Richard Cobb on French conflicts
The four essays in this collection, introduced and concluded by Dr Zeldin. are all con- cerned with the 1850s and 1860s and have as a common theme the conflict between clericalism and anti-clericalism in the fields of morals, politics and education. They represent too the most rewarding approach to French history at any.period : away from Paris. with exploitation in depth of pro- vincial records. The collection will be of particular value to anyone embarking for the first time on research on eighteenth- or nine- teenth-century France, as well as to anyone who teaches modern French history. For the four authors all offer a welcome antidote to the usual 'stereotype of modern French his- tory, in terms of France and anti-France, le legal and le pays reel, left and right, clerical and anti-clerical. Both the editor and the other contributors insist that, despite the noise of conflict, both sides had in fact more in common than their battle, flags would allow to appear. The anti-clericals taught a dehydrated version of clerical morality, even to the extent of using a question and answer method: there was little difference between the syllabus in use in the two types of schools, though the clericals were suspicious of history, fought shy of the eighteenth cen- tury—they had every reason to do so—and made something of a cult of le grand siecle. Louis xtv was safe; Louis xv was not. Catholic schools charged lower fees and cos- seted their pupils more; they were also more concerned with virility and character than with intelligence; in this respect, they were forerunners of the Vichy educational system. At village level, anti-clericalism was inspired more by conflicts over parish pump matters: repairs to a church or to a presbytery, the overbearing arrogance of an individual cure.. than with doctrine. In short, in this excellent collection, we are dealing with history in human terms. This being so, nothing is quite what it at first might seem to be: there is every possible alignment. People change sides. The result is that the essays make amusing as well as interesting reading.
The editor has reserved for himself the most difficult subject. He has bravely em- barked on an investigation of clerical at- titudes to morality. His approach is both ingenious and full of ideas for further research. He has made much use of seminarists' guides and handbooks, particularly on how to conduct confession. We have some fascinating insights on danc- ing (the waltz is out), on clothing (crinolines lead to sin), on masturbation and on copula- tion (two or three times a week for the under- thirties, twice a week for the thirties-to-forties. once a week up to fifty; the over-fifties pre- sumably have to abstain). One of the special- ists on popular sins—dancing, novel-reading, theatregoing—has the evocative name of l'abbe Hulot. Perhaps the greatest interest in this essay is the surprising survival of Jansen- ism and Jansenist attitudes to well into the nineteenth century. The author concludes that sources of anti-clericalism should be sought in clerical interference in private life. This is already true in the previous century, when, for instance, the deChristianisation move- ment of 1793-4 drew largely on anti-feminism and represented the defence of the interests of the husband, of the male. One should not, however, make too much of this: Darien. for instance, in La Belle France (1900), sees the Church as the ally of middle-class morality, underwriting the subjection of women and the defence of the middle-class family as a collective interest. Many of Dr Zeldin's ten- tative suggestions will certainly be followed up, with further work both on sermons and on guides to female pilgrims to Rome (Peyrefitte has some interesting leads, in this respect, in the generally scurrilous, but oc- casionally revealing, Les Clefs de Saint- Pierre).
Robert Anderson has an excellent essay on Catholic secondary schools, 1850-1870. But the best essay in the collection, that by Austin Gough, concerns the amazing Mgr Pie, the ultra-legitimist Bishop of Poitiers, a splendid fighter, with a rugged sense of humour. In a sermon preached at the time of the Italian campaign, he repeatedly referred to a wicked monarch as 'Herod His essay is an intelligent and highly amusing study of the incentives to legitimist com- mitment. Snobbery was one, and false nobles, like M. Merveilleux du Vignaux—the family still exists—were among • the most eager takers. Servants were mobilised as spies through an agency called the Societe des Blandines. There is something extremely satisfying in the spectacle of the irreducible Mgr Pie defying all the highest officials of an authoritarian regime. He did in fact wear three Prefects completely down. Poitiers, under his episcopate, must have been as un- comfortable a Prefecture as Nimes thirty years earlier, under the Restoration.
Mr Magraw's essay on popular anti- clericalism in the Isere is something of a let- down after Pie. His writing is muddled and it is often not clear what he is trying to say. Or perhaps it is only too clear : some cures were good at getting on with the civil authorities, others were impossible. His style is muddy and he jumps too quickly from one locality to another. But he makes some telling points, not the least on the subject of the popularity of nuns as educators, in a peasant society in which the educated or professional woman— the directrice, the institutrice—was an ob- ject of suspicion and derision. His essay would have had more depth if he had studied Isere during the first French 'Revolution. Cromieu, for instance, might have always been a great clerical centre; but it produced, in Contamin, one of the most violent apostles of Dechristianisation, and, later, a leading babouviste.
The collection is indicative of the vitality of Dr Zeldin's graduate seminar. It is to be hoped that there will be many more essays of this kind, from the same source. How is it that such a valuable example of the graduate work at present being undertaken in Oxford was not published by the University's own Press?
Richard Cobb. Fellow of Ralik)! Oxford. author of works on modern French history.
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