Anyone who knows anything about the nature of French politics will be aware that until relatively recently, the French political system provided inhospitable terrain for the practices of organized opposition. Likewise, with the exception of the Bolshevik-inspired Parti Communiste Français, political parties have tended to be fragile and fleeting constructions. Indeed, one of the primary aims of the constitution of Charles de Gaulle's Fifth Republic has been precisely to put an end to “the regime of parties” and to encourage the expression of national unity through both the person of the president and the institution of the presidency. It is no accident that the sessions of the French parliament are among the shortest in the European Union and that today Nicolas Sarkozy is referred to as the “Omni-President.”
Similarly, a brief acquaintance with political discourse in contemporary France reveals that debate about the merits or otherwise of the distinctive French social and economic model is frequently carried out by way of comparison with developments in the United Kingdom. This was especially so, for example, during the premiership of Tony Blair, when much was made of the British government's embrace of neoliberalism, globalization, and Atlanticism. For many in France, this was a politics that had little to recommend it. More generally, the “Anglo-Saxons” have had rather few admirers on the other side of the Channel.
That this has and remains so gives added pertinence to J. A. W. Gunn's magisterial examination of the political thought of what was probably the only period in French history when men of rare distinction and ability were prepared to consider the possibility of transplanting British constitutional practices onto a French setting. In truth, and as Gunn ably explains, versions of constitutional Anglophilia existed in the eighteenth century, and the unique features of British government were especially evident to French commentators after the Seven Years War. If this often amounted to a vivid appreciation of the corruption of British parliamentary life, it also gave rise to a consideration that, in the eyes of some, dwarfed all others: namely, the capacity of British parliamentarians “to join together for the purpose of responding to pressing public issues” (p. 22). For French commentators, it was this which served to turn otherwise petty rivalries to some larger national purpose, and this which explained Britain's flourishing condition.
In the eyes of some, France's difficulties—demonstrated to most savage and destructive effect during the revolutionary period after 1789—arose from the fact that France had no equivalent to the British parliament and, thus, no location where opposition could be both institutionalized and expressed. Dissent was crushed and there was little enthusiasm for what J.A.W. Gunn terms “the ethics of civic disagreement” (p. 61).
With the Revolution brought to a close and the monarchy restored after 1814, could an ethics along these lines be envisaged? Could the voice of political pluralism make itself heard over the clamor for unity and the indivisibility of the sovereign will? This is the central question addressed by Gunn, and in addressing it, he scarcely leaves a stone unturned or a pamphlet unread. The scholarship is faultless and the writing style flawlessly elegant. The analysis, as well as the conclusions drawn from it, are never less than judicious and astute.
In outline, the narrative begins with two thematic chapters surveying, first, the views of political commentators on pluralism and conflict during the prerevolutionary and revolutionary periods and, second, the broader debate about faction and party in the Restoration period. It then offers extended discussions of the parliamentary royalism of men such as the comte de Vaublanc, of the (unjustly ignored) journalist Joseph Fiévée, of the liberal Benjamin Constant (described by Gunn as the voice of left-wing opposition and the dominant political figure of the time), of the unclassifiable (and always intriguing) François-René de Chateaubriand, and, finally, of the influential coterie of writers and politicians known as the Doctrinaires. If there is a criticism to be made, it is that the author might have looked upon his readers with a more forgiving and less demanding eye. The occasional broad brush stroke highlighting the conclusions reached along the way, as well as a more substantial concluding chapter, would have facilitated a better comprehension of the arguments being advanced.
More substantially, how does Gunn explain the animus toward party and the British pattern of politics among French political commentators? Even among those who believed that the British model was worthy of respect and reproduction, there was an acute awareness of the difficulties of assimilation. In part this derived from the perceived burden of the past. A postrevolutionary legacy of fear and hatred inhibited the growth of parliamentary institutions resting on mutual trust and compromise. Just as enduring was the view that the activities and spirit of parties was both foreign and un-French. Loyalty to party was simply alien to the French national character, which prized honor and freedom of debate, rather than slavish subservience and pecuniary advantage. As Gunn points out (p. 104), under the Restoration parliamentary representatives sought to seat themselves according to locality rather than ideological leaning. More profoundly, there was ignorance about the workings of constitutional and parliamentary government and, in particular, a failure to comprehend that it required both party and organized opposition for it to function properly.
Gunn's conclusion is that progress of a limited kind was made in the period between 1814 and 1848. Those who wanted the French to be British, he believes, did at least succeed in setting an agenda and in advancing an ideal that could not be easily set aside. “Their signal accomplishment,” he writes (p. 463), “was to create the presumption that a ministry ought to stand for something and those who opposed it for something else.” This was a political truth subsequently confirmed by the lessons of experience. Yet the difficulties of institutionalizing opposition in a deeply divided polity and nation remained. Not only this, but old habits died hard. Not mentioned by the author is the fact that until well into the 1930s and even beyond, most parliamentary representatives remained without formal party affiliation, and parliamentary majorities were not held together by tight party discipline along British lines. The individual deputy continued to be prized above all for his rhetorical eloquence.
As Gunn concedes, none of the major figures treated in this volume offered a response to these pressing problems that was not without ambiguity and hesitation. Each to an extent remained troubled by the phenomenon of political competition. But each, it could be argued, advanced the causes of political civility and pluralism. To recall them and to assess their contribution to political debate is, therefore, as Gunn wishes us to recognize, far from being otiose. For his part, he has made a more than valuable contribution toward increasing our understanding of the complexities and originality of the political thought of the French Restoration period.
