luxemburg, socialism and the churches (1905)
It is true that we do meet churchmen of another kind. There exist some who are full of goodness and pity and who do not seek gain; these are always ready to help the poor. But we must admit these are indeed uncommon and that they can be regarded in the same way as white blackbirds. The majority of priests, with beaming faces, bow and scrape to the rich and powerful, silently pardoning them for every depravity, every iniquity. With the workers the clergy behave quite otherwise: they think only of squeezing them pity; in harsh sermons they condemn the “covetess” of the workers when these latter do no more than defend themselves against the wrongs of capitalism.
(...) The Social-Democrats want to bring about the state of “communism”; that is chiefly what the clergy have against them. First of all, it is striking to notice that the priests of today who fight against “Communism” condemn in reality first Christian Apostles. For these latter were nothing else than ardent communists.
(...) Further, to make the people forget their hardships it offered them free circus shows. Unlike the proletariat of our time, which maintains the whole of society by its labours, the enormous proletariat of Rome existed on charity.
(...) In this crumbling society, where there existed no way out of their tragic situation for the people, no hope of a better life, the wretched turned to Heaven to seek salvation there. The Christian religion appeared to these unhappy beings as a life-belt, a consolation and an encouragement, and became, right from the beginning, the religion of the Roman proletarians. In conformity with the material position of the men belonging to this class, the first Christians put forward the demand for property in common - communism. What could be more natural?
(...) [institutionalization] In the beginning, when the number of Christians was small, the clergy did not exist in the proper sense of the word. The faithful, who formed an independent religious community, united together in each city. They elected a member responsible for conducting the service of God and carrying out the religious rites. Every Christian could become the bishop or prelate. These functions were elective, subject to recall, honorary and carried no power other than that which the community gave of its own free will.[9] In proportion as the number of the faithful increased and the communities became more numerous and richer, to run the business of the community and to hold office became an occupation which demanded a great deal of time and full concentration. As the office-bearers could not carry out these tasks at the same time as following their private employment, the custom grew up of electing from among the members of the community, an ecclesiastic who was exclusively entrusted with these functions. Therefore, these employees of the community had to be paid for their exclusive devotion to its affairs. Thus there formed within the Church a new order of employees of the Church, which separated itself from the main body of the faithful, the clergy. Parallel with the inequality between rich and poor, there arose another inequality, that between the clergy and the people. The ecclesiastics, at first elected among equals with a view to performing a temporary function raised themselves to form a caste which ruled over the people... . From the 4th Century, the ecclesiastics of the communities met together in Councils. The first council took place at Nicaea in 325. In this way there was formed the clergy, an order apart and separated from the people. The bishops of the stronger and richer communities took the lead at the Councils. That is why the Bishop of Rome soon placed himself at the head of the whole of Christianity and became the Pope. Thus an abyss separated the clergy, divided up in the hierarchy, from the people. At the same time, the economic relations between the people and the clergy underwent a great change. the clergy and running the Church. Before the formation of this order, all that the rich members of the Church offered to the common property belonged to the poor people. Afterwards, a great part of the funds was spent on paying
(...) From the 6th century, the clergy imposed a special tax, the tithe (tenth part of the crops), which had to be paid to the Church.
(...) Ecclesiastical positions therefore offered the best opportunities to obtain large revenue. Each ecclesiastic disposed of the property of the Church as if it were his own and largely endowed from it his relatives, sons and grandsons. By this means the goods of the Church were pillaged and disappeared into the hands of the families of the clergy. For that reason, the Popes declared themselves to be the sovereign proprietors of the fortunes of the Church and ordained the celibacy of the clergy, in order to keep it intact and to prevent their patrimony from being dispersed. Celibacy was decreed in the 11th Century, but it was not put into practice until the 13th Century, in view of the opposition of the clergy.
(...) When the country and town proletariat rose up against oppression and serfdom, it found in the clergy a ferocious opponent. It is also true even within the Church itself there existed two classes: the higher clergy who engulfed all the wealth and the great mass of the country parsons whose modest livings brought in no more than 500 francs to 2,000 francs a year. Therefore this unprivileged class revolted against the superior clergy and in 1789, during the Great Revolution, it joined up with the people to fight against the power of the lay and ecclesiastical nobility.
(...) In fact the cloisters profited considerably from this benevolence; having the reputation of opening their doors to the poor, they received large gifts and legacies from the rich and powerful. With the appearance of capitalism and production for exchange, every object acquired a price and became exchangeable. At this moment the convents, the houses of the lords, and the ecclesiastics ceased their benefactions. The people found no refuge anywhere. Here is one reason, among others, why at the beginning of capitalism, in the 18th Century, when the workers were not yet organised to defend their interests, there appeared poverty so appalling that humanity seemed to have gone back to the days of the decades of the Roman Empire. But while the Catholic Church in former times undertook to bring help to the Roman proletariat by the preaching of communism, equality and fraternity, in the capitalist period it acted in a wholly different fashion. It sought above all to profit from the poverty of the people; to put cheap labour to work. The convents became literally hells of capitalist exploitation, all the worse because they took in the labour of women and children. The law case against the Convent of the Good Shepherd in France in 1903 gave a resounding example of these abuses. Little girls, 12, 10 and 9 years old were compelled to work in abominable conditions, without rest, ruining their eyes and their health, and were badly nourished and subjected to prison discipline.
(...) To sum up, it is the labour of millions of exploited people, which assures the existence of the Church, the government, and the capitalist class. The statistics concerning the revenue of the Church in Austria give an idea of the considerable wealth of the Church, which was formerly the refuge of the poor. Five years ago (that is, in 1900) its annual revenues amounted to 60 million crowns, and its expenditure did not exceed 35 million. Thus, in the course of a single year, it “put aside” 25 million – at the cost of the sweat and blood shed by the workers.
(...) Your cruelties and your calumnies in former times could not prevent the victory of the Christian idea, the idea which you have sacrificed to the Golden Calf; today your efforts will raise no obstacle to the coming of Socialism. Today it is you, in your lies and your teachings, who are pagans, and it is we who bring to the poor, to the exploited the tidings of fraternity and equality. It is we who are marching to the conquest of the world as he did formerly who proclaimed that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.
(...)[the key in understanding this entire text, though, is that the 'priest' represents a very specific representative of institutionalized christianity, and not religion writ large] And here is the answer to all the attacks of the clergy: the Social-Democracy in no way fights against religious beliefs. On the contrary, it demands complete freedom of conscience for every individual and the widest possible toleration for every faith and every opinion. But, from the moment when the priests use the pulpit as a means of political struggle against the working classes, the workers must fight against the enemies of their rights and their liberation. For he who defends the exploiters and who helps to prolong this present regime of misery, he is the mortal enemy of the proletariat, whether he be in a cassock or in the uniform of the police.
Showing posts with label catholic church. Show all posts
Showing posts with label catholic church. Show all posts
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
lecture 18, "the dark years: vichy france"
john merriman
-------------
the fall of France, and collaboration
1936, again, possibly a time when Hitler could have been stopped in the Rhineland.
all of this has to be seen, in France, in the context of World War I and its legacy--there was a strong feeling, Wilson, etc., that wars were bad things done by evil people (and this was implicit in the resolution of the Treaty of Versailles, of course)
no one wanted another war, but Hitler had been agitating for one from the outset.
there was a feeling that another war would be unthinkable, in France. have to remember the tremendously traumatizing effects of WWI.
-------------
Hitler had of course been building military capacity in Germany, re-arming the nation, etc. Hitler's advisors had been expecting a war to begin, though, in 1940/1941--as we all know, the war actually begins on the 1st of September, 1939, when Hitler invades Poland (he takes power in 1933).
militarily, why does France fall so rapidly?
their respective troop strengths were relatively equal at the time of the invasion of France in May 1940. in tanks, the allies actually had superiority, though German tanks were lighter and faster (and they were used in divisions, which gave them an advantage).
Germans had a clear superiority in fighter power (and they had tried them out in Spain, don't forget)
how had the British and French been planning? they believed that it would be another war of attrition--a long, drawn-out battle in which a strong, defensive line would be critical.
the Germans, by contrast, believed in rapid attack--the "blitzkrieg"
the French are assuming that the forests in N. France and E. Belgium will be physical impediments to the German invasion, but did not prove to be this. 10 tank divisions pour through the forests and they simply waste these French tanks. in four days they're way inside France. the German High Command thought it would take 9 days--and it took 4!
Hitler does make one mistake, prof argues, which is he refuels, allowing the evacuation of French and British troops at Dunkirk.
you have refugees, and German fighter planes picking them off as they fled.
------------------
a new French government, then, collaborates with the Germans--Vichy France is born. (France is divided in two zones; the "collaborationist" government has its capital in Vichy.)
involves people who actively assist the Nazis in achieving their goals, acting on their aspirations. by the end of 1943/1944, if you were a French collaborator and you find graffiti with the word "K" on your door, you were toast--because it meant that the Maquis (or the resistance) was confident enough to make that kind of threat.
again, it's not only France--in Belgium, for example, the right-wing Flemish were more likely to collaborate, and it remains a tension. in Budapest, way you see a goulish shoe-memorial to Jews and Communists gunned down by Hungarian collaborators.
----------------
the historiography and history of collaboration is fascinating, prof is saying.
there's a myth of universal resistance, perpetuated by people who had actively collaborated and also by Charles De Gaulle (he needed people to forget the Communist resistance, and lead the French people to identify with his person and leadership--part of the mantle he'd assume.)
there was a movie from 1953-1954 about the Jews arrested in Paris in 1942--taken away, put in a transit camp north of Paris. in the film you see French guards--so what they do is they photoshop it, effectively.
three series of crucial events have jolted this myth, prof is arguing:
(1) the film called "the sorrow and the pity", which is 4.5 hrs long. what the producer does is he goes to one single town and he looked at what happened there in collaboration--some of the best documentary scenes about intentional forgetting, etc,--where teachers forget about their Jewish friends/colleagues. it was only shown in one theatre. made for French TV, but not shown until 1981/1982. why? because it told the awful truth, which was that lots of people believed better Hitler than Blum.
(2) "vichy france," by bob paxton in 1972. it cut through the intentional forgetting to look squarely at collaboration--bob paxton, actually, didn't have the right to french archival documents (the 50 year rule, and a "troublemaker"). but when this book came out, it had a very powerful effect. here was a great historian saying it "wasn't like what you learned in school."
(3) the trials--as collaboration came to be something that people wanted to know about--then people with bad histories were tracked down. one of the first was Touvier, who was involved in the torture of resisters, deportations of jews/communists. he was hidden by right-wing groups (bounced from monastery to monastery). but finally tracked down and tried. at this trial, Paxton became an "expert witness." and there was a trial of Barbi, as well, who had tortured people in Lyons. and then there was Maurice Papon, a functionary who signed the death-certificates of hundreds and hundreds of Jews. he went on to a very successful career in the fourth and fifth republic. and they caught up with this very very old man, and there was the question of whether he ought to be tried (in 1998, 1999 -- at one point he escapes, and they find him at a fine restraunt in Switzerland; he insists, "I was a good bureaucrat.") he used the "shield argument"--that if it wasn't for me(/we), thing would have been even worse. he was found guilty, and sent to jail.
"the Vichy syndrome."
so, from having no official memory of Vichy--only bits that had to do with the resistance--France underwent this re-evaluation of its relationship to the regime. and that was important for people who had lost their family members, for Jews (some 75,000 Jews never returned to France after Vichy). the big round-up in June 1942, for example, was not done by the Germans, but by the French police. one of the worst institutions of all was the milice (the militia), created in January 1943, to get tough on the Jews, the communists, the resistance.
remember, the militia's tactics required very personal forms of betrayal--people sending letters to the police, etc. (in the days after war, almost 10,000 collaborators were executed)
----------------
voting left superimposed on a map of de-christianization and there would be remarkable similarities, as prof said before. that is not true of collaborationists--this is not regional, or from one social class (this is the case in Belgium, though.) of course you're more apt to have people from the middle-classes collaborate, but it's difficult to generalize (you have working-class collaboration).
what about religion? the role of the Pope in all of this, professor is saying, is nauseating. the Pope knew, but did nothing. zero. the Catholic Church hierarchy was generally very collaborationist.
Roosevelt and these people knew (they knew before they did anything, prof reminds us), but their dilemma is trickier (can you bomb death camps? train tracks?)
the Church got what it wanted, during Vichy France--no divorce, two people executed for abortion. (though he is also insisting that it is not this open and shut)
-----------------
now, what did the people who collaborated want? a couple of themes
(1) argument made by Petain after the war. by collaborating with the Germans, you were saving the French State. but, as Paxton says, "they may have been saving the French state, but they were destroying the French nation."
(2) the xenophobia that characterized the French right, before the occupation, was obviously a prevalent theme during the collaborationists. no Italians, no Spanish (especially no Marxists).
(3) anti-semitism--the French Vichy regime (it's only in November of 1942 that the Germans occupy the Vichy zone, because the resistance is mobilizing) puts in laws depriving Jews of rights that the Germans didn't even ask them to do. in some ways even harsher than the infamous Nuremberg laws of the Reich.
-----------------
Petain, for the fascists, will be an answer for:
(1) the "decadence" and "feuding France" of pre-Vichy France
(2) the restoration of the earthly power of the Church. restoration of the soul of France; the old, Catholic/Christian values. a return to the "moral order"--when things are passed down from the "moral orders."
(3) nationalism, of a new sort--away from the legacy of the French revolution, towards a nationalism of patriotism and values. and, of course, with this comes an exclusionary ethic.
(4) authority--not the dirtiness of "democracy"; authority flows from the top, down.
(5) peasantism. "true France," not the France of Jews, striking workers, communism, etc., virtue is found in the soil (Joan of Arc is a peasant girl, remember--she becomes a symbol of all this). cities are places where Jews and workers hang out. the true France is the France of peasants on the soil.
(6) corporatism--they've read about Mussolini and Italian fascism, making the argument that workers and bosses have the same interests. and you can resolve these conflicts in the idea of the Nation--strong, marching, plutonic warriors
john merriman
-------------
the fall of France, and collaboration
1936, again, possibly a time when Hitler could have been stopped in the Rhineland.
all of this has to be seen, in France, in the context of World War I and its legacy--there was a strong feeling, Wilson, etc., that wars were bad things done by evil people (and this was implicit in the resolution of the Treaty of Versailles, of course)
no one wanted another war, but Hitler had been agitating for one from the outset.
there was a feeling that another war would be unthinkable, in France. have to remember the tremendously traumatizing effects of WWI.
-------------
Hitler had of course been building military capacity in Germany, re-arming the nation, etc. Hitler's advisors had been expecting a war to begin, though, in 1940/1941--as we all know, the war actually begins on the 1st of September, 1939, when Hitler invades Poland (he takes power in 1933).
militarily, why does France fall so rapidly?
their respective troop strengths were relatively equal at the time of the invasion of France in May 1940. in tanks, the allies actually had superiority, though German tanks were lighter and faster (and they were used in divisions, which gave them an advantage).
Germans had a clear superiority in fighter power (and they had tried them out in Spain, don't forget)
how had the British and French been planning? they believed that it would be another war of attrition--a long, drawn-out battle in which a strong, defensive line would be critical.
the Germans, by contrast, believed in rapid attack--the "blitzkrieg"
the French are assuming that the forests in N. France and E. Belgium will be physical impediments to the German invasion, but did not prove to be this. 10 tank divisions pour through the forests and they simply waste these French tanks. in four days they're way inside France. the German High Command thought it would take 9 days--and it took 4!
Hitler does make one mistake, prof argues, which is he refuels, allowing the evacuation of French and British troops at Dunkirk.
you have refugees, and German fighter planes picking them off as they fled.
------------------
a new French government, then, collaborates with the Germans--Vichy France is born. (France is divided in two zones; the "collaborationist" government has its capital in Vichy.)
involves people who actively assist the Nazis in achieving their goals, acting on their aspirations. by the end of 1943/1944, if you were a French collaborator and you find graffiti with the word "K" on your door, you were toast--because it meant that the Maquis (or the resistance) was confident enough to make that kind of threat.
again, it's not only France--in Belgium, for example, the right-wing Flemish were more likely to collaborate, and it remains a tension. in Budapest, way you see a goulish shoe-memorial to Jews and Communists gunned down by Hungarian collaborators.
----------------
the historiography and history of collaboration is fascinating, prof is saying.
there's a myth of universal resistance, perpetuated by people who had actively collaborated and also by Charles De Gaulle (he needed people to forget the Communist resistance, and lead the French people to identify with his person and leadership--part of the mantle he'd assume.)
there was a movie from 1953-1954 about the Jews arrested in Paris in 1942--taken away, put in a transit camp north of Paris. in the film you see French guards--so what they do is they photoshop it, effectively.
three series of crucial events have jolted this myth, prof is arguing:
(1) the film called "the sorrow and the pity", which is 4.5 hrs long. what the producer does is he goes to one single town and he looked at what happened there in collaboration--some of the best documentary scenes about intentional forgetting, etc,--where teachers forget about their Jewish friends/colleagues. it was only shown in one theatre. made for French TV, but not shown until 1981/1982. why? because it told the awful truth, which was that lots of people believed better Hitler than Blum.
(2) "vichy france," by bob paxton in 1972. it cut through the intentional forgetting to look squarely at collaboration--bob paxton, actually, didn't have the right to french archival documents (the 50 year rule, and a "troublemaker"). but when this book came out, it had a very powerful effect. here was a great historian saying it "wasn't like what you learned in school."
(3) the trials--as collaboration came to be something that people wanted to know about--then people with bad histories were tracked down. one of the first was Touvier, who was involved in the torture of resisters, deportations of jews/communists. he was hidden by right-wing groups (bounced from monastery to monastery). but finally tracked down and tried. at this trial, Paxton became an "expert witness." and there was a trial of Barbi, as well, who had tortured people in Lyons. and then there was Maurice Papon, a functionary who signed the death-certificates of hundreds and hundreds of Jews. he went on to a very successful career in the fourth and fifth republic. and they caught up with this very very old man, and there was the question of whether he ought to be tried (in 1998, 1999 -- at one point he escapes, and they find him at a fine restraunt in Switzerland; he insists, "I was a good bureaucrat.") he used the "shield argument"--that if it wasn't for me(/we), thing would have been even worse. he was found guilty, and sent to jail.
"the Vichy syndrome."
so, from having no official memory of Vichy--only bits that had to do with the resistance--France underwent this re-evaluation of its relationship to the regime. and that was important for people who had lost their family members, for Jews (some 75,000 Jews never returned to France after Vichy). the big round-up in June 1942, for example, was not done by the Germans, but by the French police. one of the worst institutions of all was the milice (the militia), created in January 1943, to get tough on the Jews, the communists, the resistance.
remember, the militia's tactics required very personal forms of betrayal--people sending letters to the police, etc. (in the days after war, almost 10,000 collaborators were executed)
----------------
voting left superimposed on a map of de-christianization and there would be remarkable similarities, as prof said before. that is not true of collaborationists--this is not regional, or from one social class (this is the case in Belgium, though.) of course you're more apt to have people from the middle-classes collaborate, but it's difficult to generalize (you have working-class collaboration).
what about religion? the role of the Pope in all of this, professor is saying, is nauseating. the Pope knew, but did nothing. zero. the Catholic Church hierarchy was generally very collaborationist.
Roosevelt and these people knew (they knew before they did anything, prof reminds us), but their dilemma is trickier (can you bomb death camps? train tracks?)
the Church got what it wanted, during Vichy France--no divorce, two people executed for abortion. (though he is also insisting that it is not this open and shut)
-----------------
now, what did the people who collaborated want? a couple of themes
(1) argument made by Petain after the war. by collaborating with the Germans, you were saving the French State. but, as Paxton says, "they may have been saving the French state, but they were destroying the French nation."
(2) the xenophobia that characterized the French right, before the occupation, was obviously a prevalent theme during the collaborationists. no Italians, no Spanish (especially no Marxists).
(3) anti-semitism--the French Vichy regime (it's only in November of 1942 that the Germans occupy the Vichy zone, because the resistance is mobilizing) puts in laws depriving Jews of rights that the Germans didn't even ask them to do. in some ways even harsher than the infamous Nuremberg laws of the Reich.
-----------------
Petain, for the fascists, will be an answer for:
(1) the "decadence" and "feuding France" of pre-Vichy France
(2) the restoration of the earthly power of the Church. restoration of the soul of France; the old, Catholic/Christian values. a return to the "moral order"--when things are passed down from the "moral orders."
(3) nationalism, of a new sort--away from the legacy of the French revolution, towards a nationalism of patriotism and values. and, of course, with this comes an exclusionary ethic.
(4) authority--not the dirtiness of "democracy"; authority flows from the top, down.
(5) peasantism. "true France," not the France of Jews, striking workers, communism, etc., virtue is found in the soil (Joan of Arc is a peasant girl, remember--she becomes a symbol of all this). cities are places where Jews and workers hang out. the true France is the France of peasants on the soil.
(6) corporatism--they've read about Mussolini and Italian fascism, making the argument that workers and bosses have the same interests. and you can resolve these conflicts in the idea of the Nation--strong, marching, plutonic warriors
Thursday, March 26, 2009
lecture 5, "religion in france"
john merriman
----
OVERVIEW
until 1960, the vast majority of the french population was born catholic (whether they practiced, different question)
protestant population about 5%; jewish population around 300,000 -- when the reformation expanded from geneva (where john calvin had influence), it spread down the rone (sp.?) river, down to lyon. as such, large sections of the south of france are still protestant (lots also in alsace and lorrance(sp?)).
when the edict of nantes is revoked in 1685 (which tolerated protestantism), lots fled (to canada, to amsterdam, to the very south-west coast).
and then you have protestants in paris and other big cities.
the first synagogue in france is also located in the south, large concentrations of sephardic jews in bourdeaux, paris, and alsace.
-----
because of the role of the church in the counter-revolution and its close association with the monarchy, you have a tension between the church as a public institution and the increasingly powerful state.
one distinction that's critical: de-christianization vs. anti-clericalism (i.e., there's a distinction between opposition to religiosity, and opposition to the public role of the catholic church in politics).
in french cities in 1880s and 1890s, there are literal battles over urban space. municipalities seeking to limit the rights of the catholic church to stage processions on feast days. again, not necessarily anti-religion, but opposition to the public role of the catholic church.
-----
about 50 years ago, one of the interpretations of the french revolution and first empire (napoleon the first) that was popular was that it killed the old-time religion. after 1815, there's a revival of religiosity in some regions (same thing you see in the 1870s: republic of the moral order).
however, michelle vovelle advocates an alternative reading: he was interested in seeing whether that old-time religion was already crumbling before the french revolution. he started asking: just how effective was the counter-reformation (17th century) in reviving that baroque piety (a religion of faith, of intense religious belief)? and he discovered that the parts of france he looked at showed that old-time religion was already waning.
and thus we come to the concept of de-christianization--means two things: (1) the campaign against the church as a public institution--melting down church bells, only priests who swore alleigance to the french nation could say mass, etc. the remnants of that are still important, of course. (2) the decline in religious practice. it's hard, of course, for a historian to prove this that religion has a declining role in individual life. vovelle looked at baptism certificates, to see how long passed between birth and baptism. vovelle found the time increasing. he looked also at wills: before people, during the counter-reformation, had been leaving money to catholic authorities, but it was happening less and less during the time leading up to the revolution. and, you have a precipitious decline, even, of the number of people attending church on easter.
at the same time: is this true everywhere? no, there are huge differences, geographically. the revolution, in this sense, was a civil war over religion. one of the predictors of political conservatism, even today, are regions that were less de-christianized than others.
(prof now giving overview of more religious vs. less religious regions--begins at about 22 mins in)
most big cities, with the exception of lyons, were lost to the church. BUT it's not just urban centers--there are whole regions de-christianized: the south-west, provance, etc., etc.
in fairness, this may be overly pessimistic--there are accounts of scattered revivalist movements, via miracle sightings of the virgin mary, etc. for the church: "all the news is not bad, but most of it is"
-----
moving foward: in 1905, the church and the state are declared separate (in 1906, they did inventories of all the church's art; in many cases, people barricaded themselves in the church to prevent the inspector from entering--ultimately, resolved by people with axes blowing open the church doors).
by 1905/1906, in the wake of the dreyfus affair (where they went after dreyfus), you have a rallying of the church to the republic as an institution (but things weren't quite better, you have these series of barricades to prevent troops assisting these people taking inventories).
in sum: in areas that were not de-christianized, the process of separation of church and state was extraordinarily wrenching.
john merriman
----
OVERVIEW
until 1960, the vast majority of the french population was born catholic (whether they practiced, different question)
protestant population about 5%; jewish population around 300,000 -- when the reformation expanded from geneva (where john calvin had influence), it spread down the rone (sp.?) river, down to lyon. as such, large sections of the south of france are still protestant (lots also in alsace and lorrance(sp?)).
when the edict of nantes is revoked in 1685 (which tolerated protestantism), lots fled (to canada, to amsterdam, to the very south-west coast).
and then you have protestants in paris and other big cities.
the first synagogue in france is also located in the south, large concentrations of sephardic jews in bourdeaux, paris, and alsace.
-----
because of the role of the church in the counter-revolution and its close association with the monarchy, you have a tension between the church as a public institution and the increasingly powerful state.
one distinction that's critical: de-christianization vs. anti-clericalism (i.e., there's a distinction between opposition to religiosity, and opposition to the public role of the catholic church in politics).
in french cities in 1880s and 1890s, there are literal battles over urban space. municipalities seeking to limit the rights of the catholic church to stage processions on feast days. again, not necessarily anti-religion, but opposition to the public role of the catholic church.
-----
about 50 years ago, one of the interpretations of the french revolution and first empire (napoleon the first) that was popular was that it killed the old-time religion. after 1815, there's a revival of religiosity in some regions (same thing you see in the 1870s: republic of the moral order).
however, michelle vovelle advocates an alternative reading: he was interested in seeing whether that old-time religion was already crumbling before the french revolution. he started asking: just how effective was the counter-reformation (17th century) in reviving that baroque piety (a religion of faith, of intense religious belief)? and he discovered that the parts of france he looked at showed that old-time religion was already waning.
and thus we come to the concept of de-christianization--means two things: (1) the campaign against the church as a public institution--melting down church bells, only priests who swore alleigance to the french nation could say mass, etc. the remnants of that are still important, of course. (2) the decline in religious practice. it's hard, of course, for a historian to prove this that religion has a declining role in individual life. vovelle looked at baptism certificates, to see how long passed between birth and baptism. vovelle found the time increasing. he looked also at wills: before people, during the counter-reformation, had been leaving money to catholic authorities, but it was happening less and less during the time leading up to the revolution. and, you have a precipitious decline, even, of the number of people attending church on easter.
at the same time: is this true everywhere? no, there are huge differences, geographically. the revolution, in this sense, was a civil war over religion. one of the predictors of political conservatism, even today, are regions that were less de-christianized than others.
(prof now giving overview of more religious vs. less religious regions--begins at about 22 mins in)
most big cities, with the exception of lyons, were lost to the church. BUT it's not just urban centers--there are whole regions de-christianized: the south-west, provance, etc., etc.
in fairness, this may be overly pessimistic--there are accounts of scattered revivalist movements, via miracle sightings of the virgin mary, etc. for the church: "all the news is not bad, but most of it is"
-----
moving foward: in 1905, the church and the state are declared separate (in 1906, they did inventories of all the church's art; in many cases, people barricaded themselves in the church to prevent the inspector from entering--ultimately, resolved by people with axes blowing open the church doors).
by 1905/1906, in the wake of the dreyfus affair (where they went after dreyfus), you have a rallying of the church to the republic as an institution (but things weren't quite better, you have these series of barricades to prevent troops assisting these people taking inventories).
in sum: in areas that were not de-christianized, the process of separation of church and state was extraordinarily wrenching.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
lecture 3, "centralized state and republic"
john merriman
-----
two things: (1) centralization of the state, and why paris as center; (2) why the "miracle baby," Chambord, did not become King of France--why did France end up a republic, and how?
-----
the role of Paris is unique in European history--and it still is this way, despite various decentralization proposals. it is the most centralized state in the world, according to professors.
(Spain, Germany all examples that have two or three balancing cities, at the very least. Even England, with industry in the north in Manchester, etc.--the economic centers, etc.)
the role of Paris, in sum, is special, and particular to France.
("Paris in the French Desert"--where else, but in France, would so much of the population be considered provincials, in a deeply condescending way.)
-------
One of the reasons that Paris' role is so great in France has to do with the way that the French state was constructed, the way it was centralized (you only hear people with Parisian accents on the radio, even in other regions, most of the time--always people with Northern accents).
Balzac articulated the way that Parisians view provincials (dominated by role and monotony, like "frogs at the bottom of their puddles"..."they don't think about things that are serious")
One of the key economic indicators of this dominance: Lyon, France's second city--its principal bank moved itself to Paris in the 1860s!
------
How did it get this way?
All states centralized, but why Paris is so uniquely centralized?
In Europe in 1500, you had about 1500 independent, territorial states. State-making, of course, was one of the central processes in early modern European history. Unification of Italy (1850s and 1860s), Germany (1871), of course. States developed their ability to extract resources from the provinces.
In the 16th century, Paris came to be France's capital ("absolutism": in the 17th century, European rulers expand their abilities to extract resources from ordinary people, expand their reach to other provinces).
Louis XIV (the "sun-god") sends people out in the provinces to do his well--they negotiate with local nobles, etc.--but ultimately, the only thing that matters is that this increases the power of the state (it's at this time that the standing armies of the central, absolute monarchy become enormous).
And along comes the French Revolution, which seeks to rationalize the administration of France. So, before, where you had to pay tolls in many parts of France, different weights/etc., they try to strengthen the center. And because their rivals are the nobles and the Church, they opt to base their administrative center on Departments.
They become strings which reach out from Paris into the different Departments--the three things that any resident of the provinces sees, then, are the ministry of war, the ministry of justice, and the ministry of the interior.
Created in 1790, and they still exist (the only major change came in 1860, when the departments around Paris were consolidated due to the city's expansion). Most are named after rivers.
The point is: in order to defeat its enemies, the revolution centralizes the State.
And next, of course, Napoleon makes state centralization even more important, as he seeks to consolidate his power.
Similarly, the Second Empire (1852-1870), his nephew (Napoleon III), uses centralization as a tool of the state, to consolidate his own power, and to undercut the residual influence of the nobility. If you wanted something, it no longer made sense to go to the local notable--the patronage of the Empire (the Center) is key, as he can provide railroads, schools, etc.
You have economic processes that clarify the power of the Center, in sum. The state can authorize economic processes that make a city (railroads, bridges, factories, etc.). The evolution of banking, as well, which further consolidates power in Paris (the State financial institutions are in Paris, and they can direct investment).
If you look at a map of the railroads, in France--all roads lead to Paris. Trains reinforce the predominance of the capital city. (Turbo-Prof, a name for somebody who lives in Paris, and teaches outside of the city, but is desperate to live in Paris. This is bad, of course, because it destroys local university life.)
The 19th century, then, accentuates all of this. (Prof reading an absurd definition of the "provincial" from the Larousse dictionary). (De Gaulle, as a further example of this, which we will talk about later: "How can you govern a country that has 440 different kinds of cheese?")
It is illegal, in France, to use names that are not officially approved.
What has not changed, in Paris, is the capacity of the center's ministries to influence life in the provinces. (In the 1980s, there were huge demonstrations favoring Catholic Church against the diktats coming down from Paris with regards to content of education).
There is no other country, in the post-communist world, where so many people work for the State. (Prof's aside: it's entirely untrue, of course, that public services don't work).
----
All this, of course, becomes a salient question in debates over Europe, and the EU constitution. We will talk about this later, but prof is arguing for a vote against--"I know of no one, except professors in Paris and Lyon, who would have voted for it"
----
How did this happen?
In February of 1870, you had a monarchist-dominated Assembly, elected, in which rural regions (Brittany, Normandy, etc.) wanted the restoration of a monarchy. Why does that not happen? Why did it become the Third Republic (1875/1877-1940)?
A story of decisions taken by individual people (old-style history).
There was a miracle baby (part of the Bourbon royal family), Count de Chambord. In 1820, his father was assasinated, by a liberal, who wanted to extinguish this royal line (the Bourbons, who had been restored in 1815-1830).
France goes into great mourning, because the heir to the French throne is dead.
And then, lo and behold, it turns out his widow, was pregnant! And as the country holds its breath, the baby was a boy. A miracle baby! ("Henry V")
Unforunately, he was sort of a "sad sack."
Now, there were the Orleanists, who, under King Louis Phillipe, were in power from 1830-1848, and seen as "progressive", bourgeois-liberal monarchs. Carried an umbrella! He is chased from the throne in 1848--but he had helped modernize the economy, and did not restore the Church to its original power.
Whereas the Orleanists were sharp, then, Chambord was thick as a brick.
When France collapsed after the war with Prussia, it seemed to the monarchists that their ship had come in. It's easy to make fun of Chambord, of course, but there was a strong royalist movement--and it wasn't just people looking backward. He himself said he didn't want to be a king of the old regime, but to combine monarchy with modernity.
You have to imagine him after the Commune--he comes to Paris, had never been to the city. And he goes around as a tourist. He has an entourage, but there is this tradition of popular royalism--of people who wanted the King. There was a close association, of course, between the King and the Church, so there was support in the religious regions (he has made clear that he will restore the church to its rightful place of privilege). And he stands to benefit from the religious revival of the 1870s (after crisis, religious revivals--just like after the French revolution).
But it's hard, if you're 47 years old, and you're a pretender to the throne. He had a royal accident (broke his leg), he was himself a large man. He was a big-time gambler.
Viewed hereditary monarchy as a unique form of "salvation" for France. The key, of course, to his authority, as well, is the nobility, who have been disenfranchised since the revolution (the State had been winning the battle against its nobles). Elections in the 1880s bore out the fact that this was generally popular.
This did not stop nobles from believing that had they run in elections, they would have won, on behalf on the monarchy.
Chambord, though, when disaster came was not ready, in sum. He issued anachronistic manifestos, etc. Even still, for all his limitations, he was a man of faith and loyalty to his principles. In 1789, when the Bourbons were deposed, the family's white flag was replaced by the Tricolore. Chambord refused to compromise on this principle, which was the flag of the revolution that had killed his family members. And he didn't agree, either, to the sucession of the Orleanists after his death (Chambord didn't have any children: "Without my principles, I am a fat man with a big limp"(!)).
And so, Franch, lurched into the Republic of the Moral Order. In 1875, there's an amendment to the constitution that transforms France into a republic (won by won vote). In 1877, a General tries to overthrow the Government--but fails to do so, and by the early 1880s, the Republic is consolidated. And most people wanted it--its social base was the new middle class, and the workers. Some peasants in the south, of course, were still in favor of a monarchy.
The executive is fairly weak--real stregnth lies in the assembly. This does not mean that the State is not strong, at all. A very controversial decision of this centralized government comes in 1905, for separation of the Church and State.
The State becomes the new vehicle of economic, cultural, political patronage--replaces the nobility, the Church, and the monarchy that most people did not want.
john merriman
-----
two things: (1) centralization of the state, and why paris as center; (2) why the "miracle baby," Chambord, did not become King of France--why did France end up a republic, and how?
-----
the role of Paris is unique in European history--and it still is this way, despite various decentralization proposals. it is the most centralized state in the world, according to professors.
(Spain, Germany all examples that have two or three balancing cities, at the very least. Even England, with industry in the north in Manchester, etc.--the economic centers, etc.)
the role of Paris, in sum, is special, and particular to France.
("Paris in the French Desert"--where else, but in France, would so much of the population be considered provincials, in a deeply condescending way.)
-------
One of the reasons that Paris' role is so great in France has to do with the way that the French state was constructed, the way it was centralized (you only hear people with Parisian accents on the radio, even in other regions, most of the time--always people with Northern accents).
Balzac articulated the way that Parisians view provincials (dominated by role and monotony, like "frogs at the bottom of their puddles"..."they don't think about things that are serious")
One of the key economic indicators of this dominance: Lyon, France's second city--its principal bank moved itself to Paris in the 1860s!
------
How did it get this way?
All states centralized, but why Paris is so uniquely centralized?
In Europe in 1500, you had about 1500 independent, territorial states. State-making, of course, was one of the central processes in early modern European history. Unification of Italy (1850s and 1860s), Germany (1871), of course. States developed their ability to extract resources from the provinces.
In the 16th century, Paris came to be France's capital ("absolutism": in the 17th century, European rulers expand their abilities to extract resources from ordinary people, expand their reach to other provinces).
Louis XIV (the "sun-god") sends people out in the provinces to do his well--they negotiate with local nobles, etc.--but ultimately, the only thing that matters is that this increases the power of the state (it's at this time that the standing armies of the central, absolute monarchy become enormous).
And along comes the French Revolution, which seeks to rationalize the administration of France. So, before, where you had to pay tolls in many parts of France, different weights/etc., they try to strengthen the center. And because their rivals are the nobles and the Church, they opt to base their administrative center on Departments.
They become strings which reach out from Paris into the different Departments--the three things that any resident of the provinces sees, then, are the ministry of war, the ministry of justice, and the ministry of the interior.
Created in 1790, and they still exist (the only major change came in 1860, when the departments around Paris were consolidated due to the city's expansion). Most are named after rivers.
The point is: in order to defeat its enemies, the revolution centralizes the State.
And next, of course, Napoleon makes state centralization even more important, as he seeks to consolidate his power.
Similarly, the Second Empire (1852-1870), his nephew (Napoleon III), uses centralization as a tool of the state, to consolidate his own power, and to undercut the residual influence of the nobility. If you wanted something, it no longer made sense to go to the local notable--the patronage of the Empire (the Center) is key, as he can provide railroads, schools, etc.
You have economic processes that clarify the power of the Center, in sum. The state can authorize economic processes that make a city (railroads, bridges, factories, etc.). The evolution of banking, as well, which further consolidates power in Paris (the State financial institutions are in Paris, and they can direct investment).
If you look at a map of the railroads, in France--all roads lead to Paris. Trains reinforce the predominance of the capital city. (Turbo-Prof, a name for somebody who lives in Paris, and teaches outside of the city, but is desperate to live in Paris. This is bad, of course, because it destroys local university life.)
The 19th century, then, accentuates all of this. (Prof reading an absurd definition of the "provincial" from the Larousse dictionary). (De Gaulle, as a further example of this, which we will talk about later: "How can you govern a country that has 440 different kinds of cheese?")
It is illegal, in France, to use names that are not officially approved.
What has not changed, in Paris, is the capacity of the center's ministries to influence life in the provinces. (In the 1980s, there were huge demonstrations favoring Catholic Church against the diktats coming down from Paris with regards to content of education).
There is no other country, in the post-communist world, where so many people work for the State. (Prof's aside: it's entirely untrue, of course, that public services don't work).
----
All this, of course, becomes a salient question in debates over Europe, and the EU constitution. We will talk about this later, but prof is arguing for a vote against--"I know of no one, except professors in Paris and Lyon, who would have voted for it"
----
How did this happen?
In February of 1870, you had a monarchist-dominated Assembly, elected, in which rural regions (Brittany, Normandy, etc.) wanted the restoration of a monarchy. Why does that not happen? Why did it become the Third Republic (1875/1877-1940)?
A story of decisions taken by individual people (old-style history).
There was a miracle baby (part of the Bourbon royal family), Count de Chambord. In 1820, his father was assasinated, by a liberal, who wanted to extinguish this royal line (the Bourbons, who had been restored in 1815-1830).
France goes into great mourning, because the heir to the French throne is dead.
And then, lo and behold, it turns out his widow, was pregnant! And as the country holds its breath, the baby was a boy. A miracle baby! ("Henry V")
Unforunately, he was sort of a "sad sack."
Now, there were the Orleanists, who, under King Louis Phillipe, were in power from 1830-1848, and seen as "progressive", bourgeois-liberal monarchs. Carried an umbrella! He is chased from the throne in 1848--but he had helped modernize the economy, and did not restore the Church to its original power.
Whereas the Orleanists were sharp, then, Chambord was thick as a brick.
When France collapsed after the war with Prussia, it seemed to the monarchists that their ship had come in. It's easy to make fun of Chambord, of course, but there was a strong royalist movement--and it wasn't just people looking backward. He himself said he didn't want to be a king of the old regime, but to combine monarchy with modernity.
You have to imagine him after the Commune--he comes to Paris, had never been to the city. And he goes around as a tourist. He has an entourage, but there is this tradition of popular royalism--of people who wanted the King. There was a close association, of course, between the King and the Church, so there was support in the religious regions (he has made clear that he will restore the church to its rightful place of privilege). And he stands to benefit from the religious revival of the 1870s (after crisis, religious revivals--just like after the French revolution).
But it's hard, if you're 47 years old, and you're a pretender to the throne. He had a royal accident (broke his leg), he was himself a large man. He was a big-time gambler.
Viewed hereditary monarchy as a unique form of "salvation" for France. The key, of course, to his authority, as well, is the nobility, who have been disenfranchised since the revolution (the State had been winning the battle against its nobles). Elections in the 1880s bore out the fact that this was generally popular.
This did not stop nobles from believing that had they run in elections, they would have won, on behalf on the monarchy.
Chambord, though, when disaster came was not ready, in sum. He issued anachronistic manifestos, etc. Even still, for all his limitations, he was a man of faith and loyalty to his principles. In 1789, when the Bourbons were deposed, the family's white flag was replaced by the Tricolore. Chambord refused to compromise on this principle, which was the flag of the revolution that had killed his family members. And he didn't agree, either, to the sucession of the Orleanists after his death (Chambord didn't have any children: "Without my principles, I am a fat man with a big limp"(!)).
And so, Franch, lurched into the Republic of the Moral Order. In 1875, there's an amendment to the constitution that transforms France into a republic (won by won vote). In 1877, a General tries to overthrow the Government--but fails to do so, and by the early 1880s, the Republic is consolidated. And most people wanted it--its social base was the new middle class, and the workers. Some peasants in the south, of course, were still in favor of a monarchy.
The executive is fairly weak--real stregnth lies in the assembly. This does not mean that the State is not strong, at all. A very controversial decision of this centralized government comes in 1905, for separation of the Church and State.
The State becomes the new vehicle of economic, cultural, political patronage--replaces the nobility, the Church, and the monarchy that most people did not want.
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