Rural Society and French Politics: Boulangism and the Dreyfus Affair, 1886-1900

256 Pages·1984·23.507 MB·English

by  Michael Burns

RURAL SOCIETY AND
FRENCH POLITICS

MICHAEL BURNS
RURAL SOCIETY AND
FRENCH POLITICS
BOULANGISM AND
THE DREYFUS AFFAIR
1886-1900
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY
Copyright © 1984 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street,
Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press,
Guildford, Surrey
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data will be
found on the last printed page of this book
ISBN 0-691-05423-1
Publication of this book has been aided by a grant from
the National Endowment for the Humanities
This book has been composed in Linotron Baskerville
Clothbound editions of Princeton University Press books
are printed on acid-free paper, and binding materiah are
chosen for strength and durability
Printed in the United States of America
by Princeton University Press
Princeton, New Jersey
For Frank, Mary Lou,
and Pamela

CONTENTS
PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Vll
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS X
ABBREVIATIONS Xli
INTRODUCTION 3
PART ONE
THE RURALIZATION OF MODERN FRANCE
I. COUNTRY PEOPLE, COUNTRY WAYS 19
II. TOUR DE FRANCE: GERS, ORNE, ISERE, MARNE 38
PART TWO
BOULANGISM
III. SIGHTS AND SOUNDS 57
IV. THE RURAL LEGACY 88
PART THREE
THE DREYFUS AFFAIR
V. OLD LEGENDS AND NEW MYTHS 121
VI. DIFFERENCE AND INDIFFERENCE 128
CONCLUSION 165
NOTES 177
BIBLIOGRAPHY 219
INDEX 241
PREFACE AND
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I came to France by way of England. In 1969 a friend urged me to
read Leonard Woolf s autobiography, and a year later we toured the
Sussex Downs over which Leonard and Virginia had hiked decades
before. In 1975 I crossed the Channel for the first time to visit David
Garnett, novelist and octogenarian survivor of the Bloomsbury group
then living in southwestern France near the small village of Moncuq,
a place as charming as its name. On my walk up the steep, unpaved
road which linked Garnett's house in the hinterlands to the village, I
looked out to a patchwork of green and yellow fields. My impressions
were aesthetic, those of a tourist who appreciates the scenery but knows
little about French peasants living on isolated farms, and still less about
the land they till, their traditions, their politics. A year later, in a
California classroom, I would be inspired to learn more about that
rural world by a new guide who had also come to France by way of
England (and Rumania); I am indebted to Eugen Weber for his support
and encouragement.
At Yale, three eminent historians of modern Europe directed this
work through its dissertation stage: John Merriman, with his expert
grasp of social change in nineteenth century France; Peter Gay, who
patiently urged me to look beyond my narrow village boundaries and
consider rural political cultures in a broad European context; and
Robert Herbert, a distinguished art historian with a superb under
standing of French social history to complement his knowledge of
pigment and provenance. The willingness of an iminence grise to plod
through my early drafts was matched only by her desire to introduce
me to the people and potables of France she knows so well: Susanna
Barrows, a fine historian and dear friend, took care of my shyness
abroad and my passive voice at home.
A Fulbright Grant and Tocqueville Award from the French-Amer
ican Foundation enabled me to begin research in Paris and four de-
partements in 1979-80. I returned to France in 1982 for further work
in the Vendee and Orne thanks to a National Endowment for the
Humanities Summer Stipend and a Mount Holyoke College Faculty
Grant. During both visits, I received gracious and expert assistance at
νϋϊ PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
the Archives Nationales, Archives de la prefecture de Police, Paris,
Bibliotheque Nationale, Musee national des arts et traditions popu­
lates, Musee Carnavalet, and the departmental archives of the Isere,
Gers, Marne, Orne, Savoie, and Vendee. M. Dupraz, assistant archivist
in the Isere, was an excellent critic and delightful dinner companion;
and M. Lemee, director of the Gers archives, kindly invited me to his
home adjoining the ancient monastery which now contains the histor­
ical documents of the Gers. I also wish to thank my other French hosts:
Jeanne Innes Kaqueler, Margitta Matthes, and Jacqueline Weber in
Paris; the Debas, Longo, and Fiard clans in Chambery; and, above all,
Pierre Delaunay and his family for so many enjoyable fall and winter
weekends in the Savoie.
At home, two friends and former co-workers, Brenda Vaccaro and
Sandy Dennis, helped ease my transition from one career to another,
and for more reasons than I have space or eloquence to list I am
grateful to them both. Martine Richard did an excellent job of deci­
phering my revisions and unraveling my bizarre bibliographical notes.
Ted Margadant offered many insights into the complexities of struc­
tural transformations in the nineteenth-century countryside, and Pa­
trick Hutton taught me a great deal about Boulangism and mass pol­
itics. Ingeborg Day, an accomplished writer and editor, and a
granddaughter of Austrian peasants, helped shape the form and con­
tent of these pages. The Sterling Library at Yale, the Williston Me­
morial Library at Mount Holyoke College, and the New York Public
and Yale Club libraries in New York provided important materials in
friendly settings. Finally, I have dedicated this book to my father,
mother, and sister because they have been unflagging in their support
and because T. S. Eliot was right, "Home is where one starts from."
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
ι. La Mouson, Lhermitte
(reprinted in French Painters, New York. Public Library,
1931) 27
2. Almanach Boulanger
(H. Roger Viollet, Paris) 62
3. Le Coup de Balai
(Archives Nationales, Paris) 66
4. La Mort se rend a la ville
(reprinted in Champfleury, Hutoire de I'imagerie popuhire,
Paris, 1869) 68
5. Louis XIV
(reprinted in Champfleury, Histoire de I'imagerie populaire,
Paris, 1869) 69
6. Bonaparte, Premier Consul
(reprinted in Religions et traditions populaires, Paris, 1979) 70
7. Napoleon I
(reprinted in Jean Mistier et al, Epinal et I'imagerie
populaire, Paris, 1961) 71
8. Empereur Napoleon III
(Musee national des arts et traditions populaires, Paris) 7 2
9. General Boulanger
(H. Roger Viollet, Paris) 73
10. Notre Dame de la Salette
(Musee national des arts et traditions populaires, Paris) 74
11. General Boulanger, La Cocarde
(Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris) 75
12. Histoire de Jeanne d'Arc
(Musee national des arts et traditions populaires, Paris) 76
13. Une Biographie, Boulanger
(Archives Nationales, Paris) 77