The Right Wing in France: From 1815 to de Gaulle PDF
Preview The Right Wing in France: From 1815 to de Gaulle
The Right Wing in France From 1815 to de Gaulle BY THE SAME AUTHOR Lamennais et la Démocratie L'Amérique Anglo-Saxonne Histoire des Etats-Unis Les Catholiques, le Communisme et les Crises, IQ2Q-IQ3Q Les Deux Congrès Ecclésiastiques de Reims et de Bourges ( 1896-IQ00) Les Etats-Unis devant l'Opinion Française, 181 $-1852, 2 vols. La Vie Politique en France depuis ij8ç A contribution to Volume III of Histoire du Catholicisme en France, by André Latreille A contribution to Léon Blum, Chef de Gouvernement, *93à-i937 Editor of Forces Religieuses et Attitudes Politiques dans la France Contemporaine Editor of Atlas Historique de la France Contemporaine The Right Wing in France From 1815 to de Gaulle Second American Edition RENÉ RÉMOND Translated from the French by JAMES M. LAUX ffl Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania Press Copyright © 1966, 1969 by the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania Second printing 1968 Second American Edition 1969 Third printing 197] Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 72-87940 Originally published by Aubier Editions Montaigne, Paris, in 1954, 1963, and 1968 under the title LA DROITE EN FRANCE. Copyright 1954, 1963, and 1968 by Aubier Editions Montaigne. ISBN: 0-8122-7490-3 Printed in the United States of America Translator's Note to the Second American Edition Professor Remond's study of the French Right Wing was first published in Paris in 1954. A revised second edition appeared there in 1963 and the University of Pennsylvania Press published a translation of this edition in 1966. Late in 1968 M. Remond presented a third French edition of his work, again revised and brought up to date, with an epilogue analyzing the crisis of May—June 1968. The first American edition having gone out of print in the meantime, it was decided to incorporate the most recent additions and revisions of the third French edition in a second American edition. The reader should note that the author revised Chapter 9, dealing with the period 1940-1968, before the events of May-June 1968, and that his discussion of those events appears in the Epilogue. The translation does not include a section of appendixes and documents contained in the French edition. In the bibliography some of the author's comments have been condensed and additional titles, primarily of works in English, have been included. The full names of organiza- tions designated by abbreviations will be found in the index. The illustrations are unique to the American edi- tions of this work. Contents Author's Preface to the Third French Edition 9 Introduction: One or Several Right Wing Groups? 19 1. 1815-1830: The Ultras, Extremism and Tra- dition 32 2. 1830-1848: Legitimism, Old Regime France and New France 79 3. 1830-1848: Orleanism, Liberalism and Conser- vation 99 4. 1848-1870: Bonapartism, "Classic" and Autho- ritarian Rightist Groups 125 5. 1871-1879: Moral Order, A Rightist Coalition 166 6. 1899-1902 : Another Coalition, Nationalism 205 7. Action Française: A Synthesis of Right Wing Traditions? 233 8. 1919-1939: From the Bloc National to the National Revolution, the Classic Right Wing and the Leagues 254 9. 1940-1968 : From the French State to the Fifth Republic 308 Epilogue: The Right Wing in the Light of the Events of Spring 1968 395 Bibliography 418 Index 449 Illustrations The illustrations appear as a group following page 128. Charles X Berryer François Guizot Duke Victor de Broglie Thiers Bonapartist propaganda: the Plebiscite of 1851 The Duke d'Aumale Paul Déroulède Raymond Poincaré Colonel de La Rocque Jacques Doriot Charles Maurras Paul Reynaud Antoine Pinay Charles de Gaulle Author's Preface to the Third French Edition In the old days authors added to each new edition of their books a preface which celebrated the reception that had greeted the earlier edition and once again stated the reasons behind their enterprise. As the most recent of these prefaces did not replace its predecessors, one could follow in them the successive strata of the work. If we think it justifiable to do somewhat the same, it is not to revive a traditional usage but to continue a dialogue with the course of events that any work begins when it attempts to explain the contemporary world. In the five years since the preceding French edition, men, issues, and the rela- tionships among political forces have changed, some slightly, others greatly. The reasons which in 1963 re- quired a revision of the original 1954 edition—the prog- ress of research and the changes in the political situa- tion—again press for another revision on a number of points. And there are other reasons which may lead to some further considerations on the object of our study. The progress of research can be measured by the num- ber of additions that we have had to insert in the bibliog- raphy: after five years some 60 additional titles, even though we have not attempted to be exhaustive. These concern material in the chapters dealing with the earliest periods as well as very recent times, and foreign his- torians have contributed as much as Frenchmen. For the contemporary period, this growth of information reflects the stimulation given to such studies by the National Foundation for Political Science in Paris. 9 IO THE RIGHT WING IN FRANCE But the development of research cannot be measured by a quantitative increase alone. There has also been a widening of the field of observation by the use of new methods, and a deepening by the employment of investi- gative procedures which only recently have been used in analyzing political ideologies and traditions. Without en- tirely superseding the contributions of the traditional academic disciplines, the application of the methods of inquiry worked out by social psychology to the study of political opinions and behavior illuminates a whole area of reality, teaches us much more about the real content of opinions, and reveals an aspect of motivations which strongly affects fundamental choices. Here and there in the course of this book one may notice some examples of the sort of contributions that the study of ideologies may derive from such new methods. Perhaps the use of these procedures will enable us in part to overcome the logical obstacle, as yet insurmountable, that opposes to a strictly objective investigation the prior need for both a prelim- inary definition of the terms Right and Left, and the collection of purely empirical data on the diversity of opinions. If the multiplication of research has enriched and some- times altered our knowledge of some aspects of the sub- ject, the latter has also changed somewhat. Such is one of the risks of this sort of dialogue carried on with contem- porary events. It makes any work that does not try to evoke an entirely dead past a kind of serial story con- tinued from installment to installment. When one declares at the very beginning that there is a continuity between yesterday and today, that relationships continue between a past which remains alive and a present which is not an absolutely new beginning, every event raises questions about the explanatory schema. And in the last five years
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