Abstract
Today, Léon Laurent-Pichat's light in the history of the early Third Republic France is obscured by that of more luminous figures, such as Léon Gambetta and Jules Ferry. But Susan K. Foley's careful reconstruction of Laurent-Pichat's personal and political lives (perhaps one should just say “life,” given how much the two were intertwined) reveals him to have been one of those essential actors in the French political struggle for democracy—not the charismatic leader like Gambetta or the hyperactive institutional reformer like Ferry, but, as Foley writes, the “man behind the scenes, active in committees, writing and working for the cause, and supporting that cause with his financial acumen and resources” (175).
On the surface, Republican Passions might seem like a typical biography—unfolding chronologically while holding focus on its main character. But by drawing insights from the history of emotions and applying them to a rich archive, Foley makes her study of Laurent-Pichat and his extensive family and friendship networks into what could be called an intimate history of the republican movement in nineteenth-century France. This is a valuable contribution, for while we know much about how republicans spread and embedded their values in civil society by working through institutions like Freemasonry lodges and the university, we know a good amount less about how emotional ties held together the personal and the political in a reinforcing republican knot. This has tended to be an arena for historians researching the French Revolution, when discourses about sensibility and efforts to remake the family broke through the surface. Nevertheless, Foley makes the compelling case that during the second half of the nineteenth century, affective modes of friendship and family could be more than just personal relationships, crystalizing as radical republican practices that contributed to France's transition from an authoritarian regime to what was arguably then the world's most democratic republic.
Foley begins, as expected, with her primary subject's origins. Born out of wedlock in 1823, the child at first baptized Léon Laurent was the fruit of an affair between a wealthy Parisian businessman (Etienne Pichat) and a poor 17-year-old girl who had come from the provinces (Geneviève Leroi). Under the patriarchal Civil Code instituted by Napoléon in 1804, that meant that legally Léon Laurent had no father. His mother also distanced herself after giving birth, using the fake name “Rosine Laurent” to register the newborn. But after failing to issue any legitimate descendants, Etienne took steps toward adoption. This seemed to have less to do with paternal affection and more due to a long family feud over money—he wanted to keep his accumulated wealth out of the hands of his estranged nephews, who according to the law stood to gain the inheritance. Etienne eventually succeeded, and beyond adding the Pichat to his last name, Léon Laurent also became a very wealthy young man.
Still, Etienne's coldness as a father stirred in Laurent-Pichat a hunger for familial affection. After discovering who his real mother was, Laurent-Pichat worked to be accepted by her side of the family. The analysis here is largely based on a long autobiographical poem he penned to a half-sister that outlined these early life events and explored the complex hunger he had for family intimacy. As Foley deftly explains, this poem was not only a way for Laurent-Pichat to express his feelings and strike a bond with his mother and half-sisters; it also sheds light onto the two different conceptions of family that stood in tension at this transitional moment in European history. In short, the poem celebrated the ideal “of the sentimental bourgeois family—based on domestic affection and imagined as the foundation for individual happiness—over the patriarchal family enshrined in law, in which affection had little priority” (17).
The rest of the book is an exploration of how the sentimental model of affection was central to the relationships of kin and friendships that structured bourgeois republican society in the second half of the nineteenth century. A chapter on Laurent-Pichat's youth illuminates just how much intimate forms of friendship oriented the mid-century republican revival. Coming of age in the 1840s, Laurent-Pichat was drawn to republicanism both because it was the fashionable position for young aspiring writers to adopt and because he had no connections to the established order. His wealth opened some doors, but his pedigree still marked him as an outsider. Disillusioned by the hierarchies that persisted in the July Monarchy, he and his friends cultivated intimate bonds by writing passionate poetry together. They modeled themselves after Romantic luminaries like Victor Hugo and Alphonse de Lamartine, authors who also shaped how these idealistic young men thought about the pressing social and political issues of the time.
The establishment of the Second Republic in 1848 seemed to signal a new era, but that experiment was tragically cut short. Once Napoléon III staged his coup and established the Second Empire, some of Laurent-Pichat's closest friendships fell apart because of political disagreement—the personal and the political could not be disentangled. But the friendships that survived became even more important for the preservation of republican culture. In one especially illuminating chapter, Foley analyzes Laurent-Pichat's 3-month stay in prison (he was condemned for writing an article ridiculing Napoléon III and the Catholic Church). While political opposition entailed real risks, for republicans of Laurent-Pichat's stature a stint in prison was also something of a performance—a rite of passage that confirmed one's republican bona fides and rendered visible ties of friendship and kinship through acts of solidarity, such as regular visits by friends and families (children included).
Although this is not systematically theorized, Foley's analysis makes it evident that the bourgeois affectionate model of republicanism was forged in the crucible of Second Empire authoritarian politics. After all, Napoléon III exerted extensive control over the public sphere until 1862, when the regime started adopting a more liberal posture. Newspapers that expressed political opinions contrary to the Second Empire had a short lifecycle, which meant that writers were all the more reliant on tightly knit networks of support (one often turned to friends and family for publishing opportunities). In many cases, though, republicans had to keep their political practices restricted to the private sphere, contributing to that sphere's politicization. As Foley explains, “they were convinced that the successful establishment of a Third Republic depended upon the regeneration of private life” (90).
Laurent-Pichat's household during the Second Empire and the early Third Republic was anything but typical. He remained a bachelor, an unusual position for a man of his standing and political ambitions. Furthermore, his was a very feminized household—at first, he lived with his mother and his sister Hermine, then with his mother and his daughter (who had also been born out of wedlock), and then with his daughter, his sister Rosine, her husband, and their daughter. But these heterodox arrangements practiced and promoted orthodox forms of bourgeois intimacy and republicanism. Family life was centered on children, whom the adults diligently educated to embrace republican values. His daughter, Geneviève, grew up attending opposition soirées hosted in the safety of the private home, and politics were a constant topic of conversation at the dinner table. Laurent-Pichat was expected to be both a prominent public figure and an affectionate father, and, based on the tender correspondence he maintained with Geneviève, he succeeded. Meanwhile, his sisters took up the roles of mistresses of the house. Of special concern was the education of Genèvieve and her cousin, Clémence. The children came of age before the 1881–1882 Jules Ferry Law instituted free, mandatory, and secular education, so religious instruction was still the norm for girls. Nevertheless, Laurent-Pichat and his sister made sure that their children were raised with secular values and encouraged them to develop a kind of worldly sociability rather than religious piety.
The entrenching of republican culture in the private sphere had important consequences for political culture after the Second Empire's collapse in 1870. Many of the strong bonds cultivated in the 1850s and 1860s persevered after the founding of the Third Republic, which may help explain why, despite being marked by major scandals like the Dreyfus Affair, the regime still managed to survive 70 years (more than any as of yet). As a radical republican, Laurent-Pichat was often in the minority even amongst those on his side of the political aisle. But despite major disagreements when it came to issues like colonialism, the republican block in parliament was loosely united by bonds of affection. Laurent-Pichat maintained cordial relations with his opponents and was trusted enough to peacefully settle multiple honor disputes that were on the path to becoming duels. His esteem amongst his colleagues was such that in 1875 they elected him a Life Senator—a position that gave him enviable influence over French political life.
The argument here might offer some sobering insight into present-day issues. Some political observers argue that a decline in civility between members of the U.S. Congress has contributed to the increasing lack of bipartisan legislative initiatives and to growing public disillusionment with the politics of conciliation. One wonders, then, to what extent parliamentary politics—the conciliatory mode par excellence—depends on forms of sociability that transcend bureaucratic norms and procedures. After all, the opening of the public sphere to republican politics did not mean that the private sphere was evacuated of it. In fact, republicanism bound together the private and the public in a kind of double helix. Marriage, in particular, seems to have been a stabilizing political force. It would be too simplistic to state that the marriages of bourgeois republicans prioritized political interests over affection, given just how intertwined these two elements were. However, these arrangements did allow for the extension and reinforcement of existing republican networks. In other words, marriages also forged political alliances. The family thus “became an important site for managing the political differences that emerged among republicans once the Republic was securely installed” (225). For instance, although they were often politically at odds, Laurent-Pichat and Jules Ferry were bound together by Geneviève's marriage to Charles Risler (Ferry's brother-in-law).
In practice, this also meant that political crises were experienced as family crises, as was the case with the dramatic events of 1877, when President Patrice McMahon dissolved the government and called for new elections with the hopes of securing a royalist majority. The crisis threatened not only the republican project, but also marriage prospects and family fortunes, which helps explain why managing it became an all-hands-on-deck exercise. While Foley does her best to shed light on the political agency of men and women, here we clearly see the gendered limits that bourgeois family norms imposed on direct action. The men actively campaigned in the public sphere, while the women communicated their concerns through private letters and discussions, their only immediate channels of influence. But republican intimacy also allowed women to exert influence in more circuitous ways. Following Laurent-Pichat's death in 1886, the women in his family diligently set about in constructing a family archive—an archive that “reveals the creation of the Republic as a project pursued in collaboration by family members, not just the work of the men in political roles” (164).
Léon Laurent-Pichat is a fascinating case study because his life was simultaneously exceptional and mundane (he was never a bohemian or a political extremist). This, of course, is the biographer's curse, for readers might wonder what is representative of broader trends in familial relationships and republican practices in France and what is extraordinary. A bastard who died unmarried may seem like an inauspicious specimen for the investigation of bourgeois intimacy. However, the primacy of the sentimental family model is corroborated by the very fact that it was so wholeheartedly embraced by someone who stood outside of the norms. Furthermore, by comparing Laurent-Pichat's experiences with those of other republican figures, Foley makes a persuasive argument that it was not just that nineteenth-century French republicanism was an intimate affair, but that intimate bonds were an important element in explaining the eventual republican triumph.