Oeuvres complètes (Paris: Gallimard, 1951–), XIII. Arthur de Gobineau was Tocqueville's chef de cabinet when the latter was appointed minister for foreign affairs during the Second Republic. They had known each other since 1843. See Jardin, Tocqueville, 409.

56 Louis de Kergorlay and Arthur de Gobineau, “Prospectus,” Revue provincial 1 (1848–9), 2.

57 Jardin, André, Alexis de Tocqueville 1805–1859 (Paris, 1984), 74–5Google Scholar.

58 Louis de Kergorlay attracted Tocqueville's attention to Raudot's publications in a letter of 2 August 1852. Cf. the Oeuvres complètes, XIII, 2: 246.

59 Raudot, Claude-Marie, De la Grandeur possible de la France faisant suite à la décadence de la France (Paris, 1851), 2Google Scholar.

60 Raudot developed these themes in his De la Décadence de la France (Paris, 1850).

61 de Tocqueville, Alexis, Oeuvres, ed. André, Jardin, Jean-Claude, Lamberti and Schleifer, James T., 3 vols. (Paris, 1992), 2: 97Google Scholar.

62 As is also argued by François Furet and Françoise Mélonio in their introduction to the third volume of the Oeuvres, III, xiii.

63 Tocqueville wrote for instance in the Etat social et politique: “Depuis plusieurs siècles, toutes les vieilles nations de l'Europe travaillent sourdement à détruire l'inégalité dans leur sein. La France a précipité chez elle la révolution qui marchait péniblement dans tout le reste de l'Europe.” Tocqueville, Oeuvres, III, 3.

64 Ibid., III, 26–40.

65 Ibid., III, 1199–215.

66 Tocqueville, De la Démocratie en Amérique (10th edn, Paris, 1848), i–iv.

67 Furet and Mélonio, in Tocqueville, Oeuvres, III, xv, xxxv, likewise point to this shift in Tocqueville's thought.

68 Ibid., III, 780.

69 Ibid., III, 873.

70 Cf. Gannett, Tocqueville Unveiled, 57–98.

71 Book 2 of L'Ancien Régime et la Révolution in particular is devoted to this topic.

72 Tocqueville, Oeuvres, II, 108.

73 Ibid., II, 968.

74 Ibid., II, 96–109.

75 Ibid., III, 80–112.

76 Ibid., III, 121.

77 Ibid., III, 121–34.

78 Ibid., III, 109.

79 Ibid., III, 167.

80 Ibid., III, 114.

81 Ibid., III, 117.

82 Ibid., III, 233–42.

83 On the legitimist reception of L'Ancien Régime see Mélonio, Tocqueville and the French, 144–5.

84 For Tocqueville's positive evaluation of 1789 see in particular Tocqueville, Oeuvres, III, 229.

85 Ibid., III, 46–7.

86 Ibid.

87 I am thinking here in particular of Furet, François and Ozouf, Mona, who put great emphasis on the continuity between 1789 and 1793 in their A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution, trans. Arthur, Goldhammer (Cambridge, MA, 1989)Google Scholar. An excellent analysis of the views of François Furet and his followers on the Revolution is to be found in Andrew Jainchill and Sam Moyn, “French Democracy between Totalitarianism and Solidarity: Pierre Rosanvallon and Revisionist Historiography,” Journal of Modern History 76 (2004), 107–54.