Revolution and the Republic

by Jeremy Jennings

  concession.’74 Seen in this light, the Orleanist regime of Louis-Philippe was to be ‘a

  popular monarchy surrounded by republican institutions’.75

  The fact was that the July Monarchy was not to go in this direction. As Carrel

  quickly realized, the intention of Louis-Philippe’s ministers, especially Guizot, was

  to make a return to the Charte of 1814, minus only the principle of divine right.

  France was not to have Carrel’s formula but rather ‘a monarchy surrounded by

  constitutional institutions’. It was this realization that pushed Carrel into the ranks

  of the opposition and then, as we shall see, on to an endorsement of republicanism.

  In the first instance, however, the source of Carrel’s displeasure was what he

  contemptuously referred to as the party of ‘peace at any price’ and the government’s

  adamant refusal to carry the principles of the Revolution to the rest of Europe.76

  The specific issue was how France was to respond to the popular uprisings in

  Belgium and Poland: the broader question concerned the relevance of revolutionary

  nationalism.

  A foretaste of how Carrel was to respond to the European revolutions of 1830

  was provided immediately prior to the fall of the Bourbon dynasty. In June 1830,

  Charles X, desperately courting popularity, dispatched French troops to Algeria on

  the somewhat spurious grounds that the Dey of Algiers had been providing

  sanctuary for Mediterranean pirates. Liberals, including Thiers in Le National, at

  first denounced the expedition, perceiving its ultimate domestic purpose and

  fearing war with England, only for them to find the idea of a French colony to

  be irresistible. Carrel was no exception to this rule. Discounting fears that a

  victorious army—the ‘national’ army—would be used by the counter-revolution-

  aries to crush opposition in France, what he saw and what he believed that the rest

  of Europe would see in the ‘African campaign’ was ‘the France that the Revolution

  had made’, a France of immense resources, a young army, and a revolutionary

  spirit.77

  After the July Revolution, Carrel’s basic position was that the international order

  of Europe could not be allowed to date from the Treaty of Vienna and from

  74 Ibid. ii. 95. Carrel made it clear as early as Feb. 1830 that his interpretation of the sovereignty of

  the people was not to be understood as a Rousseauian vision of direct democracy.

  75 Ibid. ii. 107–14.

  76 Louis-Philippe, as well as his ambassador to England, Talleyrand, quickly appreciated that peace

  could only be preserved if France did not seek to use the Belgian revolt against the Netherlands as an

  excuse to annex the Belgian provinces. The Treaty of London established Belgium as an independent

  and neutral power. Talleyrand was less successful in the case of Poland where his proposals for an

  independent Poland were firmly rejected by the other Great Powers. In Sept. 1831 the Russians retook

  Warsaw.

  77 Carrel, Œuvres politiques et littéraires, i. 46–51, 89–96, 121–6.

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  Universalism, the Nation, and Defeat

  France’s defeat at Waterloo. ‘The expulsion of the Bourbons, who signed the

  infamous treaties of 1814’, he wrote, ‘entails the revision of these treaties. It is a

  duty for us to ask for, to demand their immediate revision.’78 The new regime, in

  other words, was not bound by the arrangements that had been imposed upon

  France in a situation of abject humiliation and which had been agreed to by rulers

  imposed upon a hostile population. ‘Never’, Carrel complained, ‘will a more

  inhumane cunning better calculate all the conditions of a permanent degradation

  of a nation without allies.’79 To submit to these conditions, as the new government

  appeared ready to do, was therefore to accept that France was to be placed amongst

  the ‘second rank’ and that she was forever to be subject to the dictates of the Holy

  Alliance. ‘If they could divide us up’, Carrel wrote, ‘they would do it; if we could

  not defend Paris, they would raze it to the ground . . . they only want us as ruined,

  enchained, humbled supplicants.’80 In short, the European powers would go to war

  to keep France within the boundaries of the post-Napoleonic settlement.

  1830 was thus as much a rejection of the dominance of the Holy Alliance as it

  was of the principles of the Restoration. To that end, Carrel was prepared to reject

  nothing of the previous ‘forty years’ of French history: Valmy, Austerlitz, Waterloo,

  ‘the battle outside Algiers under the white flag’, were all part of a past in which the

  France that had not emigrated and that had remained true to itself had stood up

  against Europe. Carrel therefore had no time for those who believed that, at best,

  France could fight a defensive war from within the borders of 1814. ‘The Revolu-

  tion’, he declared, ‘can only defend itself through attack. This was the instinctive

  French cry in 1792 and still this time there is only salvation for us if we strike the

  first blows.’81 Diplomacy would settle nothing and thus the responsibility of the

  new government was to impose a recognition of the changed balance of forces now

  operating in Europe upon France’s enemies.

  True to the messianism of the revolutionary tradition, Carrel believed that, of all

  the modern nations, it was France that was most blessed with ideas, activity, and

  intelligence, and to this was to be added an unequalled geographical position,

  excellent military institutions, and ‘the staunchest and most extensive warlike

  spirit’. France’s course of action would of necessity be that of ‘a nation which

  wishes the liberty of others as a guarantee of its own liberty’ and therefore her

  actions would rekindle ‘the hopes of European liberty’. Thus, from the outset

  Carrel not only supported the Belgian uprising against the Dutch but also advo-

  cated French military intervention in what he saw as a ‘neighbouring revolution’,

  equally intent upon removing ‘the odious yoke’ imposed by the Congress of

  Vienna. ‘Belgium’, he wrote, ‘is on our doorstep: its revolution and ours are

  interdependent.’82

  But there was more to Carrel’s enthusiasm for the Belgian struggle than the

  recognition that the Belgians faced the same opponents as the French. At its most

  immediate level, Belgian independence could be justified in terms of the right of

  every nation to self-determination.83 To this consideration Carrel appended a less

  78 Carrel, Œuvres politiques et littéraires, ii. 186.

  79 Ibid. i. 397.

  80 Ibid. ii. 159–65.

  81 Ibid. i. 388–94.

  82 Ibid. ii. 199–204.

  83 Ibid. i. 340.

  Universalism, the Nation, and Defeat

  217

  altruistic preoccupation born out of the Revolution of 1789. For Carrel, France’s

  ‘incomparable situation’ derived from her position between what he described as

  ‘two seas and its impregnable natural frontiers’.84 One of these frontiers was ‘the

  barrier of the Rhine’. The questions that Carrel set before the Belgians as a

  consequence were quite simple: ‘are you a distinct people capable of ensuring

  that its existence will be respected? You have neighbours: do you have frontiers?’85


  Carrel’s answer was that it was highly unlikely that Belgium could secure its

  national and territorial independence and therefore that its ‘honour and security’

  would best be safeguarded by sharing in ‘our riches, our name, our civilization, our

  future, our certain predominance in Europe’.86 His preferred option, then, was the

  ‘reunification’ of Belgium and France.

  Carrel accepted that this was an improbable outcome and that the Belgians were

  wary of France’s intentions but as the months passed he became increasingly

  concerned that the government of the day had not even the courage to ensure

  the establishment of an independent Belgium capable of defending itself. ‘We have

  renounced’, he wrote in April 1831, ‘the task of protecting our natural borders.’87

  Some consolation was forthcoming when French troops were sent into Belgium to

  drive out the invading Dutch army but again Carrel was to complain that the

  justification provided was unduly apologetic. Invasion, he stated bluntly, was in

  ‘the interest of the revolution’; it served to protect French territory from surprise

  attack; and it supported a ‘sister revolution’; but to argue, as had been done, that

  France was defending the Belgian King Leopold I was ‘ridiculous’.88

  Moreover, the dishonour done to France by this policy of inaction was com-

  pounded by similar responses to the other popular uprisings that spread across

  Europe in the months following the July Revolution. Carrel advocated assistance

  for Italian claims against Austria and fought a lengthy journalistic campaign in

  support of Poland’s fight to recover its ‘liberty and national existence’.89 The Poles,

  he argued, were the French of the North. Their cause was France’s cause. The two

  nations were ‘brothers in arms’. Poland’s struggle against Russia, Austria, and

  Prussia struck at the very heart of the Holy Alliance. Furthermore, Poland had

  natural borders, the Dnieper and the Dwina, and, like all other nations, had the

  right to free itself from foreign oppression. To have abandoned Poland, Carrel

  believed, was ‘a national crime’.90

  Carrel’s overall conclusion was that the monarchical powers, having turned back

  the revolutionary tide in Belgium, Italy, and Poland, would be content to let France

  die of starvation. This in turn led to the articulation of a stridently nationalist

  message. ‘The country before everything’, he declared, ‘the defence of the soil, the

  purity of the soil, because the foreigner cannot take a step on it without defiling it;

  the unity, the integrity of the soil before everything else.’91 To that end, new

  84 Ibid. 321.

  85 Ibid. ii. 30–2.

  86 Ibid. 32.

  87 Ibid. 201.

  88 Ibid. 340–4.

  89 Carrel’s articles on Poland from Le National were repr. with a preface by Ladislas Mickiewicz: see

  Les Articles d’Armand Carrel pour la Pologne (1862).

  90 Carrel, Œuvres politiques et littéraires, i. 417–24, 426–30; ii. 49–57, 153–65, 403–25.

  91 Ibid. ii. 429.

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  Universalism, the Nation, and Defeat

  policies and a new government were required and from July 1831 Carrel took up

  the call for the formation of ‘a ministry of the left’. It was at this point, as Carrel

  began the relatively short journey that was to lead to his conversion to republican-

  ism, that a more general distancing of nationalism from liberalism could be

  discerned.

  Writing in November 1832 Carrel commented that, at its inception, the writers

  of Le National had believed that the end of the ‘legitimist’ regime would be brought

  about by a ‘French 1688’. In line with this perspective, Carrel had initially

  acknowledged the parallel, only for him soon afterwards to argue that nothing

  more than superficial agreement was possible between the governmental principles

  of France and England. Then, as his opposition to Guizot intensified, he poured

  scorn upon those who wished to imitate the English model.92 At first, his central

  point was that England and France were different countries with markedly different

  histories. Crucially, in England the aristocracy had thrown in its lot with the people

  (thereby producing the renowned three-way balance of power); in France, by

  contrast, the aristocracy in 1789 had fled, becoming ‘Austrian, Prussian, English,

  out of hatred for their French name’. Thus, to replicate the English model was to

  side with the representatives of anti-France and of anti-democratic sentiment.

  Pressed further, Carrel went on to comment that, if the Revolution of 1830 had

  been the defeat of a dynasty that had opposed the principles of 1789, it likewise

  represented a rejection of ‘the constitutional monarchy based upon the English

  system’.93 Yet, as Carrel’s displeasure with the government of Casimir-Périer

  intensified, he concluded that an ‘elected monarchy’ was no better than a ‘legitimist

  monarchy’. It was just as ‘irresponsible’, just as capable of abusing power and of

  thwarting the wishes of an elected chamber. ‘The private interests of the elected

  monarchy’, he wrote, ‘have greater affinity with the doctrines of the Holy Alliance

  than they do with the principles of liberty, civilization, and social amelioration.’ In

  article after article he pointed out the colossal cost and waste entailed by the

  Orleanist monarchy and then, with almost obsessive detail, followed and criticized

  the plans to fortify Paris. The intention, he argued, was not to defend the capital

  from foreign aggression but to protect the monarchy from the populace. Finally, in

  an article entitled ‘Identité de la Contre-Révolution et du Principe Monarchique’,94

  he reached the conclusion that the July Monarchy was as much on the side of

  counter-revolution as had been the regime of Charles X.

  Faced with what he continued to regard as the ‘provisional’ nature of Louis-

  Philippe’s reign—‘La Révolution de 1830 est-elle totalement détruite?’ demanded

  the title of one of his best articles in Le National—from June 1832 onwards Carrel

  was unequivocal in his support of what he characterized as ‘the government of the

  country by the country’ but which more specifically he identified as the Republic.95

  The Republic alone, he wrote in March 1833, is ‘the government of the nation by

  the nation, the government of France by herself, and France will not be terrified of

  herself, will not loathe herself, will not be frightened of her own shadow’.96 It was,

  92 Carrel, Œuvres politiques et littéraires, 114–23.

  93 Ibid. 110, 292–301, 379–87.

  94 Ibid. 485–97.

  95 Ibid. 123–30, 180–205, 311–12.

  96 Ibid. 382.

  Universalism, the Nation, and Defeat

  219

  in sum, the most complete expression of representative government and of the

  duty of government ‘to conform like a slave to the wishes of the real majority’.

  The Republic was, moreover, a system of government compatible with the order,

  prosperity, and glory of the country.

  To the charge that France and her people did not have the virtues required for

  living in a republic, Carrel had two answers. First, it was rather the case that France

>   no longer had all the vices necessary to sustain a monarchy. Second, the combina-

  tion of a vigorous, serious-minded young generation and a proletariat daily giving

  proof of its maturity and moderation was sufficient to ensure that a new republic

  would not degenerate into another Committee of Public Safety. Therefore, if Carrel

  saw no affinities between his position and those of ‘Robespierre, leader of the

  triumvirate of the Terror’, he did see parallels between his views and that of

  ‘Robespierre, the theoretician’. They shared, he wrote in what was his most

  elaborate statement of general policy, Extrait du Dossier d’un prévenu de complicité

  morale,97 ‘the same goal, the same wish, the same end: the more equal distribution

  of property, the more complete triumph of the political equality, the moral

  regeneration of the rich and the poor, social reform as the end, political reform as

  the means’.98 How, then, could the descent of the Robespierrean project into terror

  be explained? According to Carrel, it derived from the fact that the people had been

  reduced to a ‘passive nation’, to the status of ‘inactive citizens’. The Revolution had

  served only ‘bourgeois interests’, thereby encouraging the people to believe that

  their aims could only be attained through ‘the dictatorship of a minority’.

  Much of what Carrel wrote in the few years of life that remained to him seemed

  designed to avoid a recurrence of this tragedy. Scattered among the articles dealing

  with his numerous court appearances, his (ultimately fatal) squabbles with his

  fellow journalists, and his ceaseless campaign to defend freedom of the press,

  were those that spoke passionately of the plight of the urban poor and of their

  disillusionment with the Orleanist regime. ‘We explain the lack of hope of the

  people of Lyons by their misery’, he wrote, ‘their misery by the bad laws which

  favour unproductive property and put the burden of taxation upon a man that

  eighteen hours work a day scarcely nourishes.’99 The people were condemned to

  live and die like abandoned beings. A nation united before 1830 in its opposition to

  the Bourbon monarchy had been divided into ‘people and bourgeois . . . property

  owner and proletarian, middle class and lower class’ and all in the interest of