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The Idea of Decadence in the Second EmpireKoenraad W. Swart

IN 1860 French liberal Charles de Remusat noticed that pessi-mism had made rapid progress during the preceding ten

years and that his period, which was once reputed to be proudof its accomplishments, then counted more censors than admirers.1

A similar observation had been made in 1852 by the distinguishedCatholic historian of democratic convictions, Frederic Ozanam,who stated that the best minds believed in decadence and that the

idea ofprogress

had become a discredited notion.2

This pessimism was not representative of the mood of the

French in general, which was rather one of regained confidence

in the strength of the nation and of high expectations as to the

future of mankind. The Second Empire was a period of rapidindustrialization and rising prosperity in which modernized Paris

acquired a world wide reputation of gaiety and in which the

French people took pride in the leading role their country once

again playedin

European politics.Above

anything else, thesewere years of spectacular technological inventions and scientific

discoveries which were accepted by many people as convincingevidence of the idea of progress. Optimistic ideologies like Com-

tian Positivism, Hegelian philosophy, evolutionism, and socialism

enjoyed increased prestige or popularity. "If there is any idea

that belongs properly to our century," wrote a French publicistof this time, ". .. it is the idea of Progress conceived as the gen-

eral law of history and the future of humanity." 3 This optimisticphilosophy also pervaded the new encyclopedia edited by Pierre

Larousse. "With the exception of morose or blind minds abso-

lutely ignorant of history or dreaming of an impossible return to

a definitely irrevocable past," it asserted, "our period believes that

progress is the very law of the development of mankind." 4

1 Charles de R6musat, "Du pessimisme politique," Revue des Deux-Mondes,

August 1, 1860, 729-744.2 Freddric Ozanam, "Du progres dans les siecles de decadence," Cor-

respondant, XXX (1852), 257.3 Auguste Javary, De l'idee de progres (Paris, 1851), p. 1; cf. also p. 74.4 Pierre Larousse, Grand dictionnaire universel du XIXe siecle (Paris, 1867-

1878), XIII, 225; cf. ibid., I, lxxiv; for other contemporary statements on the

universality of the idea of progress see: P. J. Proudhon, De la justice dans la

Revolution et dans l'Sglise, Oeuvres completes (new ed., Paris, 1923- ), XI,

511; Henri de Ferron, Theorie du Progres (Paris, 1867), I, 162-165, 300.

77



THE REVIEW OF POLITICS

Many of these "morose and blind minds," however, have been

admired by posterity for their perspicacity or literary talent.

Among litterateurs, scholars, and philosophers the prevailing moodwas one of disillusionment and deep apprehension, in sharp con-

trast not only to the optimism and complacency of the general

public, but also to the outlook of many of these same men of let-

ters prior to the Revolution of 1848. Convinced that France was

seriously sick or in a state of decadence, they no longer acceptedthe doctrine of progress without reservations, sometimes rejectingit altogether and replacing it by cyclical theories of civilization.

I

Pessimism, although far from uncommon among intellectuals

of liberal or democratic convictions, was most widespread and in-

tense among writers holding conservative or reactionary views.

The revolution of 1848 had fully revealed to the latter the strengthof the revolutionary sentiment, which they considered the primarycause of the breakdown of the sound social order and the decline

of their country's position in the world. The fear of socialism

which was rampant among the property-owning classes in the

years following the Revolution was the major theme of a widelyread pamphlet, Le spectre rouge de 1852. Its author, Auguste

Romieu, maintained that his period was the most ominous since

the barbarian invasion at the end of the Roman Empire. He

ridiculed the idea of progress and stated that the feudal regime

had been the best Europe had ever known. "The French nation,"he wrote, "no longer exists; only restless bourgeois and greedybarbarians are left on the ancient soil of Gaul." 5

It is not surprising that in the 1850's the anti-revolutionaryideas of the so-called "prophets of the past" (Maistre and Bonald)for the first time enjoyed a certain popularity.6 The most influen-

tial spokesman of this philosophy, the journalist Louis Veuillot,carried on a vehement campaign against the ideas of freedom and

5 Auguste Romieu, Le spectre rouge de 1852 (3rd ed., Paris, 1851), pp. 25-

26, 43, 47, 63; see also Henri Guillemin, Le coup du deux decembre (Paris,

1951), passim and Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, Les debuts du catholicisme social en

France (1822-1870) (Paris, 1951), pp. 483-487.6 Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly, Les prophetes du passe (Paris, 1851); Antoine

Blanc de Saint-Bonnet, De l'affaiblissement de la raison en Europe (Paris,

1861); various works by Maistre and Bonald were re-edited or published for the

first time in the 1850's; see also the articles by Sainte-Beuve on the two authors

in Causeries du lundi (4th ed., Paris, n. d.), IV, 192-216, 427-449.

78



DECADENCE IN THE SECOND EMPIRE

progress, words that, according to him, are always found as

incendiary fuses in societies on the brink of explosion.7 Another

staunch admirer of reactionary ideas, Charles Baudelaire, charac-terized the belief in progress as "a highly fashionable error of

which I want to beware as Hell, . . . a grotesque idea which has

flourished on the rotten field of modem self-conceit, ... an infatua-

tion which is the diagnosis of an all too evident decadence." The

poet held that what people called progress actually was "the me-

chanization and Americanization of the world, which means the

end of all higher civilization." 8

The reactionary philosophy in a slightly more liberal versionalso inspired the work of Claude Marie Raudot, La decadence de

la France (1850), which had the merit of presenting the first syste-matic analysis of various symptoms of social and political disorgani-zation from which, it was held, French society was suffering. The

author emphasized a number of factors seriously weakening the

strength of France: the revolutionary sentiment, the slow growthof the population, the decline of the merchant marine, the back-

wardness of agriculture, the weakening of the armed forces, thedeterioration of the physique, and the increase in criminality. He

admitted that France had made some progress in various fields but

asserted that, as other nations had advanced more rapidly, the

French position in the world had suffered. He saw the highlycentralized form of government as one of the main reasons for the

unsatisfactory state of the nation and expected a recovery not from

further industrialization or more political freedom, but solely from

a return to the old principles of society. In spite of its obvious

political bias Raudot's treatise was one of the best documented and

balanced discussions published on the problem during this period.It was widely read and commented upon at the time, but it was

not written with enough literary talent to stir public opinion.9

7 Louis Veuillot in l'Univers, Dec. 25, 1857, as quoted by Henri Guillemin,Histoire des catholiques franfais au XIXe siecle (Geneve, 1947), p. 273; cf.

Louis Veuillot, Les odeurs de Paris (Paris, 1866) and J. Maurain, La politique

ecclesiastique du Second Empire (Paris, 1930), pp. 23-24.8 Charles Baudelaire, "Exposition universelle de 1855," Oeuvres completes,

ed. de la Pleiade (Paris, 1928), II, 148 ff.; cf. his Correspondance gene'rale

(Paris, 1947), IV, 95, 99, 180.9 Claude-Marie Raudot, De la decadence de la France (4th ed., Paris, 1850)

and De la grandeur possible de la France faisant suite a la decadence de laFrance (Paris, 1851); cf. A. Mothere Reponse a l'ouvrage de M. Raudot (Paris,1850); Ch. Coquelin, "De la pretendue decadence de la France et de l'Angle-terre et des ouvrages de MM. Raudot et Ledru-Rollin," Journal des economistes,Aug. 15, 1850, pp. 56-68.

79




Other conservative authors attempted to place the reactionary

philosophy on a modem, scientific basis. The most successful

effort in this direction was undertaken by the well-known sociol-ogist, Frederic Le Play, a rejuvenated, progressive and scientific

Bonald, as he has been called.10 His interpretation of history as

presented in La reforme sociale (1864) was not, like that of the

theocrats, based on belief in a Divine Providence, but on an analysisof social forces, especially of the family structure. Believing in a

cyclical development of history rather than in progress, Le Playwarned his complacent compatriots that despite material prosperity

and regained international preponderance France continued to beundermined by the erroneous principles of 1789. Like many con-

servatives and liberals of the nineteenth century, he favored decen-

tralization of government and held the old regime partly respon-sible for the destruction of local autonomy. The poison, accordingto Le Play, had started to penetrate the French social system as

early as 1661, when the monarchy had triumphed over the French

aristocracy. He preached a moral reform based on the Ten Com-

mandments but privately expressed the opinion that a catastrophewas necessary - and inevitable - to cure the national corrup-tion.11

An even more daring attempt to lend the reactionary point of

view scientific prestige was made by Comte Arthur de Gobineau,whose well-known Essai sur l'inegalite des races humaines (1853-

55) was partly written with the purpose to explain the alleged

retrogressionof France.

Rejectingall theories which held moral

corruption, religious fanaticism, economic decline, or certain poli-tical institutions responsible for the fall of nations, Gobineau came

to the conclusion that the sole reason should be seen in racial decay

resulting from mixture of superior races with inferior ones. Ap-plied to France, this theory accounted for the greatness of the

country in the past by the dominant position held by Teutonic in-

vaders of the so-called superior Aryan race and explained its grad-

ual decline by the increasingly important role which inferior Celticand Roman racial stock of Southern France had played since the

accession of Henry of Navarre. As a result, the highly centralized

form of government, Roman in origin, had gradually broken the in-

10 Charles-AugustinSainte-Beuve,Nouveaux Lundis (Paris, 1907), IX, 18.11Frederic Le Play, La reforme sociale en France dgduite de l'observation

comparee des peuples europlens (6th ed., Tours, 1878), I, 92-93, 190; IV, 382;Louis Thomas,FredericLe Play, 1806-1882 (Paris, 1943), pp. 8, 41, 63.

80




fluence of the feudal aristocracy and with the Revolution of 1789

the anarchistic South had taken its full revenge.12 In his own

days, Gobineau held, the superior race was obliterated in Franceto a larger degree than in any other European country, and he

predicted that France had only thirty years more to live.13 At

the time of the Franco-Prussian War he felt that his prophecyhad been fulfilled. "One thing is certain," he wrote, "for France

the bell of doom has tolled." 14

II

French reactionaries had been raising their warning voices

since the outbreak of the Revolution of 1789, and the events of

1848 and following years merely intensified their apprehensions.

Among liberal intellectuals, on the other hand, pessimism was a

new phenomenon-until 1848 most of them had believed in

progress and looked with confidence on the political developmentof their country.

The Revolution of 1848, which in the words of Tocquevilleaimed not only "at changing the form of government, but at alter-

ing society," converted many professed liberals to political and social

conservatism.15 One of their leaders, the Duc de Broglie, believed

that the end of society was close at hand, and the most prominentliberal Catholic, Montalembert, declared that the Revolution of

1789 had been nothing but a bloody and useless event.16 Amongthe younger generation of liberals the revolutionary idea also lost

itshalo. Ernest

Renan,the most

intelligent spokesmanof this

group, stated that France had become profoundly sick by seekingto create a perfect kingdom in this world. He called the Revolu-

tion of 1848 a crime and criticized the Revolution of 1789 because

it contained the hidden poison of belief in violence.17

12 Joseph Arthur de Gobineau, Essai sur l'inegalite des races humaines

(Paris, 1853-1855), I, passim.13 Correspondance entre Alexis de Tocqueville et Arthur de Gobineau, 1843-

1859 (Paris, 1908), letter of Jan. 15, 1856; Michel Mohrt, Les intellectuelsdevant la defaite, 1870 (Paris, 1942), p. 149.

14 Gobineau, Frankreichs Schicksale im Jahre 1870 (Leipzig, 1917), p. 18.15 Alexis de Tocqueville, Recollections (New York, 1896), p. 106.16 Ibid., p. 187; Maurain, op. cit., p. 24; cf. Cousin's statement reported by

Renan in his Reforme intellectuelle et morale de la France (1871), Oeuvres

completes (Paris, 1947-), I, 342.

17Ernest Renan, "La monarchie constitutionnelle en France" (1869),Oeuvres completes, I, 496-497; and Essais de morale et de critique, Oeuvres

completes, I, 16-17.

81




Liberal anxiety about the future of France found its most

explicit expression in Prevost-Paradol's essay, La France nouvelle

(1868), in which the author urged his fellow countrymen to giveup their predilection for utopias and revolutionary methods and

to imitate instead the English in their respect for tradition and

political compromise. Paradol, however, lacked confidence that

the French people would heed his suggestions and predicted an

era of Anglo-Saxon supremacy in the world. Viewing the positionof France among the great powers, he pointed out that France

was gradually falling behind other nations in number of inhabi-

tants. He held a contest between France and Germany inevitableand a French defeat highly probable. "There is no middle road,"was his pessimistic comment, "for a nation that has known great-ness and glory, between maintaining her prestige and complete

impotence." 18

Considerable difference, however, continued to exist between

the liberal and reactionary points of view. Whereas the latter

considered moder science and philosophy the handmaiden of the

dangerous revolutionary spirit, the liberals blamed the obscuran-

tism of the clergy and the backwardness of France's educational

system as important factors in the weakness of the country. More-

over, the liberals, criticizing the Revolution for its methods, rather

than for its principles, and basing their opposition to a centralized

powerful state on a philosophy of freedom for the individual, did

not fully renounce a progressive philosophy.19 Unlike the reac-

tionariesthey

did not advocate a return to the oldregime

but

hoped to introduce the English or American form of government.20Renan pointed out that England, without resorting to a revolu-

tion, had made more progress in establishing political freedom

than France, which had passed through ten revolutions during the

18Lucien Anatole Prevost-Paradol, La France nouvelle (Paris, 1868), esp.part III; on Prevost-Paradol, see the authoritative work by Pierre Guiral,

Prevost-Paradol (1829-1870): pensee et action d'un liberal sous le SecondEmpire (Paris, 1955).

19Charles de Remusat, Politique libe'rale ou fragments pour servir a la de-

fense de la Revolution Francaise (Paris, 1860); Renan, Questions contempo-raines (1868), Oeuvres completes I, 13-14.

20 E. Scherer, ?tudes sur la litterature contemporaine, III (Paris, 1885),273; Henri de Ferron, op. cit., I, 165; E. Montegut, "Du genie de la race

anglo-saxonne et de ses destinees," Revue des Deux-Mondes, Sept. 15, 1851, p.1035; ibid., XXVII (1857), 140; Pfdouard de Laboulaye, Paris in America

(New York, 1863).

82




last century. He traced the evils of modern France back to medi-

aeval times, when the ideals of freedom and honor, introduced

into France by Germanic tribes, had been destroyed by unscrupu-lous kings like Philip the Fair and Louis XI.21

Liberal pessimism was largely due to the conviction that real

freedom had no roots in France nor had the individual as such

ever existed there.22 Followers of Tocqueville, the liberals were in-

clined to accept his prediction that for the time being France was

doomed "to drag a miserable existence amid alternate reactions

of license and oppression." 23

III

Intellectuals with democratic or socialistic sympathies were

despondent because their dreams had failed to come true in 1848.

Many of the Republican leaders, heartbroken, withdrew from the

public scene and admitted the error of their youthful idealism,their naive faith in the political instincts of the French people, and

their illusions as to the speedy regeneration of mankind.24 Com-

paring the record of the French people in 1848 with that in the

great revolution of 1789, they concluded that the present genera-tion at least was decadent. Edgar Quinet, who had declared in

1848 that "Right, truth, freedom and brotherhood are henceforth

the true kings of the earth, the only rulers whom no physical force

can overthrow," wrote nineteen years later: "Thank God, for six-

teen years I have clearly seen that nothing can be expected from

this rotten nation for a number of generations." 25 SimilarlyProudhon confided to a friend in 1862 that he no longer believed

in France. "Her role," he wrote, "is finished; she is the home of

all corruptions which spoil the old world, and just as she has been

the standard-bearer of liberty and right, she now promotes uni-

versal destruction. France is now where Spain was after Philip

21Ernest Renan, "La Farce de Patelin" (1856), Oeuvres completes, II,211-212.

22 Hippolyte Taine, Sa vie et sa correspondance (Paris, 1903-1907), II,332 ff.

23Tocqueville, Recollections, p. 87.24 Cf. Ferron, op. cit., I, 16; on Michelet's pessimism see: M. Leroy, His-

toire des idees sociales en France, III (2nd ed., Paris, 1954), 67; on Lamar-

tine's: E. Petit, Eugene Pelletan, 1813-1884 (Paris, n. d.), pp. 79-87.25 H. Monin, "Etude critique sur le texte des Lettres d'exil d'Edgar Quinet,"

Revue d'histoire litteraire de la France, XV (1908), 484; Albert Guerard,French Prophets of Yesterday: a Study of Religious Thought under the Second

Empire (London, 1913), p. 95.

83




II.... Her decadence goes on at an accelerated pace; conscience,

intelligence, character, everything is dying out." 26

The despair about the decadence of France led one of Proud-hon's disciples, the anarchist Ernest Coeurderoy, to expect the re-

generation of his country from an invasion of the Russian army.It was not until after the total destruction of the present, corrupt

civilization, according to him, that the cause of the Revolution had

a chance to triumph. "We are the female races," he wrote, "full

of grace, delicacy, and voluptuous sensuality. They are the male

races who hunt the female races, rape them, and fertilize them." 27

Other Republican intellectuals, in their disillusionment, pro-

fessing a complete lack of interest in politics, withdrew into their

ivory tower. Leconte de Lisle wrote as early as April, 1848: "How

stupid the lower classes are. . . . Let them die of hunger and cold,these masses who are easily misled and will soon start to massacre

their real friends." He advised his friend, the versatile Louis

Menard, not to waste his youth and intelligence on sterile efforts

to regenerate his decadent country. 28

Menard, although remaining loyal to his democratic and re-

publican convictions, gradually came to the conclusion that his

ideal had never been fully realized since ancient Greece and that

modern France was headed for an irremediable decadence.29 It

was perhaps partly under his influence that the philosopher Charles

Renouvier, in many respects the sharpest mind of the period, re-

nounced his earlier optimistic views on history and started his

vigorousand

thoughtful campaign againstthe doctrine of neces-

sary and continuous progress. In a number of works written partlyunder the Second Empire (Introduction a la philosophie analytiquede l'histoire and Uchronie) this eminent thinker subjected the in-

terpretations of history expounded by Saint-Simon, Comte, Hegel,

Marx, Spencer, and other influential nineteenth-century writers

to a critical analysis pointing out how progressive forces had fre-

quently been defeated in the past and how a doctrinaire belief in

progress, by minimizing the role played by human responsibility

26 Proudhon, Correspondance (Paris, 1875), XI, 453; cf. ibid., XII, 48,and E. Dolleans, Proudhon (Paris, 1948), pp. 7, 25, 275-276.

27 Hans Kohn, Panslavism, its History and Ideology (Notre Dame, 1953),

pp. 92 ff.28Ramon Guthrie, French Literature and Thought Since the Revolution

(New York, 1942), p. 312; Henri Peyre, Louis Menard (1822-1901) (New

Haven, 1932), p. 78.29 Peyre, op. cit., pp. 183, 189-190, 367, 371-372, 375-376, 377.

84




and initiative, tended to undermine morality. Without denyingthat progress had occurred in the past and might take place in the

future, Renouvier considered the religious faith which many ofhis contemporaries placed in the idea a harmful illusion impairingthe chances of bringing about any real improvement in man's

condition.30

The pessimism professed by most Republicans was even less

absolute than that of the liberals.31 Proudhon, for example, al-

though admitting that exalted idealism, which, in the form of Ro-

man Catholicism, he blamed for extended periods of decadence in

the past, may delay continued progress in the future and that hisown country was not necessarily destined to lead humanity on the

road to greater freedom and equality, did not recant his firm belief

in progress itself.32 The greatest of all Republican opponents of the

Second Empire, Victor Hugo, remained entirely faithful to the

humanitarian optimism and the belief in the mission of France

which had been current among so many French intellectuals priorto the Revolution of 1848. The great author gave the classic

expression of this optimistic and nationalistic ideology in his

Legende des siecles (1859) and Miserables (1862). 33 The same

attitude was also common among younger Republicans, who be-

lieved that by avoiding the mistakes made by their elders theycould assure the triumph of the revolutionary principles on which,in their view, the regeneration of France was dependent.34

IV

Intellectuals were not only appalled by the political develop-ments of their time; they also viewed with alarm the rapid indus-

30 Charles Renouvier, Introduction a la philosophie analytique de l'histoire

(first publ. as vol. IV of his Essais de critique gene'rale) (Paris, 1864); Uchro-

nie; esquisse historique apocryphe du developpement de la civilisation euro-

pe'enne tel qu'il n'a pas ete', tel qu'il aurait pu etre (Paris, 1876); 0. Hamelin,Le systeme de Renouvier (Paris, 1927), pp. 421 ff.; P. Mouy, L'idee de progresdans la philosophie de Renouvier (Paris, 1927); cf. also note 33.

31E. Pelletan, La profession de foi du dix-neuvieme siecle (Paris, 1852); E.Quinet, La cre'ation (Paris, 1870).

32Proudhon, Philosophie du progres (Paris, 1853), De la justice dans laRevolution et l'Pglise (Paris, 1858), Neuvieme etude.

33Victor Hugo, La legende des siecles (largely written before 1859), esp."Plein ciel"; Les miserables (Paris, 1864), part 4, VII, 4; cf. Charles Renou-

vier, Victor Hugo, le philosophe (2nd ed., Paris, 1912), pp. 139 ff.

34Auguste Vermorel, Les hommes de 1848 (Paris, 1869); M. Dessal,Charles Delescluze, 1809-1871, un revolutionnaire jacobin (Paris, 1952); Allain

Targ;, Lettres. La Re'publique sous l'Empire (Ed. S. de la Porte, Paris, 1939).

85




trialization which took place during the Second Empire and which,in their eyes, threatened to undermine the moral and spiritual

foundations of civilization. They inveighed against the spirit ofmaterialism which was rampant in France, the wild speculationson the stock market, the widespread corruption in politics, and the

commercialization of art and literature. Manifestations of the new

industrial spirit, like the Great Exhibitions of 1855 and 1867, or

the modernization of Paris under the direction of Baron Hauss-

mann, often provoked sour comments on their part.35Reactionaries were, of course, leading in this attack on the

materialistic spirit of modem civilization, but liberals like Renanand Montegut, republicans like Pelletan and Quinet, and a social-

ist like Proudhon also deplored the loss of idealism which the questof material possessions seemed to entail.36 They had the feeling,as Renan put it, that they were living in a "world of Lead and

Tin" and that they were heading for an age of mediocrity in which

mankind would no longer have the time to devote itself to artistic

and intellectual pursuits.37The ultimate implications of increased mechanization and

rational organization were most sharply foreseen by Antoine Cour-

not, a philosopher whose original insight was not fully appreciateduntil the twentieth century. He predicted that everything would

be reduced to figures and facts, and man would become a dehu-

manized robot losing his spontaneity. "What is commonly called

progressive civilization," he wrote, "does not constitute the triumphof the

spirit

over matter, but rather the triumph of rational and

general principles of matter over the energy and abilities inherent

in living organisms...." 38 "From king of creation which he was,or believed to be, man has ascended or descended (according to

35Ernest Renan, "La poesie de l'Exposition" (1855), Oeuvres completes, II,239 ff.: Baudelaire, "Exposition universelle," Oeuvres completes, II, 148 ff.;Louis Veuillot, Les odeurs de Paris (Paris, 1866); G. Duveau, Histoire du

peuple francais de 1848 a nos jours (Paris, 1953), p. 251.36E. Montegut, "De la maladie morale du XIXe siecle," Revue des Deux-

Mondes, III (1849), 671-686; Richard H. Powers, Edgar Quinet, a Study in

French Patriotism (Dallas, 1957), pp. 160-161; E. Pelletan, La Nouvelle Baby-lone, lettres d'un provincial en tournee a Paris (Paris, 1862); Dolleans,Proudhon, pp. 321 ff., 402.

37 Renan, op. cit., II, 250.8 Antoine A. Cournot, Traite de l'enchatnement des ide'es fondamentales

dans les sciences et dans l'histoire (Paris, 1861), par. 330; cf. R. Ruyer, L'hu-manite de l'avenir d'apres Cournot (Paris, 1930); Leroy, op. cit., III, 122-124.

86




one's interpretation) to the role of concessionaire of a planet." 39

The approaching vulgarity, it was feared, also threatened the

finest product of French civilization, literature, which would lose itsraison d'etre in a utilitarian society.40 A number of leading literarycritics were convinced that they were witnessing the corruptionof all literary standards. Reviewing Baudelaire's work, some of

them denied this poetry all artistic value and called the fact that

this type of literature was taken seriously a sign not only of literarydecadence but of a general lowering of the intellectual level as

well;41 other critics, while appreciating the literary qualities of

this poetry, nonetheless considered it as "a flower of evil in thehothouse of decadence" (Barbey d'Aurevilly) or as "art arrived

at the point of maturity and the product of an aging civilization"

(Theophile Gautier).42 Among his admirers Baudelaire became

known as the "Prince of the Decadents." "He realized," wrote

Paul Bourget, "that he was a latecomer in an ageing civilization,and instead of deploring this late arrival . . . he considered it a

delight, almost an honor. He was a man of decadence, and he

made himself a theorist of decadence." 43

The corruption of literature was, according to many censors

of the Second Empire, more than a mere symptom of decadence,it constituted its very cause. Literature, in their view, had ener-

vated people's mind and was to a large extent responsible for the

moral crisis from which French society was suffering. Many critics

felt that Romanticism was at the root of France's misfortunes.44

This attitude was notonly

takenby dignified bourgeois

or conserva-

tive academicians; a socialist like Proudhon blamed Romanticism

for the failure of the Revolution of 1848, asserting that the Ro-

39 Cournot, Considerations sur la marche des ide'es et des e've'nements dans

les temps modernes (Paris, 1872), p. 230.

40Renan, op. cit., II, 18, 240-251; Sainte-Beuve, Nouveaux Lundis, IX,62 ff.

41 William T. Bandy, Baudelaire Judged by his Contemporaries (Nashville,

1933), pp. 35-36, 38, 53, 126; Edmond Scherer, Atudes sur la litterature con-temporaine (Paris, 1885-95), IV, 280-281, 291.

42 Bandy, op. cit., pp. 137, 168; Alphonse Sech6, La vie des Fleurs du mal

(Amiens, 1928), p. 194; Theophile Gautier, ?crivains et artistes romantiques(Paris, 1929), p. 179.

43 Paul Bourget, Essais de psychologie contemporaine (Paris, 1912), I, 19 ff.44Maxime Du Camp, Chants modernes (Paris, 1855), p. 8; Ch. Menche de

Loisne, Influence de la littMrature franfaise de 1830 a 1850 sur l'esprit publicet sur les mceurs (Paris, 1852); Eugene Poitou, Du theatre et du roman et deleur influence sur les mceurs (Paris, 1851).

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mantic school by repudiating the rules of justice had destroyed all

moral concepts.45 A rising younger scholar, Hippolyte Taine, de-

fined the features of the Romantic disease as "dishonesty, brutish-ness, impotence, madness, and suicide, at best exultation and febrile

declamation." 46 Leading figures in the new school of Realism,

mostly former Romantics themselves, joined in the campaign

against Romanticism. Flaubert wrote some of his novels with this

purpose in mind, and claimed in 1871 that the French peoplecould never have committed the folly of the Commune had theyunderstood his novel Education sentimentale.47

Among other factors held responsible for the supposed deca-dence of France (such as the decline of religious sentiment48 and

the unsatisfactory development of French economy49) special men-

tion should be made of the slow increase in population. Raudot

in 1850 was the first author to call attention to the dangerous

implications of French demographic trends, but it was not until

after the publication of the census of 1856 that the problem be-

came a topic of discussion in newspapers and periodicals and that

a number of publicists like Le Play, Tocqueville, Leonce de La-

vergne, and Prevost-Paradol began to question the prevailing Mal-

thusian views on the subject.50 Public opinion, however, remained

apathetic. It showed but slightly more concern ten years later,when after the census of 1866, in a year of rapid deterioration of

France's international position, the alarmists once again tried to

shake the complacency of the French people.51

45 Proudhon, Les majorats litte'raires (Paris, 1863); De la justice dans laRe'volution et l'Iglise, Oeuvres completes XI, 489; L. Maigron, Le Romantisme

dans les mceurs (Paris, 1907), p. 493.4 Maigron, op. cit., p. 96.47Ibid., p. 460; Leroy, op. cit., III, 250.48Abbe Gaume, Le ver rongeur dans les societes modernes ou le paganisme

dans l'action (Paris, 1851); Felix-Antoine Dupanloup, Les malheurs et les signesdu temps (Paris, 1866) and L'atheisme et le pre'sent pe'ril social (Paris, 1866);

Guerard, op. cit., pp. 64-65.49Arthur L. Dunham, The Anglo-French Treaty of Commerce of 1860

(Ann Arbor, 1930), pp. 125 ff., 204; G. Duveau, La vie ouvriere en Francesous le Second Empire (Paris, 1946), p. 25, and Histoire du peuple franfaisde 1848 a nos jours, p. 251.

50 Raudot, De la decadence de la France and his article in the Correspon-dant of May, 1857 and the Gazette de France of July 1, 1866; Charles de

Ribbe, Le Play d'apres sa correspondance (Paris, 1884), pp. 56-62; Tocque-ville, Oeuvres completes, VII (Paris, 1866), 447; Lionce de Lavergne, Revuedes Deux-Mondes, April 1, 1857, pp. 481-501; Guiral, op. cit., pp. 158 ff.

51 Cf. J. Spengler, France Faces Depopulation (Durham, N. C., 1938), pp.118-120; Guiral, op. cit., pp. 513 ff.

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The way the French public reacted toward the population issue

was characteristic of their attitude toward the ideas of the pessimists

in general. The great mass of the French people, fairly satisfiedwith the state of the nation, convinced of the invincibility of the

army, refused to take the somber predictions seriously. Duringthe very last years of the Empire an attitude of alarm became

more general, but even at that time the warnings fell on deaf

ears.52 "Some enormous errors are dragging our country to the

abyss," wrote Ernest Renan in 1869. "Those to whom they are

pointed out reply with a smile." 53

V

The sentiment of political and cultural decline, although not

representative of French public opinion of this period, deserves

the attention of the historian. The belief in progress has exercised

a true tyranny over moder civilization against which even his-

torians have not been immune. Its history has been traced in great

detail, whereas its counterpart, the idea of decadence, has beenrelatively neglected. Especially the importance of the French con-

tribution to the development of the idea has not been fully rec-

ognized.54The pessimism of this period, of course, contained many ele-

ments besides the idea of decadence. Many of the derogatoryremarks were merely a form of political agitation against a de-

tested regime.55 The Second Empire deprived the intellectuals of

the influence they had exercised during the preceding period; itcurtailed intellectual freedom; it imprisoned some authors and

forced others into exile. It was therefore not surprising that, as

Napoleon III complained to a British ambassador, there existed a

conspiracy of men of letters against his regime.56 Yet, one would

52Maurain,op. cit.,p. 757; Guiral,op. cit.,pp. 568-579.53Renan, Saint-Paul (dedication), Oeuvrescompletes, IV, 708.54Ernst R. Curtius'sarticle in the InternationaleMonatsschrift,XV (1921),

35-52, 147-166, "Entstehungund Wandlungendes Dekadenzproblemsin Frank-reich," does not do much more than raise the problem; suggestiveworks on anearlier period are Walther Rehm's Der Untergang Roms, ein Beitrag zum

Dekadenzproblem (Leipzig, 1930) and Henry Vyverberg'sHistorical Pessimismin the French Enlightenment (Cambridge, Mass., 1958).

55 Cf. Sainte-Beuve,"Les regrets,"Causeriesdu lundi, VI, 397-413; Mohrt,op. cit., 225; a good example of the handling of the term "decadence"as a

political weapon is Henri Rochefort's Les Franfais de la Decadence (Paris,1866).

56Charles C. F. Greville, Memoirs 1814-1860 (London, 1938), VII, 385.

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underestimate the significance of the pessimistic mood by merely

considering it as a form of personal revenge or political propa-

ganda. Pessimism was not only prevalent among opponents ofthe regime, but was also common among many writers who were

politically indifferent or even in sympathy with the Empire. It

was not only expressed in political pamphlets but also in the works

of clear-headed scholars like Renan and Tocqueville, and of pro-found philosophers like Cournot and Renouvier.

The pessimism of this period, even where it corresponded to

deeply rooted convictions, did not always imply the belief in deca-

dence. Many writers did reject the idea of progress, yet did notmake any invidious comparisons between their own age and the

past, and their pessimism was therefore of a philosophical rather

than a historical nature. This form of pessimism was, as is known,common among intellectuals in many European countries at this

time, especially in Germany, where it found its fullest expressionin the philosophies of Schopenhauer and Eduard von Hartmann.57

The pessimism of the Second Empire, as far as it was his-

torically oriented, assumed in many instances the form of a mythi-cal belief in the "good old days." As such, it has been current

among disillusioned idealists or narrow-minded moralists of all

societies, even in periods which posterity remembers for their cul-

tural brilliance or political stability.58 Yet, the significance of the

French speculations lies in in the fact that they involved more

than vague idealizations of the past. In many cases at least, the

French ideas of decadence were based on afairly

accurate and

detailed knowledge of history and a sharp analysis of contem-

porary social and political trends. Even reactionaries adduced

the findings of some solid research on the old regime in supportof their glorification of the past.

57Cf. Friedrich Ueberweg, Grundriss des Geschichte der Philosophie, ed. byMax Heinze (9th ed., Berlin, 1902), IV, 203; Schopenhauer's philosophy had

few French followers in this period; cf. A. Baillot, "Schopenhauer im Urteil

seiner franzoesischen Zeitgenossen. Fruehe Dokumente," Jahrbuch der Schopen-hauer-Gesellschaft, XIX (1932), 252-279; A. Baillot, L'influence de la philo-sophie de Schopenhauer en France (1860-1890) (Paris, 1927).

58 C. Edmund Pfleiderer, Die Idee eines goldenen Zeitalters, ein geschichts-

philosophischer Versuch mit besonderer Beziehung auf die Gegenwart (Berlin,1877); H. Delbrueck, "Die gute alte Zeit," Preussische Jahrbuecher, LXXI

(1893) and L. Wuelker, "Das Lob der guten alten Zeit," ibid., CXXX, 324-

329; cf. also Voltaire's statement: "People are always crying that the world isin the process of degeneration," Oeuvres completes (Paris, 1877-1885), XVI,140.

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the idea of decadence