Conservative orators in Restoration France: Bonald vs. Chateaubriand

ABSTRACT

Bicameral parliaments are especially apt to demonstrate how different environments and audiences affect political performance. During the Bourbon Restoration in France, the Chamber of Deputies and the Chamber of Peers both had among their members such influential speakers as Louis Gabriel Ambroise de Bonald or François-René de Chateaubriand, who belonged to the same conservative camp, but their character and style were highly different. Bonald is usually described as a man of abstract theories, for whom parliamentary politics has always remained alien, while Chateaubriand as a forerunner of Romantic literature is thought to have been more at home in political debates as an orator as well. The truth is, however, the exact opposite: Bonald seems to have been more successful in the lower house than Chateaubriand in the upper, which may be explained by their – however reluctant – adaptation to the different circumstances in which they were compelled to act. The first part of the paper describes the context: the chambers with their specific rules and practices as prescribed by the Constitutional Charter of 1814; the second part outlines the personal background of the speakers and their different attitudes towards the idea of parliamentarism based on their biographies and literary works; while the third part analyses their performance, using the transcriptions of their speeches in contemporary sources. The last part offers a brief overview of their later careers to show how their different attitudes towards parliamentary politics led to a more profound estrangement (especially on issues of freedom of speech and censorship), which, in their own judgement as well as in the eyes of the public, would ultimately separate them from each other.

KEYWORDS:

• French conservatism
• parliamentary rhetoric
• representation
• Bourbon restoration
• Bonald
• Chateaubriand

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. It is, of course, slightly anachronistic to speak of a ‘parliamentary’ discourse here. The French word parlement meant a judicial court under the Old Regime, and the legislative body was not called a ‘parliament’ in any official document before 1948. Yet, even if the representative institutions of the Restoration were not parliamentarian as in the English case, it is not uncommon to refer to them as such in comparative historical studies. See Bouchet, “French Parliamentary Discourse”; Selinger, Parliamentarism; Velde, “Between National Character.”

2. Chateaubriand, Mémoires d’outre-tombe, vol. 4, 131.

3. ‘Orators – and not only writers and poets in the Chamber, like Chateaubriand, Lamartine or Hugo – frequently regarded their speeches as literary pieces that could be rewritten immediately afterwards, so that they would appear more elegant in the verbatim records of Le Moniteur universel and Le Journal officiel.’ Bouchet, “French Parliamentary Discourse,” 168.

4. Balanda, Louis de Bonald, 164.

5. Fortescue, Revolution and Counterrevolution, 6.

6. See the introductory passages of the Charte constitutionelle.

7. Garrigues and Anceau, “Discussing the First Age,” 53.

8. Bouchet, “French Parliamentary Discourse,” 163.

9. Artz, “The Electoral System,” 216.

10. Charte constitutionelle, Article 27.

11. Artz, “The Electoral System,” 206, 218.

12. Garrigues and Anceau, “Discussing the First Age,” 53.

13. Bonald, “Lettre,” 758.

14. Moulinié, De Bonald, 24. On Bonald’s ‘doctrinal arsenal’ see Démier, La France de la Restauration, 172. On Bonald as the ‘philosopher’ of the Restoration (as already realized by Guizot) see Yvert, La Restauration, 198.

15. Bonald, “Lettre,” 757–8.

16. Bonald, Oeuvres complètes, vol. 1, 156.

17. Ibid., 201.

18. Ibid., 302.

19. Ibid., 348.

20. Or almost explicit if we are to accept Villèle’s recollections, according to which Bonald was also absent during the ceremonial oath to the Charter. Balanda, Louis de Bonald, 162.

21. Bonald, Réflexions, 10.

22. Ibid., 53.

23. Ibid., 55.

24. Ibid., 69–70. Cf. Article 38 of the Charter.

25. Ibid., 80.

26. Klinck, The French Counterrevolutionary, 192.

27. Chateaubriand, Mémoires d’outre-tombe, vol. 1, 107. Some biographies (based perhaps on Maurois’ Chateaubriand and Godechot’s La contre-révolution) still refer to it as a Jesuit college, but the Jesuit order was expelled from France in 1764, so Rennes was handed over to the Oratorians.

28. Chateaubriand, “On Buonaparte,” 31.

29. Chateaubriand, De l’état, 10–11; Réflexions politiques, 49.

30. Chateaubriand, Réflexions politiques, 49.

31. Ibid., 69. This was, as Émeric Travers remarks, nothing else than the traditional idea of mixed government, uniting monarchical, aristocratic and democratic elements. Travers, “Constant et Chateaubriand,” 96.

32. Chateaubriand, Réflexions politiques, 49.

33. Ibid., 78. Ministerial responsibility also played a substantial role in the complex political system envisioned by Chateaubriand; see Travers, “Constant et Chateaubriand,” 93.

34. ‘Chambre Introuvable’ is a term notoriously difficult to translate. The most often used ‘unobtainable chamber’ makes little sense in English. What the king actually meant was that it was ‘unparalleled’, or ‘impossible to find’ elsewhere.

35. Bonald, Oeuvres complètes, vol. 2, 991–1016, especially 997 and 1004. See also Archives parlementaires, vol. 15, 235–40 and 335–8.

36. Klinck, The French Counterrevolutionary, 192.

37. Bonald, Oeuvres complètes, vol. 2, 166. For the whole speech see 163–76, or Archives parlementaires, vol. 15, 609–13.

38. Bonald, Oeuvres complètes, vol. 2, 167.

39. Let us not forget, however, that words like ‘democracy’ or ‘democratic’ began to be used more widely and with a modernized meaning exactly during this period. See Cassina, “Des mots issus,” 152.

40. Bonald, Oeuvres complètes, vol. 2, 170.

41. Bonald, Oeuvres complètes, vol. 2, 1037–48. See also Archives parlementaires, vol. 16, 40–2.

42. Bonald, Oeuvres complètes, vol. 2, 1017–22. See also Archives parlementaires, vol. 16, 104–5.

43. Bonald, Oeuvres complètes, vol. 2, 1306–7. For the whole speech, see 1306–12 and Archives parlementaires, vol. 16, 297–9.

44. Berchet, Chateaubriand, 573.

45. Bonald, Oeuvres complètes, vol. 2, 1047–68 and Archives parlementaires, vol. 16, 641–8.

46. Bonald, Oeuvres complètes, vol. 2, 1205. For the whole speech, see 1205–20.

47. Chateaubriand, Oeuvres complètes, vol. 8, 177. For the whole speech, see 177–96 or Archives parlementaires, vol. 15, 465–74.

48. Chateaubriand, Oeuvres complètes, vol. 8, 197–200; Archives parlementaires, vol. 16, 7–9.

49. Chateaubriand, Oeuvres complètes, vol. 8, 201–13; Archives parlementaires¸ vol. 16, 113–18.

50. Chateaubriand, Oeuvres complètes, vol. 8, 214–16; Archives parlementaires, vol. 16, 224–5.

51. Chateaubriand, Oeuvres complètes, vol. 8, 217–27; Archives parlementaires, vol. 16, 491–4.

52. Chateaubriand, Oeuvres complètes, vol. 8, 228. For the whole speech see 228–36; Archives parlementaires, vol. 17, 88–91.

53. Chateaubriand, Oeuvres complètes, vol. 8, 237–328; Archives parlementaires, vol. 17, 156–7.

54. Ihalainen, Ilie and Palonen, “Parliament as a Conceptual Nexus,” 3.

55. Bonald, Oeuvres complètes, vol. 2, 1314.

56. Chateaubriand, Mémoires d’outre-tombe, vol. 4, 131.

57. See his De la chambre de 1815 in Bonald, Oeuvres complètes, vol. 2, 695–706.

58. Chateaubriand, Oeuvres complètes, vol. 8, 171.

59. Bonald, Oeuvres complètes, vol. 2, 1493; 1533; 1540; 1551; 1553–72.

60. Chateaubriand, Mémoires d’outre-tombe, vol. 2, 262.

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Tamás Nyirkos

Tamás Nyirkos (1966) is a political philosopher, and research fellow at the Research Institute for Politics and Government, Eötvös József Research Center, University of Public Service, Budapest. He holds a PhD in Moral and Political Philosophy from the Doctoral School of Philosophical Science at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. He is the author of The Tyranny of the Majority: History, Concepts, and Challenges, published by Routledge in 2018.