France in the long nineteenth century

In the history of France, the period from 1789 to 1914, dubbed the "long 19th century" by the
historian Eric Hobsbawm, extends from the French Revolution to World War I and includes:

French Revolution (1789–1792)

French First Republic (1792–1804)
First French Empire (1804–1814/1815)
Bourbon Restoration (1814/1815–1830)
July Monarchy (1830–1848)
Second Republic (1848–1852)
Second Empire (1852–1870)
Third Republic (1870–1940)
Long Depression (1873–1890)
Belle Époque (1871–1914)

General aspects

Geography

By the French Revolution, the Kingdom of France had

expanded to nearly the modern territorial limits. The 19th
century would complete the process by the annexation of the
Duchy of Savoy and the County of Nice (first during the First
Empire, and then definitively in 1860) and some small papal
(like Avignon) and foreign possessions. France's territorial
limits were greatly extended during the Empire through
Revolutionary and Napoleonic military conquests and re-
organization of Europe, but these were reversed by the Vienna A map of France in 1843 under the
Congress. Savoy and Nice were definitively annexed following July Monarchy
France's victory in the Franco-Austrian War in 1859.

In 1830, France invaded Algeria, and in 1848 this north African

country was fully integrated into France as a department. The late 19th century saw France embark
on a massive program of overseas imperialism – including French Indochina (modern day
Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos) and Africa (the Scramble for Africa brought France most of North-
West and Central Africa) – which brought it in direct competition with British interests.

With the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, France lost Alsace and portions of
Lorraine to Germany (see Alsace-Lorraine); these lost provinces were not regained until the end of
World War I.

Demographics
Between 1795 and 1866, metropolitan France (that is, without
overseas or colonial possessions) was the second most
populous country of Europe, behind Russia, and the fourth
most populous country in the world (behind China, India, and
Russia); between 1866 and 1911, metropolitan France was the
third most populous country of Europe, behind Russia and
Germany. Unlike other European countries, France did not
experience a strong population growth from the middle of the
19th century to the first half of the 20th century. The French
population in 1789 is estimated at 28 million; by 1850, it was French peasants depicted in Fin du
36 million and in 1880 it was around 39 million.[1] Slow growth travail (1887)
was a major political issue, as arch-rival Germany continued to
gain an advantage in terms of population and industry. Ways to
reverse the trend became a major political issue.[2]

Until 1850, population growth was mainly in the countryside, but a period of slow urbanization
began under the Second Empire. Unlike in England, industrialization was a late phenomenon in
France. France's economy in the 1830s had a limited iron industry, under-developed coal supplies,
and the great majority lived on farms. The systematic establishment of primary education and the
creation of new engineering schools prepared an industrial expansion which would blossom in the
following decades. French rail transport only began hesitantly in the 1830s, and would not truly
develop until the 1840s, using imported British engineers. By the revolution of 1848, a growing
industrial workforce began to participate actively in French politics, but their hopes were largely
betrayed by the policies of the Second Empire. The loss of the important coal, steel and glass
production regions of Alsace and Lorraine would cause further problems. The industrial worker
population increased from 23% in 1870 to 39% in 1914. Nevertheless, France remained a rather
rural country in the early 1900s with 40% of the population still farmers in 1914. While exhibiting a
similar urbanization rate to the U.S. (50% of the population in the U.S. was engaged in agriculture
in the early 1900s), the urbanization rate of France was still well behind that of the UK (80%
urbanization rate in the early 1900s).[3]

In the 19th century, France was a country of immigration for

peoples and political refugees from Eastern Europe (Germany,
Poland, Hungary, Russia, Ashkenazi Jews) and from the
Mediterranean (Italy, Spanish Sephardic Jews and North-
African Mizrahi Jews). Large numbers of Belgian migrant
workers laboured in French factories, particularly in the textile
industry in the Nord.

France was the first country in Europe to emancipate its Jewish

population during the French Revolution. The Crémieux Wealthy Parisians in an urban café
Decree of 1870 gave full citizenship for the Jews in French or patisserie, 1889
Algeria. By 1872, there were an estimated 86,000 Jews living in
France (by 1945 this would increase to 300,000), many of
whom integrated (or attempted to integrate) into French society, although the Dreyfus affair would
reveal antisemitism in certain classes of French society (see History of the Jews in France).

Alsace and Lorraine were lost to Germany in 1871. Some French refugees moved to France. France
suffered massive losses during World War I — roughly estimated at 1.4 million French dead
including civilians (see World War I casualties) (or nearly 10% of the active adult male population)
and four times as many wounded (see World War I § Aftermath).

Language
Linguistically, France was a patchwork. People in the countryside spoke various languages. France
would only become a linguistically unified country by the end of the 19th century, and in particular
through the educational policies of Jules Ferry during the French Third Republic. From an
illiteracy rate of 33% among peasants in 1870, by 1914 almost all French could read and
understand the national language, although 50% still understood or spoke a regional language of
France (in today's France, only an estimated 10% still understand a regional language).[4]

Through the educational, social and military policies of the Third Republic, by 1914 the French had
been converted (as the historian Eugen Weber has put it) from a "country of peasants into a nation
of Frenchmen". By 1914, most French could read French and the use of regional languages had
greatly decreased; the role of the Catholic Church in public life had been radically diminished; a
sense of national identity and pride was actively taught. The anti-clericalism of the Third Republic
profoundly changed French religious habits: in one case study for the city of Limoges comparing
the years 1899 with 1914, it was found that baptisms decreased from 98% to 60%, and civil
marriages before a town official increased from 14% to 60%.

Economic laggard: 1815–1913

French economic history since its late 18th century Revolution was tied to three major events and
trends: the Napoleonic Era, the competition with Britain and its other neighbors in regards to
'industrialization', and the 'total wars' of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Quantitative
analysis of output data shows the French per capita growth rates were slightly smaller than Britain.
However the British population tripled in size, while France grew by only third – so the overall
British economy grew much faster. François Crouzet has summarized the cycles of French per
capita economic growth in 1815–1913 as:[5]

1815–1840: irregular, but sometimes fast growth;

1840–1860: fast growth;
1860–1882: slowing down;
1882–1896: stagnation; and
1896–1913: fast growth.

For the 1870–1913 era, Angus Maddison gives growth rates for 12 Western advanced countries –
10 in Europe plus the United States and Canada.[6] In terms of per capita growth, France was
about average. However again its population growth was very slow, so as far as the growth rate in
total size of the economy France was in next to the last place, just ahead of Italy. The 12 countries
averaged 2.7% growth per year in total output, but France only averaged 1.6% growth.[7] Crouzet
concludes that the

average size of industrial undertakings was smaller in France than in other advanced
countries; that machinery was generally less up to date, productivity lower, costs
higher. The domestic system and handicraft production long persisted, while big
modern factories were for long exceptional. Large lumps of the Ancien Régime
economy survived. ... On the whole, the qualitative lag between the British and French
economy ... persisted during the whole period under consideration, and later on a
 similar lag developed between France and some other countries—Belgium, Germany,
the United States. France did not succeed in catching up with Britain, but was
overtaken by several of her rivals.[8]

French Revolution (1789–1792)

End of the Ancien Régime (to 1789)

The reign of Louis XVI (1774–1792) had seen a temporary

revival of French fortunes, but the over-ambitious projects and
military campaigns of the 18th century had produced chronic
financial problems. Deteriorating economic conditions,
popular resentment against the complicated system of
privileges granted the nobility and clerics, and a lack of
alternate avenues for change were among the principal causes
for convoking the Estates-General which convened in Versailles
in 1789. On May 28, 1789, the Abbé Sieyès moved that the Storming of the Bastille in 1789
Third Estate proceed with verification of its own powers and
invite the other two estates to take part, but not to wait for
them. They proceeded to do so, and then voted a measure far more radical, declaring themselves
the National Assembly, an assembly not of the Estates but of "the People".[9]

Louis XVI shut the Salle des États where the Assembly met. The Assembly moved their
deliberations to the king's tennis court, where they proceeded to swear the Tennis Court Oath
(June 20, 1789), under which they agreed not to separate until they had given France a
constitution. A majority of the representatives of the clergy soon joined them, as did 47 members
of the nobility. By June 27 the royal party had overtly given in, although the military began to
arrive in large numbers around Paris and Versailles. On July 9 the Assembly reconstituted itself as
the National Constituent Assembly.[10]

On July 11, 1789, King Louis, acting under the influence of the
conservative nobles, as well as his wife, Marie Antoinette, and brother,
the Comte d'Artois, banished the reformist minister Necker and
completely reconstructed the ministry. Much of Paris, presuming this
to be the start of a royal coup, moved into open rebellion. Some of the
military joined the mob; others remained neutral. On July 14, 1789,
after four hours of combat, the insurgents seized the Bastille fortress,
killing its governor and several of his guards. The king and his military
supporters backed down, at least for a short time.

After this violence, nobles started to flee the country as émigrés, some
of whom began plotting civil war within the kingdom and agitating for
The Declaration of the a European coalition against France. Insurrection and the spirit of
Rights of Man and of the popular sovereignty spread throughout France. In rural areas, many
Citizen of 1789 went beyond this: some burned title-deeds and no small number of
châteaux, as part of a general agrarian insurrection known as "la
Grande Peur" (the Great Fear).

Constitutional monarchy (1789–1792)

On August 4, 1789, the National Assembly abolished feudalism, sweeping away both the
seigneurial rights of the Second Estate and the tithes gathered by the First Estate. In the course of
a few hours, nobles, clergy, towns, provinces, companies, and cities lost their special privileges.
The revolution also brought about a massive shifting of powers from the Catholic Church to the
State. Legislation enacted in 1790 abolished the Church's authority to levy a tax on crops known as
the dîme, cancelled special privileges for the clergy, and confiscated Church property: under the
Ancien Régime, the Church had been the largest landowner in the country. Further legislation
abolished monastic vows. The Civil Constitution of the Clergy, passed on July 12, 1790, turned the
remaining clergy into employees of the State and required that they take an oath of loyalty to the
constitution. The Civil Constitution of the Clergy also made the Catholic Church an arm of the
secular state.[11]

Looking to the United States Declaration of Independence for a model, on August 26, 1789, the
Assembly published the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. Like the U.S.
Declaration, it comprised a statement of principles rather than a constitution with legal effect. The
Assembly replaced the historic provinces with eighty-three départements, uniformly administered
and approximately equal to one another in extent and population; it also abolished the symbolic
paraphernalia of the Ancien Régime — armorial bearings, liveries, etc. — which further alienated
the more conservative nobles, and added to the ranks of the émigrés.

Louis XVI opposed the course of the revolution and on the night of June 20, 1791 the royal family
fled the Tuileries. However, the king was recognised at Varennes in the Meuse late on June 21 and
he and his family were brought back to Paris under guard. With most of the Assembly still
favouring a constitutional monarchy rather than a republic, the various groupings reached a
compromise which left Louis XVI little more than a figurehead: he had perforce to swear an oath to
the constitution, and a decree declared that retracting the oath, heading an army for the purpose of
making war upon the nation, or permitting anyone to do so in his name would amount to de facto
abdication.

Meanwhile, a renewed threat from abroad arose: Leopold II,

Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick William II of Prussia, and the
king's brother Charles-Phillipe, comte d'Artois issued the
Declaration of Pillnitz which considered the cause of Louis XVI
as their own, demanded his total liberty and the dissolution of
the Assembly, and promised an invasion of France on his
behalf if the revolutionary authorities refused its conditions.
The politics of the period inevitably drove France towards war
with Austria and its allies. France declared war on Austria
(April 20, 1792) and Prussia joined on the Austrian side a few The French Revolutionary Army at
weeks later. The French Revolutionary Wars had begun.[12] the battle of Jemappes (1792)
during the French Revolutionary
Wars
First Republic (1792–1799)
In the Brunswick Manifesto, the Imperial and Prussian armies
threatened retaliation on the French population should it resist
their advance or the reinstatement of the monarchy. As a
consequence, King Louis was seen as conspiring with the
enemies of France. He was arrested on August 10, 1792. On
September 20, French revolutionary troops won their first
great victory at the battle of Valmy. The First Republic was
proclaimed the following day. By the end of the year, the
French had overrun the Austrian Netherlands, threatening the The execution of Louis XVI in 1793
Dutch Republic to the north, and had also penetrated east of
the Rhine, briefly occupying the imperial city of Frankfurt am
Main. January 17, 1793 saw the king condemned to death for
"conspiracy against the public liberty and the general safety" by a weak
majority in Convention. On January 21, he was beheaded. This action
led to Britain and the Netherlands declaring war on France.[13]

Reign of Terror (1793–1794)

The first half of 1793 went badly for the new French Republic, with the
French armies being driven out of Germany and the Austrian
Netherlands. In this situation, prices rose and the sans-culottes (poor
labourers and radical Jacobins) rioted; counter-revolutionary
activities began in some regions. This encouraged the Jacobins to seize
power through a parliamentary coup, backed up by force effected by Sans-culotte (left), compare
mobilising public support against the Girondist faction, and by figures wearing culottes
(right).
utilising the mob power of the Parisian sans-culottes. An alliance of
Jacobin and sans-culottes elements thus became the effective centre of
the new government. Policy became considerably more radical.
The government instituted the "levy-en-masse", where all able-
bodied men 18 and older were liable for military service. This
allowed France to field much larger armies than its enemies,
and soon the tide of war was reversed.

The Committee of Public Safety came under the control of

Maximilien Robespierre, and the Jacobins unleashed the Reign
of Terror. At least 1200 people met their deaths under the
guillotine — or otherwise — after accusations of counter-
revolutionary activities. In October, the queen was beheaded, Comité Central de Salut public, An II
further antagonizing Austria. In 1794 Robespierre had ultra- (Committee of Public Safety)
radicals and moderate Jacobins executed; in consequence,
however, his own popular support eroded markedly. Georges
Danton was beheaded for arguing that there were too many
beheadings. There were attempts to do away with organized
religion in France entirely and replace it with a Festival of
Reason. The primary leader of this movement, Jacques Hébert,
held such a festival in the Cathedral of Notre Dame, with an
actress playing the Goddess of Reason. But Robespierre was
unmoved by Hébert and had him and all his followers
beheaded.
The execution of Robespierre
marked the end of the Reign of
Thermidorian Reaction (1794–1795) Terror

On July 27, 1794, the French people revolted against the

excesses of the Reign of Terror in what became known as the Thermidorian Reaction. It resulted in
moderate Convention members deposing Robespierre and several other leading members of the
Committee of Public Safety. All of them were beheaded without trial. With that, the extreme,
radical phase of the Revolution ended. The Convention approved the new Constitution of the Year
III on August 17, 1795. A plebiscite ratified it in September and it took effect on September 26,
1795.

Directory (1795–1799)
The new constitution installed the Directoire and created
France's bicameral legislature. It was markedly more
conservative, dominated by the bourgeoise, and sought to
restore order and exclude the sans-culottes and other members
of the lower classes from political life.

By 1795, the French had once again conquered the Austrian

Netherlands and the left bank of the Rhine, annexing them
directly into France. The Dutch Republic and Spain were both
defeated and made into French satellites. At sea however, the
French navy proved no match for the British, and was badly The army arrests General Jean-
beaten off the coast of Ireland in June 1794. Charles Pichegru at the Tuileries
Palace (4 September 1797)
Napoleon Bonaparte was given command of an army in 1796
that was to invade Italy. The young general defeated the
Austrian and Sardinian forces and he negotiated the Treaty of Campo
Formio without the input of the Directory. The French annexation of
the Austrian Netherlands and the left bank of the Rhine was
recognized, as were the satellite republics they created in northern
Italy.

Although the War of the First Coalition ended in 1797, a second

coalition was formed in May 1798 when France invaded the Swiss
Confederation, the Kingdom of Naples, and the Papal States.
Napoleon convinced the Directory to approve an expedition to Egypt,
with the purpose of cutting off Britain's supply route to India. He got Napoleon Bonaparte seizes
approval for this, and set off in May 1798 for Egypt with 40,000 men. power and establishes the
But the expedition foundered when the British fleet of Horatio Nelson Consulate in 1799.
caught and destroyed most of the French ships in the Battle of the
Nile. The army had no way to return to France and faced the hostility
of the Ottoman Empire.

Consulate (1799–1804)

Napoleon himself escaped back to France, where he led the coup d'état of November 1799, making
himself First Consul (his hapless troops remained in Egypt until they surrendered to a British
expedition in 1801 and were repatriated to France).

By that point, the War of the Second Coalition was in progress. The French suffered a string of
defeats in 1799, seeing their satellite republics in Italy overthrown and an invasion of Germany
beaten back. Attempts by the allies on Switzerland and the Netherlands failed however, and once
Napoleon returned to France, he began turning the tide on them. In 1801, the Peace of Lunéville
ended hostilities with Austria and Russia, and the Treaty of Amiens with Britain.

First Empire (1804–1814)

By 1802, Napoleon was named First Consul for life. His continued provocations of the British led
to renewed war in 1803, and the following year he proclaimed himself emperor in a huge ceremony
in the Cathedral of Notre Dame. The pope was invited to the coronation, but Napoleon took the
crown from him at the last minute and placed it on his own head. He attracted more power and
gravitated towards imperial status, gathering support on the way for his internal rebuilding of
France and its institutions. The French Empire (or the Napoleonic Empire) (1804–1814) was
marked by the French domination and reorganization of continental Europe (the Napoleonic
Wars) and by the final codification of the republican legal
system (the Napoleonic Code). The Empire gradually became
more authoritarian in nature, with freedom of the press and
assembly being severely restricted. Religious freedom survived
under the condition that Christianity and Judaism, the two
officially recognized faiths, not be attacked, and that atheism
not be expressed in public. Napoleon also recreated the
David's The Coronation of Napoleon
nobility, but neither they nor his court had the elegance or
(1807)
historical connections of the old monarchy. Despite the
growing administrative despotism of his regime, the emperor
was still seen by the rest of Europe as the embodiment of the Revolution and a monarchial
parvenu.[14]

By 1804, Britain alone stood outside French

control and was an important force in
encouraging and financing resistance to France.
In 1805, Napoleon massed an army of 200,000
men in Boulogne for the purpose of invading
the British Isles, but never was able to find the
right conditions to embark, and thus
abandoned his plans. Three weeks later, the
French and Spanish fleets were destroyed by
the British at Trafalgar. Afterwards, Napoleon,
unable to defeat Britain militarily, tried to bring
it down through economic warfare. He
Map of the First French Empire and its Allies in Europe inaugurated the Continental System, in which
by 1812 all of France's allies and satellites would join in
refusing to trade with the British.

Portugal, an ally of Britain, was the only European country that openly refused to join. After the
Treaties of Tilsit of July 1807, the French launched an invasion through Spain to close this hole in
the Continental System. British troops arrived in Portugal, compelling the French to withdraw. A
renewed invasion the following year brought the British back, and at that point, Napoleon decided
to depose the Spanish king Charles IV and place his brother Joseph on the throne. This caused the
people of Spain to rise up in a patriotic revolt, beginning the Peninsular War. The British could
now gain a foothold on the Continent, and the war tied down considerable French resources,
contributing to Napoleon's eventual defeat.

Napoleon was at the height of his power in 1810–1812, with most of the European countries either
his allies, satellites, or annexed directly into France. After the defeat of Austria in the War of the
Fifth Coalition, Europe was at peace for 21⁄2 years except for the conflict in Spain. The emperor was
given an archduchess to marry by the Austrians, and she gave birth to his long-awaited son in 1811.

Ultimately, the Continental System failed. Its effect on Great

Britain and on British trade is uncertain, but the embargo is
thought to have been more harmful on the continental
European states. Russia in particular chafed under the
embargo, and in 1812, that country reopened trade with
Britain, provoking Napoleon's invasion of Russia. The disaster
of that campaign caused all the subjugated peoples of Europe
to rise up against French domination. In 1813, Napoleon was The battle of Leipzig, the largest
forced to conscript boys under the age of 18 and less able- battle in Europe prior to World War I
bodied men who had been passed up for military service in
previous years. The quality of his troops deteriorated sharply
and war-weariness at home increased. The allies could also put far more men in the field than he
could. Throughout 1813, the French were forced back and by early 1814, the British were occupying
Gascony. The allied troops reached Paris in March, and Napoleon abdicated as emperor. Louis
XVIII, the brother of Louis XVI, was installed as king and France was granted a quite generous
peace settlement, being restored to its 1792 boundaries and having to pay no war indemnity.

After eleven months of exile on the island of Elba in the Mediterranean, Napoleon escaped and
returned to France, where he was greeted with huge enthusiasm. Louis XVIII fled Paris, but the
one thing that would have given the emperor mass support, a return to the revolutionary
extremism of 1793–1794, was out of the question. Enthusiasm quickly waned, and as the allies
(then discussing the fate of Europe in Vienna) refused to negotiate with him, he had no choice but
to fight. At Waterloo, Napoleon was completely defeated by the British and Prussians, and
abdicated once again. This time, he was exiled to the island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic,
where he remained until his death in 1821.

Bourbon Restoration (1814–1830)

Louis XVIII was restored a second time by the allies in 1815,
ending more than two decades of war. He announced he would
rule as a limited, constitutional monarch. After the Hundred
Days in 1815 when Napoleon suddenly returned and was
vanquished, a more harsh peace treaty was imposed on France,
returning it to its 1789 boundaries and requiring a war
indemnity in gold. Allied troops remained in the country until
it was paid. There were large-scale purges of Bonapartists from
the government and military, and a brief "White Terror" in the
south of France claimed 300 victims. Otherwise the transition
Allegory of the Return of the
was largely peaceful. Although the old ruling class had returned
Bourbons on 24 April 1814: Louis
they did not recover their lost lands, and were unable to reverse
XVIII Lifting France from Its Ruins
most of the dramatic changes in French society, economics,
by Louis-Philippe Crépin
and ways of thinking.[15][16]

In 1823, France intervened in Spain, where a civil war had

deposed king Ferdinand VII. The French troops marched into Spain,
retook Madrid from the rebels, and left almost as quickly as they
came. Despite worries to the contrary, France showed no sign of
returning to an aggressive foreign policy and was admitted to the
Concert of Europe in 1818.[17]

Louis XVIII, for the most part, accepted that much had changed.
However, he was pushed on his right by the Ultra-royalists, led by the
comte de Villèle, who condemned the Doctrinaires' attempt to
reconcile the Revolution with the monarchy through a constitutional
monarchy. Instead, the Chambre introuvable elected in 1815 banished
all Conventionnels who had voted Louis XVI's death and passed
several reactionary laws. Louis XVIII was forced to dissolve this
Chamber, dominated by the Ultras, in 1816, fearing a popular Louis XVIII reigned 1814–
uprising. The liberals thus governed until the 1820 assassination of 1824.
the duc de Berry, the nephew of the king and known supporter of the
Ultras, which brought Villèle's ultras back to power.[18]

Louis died on September the 16th in the year 1824 and was succeeded by his brother. Charles X of
France followed the "ultra" conservative line but was a much less effective coalition builder than
Louis XVIII. In May 1825 he staged a grand coronation ceremony in Reims which harked back to
the pre-1789 era. Freedom of the press was severely restricted. He compensated the families of the
nobles who had had their property taken during the Revolution. In
1830 the discontent caused by these changes and Charles X's
authoritarian nomination of the Ultra prince de Polignac as prime
minister led to his overthrow.[19]

The Restoration did not try to resurrect the Ancien Régime. Too much
had changed for that. The egalitarianism and liberalism of the
revolutionaries remained an important force and the autocracy and
hierarchy of the earlier era could not be fully restored. The economic
changes, which had been underway long before the revolution, had
been further enhanced during the years of turmoil and were firmly
entrenched by 1815. These changes had seen power shift from the
noble landowners to the urban merchants. The administrative reforms Charles Maurice de
of Napoleon, such as the Napoleonic Code and efficient bureaucracy, Talleyrand-Périgord, who
also remained in place. These changes produced a unified central served under several
government that was fiscally sound — for example, the indemnities regimes, depicted "floating
imposed by the victors were quickly paid off, and the occupation with the tide". Note the high
troops left quietly. The national government did not face strong heel of his left shoe,
regional parliaments or power centers and had solid control over all alluding both to his limp and
areas of France in sharp contrast with the chaotic situation the the Devil's hoof.
Bourbons had faced in the 1770s and 1780s. Restoration did not lessen
inequality in France, and it did not promote industrialisation. On the
whole, however, there was more wealth, and more political freedom for all classes. The
parliamentary system worked well. Restrictions on the press resembled those in most of Europe.
Frequent parliamentary transitions took place, but the losers were not executed or exiled. France
regained its place among the respected major powers, and its voice was heard in international
diplomacy. There was a new sense of humanitarianism, and popular piety. France began, on a
small scale, to rebuild the overseas empire it had lost in 1763.[20]

July Monarchy (1830–1848)

Charles X was overthrown in an uprising in the streets of Paris,
known as the 1830 July Revolution (or, in French, "Les trois
Glorieuses" - The three Glorious days - of 27, 28 and July 29).
Charles was forced to flee and Louis-Philippe d'Orléans, a
member of the Orléans branch of the family, and son of
Philippe Égalité who had voted the death of his cousin Louis
XVI, ascended the throne. Louis-Philippe ruled, not as "King of
France" but as "King of the French" (an evocative difference for
contemporaries). It was made clear that his right to rule came
from the people and was not divinely granted. He also revived Liberty Leading the People (1830)
the Tricolor as the flag of France, in place of the white Bourbon by Eugène Delacroix, based on the
flag that had been used since 1815, an important distinction July Revolution
because the Tricolour was the symbol of the revolution. The
July Monarchy (1830–1848) saw the political dominance of the
high middle class (haute bourgeoisie). Louis-Philippe clearly understood his base of power: the
wealthy bourgeoisie had carried him aloft during the July Revolution and he kept their interests in
mind.[21]

Louis-Philippe, who had flirted with liberalism in his youth, rejected much of the pomp and
circumstance of the Bourbons and surrounded himself with merchants and bankers. The July
Monarchy, however, remained a time of turmoil. A large group of Legitimists on the right
demanded the restoration of the Bourbons to the throne. On the left, Republicanism and, later
Socialism, remained a powerful force. Late in his reign Louis-Philippe became increasingly rigid
and dogmatic and his President of the Council, François Guizot, had become deeply unpopular, but
Louis-Philippe refused to remove him. The situation gradually escalated until the Revolutions of
1848 saw the fall of the monarchy and the creation of the Second Republic.[22]

However, during the first several years of his regime, Louis-

Philippe appeared to move his government toward legitimate,
broad-based reform. The government found its source of
legitimacy within the Charter of 1830, written by reform-
minded members of Chamber of Deputies upon a platform of
religious equality, the empowerment of the citizenry through
the reestablishment of the National Guard, electoral reform,
the reformation of the peerage system, and the lessening of
royal authority. And indeed, Louis-Phillipe and his ministers
adhered to policies that seemed to promote the central tenets
of the constitution. However, the majority of these policies
were veiled attempts to shore up the power and influence of the
French soldiers capture Constantine government and the bourgeoisie, rather than legitimate
during the invasion of Algeria, 1837 attempts to promote equality and empowerment for a broad
constituency of the French population. Thus, though the July
Monarchy seemed to move toward reform, this movement was
largely illusory.

During the years of the July Monarchy, enfranchisement roughly doubled, from 94,000 under
Charles X to more than 200,000 by 1848. However, this represented less than one percent of
population, and, as the requirements for voting were tax-based, only the wealthiest gained the
privilege. By implication, the enlarged enfranchisement tended to favor the wealthy merchant
bourgeoisie more than any other group. Beyond simply increasing their presence within the
Chamber of Deputies, this electoral enlargement provided the bourgeoisie the means by which to
challenge the nobility in legislative matters. Thus, while appearing to honor his pledge to increase
suffrage, Louis-Philippe acted primarily to empower his supporters and increase his hold over the
French Parliament. The inclusion of only the wealthiest also tended to undermine any possibility of
the growth of a radical faction in Parliament, effectively serving socially conservative ends.

The reformed Charter of 1830 limited the power of the King – stripping him of his ability to
propose and decree legislation, as well as limiting his executive authority. However, the King of the
French still believed in a version of monarchy that held the king as much more than a figurehead
for an elected Parliament, and as such, he was quite active in politics. One of the first acts of Louis-
Philippe in constructing his cabinet was to appoint the rather conservative Casimir Perier as the
premier of that body. Perier, a banker, was instrumental in shutting down many of the Republican
secret societies and labour unions that had formed during the early years of the regime. In
addition, he oversaw the dismemberment of the National Guard after it proved too supportive of
radical ideologies. He performed all of these actions, of course, with royal approval. He was once
quoted as saying that the source of French misery was the belief that there had been a revolution.
"No Monsieur", he said to another minister, "there has not been a revolution: there is simply a
change at the head of state."[23]

Further expressions of this conservative trend came under the supervision of Perier and the then
Minister of the Interior, François Guizot. The regime acknowledged early on that radicalism and
republicanism threatened it, undermining its laissez-faire policies. Thus, the Monarchy declared
the very term republican illegal in 1834. Guizot shut down republican clubs and disbanded
republican publications. Republicans within the cabinet, like the banker Dupont, were all but
excluded by Perier and his conservative clique. Distrusting the National Guard, Louis-Philippe
increased the size of the army and reformed it in order to ensure its loyalty to the government.
Though two factions always persisted in the cabinet, split between
liberal conservatives like Guizot (le parti de la Résistance, the Party of
Resistance) and liberal reformers like the aforementioned journalist
Adolphe Thiers (le parti du Mouvement, the Party of Movement), the
latter never gained prominence. After Perier came count Molé,
another conservative. After Molé came Thiers, a reformer later sacked
by Louis-Philippe after attempting to pursue an aggressive foreign
policy. After Thiers came the conservative Guizot. In particular, the
Guizot administration was marked by increasingly authoritarian
crackdowns on republicanism and dissent, and an increasingly pro-
business laissez-faire policy. This policy included protective tariffs that
defended the status quo and enriched French businessmen. Guizot's
government granted railway and mining contracts to the bourgeois Louis-Philippe I, the liberal
supporters of the government, and even contributing some of the and constitutional King of
start-up costs. As workers under these policies had no legal right to the French, brought to
assemble, unionize, or petition the government for increased pay or power by the July
decreased hours, the July Monarchy under Perier, Molé, and Guizot Revolution
generally proved detrimental to the lower classes. In fact, Guizot's
advice to those who were disenfranchised by the tax-based electoral
requirements was a simple "enrichissez-vous" – enrich yourself. The king himself was not very
popular either by the middle of the 1840s, and due to his appearance was widely referred to as the
"crowned pear". There was a considerable hero-worship of Napoleon during this era, and in 1841
his body was taken from Saint Helena and given a magnificent reburial in France.

Louis-Philippe conducted a pacifistic foreign policy. Shortly after he assumed power in 1830,
Belgium revolted against Dutch rule and proclaimed its independence. The king rejected the idea
of intervention there or any military activities outside France's borders. The only exception to this
was a war in Algeria which had been started by Charles X a few weeks before his overthrow on the
pretext of suppressing pirates in the Mediterranean. Louis-Philippe's government decided to
continue the conquest of that country, which took over a decade. By 1848, Algeria had been
declared an integral part of France.[24]

Second Republic (1848–1852)

The Revolution of 1848 had major consequences for all of
Europe: popular democratic revolts against authoritarian
regimes broke out in Austria and Hungary, in the German
Confederation and Prussia, and in the Italian states of Milan,
Venice, Turin and Rome. Economic downturns and bad
harvests during the 1840s contributed to growing discontent.
Lamartine in front of the Town Hall
In February 1848, the French government banned the holding of Paris rejects the red flag on 25
of the Campagne des banquets, fundraising dinners by activists February 1848 by Henri Félix
where critics of the regime would meet (as public Emmanuel Philippoteaux
demonstrations and strikes were forbidden). As a result,
protests and riots broke out in the streets of Paris. An angry
mob converged on the royal palace, after which the king abdicated and fled to England. The Second
Republic was then proclaimed.

The revolution in France had brought together classes of wildly different interests: the bourgeoisie
desired electoral reforms (a democratic republic), socialist leaders (like Louis Blanc, Pierre Joseph
Proudhon and the radical Auguste Blanqui) asked for a "right to work" and the creation of national
workshops (a social welfare republic) and for France to liberate the oppressed peoples of Europe
(Poles and Italians), while moderates (like the aristocrat Alphonse de Lamartine) sought a middle
ground. Tensions between groups escalated, and in June 1848,
a working class insurrection in Paris cost the lives of 1500
workers and eliminated once and for all the dream of a social
welfare constitution.

The constitution of the Second Republic which was ratified in

September 1848 was extremely flawed and permitted no
effective resolution between the President and the Assembly in
case of dispute. In December 1848, a nephew of Napoléon
Bonaparte, Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte, was elected as France became the first country to
President of the Republic, and pretexting legislative gridlock, in adopt universal male suffrage.
1851, he staged a coup d'état. Finally, in 1852 he had himself
declared Emperor Napoléon III of the Second Empire.

Second Empire (1852–1870)

France was ruled by Emperor Napoleon III from 1852 to 1870. The
regime was authoritarian in nature during its early years, curbing
most freedom of the press and assembly. The era saw great
industrialization, urbanization (including the massive rebuilding of
Paris by Baron Haussmann) and economic growth, but Napoleon
III's foreign policies would be catastrophic.

In 1852, Napoleon declared that "L'Empire, c'est la paix" (The

empire is peace), but it was hardly fitting for a Bonaparte to continue
the foreign policy of Louis-Philippe. Only a few months after
becoming president in 1848, he sent French troops to break up a Napoleon III on a coin
short-lived republic in Rome, remaining there until 1870. The
overseas empire expanded, and France made gains in Indo-China,
West and central Africa, and the South Seas. This was helped by the opening of large central banks
in Paris to finance overseas expeditions. The Suez Canal was opened by the Empress Eugénie in
1869 and was the achievement of a Frenchman. Yet still, Napoleon III's France lagged behind
Britain in colonial affairs, and his determination to upstage British control of India and American
influence in Mexico resulted in a fiasco.

In 1854, the emperor allied with Britain and the Ottoman

Empire against Russia in the Crimean War. Afterwards,
Napoleon intervened in the questions of Italian independence.
He declared his intention of making Italy "free from the Alps to
the Adriatic", and fought a war with Austria in 1859 over this
matter. With the victories of Montebello, Magenta and
Solferino France and Austria signed the Peace of Villafranca in
1859, as the emperor worried that a longer war might cause the
other powers, particularly Prussia, to intervene. Austria ceded
Lombardy to Napoleon III, who in turn ceded it to Victor
One of the Haussmann's Great
Emmanuel; Modena and Tuscany were restored to their
Boulevards, Boulevard Montmartre
respective dukes, and the Romagna to the pope, now president
painted by the artist Camille
of an Italian federation. In exchange for France's military
Pissarro (1893)
assistance against Austria, Piedmont ceded its provinces of
Nice and Savoy to France in March 1860. Napoleon then
turned his hand to meddling in the Western Hemisphere. He
gave support to the Confederacy during the American Civil War, until Abraham Lincoln announced
the Emancipation Proclamation in the autumn of 1862. As this made it impossible to support the
South without also supporting slavery, the emperor backed off. However, he was conducting a
simultaneous venture in Mexico, which had refused to pay interest on loans taken from France,
Britain, and Spain. As a result, those three countries sent a joint expedition to the city of Veracruz
in January 1862, but the British and Spanish quickly withdrew after realizing the extent of
Napoleon's plans. French troops occupied Mexico City in June 1863 and established a puppet
government headed by the Austrian archduke Maximilian, who was declared Emperor of Mexico.
Although this sort of thing was forbidden by the Monroe Doctrine, Napoleon reasoned that the
United States was far too distracted with its Civil War to do anything about it. The French were
never able to suppress the forces of the ousted Mexican president Benito Juárez, and then in the
spring of 1865, the American Civil War ended. The United States, which had an army of a million
battle-hardened troops, demanded that the French withdraw or prepare for war. They quickly did
so, but Maximilian tried to hold onto power. He was captured and shot by the Mexicans in 1867.

Public opinion was becoming a major force as people began to

tire of oppressive authoritarianism in the 1860s. Napoleon III,
who had expressed some rather woolly liberal ideas prior to his
coronation, began to relax censorship, laws on public meetings,
and the right to strike. As a result, radicalism grew among
industrial workers. Discontent with the Second Empire spread
rapidly, as the economy began to experience a downturn. The
golden days of the 1850s were over. Napoleon's reckless foreign
policy was inciting criticism. To placate the Liberals, in 1870
Napoleon proposed the establishment of a fully parliamentary French soldiers assaulted by
legislative regime, which won massive support. The French German infantry during the Franco-
emperor never had the chance to implement this, however - by Prussian War, 1870
the end of the year, the Second Empire had ignominiously
collapsed.

Napoleon's distraction with Mexico prevented him from intervening in the Second Schleswig War
in 1864 and the Seven Weeks' War in 1866. Both of those conflicts saw Prussia establish itself as
the dominant power in Germany. Afterwards, tensions between France and Prussia grew,
especially in 1868 when the latter tried to place a Hohenzollern prince on the Spanish throne,
which was left vacant by a revolution there.

The Prussian chancellor Otto von Bismarck provoked Napoleon into declaring war on Prussia in
July 1870. The French troops were swiftly defeated in the following weeks, and on September 1, the
main army, which the emperor himself was with, was trapped at Sedan and forced to surrender. A
republic was quickly proclaimed in Paris, but the war was far from over. As it was clear that Prussia
would expect territorial concessions, the provisional government vowed to continue resistance.
The Prussians laid siege to Paris, and new armies mustered by France failed to alter this situation.
The French capital began experiencing severe food shortages, to the extent where even the animals
in the zoo were eaten. As the city was being bombarded by Prussian siege guns in January 1871,
King William of Prussia was proclaimed Emperor of Germany in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles.
Shortly afterwards, Paris surrendered. The subsequent peace treaty was harsh. France ceded
Alsace and Lorraine to Germany and had to pay an indemnity of 5 billion francs. German troops
were to remain in the country until it was paid off. Meanwhile, the fallen Napoleon III went into
exile in England where he died in 1873.

Third Republic (from 1870)

The birth of the Third Republic would see France occupied by foreign troops, the capital in a
popular socialist insurrection — the Paris Commune — and two provinces (Alsace-Lorraine)
annexed to Germany. Feelings of national guilt and a desire for vengeance ("revanchism") would
be major preoccupations of the French throughout the next two
decades. Yet by 1900, France had resumed many economic and
cultural ties with Germany, and few French still dreamed of a
"revanche". No French political party even mentioned Alsace-
Lorraine any more on its program.

Napoleon's rule came to an abrupt end when he declared war

on Prussia in 1870, only to be defeated in the Franco-Prussian
War and captured at Sedan. He abdicated on 4 September, with
German soldiers pull down the
a Third Republic proclaimed that same day in Paris.
French flag in 1871
The French legislature established the Third Republic which
was to last until the military defeat of 1940 (longer than any
government in France since the Revolution). On 19 September the Prussian army arrived at Paris
and besieged the city. The city suffered from cold and hunger; the animals, including the elephants,
in the Paris zoo were eaten by the Parisians. In January the Prussians began the bombardment of
the city with heavy siege guns. The city finally surrendered on January 28, 1871. The Prussians
briefly occupied the city and then took up positions nearby.

Paris Commune (1871)

A revolt broke out on 18 March when radicalised soldiers

from the Paris National Guard killed two French generals.
French government officials and the army withdrew
quickly to Versailles, and a new city council, the Paris
Commune, dominated by anarchists and radical socialists,
was elected and took power on March 26, and tried to
implement an ambitious and radical social programme.

The Commune proposed the separation of Church and

state, made all Church property state property, and
excluded religious instruction from schools, including Communards building a barricade in
Catholic schools. The churches were only allowed to Paris
continue their religious activity if they kept their doors
open to public political meetings during the evenings.
Other projected legislation dealt with educational reforms which would make further education
and technical training freely available to all. However, for lack of time and resources, the programs
were never carried out. The Vendôme Column, seen as a symbol of Napoleon's imperialism was
pulled down, at the suggestion of Commune member Gustave Courbet, who was later briefly jailed
and required to pay for putting it back up.

Nathalie Lemel, a religious workwoman, and Elisabeth Dmitrieff, a young Russian aristocrat,
created the Union des femmes pour la défense de Paris et les soins aux blessés ("Women Union for
the Defense of Paris and Care to the Injured") on April 11, 1871. They demanded gender equality,
wage equality, right of divorce for women, right to laïque instruction (non-clerical) and for
professional training for girls. They also demanded suppression of the distinction between married
women and concubins, between legitimate and natural children, the abolition of prostitution—they
obtained the closing of the maisons de tolérance (legal unofficial brothels). The Women Union also
participated in several municipal commissions and organized cooperative workshops.[25]

The Paris Commune held power for only two months. Between May 21 and 28 the French army
reconquered the city in bitter fighting, in what became known as "la semaine sanglante" or "bloody
week". During the street fighting, the Communards were outnumbered four or five to one; they
lacked competent officers; and they had no plan for the defence of the city, so each neighbourhood
was left to defend itself. Their military commander, Louis Charles Delescluze, committed suicide
by dramatically standing atop a barricade on May 26. In the final days of the battle the
Communards set fire to the Tuileries Palace, the Hotel de Ville, the Palais de Justice, the Palace of
the Legion of Honor, and other prominent government buildings, and executed hostages they had
taken, including Georges Darboy, the archbishop of Paris.[26]

Army casualties from the beginning April through Bloody Week amounted to 837 dead and 6,424
wounded. Nearly seven thousand Communards were killed in combat or summarily executed by
army firing squads afterwards, and buried in the city cemeteries, and in temporary mass graves.[27]
About ten thousand Communards escaped and went into exile in Belgium, England, Switzerland
and the United States. Forty-five thousand prisoners were taken after the fall of the Commune.
Most were released, but twenty-three were sentenced to death, and about ten thousand were
sentenced to prison or deportation to New Caledonia or other prison colonies. All the prisoners
and exiles were amnestied in 1879 and 1880, and most returned to France, where some were
elected to the National Assembly.[28]

Royalist domination (1871–1879)

Thus, the Republic was born of a double defeat: before the

Prussians, and of the revolutionary Commune. The repression
of the commune was bloody. One hundred forty-seven
Communards were executed in front of the Communards' Wall
in Père Lachaise Cemetery, while thousands of others were
marched to Versailles for trials. The number killed during La
Semaine Sanglante (The Bloody Week) had been estimated by
some sources as high as twenty thousand; recent historians,
French royal and constitutional flag
using research into the number buried in the city cemeteries
proposed as a compromise
and exhumed from mass graves, now put the most likely
number at between six and seven thousand.[29] Thousands
were imprisoned; 7,000 were exiled to New Caledonia. Thousands more fled to Belgium, England,
Italy, Spain and the United States. In 1872, "stringent laws were passed that ruled out all
possibilities of organizing on the left."[30] For the imprisoned there was a general amnesty in 1880,
and many of the Communards returned to France, where some were elected to the Parliament.[31]
Paris remained under martial law for five years.

Beside this defeat, the Republican movement also

The primary pretenders to the throne
had to confront the counterrevolutionaries who
rejected the legacy of the 1789 Revolution. Both the
Legitimist and the Orléanist royalists rejected
republicanism, which they saw as an extension of
modernity and atheism, breaking with France's
traditions. This lasted until at least the May 16, 1877
crisis, which finally led to the resignation of royalist
Marshal MacMahon in January 1879. The death of Henri V Phillipe VII Napoleon IV
Henri, comte de Chambord in 1883, who, as the (Legitimist) (Orléanist) (Bonapartist)
grandson of Charles X, had refused to abandon the King for a momentarily momentarily
fleur-de-lys and the white flag, thus jeopardizing the week in 1830 King in 1848 Emperor in 1870
alliance between Legitimists and Orleanists,
convinced many of the remaining Orleanists to rally
themselves to the Republic, as Adolphe Thiers had already done. The vast majority of the
Legitimists abandoned the political arena or became marginalised, at least until Pétain's Vichy
regime. Some of them founded Action Française in 1898, during the Dreyfus affair, which became
an influent movement throughout the 1930s, in particular among the intellectuals of Paris'
Quartier Latin. In 1891, Pope Leo XIII's encyclical Rerum novarum was incorrectly seen to have
legitimised the Social Catholic movement, which in France could be traced back to Hugues Felicité
Robert de Lamennais' efforts under the July Monarchy. Pope Pius X later condemned these
movements of Catholics for democracy and Socialism in Nostre Charge Apostolique against the Le
Síllon movement.[32]

"Radicals" (1879–1914)

The initial republic was in effect led by pro-royalists, but republicans

(the "Radicals") and bonapartists scrambled for power. The period
from 1879 to 1899 saw power come into the hands of moderate
republicans and former "radicals" (around Léon Gambetta); these
were called the "Opportunists" (Républicains opportunistes). The
newly found Republican control on the Republic allowed the vote of
the 1881 and 1882 Jules Ferry laws on a free, mandatory and secular
education.

The moderates however became deeply divided over the Dreyfus

affair, and this allowed the Radicals to eventually gain power from
1899 until the Great War. During this period, crises like the potential
"Boulangist" coup d'état (see Georges Boulanger) in 1889, showed the
Antisemitic cartoon on the
fragility of the republic. The Radicals' policies on education
newspaper Libre Parole in
(suppression of local languages, compulsory education), mandatory
1893
military service, and control of the working classes eliminated internal
dissent and regionalisms, while their participation in the Scramble for
Africa and in the acquiring of overseas possessions (such as French
Indochina) created myths of French greatness. Both of these processes transformed a country of
regionalisms into a modern nation state.

In 1880, Jules Guesde and Paul Lafargue, Marx's son-in-law, created the French Workers' Party
(Parti ouvrier français, or POF), the first Marxist party in France. Two years later, Paul Brousse's
Possibilistes split. A controversy arose in the French socialist movement and in the Second
International concerning "socialist participation in a bourgeois government", a theme which was
triggered by independent socialist Alexandre Millerand's participation to Radical-Socialist
Waldeck-Rousseau's cabinet around the start of the 20th century, which also included the marquis
de Galliffet, best known for his role as repressor of the 1871 Commune. While Jules Guesde was
opposed to this participation, which he saw as a trick, Jean Jaurès defended it, making him one of
the first social-democrat. Guesde's POF united itself in 1902 with the Parti socialiste de France,
and finally in 1905 all socialist tendencies, including Jaurès' Parti socialiste français, unified into
the Section française de l'Internationale ouvrière (SFIO), the "French section of the Second
International", itself formed in 1889 after the split between anarcho-syndicalists and Marxist
socialists which led to the dissolving of the First International (founded in London in 1864).

Bismarck had supported France becoming a republic in 1871, knowing that this would isolate the
defeated nation in Europe where most countries were monarchies. In an effort to break this
isolation, France went to great pains to woo Russia and the United Kingdom to its side, first by
means of the Franco-Russian Alliance of 1894, then the 1904 Entente Cordiale with the U.K, and
finally, with the signing of the Anglo-Russian Entente in 1907 this became the Triple Entente,
which eventually led France and the UK to enter World War I as Allies when Germany declared
war on Russia.

Distrust of Germany, faith in the army and antisemitism in parts of the French public opinion
combined to make the Dreyfus affair (the unjust trial and condemnation of a Jewish military
officer for treason) a political scandal of the utmost gravity. The nation was divided between
 "dreyfusards" and "anti-dreyfusards" and far-right Catholic
agitators inflamed the situation even when proofs of Dreyfus'
innocence came to light. The writer Émile Zola published an
impassioned editorial on the injustice, and was himself
condemned by the government for libel. Once Dreyfus was
finally pardoned, the progressive legislature enacted the 1905
laws on laïcité which created a complete separation of church
and state and stripped churches of most of their property
rights.
The end of the 19th century saw the
spectacular growth of the French
The period and the end of the 19th and the beginning of the
empire (French troops landing in
20th century is often termed the Belle Époque. Although
Madagascar in 1895).
associated with cultural innovations and popular amusements
(cabaret, cancan, the cinema, new art forms such as
Impressionism and Art Nouveau), France was nevertheless a
nation divided internally on notions of religion, class, regionalisms and money, and on the
international front France came sometimes to the brink of war with the other imperial powers,
including Great Britain (the Fashoda Incident). Yet in 1905–1914 the French repeatedly elected
left-wing, pacifist parliaments, and French diplomacy took care to settle matters peacefully. France
was caught unprepared by the German declaration of war in 1914. The human and financial costs
of World War I would be catastrophic for the French.

Themes

Foreign relations

Colonialism

Starting with its scattered small holdings in India, West Indies

and Latin America, France began rebuilding its world
empire.[33][34][35] It took control of Algeria in 1830 and began
in earnest to rebuild its worldwide empire after 1850,
concentrating chiefly in North and West Africa, as well as
South-East Asia, with other conquests in Central and East
Africa, as well as the South Pacific. Republicans, at first hostile
to empire, only became supportive when Germany started to
build her own colonial empire In the 1880s. As it developed the
new empire took on roles of trade with France, especially
supplying raw materials and purchasing manufactured items,
The French conquest of Algeria
as well as lending prestige to the motherland and spreading
French civilization and language, and the Catholic religion. It
also provided manpower in the World Wars.[36]

It became a moral mission to lift the world up to French standards by bringing Christianity and
French culture. In 1884 the leading exponent of colonialism, Jules Ferry declared: "The higher
races have a right over the lower races, they have a duty to civilise the inferior races." Full
citizenship rights – assimilation – was a long-term goal, but in practice colonial officials were
reluctant to extend full citizenship rights.[37] France sent small numbers of white permanent
settlers to its empire, in sharp contrast to Britain, Spain and Portugal. The notable exception was
Algeria, where the French settlers nonetheless always remained a powerful minority.

Africa

The Suez Canal, initially built by the French,

became a joint British-French project in 1875, as
both saw it as vital to maintaining their influence
and empires in Asia. In 1882, ongoing civil
disturbances in Egypt prompted Britain to
intervene, extending a hand to France. The
government allowed Britain to take effective control
of Egypt.[38]

Under the leadership of expansionist Jules Ferry,

the Third Republic greatly expanded the French
colonial empire. Catholic missionaries played a A 1910 map showing the recent consolidation of
major role. France acquired Indochina, French control in much of North and West Africa
Madagascar, vast territories in West Africa and as well as Madagascar
Central Africa, and much of Polynesia.[34]

In the early 1880s, Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza was exploring the Kongo Kingdom for France, at
the same time Henry Morton Stanley explored it in on behalf of Leopold II of Belgium, who would
have it as his personal Congo Free State (see section below). France occupied Tunisia in May 1881.
In 1884, France occupied Guinea. French West Africa (AOF) was founded in 1895, and French
Equatorial Africa in 1910.[39][34]

During the Scramble for Africa in the 1870s and 1880s, the British and French generally
recognised each other's spheres of influence. The Suez Canal, initially built by the French, became
a joint British–French project in 1875, as both saw it as vital to maintaining their influence and
empires in Asia.[40] In 1882, ongoing civil disturbances in Egypt (see Urabi Revolt) prompted
Britain to intervene, extending a hand to France. France's expansionist Prime Minister Jules Ferry
was out of office, and the government was unwilling to send more than an intimidatory fleet to the
region. Britain established a protectorate, as France had a year earlier in Tunisia, and popular
opinion in France later put this action down to duplicity.[41] It was about this time that the two
nations established co-ownership of Vanuatu. The Anglo-French Convention of 1882 was also
signed to resolve territory disagreements in western Africa.

Fashoda Crisis

In the 1875–1898 era, serious tensions with Britain erupted over African issues. At several points
war was possible, but it never happened.[42] One brief but dangerous dispute occurred during the
Fashoda Incident when French troops tried to claim an area in the Southern Sudan, and a British
force purporting to be acting in the interests of the Khedive of Egypt arrived.[43] Under heavy
pressure the French withdrew securing Anglo-Egyptian control over the area. The status quo was
recognised by an agreement between the two states acknowledging British control over Egypt,
while France became the dominant power in Morocco. Dutch had failed in its main goals. P. M. H.
Bell says, "Between the two governments there was a brief battle of wills, with the British insisting
on immediate and unconditional French withdrawal from Fashoda.
The French had to accept these terms, amounting to a public
humiliation. ... Fashoda was long remembered in France as an
example of British brutality and injustice."[44][45][46][47]

Asia

France had colonies in Asia and looked for alliances and found in
Japan a possible ally. At Japan's request Paris sent military missions
in 1872–1880, in 1884–1889 and in 1918–1919 to help modernise the
Japanese army. Conflicts with China over Indochina climaxed during
the Sino-French War (1884–1885). Admiral Courbet destroyed the
Chinese fleet anchored at Foochow. The treaty ending the war, put
France in a protectorate over northern and central Vietnam, which it Contemporary illustration of
divided into Tonkin and Annam.[48] Captain Jean-Baptiste
Marchand's trek across
Africa
Literature

France's intellectual climate in the mid to late 19th century was

dominated by the so-called "Realist" Movement. The
generation that came of age after 1848 rejected what it
considered the opulence and tackiness of the Romantic
Movement. Realism was in a sense a revival of 18th-century
Enlightenment ideas. It favored science and rationality and
considered the Church an obstruction to human progress. The
movement peaked during the Second Empire with writers and
artists such as Flaubert and Courbet. After the establishment of
1901 edition of The Works of
the Third Republic, it had coalesced into a unified system of
Honoré de Balzac, including the
thought known as Positivism, a term coined by the philosopher
entire Comédie humaine
Auguste Comte. The two most notable writers of the 1870s-80s,
Hippolyte Taine and Ernest Renan rejected the Positivist label,
but most of their ideas were similar in content. Writers such as
Émile Zola and artists like Édouard Manet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir epitomized the spirit of
Positivism.

In addition, France produced a large body of prominent scientists during the late 19th century such
as Louis Pasteur and Marcellin Berthelot. Social sciences were less well-developed, but Gustave Le
Bon and Emile Durkheim were notable figures in this field.

Positivism survived as a movement until at least World War I, but beginning in the 1890s was
challenged by a rival school of thought that saw the return of Romantic ideas. A number of artists
came to disagree with the cold rationalism and logic of the Positivists, feeling that it ignored
human emotions. The so-called Symbolists included the poets Paul Verlaine and Stéphane
Mallarmé and an assortment of composers such as Georges Bizet and Camille Saint-Saëns who
then gave way to the more experimental music of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel.

Symbolist writers and philosophers included Paul Bourget, Maurice Barres, and Henri Bergson
plus the painters Paul Cézanne and Paul Gauguin. Bourget denounced Positivist ideas and
proclaimed that man's salvation did not come from science, but by the more traditional values of
God, family, and country. He espoused what he called "integral nationalism" and that traditional
institutions, reverence for one's ancestors, and the sacredness of the French soil were what needed
to be taught and promoted. Henri Bergson, whose lectures at the college de France became major
social gatherings among Parisians, criticized scientific rationalism and exalted man's irrational
drives, especially what he dubbed élan vital, distinguishing heroic men and nations from the
plodding masses.

The Symbolist Movement also affected the political climate of the nation: in the syndicalist beliefs
of Georges Sorel, in labor activism, and also a resurgent nationalism among French youth in the
years immediately preceding World War I. This new spirit brought a revival of belief in the Church
and a strong, fervent sense of patriotism. Also a new school of young artists emerged who
completely broke with Impressionism and favored a deep, intense subjectivism. Inspired by
Cézanne and Gauguin, Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Georges Rouault
entered the art scene so abruptly that they came to be known as the Fauves (Wild Ones).

Art

See also
Palace of Versailles
Paris in the 18th century
French Canada
Québécois people
Saint-Domingue
Saint Dominicans
Claude Monet, Impression, soleil
Haiti levant (Impression, Sunrise), 1872,
French Haitians oil on canvas, Musée Marmottan
Slavery in Saint-Domingue Monet, Paris. This painting became
Haitian Creole French the source of the movement's name,
Afro-Haitians after Louis Leroy's article The
Exhibition of the Impressionists
Americans in Haiti
satirically implied that the painting
Cap-Français was at most, a sketch.
French India
Louisiana (New France)
Louisiana Creole people
French Revolution
United States and the Haitian Revolution
French Revolutionary Wars
Maximilien Robespierre
Empress Joséphine
Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville
African Americans in France
Paris under Napoleon
Paris during the Restoration
Paris during the Second Empire
Paris in the Belle Époque
French Algeria
French language in Algeria
French protectorate of Tunisia
French Somaliland
French Indochina
 French West Africa
French people in Senegal
French Madagascar
French Equatorial Africa
French protectorate in Morocco
French language in Morocco

Notes
1. Diebolt and Faustine.
2. Spengler, pp. 103.
3. Caron.
4. Weber, pp. 67–94.
5. Crouzet, pp. 171.
6. Maddison, pp. 28, 30, 37.
7. Crouzet, pp. 169.
8. Crouzet, pp. 172.
9. Mathews, pp. 115–152.
10. Doyle.
11. Betros, pp. 16–21.
12. Gottschalk.
13. Mathews, pp. 153–297.
14. Mathews, pp. 297–446.
15. Stewart, pp. 9–28.
16. Artz.
17. Rich, pp. 35–38.
18. Stewart, pp. 29–50.
19. Stewart, pp. 51–68.
20. Stewart, pp. 92–93.
21. Collingham and Alexander.
22. Howarth.
23. Collingham and Alexander, pp. 60.
24. Rich, pp. 58–61.
25. Women and the Commune.
26. Rougerie Paris libre, pp. 248–263.
27. Tombs, pp. 619–704.
28. Rougerie La Commune, pp. 118–120.
29. Tombs, pp. 679–704.
30. Anderson.
31. Cobban, pp. 23.
32. Pope Pius X.
33. Quinn.
34. Aldrich.
35. Roberts.
36. Chafer, pp. 84–85.
37. Okoth, pp. 318–319.
38. Taylor, pp. 286–292.
39. Pakenham.
40. Turner, pp. 26–27.
41. Randell.
42. Otte, pp. 693–714.
43. Brown.
44. Bell, pp. 3.
45. Taylor, pp. 381–388.
46. Brogan, pp. 321–326.
47. Langer, pp. 537–580.
48. Wakeman, pp. 189–191.

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Further reading
Bury, J.P.T. (2003). France, 1814-1940.
Clapham, J. H. (1921). The Economic Development of France and Germany: 1815-1914 (http
s://archive.org/details/cu31924013709641). Cambridge [Eng.] The University press.
Dunham, Arthur Louis (1955). The Industrial Revolution in France, 1815–1848.
Echard, William E. (1985). Historical Dictionary of the French Second Empire, 1852-1870 (http
s://archive.org/details/historicaldictio0000unse_c6c7). ISBN 978-0-3132-1136-2.
Furet, François (1995). Revolutionary France 1770-1880.
Gildea, Robert (2008). Children of the revolution: The French, 1799-1914.
Lucien Edward Henry (1882). "Reconciliation". The Royal Family of France: 81–85.
Wikidata Q107259201.
 Hutton, Patrick H., ed. (1986). Historical Dictionary of the Third French Republic, 1870-1940 (ht
tps://archive.org/details/historicaldictio0000unse_g3i3).
Langley, Michael (October 1972). "Bizerta to the Bight: The French in Africa". History Today:
733–739.
McPhee, Peter (1994). A social history of France, 1780-1880.
Milward, A.; Saul, S.B. (1977). The development of the economies of continental Europe: 1850-
1914. pp. 71–141.
Newman, E.L.; Simpson, R.L., eds. (1987). Historical Dictionary of France from the 1815
Restoration to the Second Empire (https://archive.org/details/historicaldictio0001unse).
ISBN 978-0-3132-2751-6.
O'Brien, Patrick; Caglar, Keyder (2011). Economic growth in Britain and France 1780-1914: two
paths to the Twentieth Century.
Pilbeam, Pamela (1990). The Middle Classes in Europe, 1789-1914: France, Germany, Italy,
and Russia. Lyceum books.
Plessis, Alain (1985). The rise and fall of the Second Empire, 1852-1871.
Price, Roger (1987). A social history of nineteenth-century France.
Spitzer, Alan B. (2014). The French generation of 1820.
Tombs, Robert (2014). France 1814-1914.
Weber, Eugen (1979). Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernisation of Rural France, 1870-
1914. London: Chatto and Windus.
Wright, Gordon (1995). France in Modern Times. New York: Norton. ISBN 0-3939-5582-6.
Zeldin, Theodore (1977). France, 1848-1945.

Historiography
Sauvigny, G. de Bertier de (Spring 1981). "The Bourbon Restoration: One Century of French
Historiography". French Historical Studies. 12 (1): 41–67. doi:10.2307/286306 (https://doi.org/1
0.2307%2F286306). JSTOR 286306 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/286306).

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