Abstract
In the wake of Guizot’s favorable reaction to the sixth part of Considerations, Prosper de Barante, a center-leftist peer and doctrinaire, turned Staël’s sketchy description of Britain’s local self-rule into a series of pragmatic policy proposals centered on heredity peerage and general councils (departmental assemblies). He confirmed that local liberty contributes primarily to nurturing civic-mindedness and patriotism among the ruling elite. He felt that the French départements, which he compared to parishes, were the administrative units of local self-rule in Britain. This was a school of democracy where citizens learned to interact with one another beyond social and political differences. Consequently, Barante developed a communal liberalism in which participation in local administrative duties constitutes a rich source of social interdependence and civic-mindedness and a barrier against the social influence of the centralized administrative state over citizens’ ethical independence. Finally, he was constrained by the aristocratic nature of Orleanist liberalism that denied universal manhood suffrage for electing local officials as proposed by Staël. Barante’s communal liberalism therefore lacks democratic spirit.
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Notes
- 1.
Rosanvallon , Le moment Guizot, 75–82; Paul Bénichou, Le sacre de l’écrivain: 1750–1830, (Paris: Gallimard, 1996).
- 2.
Philosophie des sciences historiques, ed. Marcel Gauchet, (Lille: Presses universitaires de Septentrion/Opuscules, 1988), 27.
- 3.
Dijn, French Political, 40–88.
- 4.
On the whole, as many as forty-five bills on décentralisation were proposed to the first chamber in Restoration France. Pourthas, Les projets, 326.
- 5.
Dijn, “The Intellectual Origins,” 1–25; Charles-Hippolyte Pouthas, “Les projets de réforme administrative sous la Restauration,” Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine, 1–5, 1926, 327.
- 6.
François Burdeau, Liberté, Libertés locales chéries!, (Paris: Editions Cujasm, 1983), 80–81; Vivien A. Schmidt, Democratizing France: The Political and Administrative History of Decentralization, (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 1991), 25–29.
- 7.
Quotation from Léon Aucoc, Les controverse sur la décentralisation administrative, (Paris: Bureau de la revue politique et parlementaire, 1855), 32; Royer-Collard, La vie politique, vol. II, 130–131; Aurelian Craiutu, “Rethinking political power: the case of the French doctrinaires,” European Journal of Political Theory, 2-2, April 2003, 17.
- 8.
Lucien Jaume, Tocqueville, (Paris: Fayard, 2008), 43–54.
- 9.
Siedentop, Tocqueville, 35; Louis Girard, Les libéraux français (1814–1875), (Paris: Aubier, 1985), 77.
- 10.
“Du pouvoir municipal, des autorités locales et d’un nouveau genre de fédéralisme,” “Principes de politique applicables à tous les gouvernements représentatifs et particulièrement à la constitution actuelle de la France 1815,” Constant, Ecrits politiques, 423–430.
- 11.
Benjamin Constant, Chapitre 12, “Du pouvoir municipal,” Principes de politique (1815), Oeuvres, 1155.
- 12.
Constant, Ecrits politiques, 429.
- 13.
Ibid., 429.
- 14.
Ibid., 429.
- 15.
Oechslin J.-J. and Rudolf Von Thadden, La centralisation contestée, l’administration napoléonienne, enjeu politique de la Retauration (1814–1830), trans. Hélène Cusa and Patrick Charbonneau (Arles: Actes Sud, 1989), 239–263.
- 16.
Pouthas, “Les projets,” 351; Waresquiel and Yvert, Histoire de la Restauration, 318–321.
- 17.
Waresquiel and Yvert, Histoire de la Restauration, 320.
- 18.
Guizot , M. de Barante, (Paris: Claye, 1867), 14.
- 19.
Staël, “Comte rendu: Barante, Tableau de la littérature française pendant le dix-huitième siècle (1809),” O.Cb. vol. I-II, 497–502; Blennerhassett, Madame de Staël et son temps, vol. III, 238–240.
- 20.
Dijn, French Political, 105–110.
- 21.
Prosper de Barante, Des communes et de l’aristocratie, (Paris: Ladvocat, 1821)a, 148.
- 22.
Ibid., 109.
- 23.
Ibid., 149.
- 24.
“You have to … find out how income would be necessary to give you enough independence and enlightenment, to choose the delegates of local interests. The election remains free. However, the man who is honored is the delegate of the people.” Ibid., 176–177a.
- 25.
Barante’s way of thinking recalls that of Necker as well. Necker , De l’administration des finances, IV, 25; Blennerhasette, Mme de Staël et son temps, vol. I, 133.
- 26.
“A communal administration devoted even more to our morals than to the consecration of our private interests. It is a matter of creating a public desire in harmony with our form of government, rather than providing them with ramparts and defence.” Barante, “Preface,” Des Communes, 1821, Xa.
- 27.
Ibid., 29a.
- 28.
Ibid., 18a. Guizot , Des moyens de gouvernement et d’opposition dans l’état actuel de la France, (Paris: Belin, 1987), 340. Guizot writes about the same problem concerned with the upper-class idle youth.
- 29.
Barante, Des communes, 1821, 148a.
- 30.
Prosper de Barante, De la littérature française pendant le XVIII siècle, (Paris: Ladvocat, 1824), 65, 125.
- 31.
Barante, Des Communes, 1821, 60.
- 32.
In 1816, Bonald spoke in the parliament that commuens and their powers were anterior to the state. Tocqueville and other contemporaries agreed to this viewpoint, assuming that communes existed in all kinds of society since the beginning of humanity. Louis de Bonald, Théorie de l’éducation sociale et de l’administration publique, (Paris: union générale d’éditions, 1796), 436; Tocqueville, D.A, oeuvres, vol. 1, 96; Henrion de Pensey, Du pouvoir municipal et de la police intérieure des communes, (Paris: The Barrois père, 1824), 34. See also Burdeau, Liberté, 77.
- 33.
Lucien Jaume, Tocqueville, (Paris: Fayard, 2008), 44–54.
- 34.
Thus, the law of 28 pluviôse the year VIII (February 17, 1800) organized communes in terms of the lowest administrative unit. Godechot, Les institutions de la Frane, 516–520.
- 35.
Barante, Des communes, 1829b, 252.
- 36.
Ibid., 1829b, 177–178.
- 37.
The départments’ duties are “to enforce laws and manage matters of local interest.” Ibid., 250b.
- 38.
Ibid., 1829b, 147.
- 39.
Ibid., 1829b, 147.
- 40.
Ibid., 1829b, 157.
- 41.
De l’esprit d’association dans tous les intérêts de la communauté was published in 1818, 1821, and 1834. Alexandre de La Borde, De l’esprit d’association dans tous les intérêts de la communauté, (Paris: Librairie Gide, 1818).
- 42.
Alexandre de La Borde, “preface,” De l’esprit, IV.
- 43.
Ibid., 69.
- 44.
Ibid., 67.
- 45.
Ibid., 68.
- 46.
Ibid., 69.
- 47.
Ibid., 69–70.
- 48.
Auguste de Staël, Lettres sur l’Angleterre, (Paris: Treuttel et Wûrtz, 1829), 114.
- 49.
Ibid., 114.
- 50.
Ibid., 114–115.
- 51.
Ibid., 115.
- 52.
Ibid., 115.
- 53.
Ibid., 115.
- 54.
Ibid., 116.
- 55.
Waresquiel, Un groupe, 176. This bill, however, provoked strong opposition on the part of libéraux such as B. Constant.
- 56.
Ibid., 208.
- 57.
Constant wrote: “The chamber of peers is inactive … during the separation of that of the deputies; but it exists, and it is something: it is more than we think.” Constant, “De l’hérédité de la pairie,” Ecrits politiques, 535. Waresquiel, Un group, 168.
- 58.
Sherman Kent, The Election of 1827 in France, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard U.P., 1975).
- 59.
Le Globe: journal philosophique et littéraire, vol. VI, no. 29, February 2, 1828, 169–170.
- 60.
Le Globe, vol. VI, no. 53, April 26, 1828.
- 61.
R.R. Palmer, “The Two Tocquevilles on France and America,” Revue française d’études américaines, no. 34, (November 87), 565–576 and Hervé and Alexis de Tocqueville, The Two Tocquevilles Father and Son: Hervé and Alxis de Tocqueville, ed. R.R. Palmer, (Princeton: Princeton U.P., 2014).
- 62.
Hervé de Tocqueville, De la charte provinciale, (Paris: J.-J. Blaise, 1829).
- 63.
Ibid., 29–30.
- 64.
Ibid., 5.
- 65.
Ibid., 12.
- 66.
Ibid. , 8–9.
- 67.
Ibid., 11.
- 68.
Barante, Des communes, 1829, 58–59b.
- 69.
Waresquiel, Un groupe d’hommes, 168.
- 70.
Barante, Des communes, 1829, 81b.
- 71.
Ibid., 1829, 176b.
- 72.
Ibid., 1829, 71–72b.
- 73.
Barante, Ibid., “preface,” 1829, XV, and 144–160b.
- 74.
Ibid., 1829, 138b.
- 75.
Ibid., 1829, 29b.
- 76.
Barante explained that the second version was quite different from the 1821 version because of “changed political circumstances.” Barante, “préface,” Ibid., c 1829, viib.
- 77.
Ibid., 1829, 175b.
- 78.
Necker , De l’administration des finances, IV, 25.
- 79.
Craitu, Le Centre, 279.
- 80.
Grange, Les idées de Necker, 372–373.
- 81.
In the original manuscript of Considerations, Staël embraced the democratic feature of the jury system as well as its positive role in allowing laws embraced by the whole population, which was struck most probably by the editors. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Nouvelles acquisitions françaises, 14606-8.
- 82.
“Des communes et de l’aristocratie par M. de Barante, pair de France, Nouvelle édition (1829),” Le Globe, t.VII, no. 17, February 28, 1829, 131.
- 83.
Ibid.
- 84.
Ibid.
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Takeda, C. (2018). Barante’s Moment: The Advent of Communal Liberalism in 1829. In: Mme de Staël and Political Liberalism in France. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8087-6_9
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