Legitimism and the Reconstruction of French Society, 1852-1883
Description:... Although the Legitimists were highly visible participants in the intellectual, social, and political life of nineteenth-century France, they have received little scholarly attention. In Legitimism and the Reconstruction of French Society, 1852-1883, Steven D. Kale argues against dismissing the Legitimists as mere anachronisms and analyzes their efforts to define the conditions for a restoration of the Bourbon monarchy. More broadly, Kales study presents an intellectual and social history of the French Legitimist movement. Kale examines the social composition of the Legitimist party and outlines the qualities the Legitimists considered necessary for the creation of an appropriate ruling class for nineteenth-century France. He discusses the Legitimists' place within the French elite and their relationship to the wider social order, as well as their judgements on how prevailing social realities both complemented and obstructed their desire to reestablish the vertical social ties that they considered the French Revolution to have destroyed. The book, in its attention to Legitimist ideology, details the royalists' attempt to design a new social architecture for France and offers an analysis of the legislative projects that envisioned the "reconstruction" of cultural values and social institutions favorable to a restoration of the monarchy. According to Kale, the Legitimists tried to achieve their goal, not through a political system from which they were more or less excluded, but through an intellectual assault on what they viewed as the disruptive legacy of the Revolution of 1789. By preaching in favor of administrative decentralization, by establishing charitable and corporatist organizations, and by promoting measures to increase prosperity in rural France, the Legitimists hoped to predispose France to accept the return of the Bourbons. Kale demonstrates how the conclusions the Legitimists drew from their own social experience shaped their understanding of the significance of the monarchy. He also argues that the Legitimists' desire to address broader social and cultural matters played a decisive role both in the Comte de Chambord's rejection of the crown in 1873 and in subsequent fragmentation of the Legitimist party. Based on extensive archival research and neglected printed sources, Kales study rescues Legitimism from historical obscurity and indicates the true dimensions of the Legitimists' place in nineteenth-century French social, cultural, and political life. The author addresses such fundamental questions as the instability of French politics and the evolution of French Catholicism, and illuminates the social and intellectual climate that shaped the mentality of those on the Left who founded the Third Republic. Here is a solid and valuable contribution to the literature on nineteenth-century French history. Steven D. Kale brings exceptional light to the Legitimist movement and the forces behind it.
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