art craiutu sobre doctrinarios

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History of European Ideas, Vol. 24, Nos. 4}5, pp. 243}265, 1998
( 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved
Printed in Great Britain
PII: S0191-6599 (99) 0004-2 0191-6599/99 $ - see front matter
BETWEEN SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS: THE 9STRANGE:
LIBERALISM OF THE FRENCH DOCTRINAIRES
AURELIAN CRAIUTU
Department of Politics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
Ideas perish from inanition far more
frequently than as a result of being refuted
by argument (Isaiah Berlin).
Boredom with established truths is a great
enemy of free men (Bernard Crick).
1. WHO WERE THE FRENCH DOCTRINAIRES?
Life is a mysterious fabric woven of chance, fate, and character; it unfairly grants
posthumous glory to some, while condemning others to undeserved oblivion.
Franiois Guizot (1787}1874) and the other French doctrinaires1 belong to the
category of those who still await justice and rediscovery. If the history of
political thought could be compared to a stock market sui generis, Guizot would
certainly be one of the most underrated &stocks' in which it would be wise to
invest. To use an unconventional metaphor, Guizot and the French doctrinaires
are one of the last great &virgin forests' of modern (French) political thought
waiting to be explored in the English-speaking world.2
A century ago, however, Guizot and his fellow doctrinaires were anything but
obscure "gures. They belonged to the intellectual and political elites of post-
revolutionary France and took active part in the most important parliamentary
debates between 1815 and 1848. To be sure, Guizot was one of the most
distinguished historians of the nineteenth century; "gures as diverse as J.S. Mill
and Lord Acton warmly praised his works, and an in#uential literary critic like
Saint-Beuve rightly called Guizot &the greatest of our professors'. A publisher's
dream a century ago, Guizot's History of Civilization in Europe, for example, was
one of the most popular books in nineteenth-century France, reissued and
translated countless times all over Europe. Marx himself did recognize the
salience of Guizot the politician; he put him in the company of Metternich and
the Czar3 and drew on Guizot's historical writings when elaborating his theory
of class struggle. Guizot, Royer-Collard and ReHmusat also had a strong in#u-
ence on Alexis de Tocqueville; as Larry Siedentop pointed out,4 the conceptual
apparatus from Democracy in America drew heavily upon the issues raised
during the parliamentary debates of 1815}1830, in which the doctrinaires played
a leading role.
243
Given this situation, it would not be an exaggeration to a$rm that there have
been fewer more dramatic declines in reputation than Guizot's and other
doctrinaires'. Disparagingly called by their enemies les philosophes sur le canape& ,
the doctrinaires often faced a tradition of scorn and distrust, sparked in part by
their mixed legacy of political success and failure. If Guizot the historian may
still be read by some contemporary historians (swimming against the current),
Guizot the political thinker appears, as far as I know, on almost no university
syllabus;5 very few political philosophers have heard of Guizot's political writ-
ings, let alone read them. The once famous doctrinaire, venerated by academics
and monarchs alike, slipped unnoticed into oblivion.
It is surprising to note how little attention English and American political
theorists have paid so far to the political writings of Guizot and the French
doctrinaires.6 In spite of a few courageous attempts to rescue Guizot's historical
writings from oblivion in France and Spain, we still lack a synthesis of the
political thought of Guizot and the French doctrinaires in English. Until
recently, it was (mistakenly) assumed that, with the notable exceptions of
Tocqueville's Democracy in America and Constant's discourse on the liberty of
the moderns, the period 1814}1848 failed to produce anything important at the
level of political ideas in France.7 It was also believed that the most important
thing that can be said about this period was that it represented a transition to
democracy and universal su!rage. This orthodox view, I believe, deserves to be
challenged. As both Larry Siedentop and Pierre Rosanvallon rightly argued,
a closer look at the Bourbon Restoration would persuade us that this period was
a remarkable golden age of political thought, a fascinating laboratory where one
could "nd at work competing political doctrines such as liberalism, Jacobinism,
the divine right of kings, liberal Catholicism, and utilitarianism a% la franmaise (in
the writings of Ideologues). Crucial political debates took place during the
Restoration, such as the famous debates on the electoral law of 1817 and the law
of the press of 1819.8 Out of this maelstrom arose original political writings on
both the left and the right, that concentrated on important issues such as the
nature of democracy and social change, the relation between changes in the
social structure and changes in the form of government, political representation
and representative government.
Of all political currents in nineteenth-century France, liberalism has been the
most neglected and least well understood by Anglo-American scholars. When
they chose to study nineteenth-century French political thought, they focused
instead either on utopian socialists like Proudhon, or on #amboyant ultra-
conservatives like Joseph de Maistre;9 alas, the center has remained largely
unknown and unexplored. How can one account for this partial neglect? One
explanation could be the prominent role played by deontological liberalism in
contemporary political theory; the latter often dispenses with historical and
sociological investigations and limits itself to drawing sophisticated analytical
distinctions. Another reason stems from the fact that issues such as statesman-
ship and political crafting which loomed large in the political writings of
the French doctrinaires have partly vanished from the agenda of Anglo-Saxon
political theorists. Finally, many historians of ideas seem to be attracted
more by extremes than the center; the latter is often (mistakenly) seen as a
244 Aurelian Craiutu
no-man's-land, inhabited by lukewarm and uninteresting characters, who
seem to lack inspiring beliefs. Thus, thinkers who are less concerned about
practical consequences and devise more or less &grandiose' systems of thought
are preferred to those who attempt to blend ideas and practice and choose
moderation as their political ideal. Not surprisingly, the doctrinaires fell into
oblivion because their image was associated with a model of centre poli-
tics*juste milieu*that was far from quenching the thirst for ideological &purity'
and extremes that has characterized French political life in the past two
centuries.
By rereading and reconsidering the works of the doctrinaires (above all,
Guizot, Royer-Collard, ReHmusat, and Barante), we thus stand to rediscover
a group of major political thinkers and skilled politicians, "ne psychologists
of political power and accomplished technicians of government. Though
some of their works had been written in response to historical circum-
stances they continue to speak to us because their re#ections on the situation
of post-revolutionary France were grounded in an original political philos-
ophy, which is worth retrieving from oblivion. In this paper, I shall discuss
the signi"cance of the political thought of the French doctrinaires by concen-
trating mostly on Guizot's writings and selecting a few important topics
such as politics and philosophy, historical and sociological imagination, politi-
cal power and the theory of &new means of government', and the politics of the
centre.
2. TOWARDS A &LIBERALISM OF GOVERNMENT'
The example of the French doctrinaires invites us to reconsider the relation
between politics and philosophy, and the role of intellectuals in politics. Too
often, it is assumed that there must be a divorce between political theorists
working with conceptsand categories and politicians dealing with practical
issues. This orthodox view could and should be quali"ed in light of the example
provided by the French doctrinaires, who aimed not only at creating brilliant
theories of politics, but also made vigorous attempts to translate their ideas into
political practice and institutions. The doctrinaires were persuaded that a true
science of politics required the combination of both intelligent theory and
vigorous action, and regarded politics as a profession which required special
skills as well sustained training and commitment.
The French doctrinaires were aware of the practical shortcomings of eight-
eenth-century (proto)liberalism and insisted that their (post-revolutionary) lib-
eralism had to be based upon a new and more solid theoretical foundation. In
other words, they sought to replace the old liberalism of opposition with
a &liberalism of government',10 which used insights from history, sociology,
politics, philosophy, and religion in order to draw lessons for political
crafting and the building of the new institutions of post-revolutionary France.
What nineteenth-century liberals as di!erent as Guizot, Tocqueville, and
Constant criticized in their eighteenth-century French predecessors*above all
Rousseau*was the absence of a constructive side to their political thought.11
The *Strange+ Liberalism of the French Doctrinaires 245
They denounced the sterility of an &opposition of spectators', who never aimed at
becoming true political actors:
Ils tenaient à la liberteH de la penseH e et de la parole, mais n'aspiraient point à la
puissance; ils detestaient et critiquaient vivement le despotisme, mais sans rien faire
pour le reprimer ou le renverser. C'eH tait une opposition de spectateurs eH claireH s et
indeH pendants qui n'avaient aucune chance ni aucune envie d'intervenir comme
acteurs.12
Why did Guizot's predecessors lack this constructive dimension? Eighteenth-
century (proto)liberalism had "rst and foremost a philosophical ethos, while the
political element prevailed over philosophical speculations in most versions of
nineteenth-century liberalism. Towards the middle of the eighteenth-century,
men of letters took the lead in society and guided public opinion. Nonetheless,
instead of developing theories of &true statecraft',13 they indulged in imagining
an ideal society in which everything was (more or less) simple, coherent, uniform,
and rational:
L'eH cole du XVIIIème siècle eH tait essentiellement philosophique et litteH raire: la
politique l'inteH ressait, mais comme l'un des objets, comme une application
d'ideH es qui venaient de plus loin2 Politique sans doute dans ses voeux et
dans ses reH sultats, le XVIIIème siècle eH tait un plaisir tout à fait indeH pendant
de l'emploi qu'en pourraient faire des publicistes ou des leH gislateurs. C'est là
le caractère de l'esprit philosophique, bien di!eH rent de l'esprit politique qui
ne s'attache aux ideH es que dans leur rapport avec les faits sociaux et pour les
appliquer.14
In other words, while living under an absolute government, the philosophes
indulged in abstract theories and generalizations regarding the nature of gov-
ernment, advanced bold speculations and general ideas, and came to despise (or
even distrust) tradition and the wisdom of the past; nonetheless, political life
remained for most of them a terra incognita. Thus, as Tocqueville himself noted
in ¹he Old Regime and the Revolution, the French eventually acquired an
exquisite taste for ideology, because they had not been able to participate in
politics in order to test their theories and adapt them to the real world.
Tocqueville also pointed out that the political ferment was channeled into
literature, the result being that writers became the leaders of public opinion and
played for a while the part which normally, in free countries, falls to professional
politicians.15 In turn, Constant once wrote that Rousseau had been &a blind
architect', unable to construct a new edi"ce out of the scattered rubble.16 In
Guizot's view, Rousseau could a!ord to be uncompromising precisely because
he took no responsibility in political life; he did not know the principles on
which liberty was founded.17
It is not my intention here to discredit theoretical imagination, nor do I want
to suggest that we could (or should) dispense with it when re#ecting on politics.
All I want to say is that nineteenth-century French liberals demonstrate that
one could (and should) have both a rich theoretical imagination and a keen
sense for real politics. The French doctrinaires could not a!ord the luxury of
246 Aurelian Craiutu
ideological intransigence or theoretical perfectionism. Their task was a more
down-to-earth one, i.e. to institutionalize the civil liberties of 1789 and create
a stable and free government in a country ridden by intense political con#ict.
Unlike their predecessors, Guizot and the other French doctrinaires generation
understood that theirs was a political task; they were called to &end the
Revolution' and lead the transition from a liberalism of opposition to a
liberalism of government. Precept and practice, theoretical blueprint and
action could not be kept distinct any longer, nor could they remain in the
hands of two di!erent groups; time had arrived for abstract principles to be
tested at work. Broad generalizations, cut-and-dried legislative systems, and
a thirst for perfection had to be replaced with intelligent political crafting, good
laws, and sharp political vision, which were supposed to reshape the old
institutions and create new ones. &I wanted', Guizot writes, &to combat revol-
utionary theories2 Time had come to clean this arena covered by ruins and to
substitute, in thought and action, fairness to hostility, and the principles of
liberty to the arms of revolution. One cannot build an edi"ce with &&war guns'';
one cannot build a free regime with ignorant pretensions and insatiable
hatred'.18
Guizot's texts were not only passionate responses to political circumstances;
they also show an attempt to build a new science of politics grounded in a set of
new principles and concepts (sovereignty of reason, political capacity). For the
doctrinaires, to study the mechanisms of political society and reform them were
the two sides of the same coin. In many ways, the doctrinaires did nothing else
than echo Germaine de StaeK l, who once said that &the philosophers have
made the revolution and they will end it'.19 Guizot himself was very explicit
on the distinction between the old and new liberalism. In his view, the friends
of the new France had to familiarize themselves with the prerequisites of
political power in order to know how to use &the new means of government'20
which exist in the bosom of society. &The friends of the new France',
Guizot argued, &must know well the nature and conditions of power. They
must form a government, the government of the revolution. To be successful,
they need something else than &&war guns'' and theories of opposition'.21
The same idea of a happy marriage between philosophy and politics is conveyed
in a letter to Barante written by Guizot in December 1823, while being in
the opposition: &Our situation requires that we are at the same time politicians
in the Chambers and philosophers and regenerators of the public'.22
Guizot's message is unambiguous: one can and must be both a philosopher and
a politician.
3. SOCIOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL IMAGINATION
Most of the political writings in the social contract tradition dispensed with
comparative sociological and historical investigations and lacked a detailed
analysis of the interplay between society and its political institutions. When their
authors delved into history,23 they imagined the origin of society in such a way
that it accorded with their basic moral and political commitments. This was
The *Strange+ Liberalism of the French Doctrinaires 247
a kind of abstract and highly speculative history, which built up an imaginaryideal society traced in the sole light of reason24 and based on the idea of
reshaping society on entirely new lines. Unlike the philosophes, nineteenth-
century French liberals paid special attention to the lessons of history as well as
to the relation between society and its political institutions; moreover, they were
keen on highlighting the connections between the social, political, and cultural
order. In doing so, they displayed a truly remarkable sociological and imagin-
ation,25 by which I mean the ability to determine certain structural traits of
modern society, examine the primary elements of social structure (beliefs,
property, institutions, rules and the like) and explore them in historical
comparative perspective. They emphasized both the development of social
activity and individual activity, the development of society and the relations
of individuals among themselves. In other words, the doctrinaires high-
lighted the interplay between institutions and government, religious creeds
and philosophical ideas, sciences and arts, religion and literature. Tocqueville
is perhaps the most famous representative of this sociological and historical
approach to political theory;26 nonetheless, in this respect he was the disciple
of the French doctrinaires*above all, Guizot and Royer-Collard*who,
along with Benjamin Constant, proposed a new way of doing political
theory.27 Guizot's History of Civilization in Europe (1828) is, I believe, one of
the best examples of the important role played by history and sociology in
nineteenth-century French political thought. In his important book, Guizot
argued that the development of social state and the perfecting of civil life are
intimately linked to the development of individuals and the relations among
themselves.28
Of course, the study of history was not exclusively the apanage of the
doctrinaires. Eighteenth-century Scottish thinkers such as Adam Ferguson and
Adam Smith had previously drawn on both history and sociology to elaborate
their own theories of modern commercial society and stages of development;
nonetheless, their theories of social change did not aim at o!ering a blueprint for
institutional and constitutional reform, as was the case of Guizot half a century
later.29 To understand the originality of doctrinaires' sociological and historical
imagination one must remember that at the center of their political thought was
a "rm commitment to the values and principles of the new social order which
had arisen from the ruins of the French Revolution. Unlike the ultras, the
doctrinaires were persuaded that there was no road back into the old aristo-
cratic society and that political institutions and laws should mirror the new
social condition based on civil equality and civil rights. The doctrinaires started
by analyzing the pro"le of society as it had evolved over the time and high-
lighted the dependence of political institutions on social order. They looked
beneath the surface of history and pointed to changes in manners and morals as
well as to their impact on the transition to a new type of egalitarian (democratic)
society, in which the middle class would play the leading role which once
belonged to aristocracy.
In doing so, the doctrinaires successfully drew upon and brought together
a number of di!erent intellectual traditions; their arguments combined
insights from history and sociology, philosophy and theology, a remarkable
248 Aurelian Craiutu
achievement even by the standards of that romantic age. The starting point for
their political re#ections was a unique political and social context, which
included the legacy of the French Revolution, the dictatorship of Napoleon, and
the Bourbon Restoration. To deal with the complex legacy of early nineteenth-
century France, the doctrinaires worked out a new conceptual apparatus which
di!ered from the concepts and categories used by their predecessors. To this
e!ect, Guizot and the other doctrinaires borrowed from Montesquieu his
sociological approach to political theory and then re"ned and developed it into
an original synthesis.30 Their contribution was twofold. Firstly, they insisted
that issues regarding political phenomena (and theory) could not be divorced
from questions about social condition (e& tat social); thus, it was at the level of
social change and social trends that the doctrinaires looked for explanations of
political factors.31 Secondly, in keeping with the political ethos undergirding
their theories, the doctrinaires gave their doctrines a strong political element and
understood correctly that a modicum of con#ict and strife is a key element of
a healthy political life. The contrast with many versions of contemporary
deontological liberalism can be easily grasped if we remember that Rawls
grounded his famous theory of justice in a contractual conception of society,
viewed as a hypothetical contractual agreement between individuals, regarding
that form of social bond which would best preserve their basic liberties and
rights. Furthermore, as many critics pointed out,32 in spite of its title, Rawls's
alleged &political' liberalism has a very weak political element, since his deon-
tological doctrine is predicated upon a moral theory which shies away from real
con#icts and seeks a moral*overlapping*consensus which can hardly be
found in the real political life.
Therefore, what we do not encounter in Rawls' deontological liberalism but do
"nd, for example, in the French doctrinaires' writings is an analysis of the
conditions of political life and an awareness of &the noise and muddle of actual
politics'.33 Guizot and the other doctrinaires understood that philosophy can-
not become political only by attempting to treat political topics in a philosophi-
cal way; it must be supplemented by insights drawn from sociology and history
and must also give evidence of grasping what is happening in the real world out
there. The doctrinaires understood this point and argued that, instead of
starting with the study of political institutions, we must study "rst society in
order to understand its political institutions. In other words, before becoming
a cause, political institutions are an e!ect and product of society, its forces, and
its structure;34 this idea appears in its most clear form in Guizot's political and
historical writings of the 1820s such as Des moyens de gouvernement et
d1opposition, Des conspirations et de la justice politique, Histoire des origines du
gouvernement repre& sentatif, and Histoire de la civilisation en Europe. What
Guizot argues in these writings can be summarized as follows: it is the state of
society that must be examined "rst in order to know what its government could
be and how it could be improved. To study social condition requires an
exploration of the composition and mores of society, individual and collective
beliefs, patterns of authority, the manner in which individuals live together and
pursue individual and common goals, as well as the relations between di!erent
classes. Worth noting is that all these factors belong to the invisible or quiet side
The *Strange+ Liberalism of the French Doctrinaires 249
of history, which is often overlooked by those of us interested only in &major'
political events.
The result of this approach was a more sociological and historical mode of
argument, with less attention paid to analytical distinctions, but with more
concern to show how concepts and ideologies are related to various social
conditions. The major contrast was, of course, that between an aristocratic and
a democratic social condition, a point which also looms large in Tocqueville's
Democracy in America. In other words, since institutions are founded upon
a complex mix of factors, political phenomena are best explained when they are
related to various social, cultural, and economic factors. The French doctri-
naires (and, later on, Tocqueville) started from the existence of di!erent types of
society (aristocratic, democratic) and then went on to examinethe ways in which
political concepts re#ect and spring out of various social structures. They
made of the crucial distinction between political institutions and social
structure a central tenet of their political thought and, unlike most English
philosophers, went on to elaborate a comprehensive theory of social and
historical change.
For example, in their political writings and parliamentary speeches Guizot
and Royer-Collard pointed to changes in mores and social condition and
argued that political institutions must be adjusted to l1e& tat social (which refers to
mores, beliefs, culture, property, and class relations) instead of departing from it.
On their view, a new social condition sets new constraints, which must be taken
into consideration when designing or reforming the institutional framework of
society. To put it di!erently, only certain options are available given the
constraints arising from a new social condition; political choice is possible, but
only within certain limits posed by institutions, structures, mores, practices, and
&habits of the heart'.35 Though some of the writings of the doctrinaires seem to
lean sometimes towards a particular form of sociological determinism by con-
veying the idea that everything depends on the social condition, they did not
amount, however, to denying or subverting the autonomy of politics, as one
might be inclined to think.36
Central to the doctrinaires' thought was a long-term view of history, which
was based on a coherent theory of civilization and progress. In their writings, the
principles undergirding a stable political order and their theory of representa-
tion and sovereignty were inferred from an original conception of historical and
social change, which assigned a central place to the interaction between social
and individual activity.37 Following in the footsteps of the Scottish Enlighten-
ment,38 the doctrinaires understood the nature of modern society as resulting
from the interplay between modes of behavior, philosophical ideas, religious
creeds, sciences, letters, and arts. They also analyzed how polity and society
relate to each other and how social forces a!ect the workings of political
institutions. It is in fact this blend of historical analysis, sociological typology,
and constitutional design that accounts for the originality of the doctrinaires'
method. Last but not least, their views on sovereignty and political power,
liberty and representation were not advanced as abstract principles, but were
embodied in a preliminary understanding of the types of society to which they
applied.
250 Aurelian Craiutu
The doctrinaires learned this lesson while grappling with a speci"c set of
issues which were characteristic of nineteenth-century France; among other
things, they attempted to understand what contributed to the centralization of
power that had led to the fall of the Old Regime. Bringing the French Revol-
ution to an end meant to them founding, institutionalizing, and reconciling
order and freedom, authority and civil rights. To the destructive or ine!ective
theories of their predecessors, the doctrinaires opposed a particular form of
conservative liberalism, which was supposed to create a viable representative
government based on solid institutions and e!ective laws. To this e!ect, they
had to answer new questions: what changes in social structure were bound up
with the emergence of the centralized state? How does the structure of modern
democratic society facilitate the concentration of state power and how do state
institutions a!ect society? How could a balance of power between center and
periphery be established in a democratic society? To answer these questions, the
doctrinaires argued that theory and action must be based on an accurate
knowledge of the new social condition; this presupposed a theory of society,
a theory of principles, and a theory of morality. Thus, the doctrinaires argued that
an irrevocable social development had occurred and went on to demonstrate its
political consequences by combining an analysis of institutions, structures,
practices, and mores with an examination of key features of modernity relevant
to political life.39
To fully grasp the originality of the sociological imagination of the French
doctrinaires, we should perhaps compare brie#y their works with the writings of
a few nineteenth-century English liberals. Not only were their approaches to
political theory di!erent, but they also held two di!erent conceptions of politics.
The main contrast here is between a view of politics which emphasizes
its relation to*and partial dependence on*social and historical change, and
one which sees political activity as entirely autonomous and self-generating. In
an original article published two decades ago, Larry Siedentop suggested that
the political works of the doctrinaires, along with those of Constant and
Tocqueville, support the hypothesis of the existence of an original type of
liberalism, di!erent from the English liberalism as represented by thinkers like
Bentham and James Mill. The latter form of liberalism, Siedentop argued, rarely
pauses to examine the conditions of social action and ends by a$rming the
principle of methodological individualism. In Siedentop's view, the sociologi-
cally minded French liberalism is allegedly more sophisticated and subtle than
its English counterpart, which remains in its essential traits utilitarian and
unhistorical.40
Though we should be wary of bold generalizations, this claim is worth
examining in greater detail. Above all to claim that Anglo-Saxon liberalism
lacks sociological and historical imagination fails to render justice not only to
John Stuart Mill,41 whose liberalism was sensitive to the lessons of history
and sociology, but also to the political writings of the "rst contributors to
the famous Edinburgh Review, who were steeped in history, sociology, economy,
and philosophy. Macaulay's historical essays,42 for example, were full of
sharp sociological insights; he believed that in order to explain contemporary
political phenomena one must pay attention to both social and institutional
The *Strange+ Liberalism of the French Doctrinaires 251
change and must delve into the bosom of society instead of remaining at the
surface of politics. Much like Guizot, Macaulay believed that the most impor-
tant revolutions in the history of mankind were &noiseless' and consisted of
gradual peaceful changes in manners and morals.43 Macaulay insisted that
greater attention be paid to the life of society and was always keen on relating
political phenomena to &circumstances' and situations. As he wrote in his essay
on Machiavelli, &He alone reads history aright, who, observing how powerfully
circumstances in#uence the feelings and opinions of men 2 learns to distin-
guish what is accidental and transitory in human nature from what is essential
and immutable'.44
Nonetheless, Siedentop's argument correctly captures the spirit of Bentham
and James Mill's projects, two widely in#uential early nineteenth-century
political philosophers, who aspired to create a science of society and politics
based on methods similar to those used in natural sciences. They developed
a predominantly static mode of argument, with relatively little sense of
how circumstances force institutions to change over the time. To this e!ect,
utilitarians postulated a priori principles and worked from clear de"nitions
of human nature by formulating governing laws of human nature and behavior.
This approach can be found in James Mill's writings, where he assumed
certain propensities of human nature, from which he then deduced his own
science of politics. Thus, he attempted to achieve a precision of de"nition
through a form of deductive thinking which mirrored the methods used in
natural sciences.
The French doctrinaires opposed this mode of argument, because they be-
lieved that in politics as in human a!airs, a priori reasoning and deduction were
more or less inappropriate; in other words,the deductive method was seen as
unsuitable to the study of politics, which was di!erent from mathematics or
physics.45 The doctrinaires believed that it would be utterly impossible to
deduce a science of government from a narrow set of principles governing
human nature, detached from an understanding of history and society. To study
human a!airs with the instruments of geometry was for them a self-defeating
approach because concepts with which we try to make sense of human action
could not be de"ned with the precision found in physics. Social life displays
a bewildering complexity which resists any attempt to mold it in the form of
mathematical axioms. Guizot and his fellow doctrinaires recognized this fact
and used insights from history and philosophy to advance a particular theory of
historical development. They paid great attention to social context, mores, laws,
and history and were instrumental in creating a new mode of political argument
which assigned a central place to social and institutional change in historical
perspective.46
4. POLITICAL POWER AND THE &NEW MEANS OF GOVERNMENT'
An interesting byproduct of the doctrinaires' sociological approach was their
theory of political power and the &new means of government'. According to the
classical liberal paradigm, the power of the state could only be increased at the
252 Aurelian Craiutu
expense of individual liberty. During the Restoration, this view was eventually
replaced by a more nuanced one, predicated upon the assumption that the
relation between political power and individual liberty was not necessarily
a zero-sum game. This insight was at the very core of the doctrinaire theory of
political power and the &new means of government', whose most re"ned expres-
sion can be found in Guizot's important book, Des moyens de gouvernement et
d1opposition en France (On the Means of Government and Opposition in France,
1821).
Those of us interested in issues like political power and statesmanship stand
to learn a lot by examining the doctrinaires' views on these subjects; moreover,
their theory of power may well appeal to a broad range of political scientists,
who would like to rethink the role of state power and its embededness in society.
To be sure, the French doctrinaires approached the problem of state power and
conceived of the relation between rights and order in a manner which was
di!erent from that used by their seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English
and French predecessors. The doctrinaires were not following in the footsteps of
Hobbes or Locke in thinking about political obligation, nor were they working
any more within the framework of social contract theory and natural rights;
Guizot's rejection of Rousseau's social contract theory stands as a prominent
example of the doctrinaires' departure from their predecessors.47 Furthermore,
unlike classical liberals, the doctrinaires did not believe in the virtues of laissez-
faire capitalism; for them, the power of the state was not a priori inimical to
individual freedom.48
Guizot's theory of political power and the new means of government occupies
a prominent place in his political thought and nicely summarizes the doctri-
naires' views on power and statesmanship; it is also connected to their famous
theory of the sovereignty of reason and political legitimacy, two concepts that
loom large in Guizot's and Royer-Collard's political writings and parliamentary
speeches. A few words about this important and original contribution of the
doctrinaires to modern political thought are in order here. The concept of
souverainete& de la raison advanced by the doctrinaires was an outcome of their
attempt to come to terms with the legacy of the French Revolution. The return
of the Bourbon dynasty to the throne of France made the issue of sovereignty
more salient than ever before; topics such as authority, civil rights, distribution
of power, and political responsibility triggered numerous debates in the
newly elected Chamber of Deputies and the press. For obvious historical
reasons, neither the sovereignty of divine right nor popular sovereignty were
viewed as acceptable solutions to the pressing political problems of that time.
Guizot and Royer-Collard believed that both the sovereignty of the people and
the sovereignty of divine right were nothing else than a patent usurpation of the
sovereignty of right and a blank check to arbitrary power. Therefore, they
tried to "nd a middle way, according to which de iure sovereignty belongs
only to reason, justice, and right, beyond the reach of any human being, yet
knowable by individuals who seek reason, justice, and truth. In Guizot's view,
for example, no individual will can be granted sovereignty of right; it would
be mistaken to attribute to any human being or body of persons an inherent
right to sovereignty, because that would presuppose that we always follow the
The *Strange+ Liberalism of the French Doctrinaires 253
principles of reason, justice, and right. The radical imperfection of human nature
makes this claim utterly implausible: de iure sovereignty must belong only to
reason.
The concept of the sovereignty of reason was seen in France by many as &the
most genuine liberal theory of sovereignty';49 yet, it was also interpreted as
containing a strong anti-liberal element. How can we account for this apparent
paradox? In Guizot's view, the sovereignty of fact can be recognized only on the
condition that it should be continually justi"ed on the basis of its full and
continuous compliance with the principles of reason, justice, and right. Worth
noting here is the way in which Guizot reinterpreted the very notion of
legitimacy. The latter is not seen any more as the prerogative of a single form of
government, be it monarchy, republic, or democracy; for Guizot, any form
of government can be legitimate if its principles follow reason, justice, and right
and are in accord with the social condition (e& tat social ).
Thus, without being a Legitimist in the French sense of the word, Guizot
reintroduced legitimacy as a key concept in political philosophy; in his writings,
he often spoke of &moral legitimacy', de"ned as the conformity to the laws of
justice and reason.50 As such, Guizot's theory of sovereignty of reason and
legitimacy was meant to be an e!ective way of unmasking and preventing
tyranny, i.e. usurpation of the sovereignty of right. The context in which this
original theory of sovereignty was elaborated also explains the reasons behind
Guizot's &liberalism of fear'.51 As we have already seen, Guizot harboured deep
suspicion towards any de facto sovereign claiming sovereignty of right; he
pointed out that legitimate sovereignty must endlessly be sought and proven,
that political actors and institutions must constantly strive that their actions
conform to the principles of reason, justice, and right. This can be done by
allowing for &the confrontation of independent and equal powers capable
of reciprocally imposing on each other the obligation of seeking the truth
together'.52
While remaining faithful to the principles of constitutionalism and limited
government, Guizot criticized those classical liberals who wanted government
to be humble and its tasks and authority severely limited. To this e!ect,
he denounced the then widespread belief which compared government to &a
hired servant who can be paid at a bargain rate and must be reduced to the
lowest degree in activity'.53 In Guizot's view, to severely limit state action and
ask that the state be nothing else than a powerless umpire would amount to
subverting authority and society altogether. That is why he claimed that classi-
cal liberals ignored a key feature of social action, the natural greatness of
political power, that he sought to bring again into the forefront of political
debates.54
Based on his belief in the virtues of wise political crafting, Guizot defended
a more nuanced theory of power, which was supposed to replace the purely
negative view of power held by classicalliberals. To argue that political power
is intrinsically bad or harmful, Guizot believed, would amount to condemning
an entire political community to anarchy, since the latter would lack the
loci of decision and institutional design required for its maintenance and
stability. Guizot's opposition to the old laissez faire theory stemmed from
254 Aurelian Craiutu
his philosophy undergirding his liberalism of government. &The axiom ¸aissez
faire, laissez passer', Guizot wrote, &is one of those vague axioms
which is true or false depending on the way in which we use it; it can warn us
against dangers, but is unable to guide us'.55 The doctrine of minimal state, the
corollary of laissez faire liberalism, had been appropriate to a liberalism of
opposition, but could no longer serve as the blueprint for a liberalism of
government, which was supposed to build a new political order and stable
institutions.56 In Guizot's view, power must preserve its natural dignity because,
without being respected by citizens, it can no longer ful"ll its mission: &Do not
ask power to abdicate by humiliating itself. Only respected power is true power;
and respect can only be given to superiority'.57
By the same token, Guizot invites us to reconsider the old theory of the
separation of powers conceived of as the foundation of liberal order. He claimed
that Montesquieu's famous theory of the separation of powers had to be
quali"ed, given the new social and political condition of post-revolutionary
France. What should be feared, Guizot noted, is not power tout court, but
weak, unaccountable power, which might be tempted to resort to arbitrary
means inimical to individual freedom. This explains why Guizot advanced
the idea of a necessary &harmony' between the legislative and executive
powers.58
Guizot's sociological approach to political power also enabled him to o!er
a new and unorthodox interpretation of the government-society relations,
as well as an original and valuable theory of the &new means of government'. His
words could not be more relevant for the #edgling democracies in Eastern
Europe that are currently making the di$cult apprenticeship of liberty. To
govern a society, Guizot argued, does not mean to rule it (arbitrarily) from
above; a truly e!ective political power requires collaboration with those &means
of government' which exist in the bosom of society, but remain dormant unless
they are given the opportunity to manifest themselves. Guizot criticized those
power-holders who mistakenly believe that they can govern society alone,
without seeking the cooperation of the new means of government. In his view,
the task of government is precisely to elicit the cooperation of these new means
of government and put them to work:
C'est là qu'il faut les chercher pour les trouver, là où il faut les laisser pour s'en
servir. Gra( ces au ciel, la socieH teH humaine n'est pas un champ que vient exploiter un
mam( tre; elle vit d'une autre vie que le mouvement de la matière; elle possède et
produit elle-me(me ses plus su( rs moyens de gouvernement, elle les pre( te volontiers
à qui sait les manier; mais c'est à elle qu'il faut s'adresser pour les obtenir.59
Thus, Guizot's views on the art of governing can be summarized as follows:
the true task of representative government is to seek within society the means of
government. To make of power what the miser makes of gold would be a great,
irreparable mistake; if we try to hoard it, power will remain sterile. Therefore,
the art of governing is not to accumulate as much power as one can get, but to
know how to use intelligently all the fragments of power which exist in the
bosom of society.
The *Strange+ Liberalism of the French Doctrinaires 255
Dans le gouvernement des peuples comme dans l'eH ducation des individus, l'art ne
consiste pas à tout remarquer, à tout mettre au jour, à s'en prendre à tout2
DeHme( lez pluto( t par quel co( teH le public est enclin à la raison; recherchez en lui
les bons principes, les sentimens justes, les penchans leH gitimes; exploitez,
cultivez ceux-là; attirez sur eux l'eH nergie sociale L'art de gouverner consiste,
non a% s1appropier en apparence toute la force, mais a% employer toute celle qui
existe.60
Furthermore, before Tocqueville who predicted (in Democracy in America) the
advent of a new type of (lenient) democratic despotism, Guizot anticipated that
the trends at work in modern society would eventually lead to the simultaneous
growth of political power over society as well as to an increased in#uence of
society over its government.61 He foresaw that a time would come when society
would solicit government's action instead of shying away from it. When govern-
ment suits society, argued Guizot, when society feels that it is living within its
government, when government is truly society's interpreter and leader, then
society will call on government for the good it is seeking and for the protection
against the evil it fears. History proved him right2
5. THE VITAL CENTER
What emerged from the struggle over the nature of post-revolutionary French
society was an original type of liberal doctrine, which di!ered in many
respects from Anglo-Saxon liberalism. Nineteenth-century French liberalism
had from the very beginning a non-democratic element built into its
structure; this elitist element was manifested by such notions as restricted
su!rage and political capacity.62 The founders of representative government
in France aimed at creating, not a political democracy, but a representa-
tive government in which the interests of society would be duly represented
and protected and which was supposed to be a viable alternative to popular
rule.
A decade before Tocqueville, the French doctrinaires viewed the advancement
of modernity and the equality of conditions as irresistible; they accepted civil
equality (equality before the law), but opposed universal su!rage and popular
sovereignty. By advocating restricted su!rage and political capacity and draw-
ing a sharp distinction between democracy as social condition and political
democracy, or between civil and political rights, the doctrinaires found them-
selves caught in the middle of intense political con#icts. Their liberalism was
from the very start a centrist political ideal, a middle way between the reaction-
ary political program of Counter-revolution and the claims of radicals on
the left. Like other nineteenth-century liberals, the French doctrinaires
defended private property, equality before the law, civil rights, careers open
to talent instead of birth, the rule of law and political accountability. They
also insisted on the important role played by publicity and wanted to make
representative government responsible to public opinion. And like other
liberals, the doctrinaires rejected universal su!rage and political democracy
and gave priority to building the institutional framework of a viable
256 Aurelian Craiutu
liberal society. Nonetheless, it would be a mistake to claim that the doctrinaires
opposed or feared democracy tout court; it is more accurate to say that
they wanted to channel it, instead of neutralizing or destroying it. They under-
stood the providential and irreversible character of the equality of condi-
tions, a theme that was superbly captured a decade later by their disciple,
Tocqueville.63
The liberalism of the doctrinaires was, so to speak a liberalism extra muros.64
Guizot, for example, criticized the individualism undergirding the philosophy of
Enlightenment and rejected the idea that individual will can ever be the infalli-
able judge of the legitimacy of political institutions. The subject of civil society
interested the doctrinaires to a far lesser degree than classical liberals; they not
only discarded the doctrine of popular sovereignty, but also rejected the notion
of social contract. Moreover, unlike classical liberals, the doctrinaires enter-
tained a more positive view of political power, which can be explained if placed
in the contextof the French statist tradition.
It is almost a truism to say that the French have often distrusted moder-
ation.65 As Eduard Laboulaye, a leading nineteenth-century French liberal,
once acknowledged, the taste for logic and perfectionism has long been charac-
teristic of French political culture.66 The French easily went to extremes and
thus often discredited even the loftiest ideals. The liberalism of the French
doctrinaires demonstrates both the virtues and limitations inherent in the
politics of the center. As politicians who wanted to avoid the extremes, Guizot
and his fellow doctrinaires found themselves from the very beginning
in a di$cult situation. Socialists and radicals on the left attacked them for
their bourgeois leanings, pragmatism, and moderation; ultra-conservatives took
them to be the heralds of the new bourgeois world, whose principles they
despised and rejected. The entry on the doctrinaires in Maurice Block's ac-
claimed Dictionary (1863) plainly conveys the di$culty of holding the center in
politics.67 Those who want to be in the centre, Block noted, always face
a di$cult situation, because they are exposed to the cross"re of extremes that
know better how to play with human emotions and passions. Not surprisingly,
the initiatives of the proponents of juste milieu are rarely appreciated for what
they are worth.
Nonetheless, it would be a grave mistake if we believed that the centre is
nothing else than the place of lukewarm beliefs. As the locus classicus of
moderation, it is sometimes the best position68 one could hold in order to
promote highly contested reforms, which would have otherwise been blocked or
delayed by overzealous radicals and ultra-conservatives. That is why Nietzsche
was unfair when writing disparagingly about the centre in ¹he =ill to Power;
fear does not necessarily cease in the middle, as he argued, nor is the centre
(always) the expression of herd mentality. &The instinct of the herd', Nietzsche
claimed, &considers the middle and the mean as the highest and most valuable:
the place where the majority "nds itself; the mode and manner in which it "nds
itself. It is therefore an opponent of all orders of rank2 The herd feels the
exception as something opposed and harmful to it2 Fear ceases in the middle:
here one is never alone, here there is little room for misunderstanding; here there
is equality'.69
The *Strange+ Liberalism of the French Doctrinaires 257
The example of the French doctrinaires contradicts Nietzsche's point. Guizot
and his fellow doctrinaires show that those who hold the centre, far from being
mere atoms in a faceless crowd, are often despised or distrusted by the mass and
are therefore condemned to solitude; furthermore, they are prone to endless
misunderstandings which arise mainly from the eclecticism inherent in any juste
milieu theory. Douglas Johnson, the author of a classical biography of Guizot,
once claimed that the doctrine of nineteenth-century eclecticism was weak and
inadequate, monotonous and uninspiring; in other words, there were no dreams
in eclecticism which could move people to heroic political action. As centrist
liberals, the doctrinaires were also accused for having neither an inspiring ideal,
nor an uplifting political vision; they were often portrayed as mired in an
untenable centre, hesitating between the past and the future, between liberty and
order.70 Last but not least, eclecticism and just milieu theory have also been
viewed as a &product of weariness', that inevitably produces political apathy.71
A closer look at the political environment of post-revolutionary France
demonstrates why the centre was the only reasonable position during the
Bourbon Restoration. Eclecticism and juste milieu theory arose out of the need
to compromise and bring social peace in a nation torn by a long civil war. The
need for the centre was never more urgent than in Guizot's time. As he once put
it,
Les deux grands partis politiques, le parti de l'ancien regime et celui de la
ReH volution, eH taient l'un et l'autre, à cette eH poque, incapables de gouverner en
maintenant la paix inteH rieure avec la liberteH ; ils avaient l'un et l'autre des ideH es et
des passions trop contraires à l'ordre eH tabli et legal qu'ils auraient eu à deH fendre2
Le centre fut appeleH à gouverner. Sous un regime de liberteH , le centre est le
moderateur habituel et le juge deH "nitif du gouvernement; c'est lui qui donne ou
retire la majoriteH ; ce n'est pas sa mission d'avoir à la conquerir.72
Let us re#ect once more on Guizot's own words: he sees the centre as the
moderator and the ultimate judge of the government. As such, it allows one to
act freely and preserve his moral independence, while remaining free from
subjection to factional interests. The freedom enjoyed in the center is nicely
conveyed by the following passage:
Comme parti politique, le centre, dans les Chambres de 1816 a 1820, n'eH tait point
atteint de ce mal: sincère dans son acceptation de la Restauration et de la Charte,
aucune pression exteH rieure ne venait le deHmentir ni le troubler; sa penseH e eH tait
franche et son action libre; il proclamait tout haut son but et y marchait tout droit,
acceptant au dedans les chefs les plus capables de l'y conduire, et n'ayant au dehors
que des adheH rents qui ne lui demandaient que d'y arriver. C'est par la que le centre
eH tait alors le parti le plus propre au gouvernement, le seul capable de maintenir
l'ordre dans l'ED tat en supportant la liberteH de ses rivaux.73
Pace Johnson, I would like to argue that juste milieu theory does not lack
political vision and wisdom, even when it appears to be less &inspiring' or
appealing than millenarist and radical movements. These may move to action
millions of individuals, but often end in su!ering and misery. More cautious
258 Aurelian Craiutu
than utopian thinkers, those who hold the centre demonstrate why prudence is
after all a truly political virtue. Prudence does mean, however, neither opportun-
ism nor cowardice. Opponents of the doctrinaires or unsympathetic interpreters
often reproached Guizot and his fellows their alleged opportunism, because
some of their ideas changed over the time; this is, I believe, a misinterpretation of
their political project. Against those who like consistency above all, I would like
to argue that in politics contradictions may often*though not always*be
a sign of life and vitality rather than mere opportunism. Only a madman could
be consistent all the time and avoid contradicting himself; life in general, and
political life in particular, requires sometimes ambivalence and adjustments,
conjectures and refutations. Ambivalence is, after all, the mark of a non-
dogmatic approach to politics and ethics and is not a priori an unpardonable
weakness. Ambivalence may, however, become a serious #aw when it stems from
a lack of principles, sheer opportunism, and the inability to take a "rm stance
when need be. This was not the case of the French doctrinaires. Furthermore,
a close examination of their writings and speeches demonstrate that moderation
and compromise are the very essence of politics, de"ned as the art of bringing
opposite views into contact and "nding ways of reconciling them. Macaulay,
another proponent of juste milieu theory, once said that some of the most
important and useful political instruments were in fact among the most illogical
compositions that were ever penned.74 Guizot would have wholeheartedly
endorsed this view.
It is, I believe, the doctrinaires' moderation that makes them relevant for the
#edgling democracies of Eastern Europe today. As the closing decade of
our century has brought the restoration of representative government in
Eastern Europe, we are likely to witness there a rich and new variety of
centrist experiments in politics, after decades of radical experiments. The
writings of the doctrinaires not only invite us to re#ect on the true nature,
virtue, and limitations of liberal democracy, but may also help us reconsiderold-fashioned topics like statesmanship and political power, and examine
new issues like society and its &new means of government', or the role of
publicity and its relation to representative government. All these topics have
a particular relevance to Eastern Europe, which has (re)discovered the mixed
blessings of liberal democracy and the complex relation between social and
political order.75
To sum up, I would like to argue that the liberalism of the French doctrinaires
is interesting precisely because it is unorthodox; to fully grasp its meaning is
a challenge for its (few) interpreters. Guizot's liberalism, in particular, is
di$cult to understand because it requires a seemingly impossible task: to be
simultaneously democrat and aristocrat, liberal and conservative, friend and
enemy of the revolution.76 This paraodox can be easily explained if we take
into account the di$cult task of nineteenth-century French liberals. They
lived suspended between two epochs, and had to "nd a reasonable compromise
between stability and movement, order and innovation. In other words,
the doctrinaires had to create a theory of politics while history was still
in the making, which explains why their liberalism is unorthodox and
unconventional.
The *Strange+ Liberalism of the French Doctrinaires 259
I would venture to claim that the richness of doctrinaires' liberalism stems
from the fact that their political thought seems to frustrate all attempts to
categorize it by resorting to classical concepts. The doctrinaires speak to us, but
often not in our familiar language. While some of us may "nd this disturbing, it is
precisely the unconventional nature of doctrinaires' liberalism that makes them
appealing and interesting. By reading their works and comparing them with the
writings of our contemporary liberals, we realize why imagination is a vital
component of the liberal spirit. As Lionel Trilling rightly argued a few decades
ago, &a criticism which has at heart the interest of liberalism might "nd its most
useful work not in con"rming liberalism in its general sense of rightness but
rather in putting under some degree of pressure the liberal ideas and assump-
tions of the present time'.77 Boredom with established truths, Bernard Crick
once said, may be a great enemy of free men. To avoid being bored with our old
truths, we must sometimes become more adventurous by visiting unfamiliar
intellectual landscapes. Reading the French doctrinaires is a special opportunity
for such a rewarding trip as well as a unique way to enlarge our liberal
imagination.
Acknowledgements*I would like to thank Larry Siedentop, George Kateb, Charles
Larmore, John Burrow, Patrick Deneen, and Jonathan Allen for their comments on an
earlier draft of this paper.
NOTES
1. The word doctrinaires refers to a small group of French liberals who were trying to
break a middle ground between Revolution and Reaction during the Bourbon
Restoration and the July Monarchy (1814}1848). Initially, the group included
Franiois Guizot (1787}1874), Pierre-Paul Royer-Collard (1763}1845), Prosper de
Barante (1782}1866), Victor de Broglie (1792}1867), Hercule de Serre (1776}1824)
and Camille Jordan (1771}1821). Charles de ReHmusat (1797}1875), Victor Cousin
(1792}1867), Jean-Philibert Damiron (1794}1862), Theodore Jou!roy (1796}1842)
and Pellegrino Rossi (1787}1848) eventually joined the doctrinaires' group.
2. I would like to mention here the pioneering works of C.-H. Pouthas, Guizot pendant
la Restauration (Paris: 1923), Luis Diez del Corral, El liberalismo doctrinario (Madrid:
1956), and P. Rosanvallon, ¸e moment Guizot (Paris: 1985). In the English-speaking
world, Larry Siedentop pointed out the importance of the political thought of the
doctrinaires in his important essay, &Two Liberal Traditions', in A. Ryan (Ed.), ¹he
Idea of Freedom (Oxford: 1979), pp. 153}174 as well as in his monography ¹ocqueville
(Oxford: 1994), pp. 20}40. More recently, Siedentop has written a valuable introduc-
tion to the English translation of Guizot's History of Civilization in Europe, which has
been reissued in the Penguin Series (London: 1997).
3. The famous Manifesto of the Communist Party begins with the following paragraph:
&A specter is haunting Europe*the specter of Communism. All the Powers of old
Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Czar,
Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies'. R. C. Tucker
(Ed.), ¹he Marx-Engels Reader (New York: 1978), p. 473.
260 Aurelian Craiutu
4. For the in#uence of the doctrinaires on Tocqueville see Siedentop, ¹ocqueville,
pp. 20}40 and A. Craiutu, &Tocqueville and the Political Thought of the French
Doctrinaires', History of Political ¹hought, (in press).
5. One exception is worth mentioning here. In the Fall quarter of 1997, Charles
Larmore o!ered at the University of Chicago a course on political liberalism in
which he discussed, among other things, some of Guizot's political writings.
6. Pierre Rosanvallon's ¸e moment Guizot convincingly highlighted the importance of
Guizot's political thought; his work remains an indispensable source for any inter-
preter of the doctrinaires. In the United Kingdom and the United States, the political
writings of the doctrinaires are largely unknown. There are, however, a few excep-
tions which must be acknowledged here. In addition to Larry Siedentop's important
contributions which I have already mentioned, also worth mentioning are:
D. Johnson, Guizot (London: 1963), V. Starzinger, ¹he Politics of the Center:
¹he Juste Milieu in ¹heory and Practice, France and England, 1815}1848 (New
Brunswick: 1991). George Armstrong Kelly highlighted Royer-Collard's in#uence
over Tocqueville in his posthumously published book, ¹he Human Comedy
(Cambridge: 1992). Last but not least, a good discussion of Guizot's historical
writings can be found in S. Mellon, ¹he Political ;ses of History: A Study of
Historians in the French Restoration (Stanford: 1958).
7. Among those who held this view I would mention here H. Michel, ¸1ide&e de l1E! tat
(Paris: 1896) and R. Soltau, French Political ¹hought in the Nineteenth Century (New
Haven: 1931).
8. I discuss the impact of these debates on the doctrinaires' political thought in
A. Craiutu, &The Di$cult Apprenticeship of Liberty: Re#ections on the Political
Thought of the French Doctrinaires', PhD thesis, Princeton University, 1999.
9. The prestigious Cambridge series of texts in the history of political thought has
published Proudhon and Maistre thus far, but no collection of Guizot's writings has
appeared yet.
10. I borrow these terms from Pierre Manent, whose Intellectual History of ¸iberalism
(Princeton: 1994) contains a chapter on Guizot's &libe& ralisme de gouvernement'.
11. I should point out that Guizot's reading of Rousseau was somewhat biased.
Guizot seemed to forget that Rousseau also wrote Considerations on the Government
of Poland and A Constitutional Project for Corsica (in addition to ¹he Social
Contract).
12. Franiois Guizot, Me&moires pour servir a% l1histoire de mon temps (vol. I, Paris: 1870),
p. 6.
13. The phrase belongs to Tocqueville, ¹he Old Regime and the Revolution, S. Gilbert
(Tr.) (New York: 1955), p. 144.
14. Franiois Guizot, Revue franiaise, No. 11, September 1829, pp. 220}221.
15. Tocqueville, ¹he Old Regime and the Revolution, p. 142.
16. Benjamin Constant as quoted in S. Holmes, Benjamin Constant and the Making of
Modern ¸iberalism (New Haven: 1984), p. 92.
17. F. Guizot, Des moyens de gouvernement et d1opposition (Paris: 1821), p. 358.
18. Guizot, Me&moires, vol. 1, p. 313.
19. G. de StaeK l, 0Des circonstances actuelles qui peuvent terminer la Re&volution et des
principes qui doivent fonder la re&publique en France1, in L. Omacini (Ed.) (Geneva:
1979), p. 273.
20. The phrase belongs to Guizot, who elaborated on the distinction between new and
old means of government in an important book, Des moyens de gouvernment et
d1opposition en France (1821).
21. Guizot inPierre Manent (Ed.), ¸es libe& raux (vol. 2, Paris: 1986), p. 156.
The *Strange+ Liberalism of the French Doctrinaires 261
22. Madame de Witt (Ed.), ¸ettres de M. Guizot a% sa famille (Paris: 1884), p. 52.
23. This is, for example, the case of Rousseau and Locke.
24. In Part 3, Chap. 1 of the Old Regime and the Revolution, Tocqueville addressed this
issue.
25. The phrase &sociological imagination' is the title of a well-known book by C. Wright
Mills. He de"ned sociological imagination as follows: &A quality of mind that will
help them to use information and to develop reason in order to achieve lucid
summations of what is going on in the world and on what may be happening within
themselves. The sociological imagination enables its possessor to understand the
larger historical scene in terms of its meaning for the inner life and the external career
of individuals. The "rst fruit of this imagination is the idea that the individual can
understand his own experience and gauge his own fate only by locating himself
within his period2 The sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and
biography and the relations between the two within society'. C. W. Mills, ¹he
Sociological Imagination (New York: 1959), pp. 5}6.
26. For a good treatment of this issue see R. Aron, Main Currents of Sociological ¹hought
(vol. 1, New York: 1965) and P. Manent, ¹ocqueville et la nature de la de&mocratie
(Paris: 1993).
27. Siedentop elaborated on this point in ¹ocqueville, pp. 20}40.
28. For more detail see Guizot, ¹he History of Civilization in Europe, pp. 9}26.
29. This is not to say, however, that thinkers like Hume or Adam Smith were not
interested in the problem of government. For a good discussion on this issue see
Biancamaria Fontana, &The shaping of modern liberty', Annales Benjamin Constant,
No. 5 (Lausanne: 1985), pp. 3}15; Rethinking the Politics of Commercial Society: ¹he
Edinburgh Review, 1802}1832 (Cambridge: 1985).
30. In his essay &Two Liberal Traditions', Siedentop argued that the doctrinaires were the
&originators' of this sociological approach. In his book on Tocqueville (pp. 24}25), he
quali"ed this view by pointing to the writings of Montesquieu and Scottish philos-
ophers as precursors of the doctrinaires. Siedentop correctly pointed out that
eighteenth-century Scots were more interested in the nature and direction of social
change than in constitutional issues.
31. This is what Guizot wrote in his essays on the history of France: &It is by the study of
political institutions that most writers2 have thought to understand the state of
society, the degree or type of its civilization. It would have been wiser to study "rst
the society itself in order to understand its political institutions. Before becoming
a cause, political institutions are an e!ect; a society produces them before being
modi"ed by them2 . Society, its composition, the manner of life of individuals,
according to their social position, the relation of the di!erent classes, the condition of
persons especially*that is the "rst question which demands attention from2 the
inquirer who seeks how a people are governed. In order to understand political
institutions, it is necessary to understand the di!erent social conditions (classes) and
their relations' (this fragment from Guizot is quoted by Siedentop in ¹ocqueville,
p. 23).
32. I will point out here only two such powerful critiques advanced by C. Mou!e, &AE
propos d'un libeH ralisme qui se dit politique', Esprit, 208 ( janvier 1995), pp. 202}209,
and S. Wolin, &The Liberal/Democratic Divide: On Rawls's Political ¸iberalism',
Political ¹heory, 24. No. 1 (February 1996), pp. 97}119. Interestingly enough, these
devastating critiques of Rawls come from the left. Mou!e remarks that &ce que ce
libeH ralisme politique forclo( t c'est la dimension du politique qui concerne l'antagon-
isme, le pouvoir et les rapports de forces' (AE propos d'un libeH ralisme qui se dit
politique', p. 208), while Wolin bemoans &the politically trivial character' of the
262 Aurelian Craiutu
di!erences with which Rawls is concerned and notes that the political matters
omitted from his Political ¸iberalism include many important topics like class
structure, bureaucracy, corporate and governmental bodies, and so forth (Wolin,
&The Liberal/Democratic Divide', p. 103).
33. I borrow this phrase from Wolin, &The Liberal/Democratic Divide', p. 118.
34. Needless to say, these relations must be two-way.
35. The phrase is Tocqueville's and can be found in Democracy in America and his private
letters.
36. I do not want to convey the false impression that Guizot was a Marxist avant la
lettre. What I want to point out is that Marx acknowledged his debt to &bourgeois
historians' like Guizot with regard to the theory of class struggle. For such a state-
ment see Marx's letter of 5 March 1852 to J. Weydemeyer, published in Marx, E! tudes
philosophiques (Paris: ED ditions sociales, 1947), p. 118.
37. See Guizot, History of Civilization in Europe, p. 18.
38. On the contribution of the Scottish Enlightenment see J. W. Burrow, =higs and
¸iberals (Oxford: 1988), pp. 21}49.
39. An interesting example of such an analysis can be found in Guizot's small book, De la
peine de mort en matie% re politique (Paris: 1822).
40. For more detail see Siedentop, &Two Liberal Traditions'.
41. I have in mind here some of J. S. Mill's essays such as &Civilisation', &The Spirit
of the Age', &Coleridge', and the two reviews of Tocqueville's Democracy in
America. Needless to say, this critique also fails to render justice to the political
and historical writings of Macaulay and Brougham. For a discussion of their
works in relation to the French doctrinaires see Starzinger, ¹he Politics of the
Center.
42. On Macaulay's political thought see J. Hamburger, Macaulay and the =hig
¹radition (Chicago: 1976), J. Clive, Macaulay: ¹he Shaping of the Historian
(Cambridge: 1973), pp. 61}141, and Starzinger, ¹he Politics of the Center.
43. Clive makes this argument in Macaulay, p. 122.
44. Macaulay as quoted by Clive, Macaulay, p. 109.
45. Similar criticisms were advanced by proponents of juste milieu theory in England
like Macaulay. See Hamburger, Macaulay and the =hig ¹radition, pp. 49}72,
J. Lively and J. Rees (Eds.), ;tilitarian ¸ogic and Politics: James Mill1s &&Essay
on Government'', Macaulay1s Critique and the Ensuing Debate (Oxford: 1978),
pp. 1}130.
46. See Siedentop, &Two Liberal Traditions', pp. 156}158. I should also like to point out
that the emphasis on economic change was less prominent in the works of the French
doctrinaires than in those of the Scots.
47. Guizot criticized Rousseau's social contract theory in his History of the Origin of
Representative Government in Europe (London: 1861), pp. 334}350, and his un"nished
treatise on sovereignty, Political Philosophy: On Sovereignty, posthumously pub-
lished by P. Rosanvallon in Guizot, Histoire de la civilisation en Europe suivie de
Philosophie politique: de la souverainete& (Paris: 1985).
48. On this topic also see Siedentop, &Two Liberal Traditions', pp. 157}168.
49. The phrase belongs to Maurice BarbeH , E! tude historique sue des ide& es sur la
souverainete& en France de 1815 a% 1848 (Paris: 1904). In his in#uential Die geistesges-
chichtliche ¸age des heutigen Parlamentarismus (Berlin: 1926), C. Schmitt also
acknowledged the liberal nature of Guizot's theory of the sovereignty of reason;
Schmitt described Guizot as a classical representative of &liberaler Rechtstaatlichkeit'
and bourgeois liberalism.
50. Also see Guizot, Philosophie politique, p. 349.
The *Strange+ Liberalism of the French Doctrinaires 263
51. Guizot never used this phrase; I borrow it from Judith Shklar's well-known essay
&The Liberalism of Fear', originally published in N. Rosenblum (Ed.), ¸iberalism and
the Moral ¸ife (Cambridge: 1989).
52. Guizot, Philosophie politique, p. 343.
53. Guizot in Manent (Ed.), ¸es libe& raux (vol. 2), p. 156.
54. Writes Guizot: &Que faites-vous donc, vous qui proclamezque le pouvoir n'est qu'un
serviteur à gages, qu'on doit reH duire au degreH le plus bas? Ne voyez-vous pas que
vous meH connaissez absolument la digniteH de sa nature et de ses relations avec les
peuples?'. Guizot in Manent (Ed.), ¸es libe& raux (vol. 2), p. 157.
55. Ibid., 161.
56. Writes Guizot: &Qu'on dirige toute cette theH orie contre un pouvoir qu'on veut
deHmolir, je le coniois; l'instrument est bon et d'un e!et su( r. Mais qu'on preH tende la
prendre pour règle lorsqu'il s'agit de fonder un ordre nouveau, de constituer un
pouvoir durable, l'erreur est bien grande'. Guizot, in Manent (Ed.), ¸es libe& raux
(vol. 2), p. 160.
57. Ibid., 160.
58. Writes Guizot: &On a coutume aujourd'hui de chercher l'harmonie des pouvoirs et la
garantie contre leurs excès dans leur faiblesse. On a peur de tous les pouvoirs. On
s'applique à les eH nerver tous tour à tour, craignant qu'ils ne se deH truisent mutuelle-
ment ou qu'il n'empiètent sur la liberteH . C'est une erreur eH norme. Tout pouvoir faible
est un pouvoir condamneH à la mort ou à l'usurpation. Si des pouvoirs faibles sont en
preH sence, ou bien l'un deviendra fort aux deH pens des autres, et ce sera la tyrannie; ou
bien ils s'entraveront, ils s'annuleront les uns les autres, et ce sera l'anarchie'. Guizot,
in Manent (Ed.), ¸es libe& raux (vol. 2), p. 175.
59. Guizot, Des moyens de gouvernement et d1opposition, p. 324.
60. Ibid., 224; 271; all emphases added.
61. Not surprisingly, Guizot's motto was &constituer le gouvernement par l'action de la
socieH teH et la socieH teH par l'action du gouvernement'.
62. The most comprehensive analysis of nineteenth-century French liberalism can be
found in L. Jaume, ¸1individu e+ace& ou le paradoxe du libe& ralisme franmais (Paris:
1997). Also see S. Hazareesingh, From Subject to Citizen: ¹he Second Empire and the
Emergence of Modern French Democracy (Princeton: 1998); A. Jardin, Histoire du
libe& ralisme politique (Paris: 1985); L. Girard, ¸es libe& raux franmais (Paris: 1985).
I should point out, however, that I found Jaume's treatment of the doctrinaires a bit
unfair.
63. On this issue also see Siedentop, ¹ocqueville, pp. 20}40 and Craiutu, &Tocqueville
and the Political Thought of the French Doctrinaires', pp. 28}36.
64. I am sceptical of Jaume's claim to the e!ect that the liberalism of the doctrinaires was
the dominant element in the history of nineteenth-century French liberalism.
65. Note a few exceptions within the French tradition: Montaigne, Montesquieu.
66. See Laboulaye's introduction to B. Constant, in E. Labaulye (Ed.), Cours de politique
constitutionnelle (vol. 1, Paris: 1861), p. xlvi.
67. M. Block (Ed.), Dictionnaire Ge&ne& ral de la Politique (vol. 1, Paris: 1863), pp. 734}735.
68. Of course, the centre may be the best position to hold provided it is not merely
a cowardly compromise.
69. F. Nietzsche, ¹he=ill to Power, W. Kaufmann (Tr.) (New York: 1967), p. 159.
70. On the alleged down-to-earth nature of liberalism see Isaiah Berlin's superb essay
&The Pursuit of the Ideal' in Isaiah Berlin, ¹he Crooked ¹imber of Humanity (New
York: 1991), pp. 1}19.
71. Johnson, Guizot, p. 438.
72. Guizot, Me&moires, vol. 1, p. 193.
264 Aurelian Craiutu
73. Ibid., 205.
74. Macaulay as quoted by Hamburger, Macaulay and the=hig ¹radition, p. 53.
75. The parallel with Eastern Europe could be explored further with regard to at least
"ve issues: (1) bringing the Revolution to an end; (2) the importance of the social
order; (3) liberalism and state power; (4) the new means of government; (5) the role of
publicity in creating and sustaining a viable representative government. Due to space
constraints, I cannot explore these issues in greater detail here.
76. Mutatis mutandis, the same can be said of Tocqueville's own &strange liberalism'
(R. Boesche).
77. Lionel Trilling, ¹he ¸iberal Imagination (New York: 1953), p. viii.
The *Strange+ Liberalism of the French Doctrinaires 265