The Reception of Considerations: A Constitutional Historiography of the French Revolution (1818–1848)

Takeda, Chinatsu

doi:10.1007/978-981-10-8087-6_13

The Reception of Considerations: A Constitutional Historiography of the French Revolution (1818–1848)

Chinatsu Takeda²

Chapter
First Online: 01 August 2018

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Abstract

This chapter states that, despite the moderates’ disagreements about individual aspects of Considerations, they at least rallied to Staël’s liberal political thought, encapsulated in her politico-constitutional historical account of the French Revolution, as is the case with late twentieth-century revisionist historians. What matters in this account is the view that hereditary peerage might play a key role in preserving liberty against the almighty sovereign authority, either that of a monarch or the first chamber. In addition, the moderates identified with Staël’s inquiry on how the 1789 Revolution could have been avoided. Accordingly, they were specifically drawn to her analysis of the immediate political circumstances of the French monarchy after 1750 leading to the 1789 Revolution between 1818 and 1845.

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Notes

1.
François Furet, Penser la revolution française, (Paris: Gallimard, 1978), Débats autour de la Révolution, reprinted in La Révolution française, (Paris: Gallimard, 2007), 821–915 and La Révolution en débat, (Paris: Gallimard, 1999), 34. In English, François Furet, Interpreting the French Revolution, (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 1981).
2.
On the critical review of François Furet’s thought, Michael Scott Christofferson, “An Antitotalitarian History of the French Revolution: François Furet’s ‘Penser la Révolution française’ in the Intellectual Politics of the Late 1970s,” French Historical Studies, vol. 22, no. 4 (Autumn, 1999), 557–611; Isser Woloch, “On the Latent Illiberalism of the French Revolution,” The American Historical Review, vol. 95, no. 5 (December 1990), 1452–1470.
3.
Staël, Considérations, ed. Godechot . More recently, another critical version has been published: Staël, Germaine de, Considérations sur les principaux événements de la Révolution française, ed. Lucia Omacini, vol. III-II-1 and 2, Oeuvres complète, (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2017).
4.
Staël, Considerations, ed. Craiutu.
5.
Thibaudet, Les idées politiques, 49.
6.
Charles de Rémusat, Mémoire de ma vie, vol. I (1797–1820), 342.
7.
Thibaudet, Les idées politiques, 49.
8.
Berlin, Isaiah, “Maistre,” Freedom and its Betrayal: Six Enemies of Human Liberty, ed. Henry Hardy, (Princeton: Princeton U.P., 2014), 151.
9.
Massimo Boffa, “Maistre,” Dictionnaire critique, 1013–1019; Maistre, Considerations on France, 72.
10.
Maistre , Considerations on France, 71.
11.
Jean Charles Dominique de Lacretelle, Histoire de France pendant le XVIII siècle, 6 vol. (Paris: Buisson, 1810–12). For a summary of his thought in English, “Review of Histoire de France pendant le dix-huitième siècle by Charles Lacretelle,” The Quarterly Review, 11, April 1814, 138–178.
12.
Lacretelle. Histoire de France, vol. 1, 147.
13.
Ibid., 145, 147.
14.
Ibid., 131–132.
15.
Staël, Considerations, I-III, 46.
16.
Staël, De l’influence des passions, O.C.b, vol. I-I, 140–141.
17.
“Eighteenth-century overview,” The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought, ed. Adrian Hastings, Alistair Mason and Hugh Pyper, (Oxford: Oxford U.P., 2000), 195–199.
18.
“The second extract of Considerations,” Le moniteur, June 17, 1818.
19.
Ibid.
20.
Ibid.
21.
“Politique spéciale: Considérations (1er article),” Les Archives philosophiques, politiques et littéraires, vol. III, 415–416.
22.
Ibid., 420.
23.
Marc Antoine Julien, “Œuvres complètes de Madame de Staël,” La revue encyclopédique, no. 16, 1822, 526.
24.
Ibid., 526–527.
25.
Ibid., 526.
26.
Lacretelle, Histoire de France, 101.
27.
Julien, La Révue encyclopédique, no. 16, 1822, 526.
28.
“The habit of living at court, or the desire of getting therer, forms their minds to vanity.” “But a mania of vanity, something like that of a man of letters, prompted the French to innovate in this respect.” Staël, Considerations, II-II, 179–180.
29.
Maleyssie , Observations, 8–9.
30.
Ibid., 10.
31.
Tribouillard, Tombeau, 115–117.
32.
It includes Gazette de France, La quotidienne, Le conservateur and Louis de Bonald.
33.
Norman King, “Sismondi critique des Considérations,” Cahiers staëliens, no. 17, 63–64; Tribouillard, Tombeau, 153.
34.
Roland de Mortier, “Constant et les lumières,” Europe, no. 467, March 1968, 14.
35.
Tribouillard, Tombeau, 153.
36.
Constant wrote three articles devoted to Considérations. B. Constant, Recueil d’articles, 1817–1820: Le Mercure, La Minerve et la Renommée, ed. Ephraïm Harpaz., vol. I, (Geneva: Droz, 1972), 407–412, 450–461, 469–478; Ibid., 409.
37.
Ibid., 452.
38.
Bailleul, Examen critique, 1818, vol. 1, 166.
39.
Ibid., 1818, vol. 1, 176.
40.
Ibid., 1818, vol. 1, 188.
41.
Ibid., 1818, vol. 1, 201.
42.
Ibid., 1818, vol. 1, 203–204.
43.
Bonald, Observations, 128.
44.
Maleyssie , Observations, 75.
45.
Bonald, Observations, 128.
46.
Maleyssie , Observations, 75.
47.
Ibid., 76.
48.
Le moniteur, June 17.
49.
Ibid.
50.
Ibid.
51.
Staël, Considérations, I-V, 63, I-XI, 108–109.
52.
Le moniteur, June 17.
53.
Ibid.
54.
Ibid.
55.
Ibid.
56.
King, “Sismondi,” 69.
57.
Ibid., 69.
58.
Ibid., 69.
59.
Bailleul, Examen critique, 1818, vol. 1, 79–82.
60.
Tribouillard, “Considérations,” 239.
61.
Bailleul, Examen critique, 1818, vol. 1, 114–115.
62.
See Chap. 8 of this book.
63.
“De l’influence attribuée aux philosophes, aux franc-maçons et aux illuminés sur la révolution de France: par J.-J. Mounier,” Les Archives, vol. III, 54–55; Guizot, “De l’influence,” Les Archives, vol. III, 54–55.
64.
Charles de Rémusat, “De l’influence du dernier ouvrage de madame de Staël sur la jeune opinion publique,” Les Archives, vol. V, 1818, 35.
65.
Ibid., 32.
66.
Siedentop, Tocqueville, 20–40.
67.
Guillaume-Honoré Rocques de Montgaillard, Histoire de France depuis la fin du règne de Louis XVI jusqu’à l’année 1825, vol. 1, (Paris: Moutardier, 1827), 828.
68.
Montgaillard , “preface,” Histoire de France, vol. 1, 5.
69.
Ibid., vol. 1, 468; Ibid., vol. 2, 127, (Paris: Moutardier, 1828).
70.
Ibid., vol. 2, 128.
71.
Ibid., vol. 2, 450.
72.
Ibid., vol. 2, 127.
73.
Ibid., vol. 3, (Paris: Moutardier, 1828), 468.
74.
Charles de Lacretelle , Histoire de l’assemblée constituante, (Paris: Treutelle et Würtz, 1821) and Histoire de la Révolution française, (Paris: Treutelle et Würtez, 1821–1826); Alexandre Lameth, Histoire de l’assemblée constituante, (Paris: Montardier, 1828–1829).
75.
See Montgaillard’s brother’s “préface,” the reedited version of Histoire de France in 1832–33; Guillaume-Honoré Rocques Montgaillard, L’histoire de France depuis la fin du règne de Louis XVI jusqu’à l’année 1825 par l’abbé de Montgaillard; continuée jusqu’à nos jours par son frère le Cte de Montgaillard, (Paris: Moutardier, 1832–1833).
76.
Godechot , “introduction,” Staël, Considérations, 31. “Le cabinet d’octobre 1832, qui réunit Guizot et le duc Victor de Broglie, consacre l’avènement politique de Mme de Staël; mais son règne s’arrête là.” Albert Sorel, Mme de Staël, 199.
77.
“Montgaillard ,” Le Globe, vol. IV, no. 91, March 13, 1827, 484.
78.
Droz emphasizes the primacy of political institutions: “what presented extreme difficulties was to teach...what laws would assure general happiness.” Joseph Droz, Histoire du règne de Louis XVI où l’on pouvait prévenir ou diriger la Révolution française, (Paris: Jules Renauard et Cie libraires, Paris, 1839), vol. 2, 141.
79.
Droz had access to Malouet’s personal memoirs, which had not yet been published.
80.
Droz , Histoire du règne de Louis XVI, vol. 1, “introduction,” 7.
81.
Ibid., vol. 2, 141.
82.
Ibid., vol. 2, 141.
83.
Ibid. , vol. 1, 57.
84.
Ibid., vol. 1 57.
85.
Ibid., vol. 2, 277.
86.
Ibid., vol. 2, 100.
87.
Ibid., vol. 2, 226.
88.
Ibid., vol. 2, 162–163.
89.
Ibid., vol. 2, 123 and 347–348.
90.
Ibid., vol. 3, 474–475.
91.
Ibid., vol. 3, 474–475.
92.
Staël, Considerations, II-XVII, 254–255.
93.
William fortescue, France and 1848: The End of Monarchy, (London and New York: Routledge, 2005), 30.
94.
Droz , Histoire du règne de Louis XVI, vol. 2, 103.
95.
Staël, “Did France possess a constitution before the Revolution?” Considerations, I-XI, 96–111; Jennings, “Constitutional liberalism ,” 349–373.
96.
Ibid., 349.

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Faculty of Comparative Culture, Otsuma Women’s University, Tokyo, Japan
Chinatsu Takeda

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Takeda, C. (2018). The Reception of Considerations: A Constitutional Historiography of the French Revolution (1818–1848). In: Mme de Staël and Political Liberalism in France. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8087-6_13

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8087-6_13
Published: 01 August 2018
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore
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Online ISBN: 978-981-10-8087-6
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