Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T06:15:10.008Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Symbols of Power: Statues in Nineteenth-Century Provincial France

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

William Cohen
William Cohen
Affiliation:
Indiana University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Maurice Agulhon, in his classic French historical study, revealed how the changing political fortunes of Republicanism were reflected in the many metamorphoses that statues of the Republic had undergone in the century after the French Revolution. This study and a number of important works by North Americans, like those of James Leith and Lynn Hunt, are also important in making us understand French political iconography.

Type
The Symbolic Economy of Provincial Capitals
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 31 , Issue 3 , July 1989 , pp. 491 - 513
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1989

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Agulhon, Maurice, Marianne into Battle-Republican Imagery and Symbolism in France, 1789–1880, Lloyd, Janet, trans. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981).Google Scholar

2 Leith, James A., The Idea of Art as Propaganda in France, 1750–1799—A Study in the History of Ideas (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1965)Google Scholar; idem, Media and Revolution-Moulding a New Citizenry in France During the Terror (Toronto: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 1968)Google Scholar; Hunt, Lynn, Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984Google Scholar; idem, “Hercules and the Radical Image in the French Revolution,” Representations, 2 (Spring 1983), 95–117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities-Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983)Google Scholar; Weber, Eugen, Peasants into Frenchmen (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1976).Google Scholar

4 Laugier, M. A., An Essay on Architecture, Wolfgang and Herrmann, Anni, trans. (Los Angeles: Hennessey and Ingalls, 1977), 124–5; Diderot (quoted in Leith, Media, 43).Google Scholar

5 Grégoire (quoted in Hunt, “Hercules,” 97).

6 Decree of 11 August 1792Google Scholar, cited in Edouard Pommier. “Naissance des musées de province,” in La Nation, II, pt. 2 of Les lieux de mémoire, Nora, Pierre, ed. (Paris: Gallimard, 1986), 468Google Scholar; on the general themes of iconoclasm during the Revolution, see Idzerda, Stanley J., “Iconoclasm during the French Revolution,” American Historical Review, 60 (10 1954), 13–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Prefect Pressac, quoted in: Loirette, Gabriel, “Histoire d'une statue á Louis XVI de Raggi,” Revue historique de Bordeaux, 36 (1943), 70.Google Scholar

8 Ibid., 52–82.

9 Fabre, Augustin, Histoire de Marseille, II (Marseille: Manus Olive, 1829), 640–1Google Scholar, 663; Francois Dutacq, “Une statue lyonnaise de Napoleon ler,” Revue des etudes napolioniennes, 15 (1926), 31–51Google Scholar; Durkheim, Emile, Les formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse (Paris: F. Alcan, 1912), 219–21.Google Scholar

10 Séance (meeting), 22 February 1831, Marseille, , Déliberations du conseil municipal, antée 1830–1831 (Marseille: Gravier et fils, 1876), 24.Google Scholar

11 Scott, John, A Visit to Paris in 1814 (London: Longman, 1815), 63.Google Scholar

12 Foucault, quoted in Baker, Keith Michael, “Memory and Practice: Politics and the Representation of the Past in 18th Century France,” Representations, 11 (Summer 1985), 134.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Temps (newspaper), 10 10, 1888; Agulhon, Marianne, passim.Google Scholar

14 Vingtrinier, Aimé, “Une statue à Pierre Dupont,” Lyon Revue, 2 (1881), 675.Google Scholar

15 Dépêeche de Toulouse (newspaper), 7 11 1903.Google Scholar

16 Collombet, F. Z., “Des Statues en general,” Revue du Lyonnais, 12 (1840), 235.Google Scholar

17 Lyon, L. Boitel, ancien et moderne (Lyon: Boitel, L., 1838)Google Scholar, i; Conseil général des Bouches-du-Rhône, ler session ordinaire de 1894, Procès verbaux de délibérations, śeance, 10 04 1894; Mayor of Dôle, 10 April 1896, T 408, Archives du département du Rhône (henceforth abbreviated as ADR).Google Scholar

18 Gironde, Petite, 10 07 1905Google Scholar; d'Agnel, Abbe Arnaud, Marseille et le second obéilisque de Louqsor (Valence: Imprimerie Valentinoise, 1906), 9..Google Scholar

19 Geertz, Clifford, “Centers, Kings, and Charisma: Reflections on the Symbolics of Power,” Rites of Power: Symbolism, Ritual and Politics since the Middle Ages, Wilentz, Sean, ed. (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985), 25.Google Scholar

20 Minister of Interior circular (reprinted in Petite Gironde, 25 May 1878); Goulemot, Jean-Marie and Walter, Eric, “Les centenaires de Voltaire et de Rousseau,” La République, I, of Les lieux de mémoire, 7 vols. Nora, Pierre, ed. (Paris: Gallimard, 1984), 388, 395–7Google Scholar, 403, 409; Sanson, Rosemonde, “La 'fete de Jeanne d'Arc' en 1894-controverses et célébrations,” Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine, 20 (07-08 1973), 446–7, 452–4Google Scholar; the extreme right quite successfully appropriated the Maid in the twentieth century, see Hanna, Martha, “Iconology and Ideology: Images of Joan of Arc in the Idiom of the Action francaise, 1908–1931,” French Historical Studies, 14 (Fall 1985), 215–239.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 Appeal of 4 August 1882 and 1908 program, T 408, A.D.R.

22 Hobsbawm, Erik, “Mass-Producing Traditions: Europe, 1870–1914,” The Invention of Tradition, Hobsbawm, Erik and Rangers, Terence, eds. (London, 1983), 272Google Scholar; “Comité pour ériger à Sèvres un monument à Danton et à Gambetta,” Sèvres, 6 February 1909, 3001 M3, Archives Municipales de Bordeaux (henceforth abbreviated as AMB); Dormoy, Jacques, “Le monument à la mémoire des Girondins,” Revue historique de Bordeaux et du département de la Gironde, (1955), 63Google Scholar. Collombet, F. Z., “Des Statues en general,” Revue du Lyonnais, 12 (1840), 235.Google Scholar

23 For Baudin's statue, for example Marseille, see Conseil municipal, Délibérations, 4 06 1886, 247Google Scholar; one of the rebels of Var in 1851, Martin-Bidouré, was also to be celebrated: “Souscription nationale pour l'érection d'un monument à la mémoire de Martin-Bidouré,” 1901, T 408Google Scholar, A.D.R.; for Ledru-Rollin, see for instance Conseil général des Bouches-du-Rhône, 2e session ordinaire de 1880, Procès verbaux de délibérations, séance 30 08 1880, 308Google Scholar; Ferry, , Dépêche de Toulouse, 27 07 1896; Conseil général meeting of Rhône, 12 April 1907, T 408, A.D.R.Google Scholar

24 Conseil général des Bouches-du-Rhône, 2e séssion ordinaire de 1880, seance 30 August 1880, Procès verbaux des délibérations, 380Google Scholar; Marseille, , conseil municipal, Délibérations, 02 18, 1881Google Scholar, 88; Temps, 17 02, 1881, 20Google Scholar, 25 February, 9 March, 1881; Masson, Paul, Les Bouches-du-Rhône: Encyclopédie départementale, XI (Marseille: Archives départementales des Bouches-du-Rhône, 1926), 313Google Scholar; Petite Gironde, 3 12 1900Google Scholar; Speech by Bordeaux Mayor Daney at inaugural, Petite Gironde, 26 April, 1905; Petite Gironde, 9 June 1903, similar phrases in the attempt of the city of Sèvres to raise monies for monuments for both Danton and Gambetta, “Comité pour ériger à Sévres un monument à Danton et à Gambetta,” 10 August 1908, T 408. A.D.R.; a similar role was played by the statue to Gambetta erected in Paris in the Carousel garden facing the Arc de Triomphe, June Hargrove, “Les statues de Paris,” in “La Nation, II, Pt. 3 of Les lieux de mémoire, Nora, Pierre, ed. (Paris, 1986), 255.Google Scholar

25 Note, May 9, 1896, 3016 M1, AMB; “Anon, “Le Monument Carrot à Bordeaux,” Bordeaux, 1896.

26 Marseille, , Conseil municipal, Délibérations, 22 09 1887, 408Google Scholar; séance 27 June 1910, Bulletin officiel de le muncipalité de Lyon, 289; circular from Comité pour Ferection d'un monument à Auguste Blanqui à Puget-Théniens,” 10 March 1904, T 408, A.D.R.; Circular from Marcou, president of the conseil general of Aude to build a statue in Barbès' hometown, Carcassonne, n.d., T 408, A.D.R.Google Scholar

27 Dépêche de Toulouse, 7 07 1900, 301 1901.Google Scholar

28 Petite Gironde, 1 07 1903, 1307 1903.Google Scholar

29 Muller, Delie, “Monument aux Girondians, les bassins,” Musie d'Aquitaine (Bordeaux, 1982).Google Scholar

30 Ariste, Louis and Braud, Louis, Histoire populaire de Toulouse (Toulouse: Midi republicain, 1898), 760Google Scholar; Molinier, T. Baurens de, Souvenirs d' un vieux chanoine (Paris, Victor Retaux, n.d. [1905]?), 397;Google Scholar Marie-France Brive, “La politique économique de la ville de Toulouse de 1870 à 1880.” (Unpublished Diplôme d'études supérieures, University of Toulouse, 1967); Temps, 24, 25 06, 5, 10, 1707 1881.Google Scholar

31 Temps, 5 06, 4 07, 7 07, 1878.Google Scholar

32 “Comité du monument Michel Servé, Vienne(Isère), 1101 1906.Google Scholar

33 Bulletin officiel de la municipalité de Lyon, 4 11 1913, 152–9.Google Scholar

34 Christie, Richard Copley, Etienne Dolet, le Martyr de la renaissance, sa vie et sa mort, Stryienski, Casimir, trans. (Paris: Fischbacher, 1886).Google Scholar

35 Bulletin officiel de la municipalite de Lyon, 4 11 1913, 153–4.Google Scholar

36 Nouvelliste, , quoted in Anonymous, Une infamie- la statue d'Etienne Dolet en face de la Basilique de Fourvière (Lyon, 1912). In front of the Sacre-Coeur in Paris, a statue to a freethinker had also been erected: that of Chevalier de la Bane.Google Scholar

37 Petite Gironde, 7 08 1905Google Scholar; reported in Dépêche de Toulouse, 8 08 1904.Google Scholar

38 Meeting, 15 July 1878, Marseille, conseil municipal, Délibérations, 266–7.

39 Lhuys, Drouyn de, “Projet d'élever une statue à Daubenton,” Société impériale zoologique (1861)Google Scholar; Association scientifique de France, “Souscription pour élever un monument à la mémoire de Le Verrier,” (1878); Vachez, M. A., “Histoire de la Statue d'André-Marie Ampére,” Mémoires de l'académie des sciences, belles lettres et arts de Lyon, 2nd ser., 26 (1889), 293–313Google Scholar; Comu, “Inauguration de la statue d'André-Marie Ampére,” Mémoires de l' académie des sciences, belles lettres et arts de Lyon, 2nd ser. Mémoires, 26 (1889), 315–22; “La statue d'Auguste Comte,” Bulletin mensuel, no. 1 (1900), copy in T 408, A.R.Google Scholar

40 “Monument à élever stir une des places publiques de Dijon à la mémoire du Général Garibaldi,” August 1898, 3001 M3, AMB.

41 “Commission centrale du monument à élever à Ambroise Paré,” 1836, F 21. 588, Archives nationales (henceforth, abbreviated as “A.N.”)

42 Commision Report, séance 9 08 1873, Lyon, Procés verbal, 183.Google Scholar

43 Bordeaux Conseil Municipal, séance 5 February 1889.

44 “Cornité du monument de Vercengétorix,” Clermont-Ferrand, 6 January 1899, 3001 M3, AMB.

45 Guerrier, Jacqueline, “L'imagerie gauloise a Sens,” Nos ancêtres Gaulois. Acres du colloque international de Clermont Ferrand, Viallaneix, Paul and Ehrard, Jean, eds. (Clermont-Ferrand: Presses universitaires de Clermont-Ferrand, 1982), 289.Google Scholar

46 “Erection d'une statue au Maréchal de Villars,” 15 September 1893, 3001 M3, AMB.

47 Hargrove, , “Les statues de Paris,” 256.Google Scholar

48 “Monument à êlever à la mémoire du Tambour d'Arcole,” n.d. [received 29 May 1893], 3001 M3, AMB.

49 “Monument Desaix,” Saint-Gervais d'Auvergne (Puy de Dôme), n.d. [1890s], 3001 M3, AMB.

50 “Monument de la Tour d'Auvergne,” 1897, T 408, A.D.R.

51 Ville de Rethel, 18 August 1895, T 408. A.D.R.

52 Conseil général des Bouches-du-Rhône, ler session ordinaire de 1889, Procès verbaux des delibérations (Marseille: L. Sauvion, 1889), 235; “Souscription nationale pour l'érection d'un monument à la mémoire du Maréchal Canrobert à Saint-Ceré (Lot),” 1895, T 408, A.D.R.Google Scholar

53 Goulemot, and Walter, , “Les centenaires,” loc. cit.; Anon., Un monument Lyonnais à Jeanne d'Arc, Pourquoi? (Lyon: Grange et Refoubelet, 1910), 10Google Scholar; Séance 10 July 1878, Commune de Crotoy (Département of Somme), copy in T. 408, A.D.R.; Conseil général des Bouches-du-Rhône, 2e session ordinaire de 1880, Procés verbaux de delibérations, séance 20 08 1880, 100–1, séance 24 August 1880, 112–3; “Monument national à élever à I'honneur de Jeanne d'Arc devant la maison où elle est née à Domrémy (Vosge),” 12 June 1890, 3001, AMB.Google Scholar

54 Mayor of Vauvert (Gard) to president of Conseil Général, 2 April 1908.

55 “Oeuvre du monument Faidherbe à Saint-Quentin,” 25 February 1908; “Comité pour l'érection d'un monument au Capitaine Menard,” 1895, T 408, A.D.R.; “Monument TreichLaplene”, n.d. [1890s], 3001 M3, AMB.

56 “Comite pour l'érection d'un monument à Doudart de Lagrée,” May, 1891, 3001 M3, AMB.

57 Depêche de Toulouse, 12 10 1897. Similarly (in the council general of the Gironde), a Socialist councilor argued that the least that could be done for the French dead of the Madagascar expedition was to build a monument for them, thus memorializing those who died “in adventures in which the owners of property and capital profit. Since a man must fight when he owns nothing … it is right that those for whom he ran all the dangers, risked his life, don't forget him.” Session of 17 April 1896, Conseil général of Gironde.Google Scholar

58 “Souscription nationale pour l'érection d'un monument à la mémoire des Alsaciens-Lorrains morts pour la France en 1870–1871 et depuis, dans les expéditions coloniales,” 1901, T 408, A.D.R.; “Monument à la défense nationale à édger à la mémoire des soldats tués en 1870–1871,” 2 October 1885, 3001 M3, AMB; Mayor of Bruville (Meurthe et Moselle) to Mayor of Bordeaux, 5 March 1892, 3001 M3, AMB.

59 “Monument commémoratif militaire. Remiremont (Vosges),” 31 August 1893, 3001 M3, AMB.

60 A. Vigneau, “Rapport général stir la question du monument départemental aux enfants de la Gironde morts pour la patrie, 1870–1871,” séance of 16 December 1910, Conseil general, Gironde.

61 Ibid., 9.

62 Petit Provencal, 27 03 1894.Google Scholar

63 Clément de Lacroix, Les morts pour la patrie- tombes militaires et monuments élevés a la mémoire des soldats tués pendant la guerre (Paris: Author, 1891), 16.Google Scholar

64 Dépêche de Toulouse, 20 08 1901.Google Scholar

65 Commission report, Procés verbaux, City of Lyon, 9 08 1873, 183.Google Scholar

66 Letter from Mayor of Chateaudun (Eure et Loire) to Mayor of Bordeaux, 21 May 1891, 3001 M3, AMB.

67 Rapport présenté au conseil municipal par M. G. Girard, meeting 8 December 1891, F 1., C. I, 40, A.N.; Lacroix, 8.

68 Ville d'Arbois (Jura), “Monument Pasteur,” 30 October, 1895, 3001 M3, AMB.

69 Letter (undated) from Muret in 3001M3, AMB.

70 “Cotnite pour l'erection d'une statue à Paul de Kock, 1901,” 3001 M3, AMB; “Statue à Francois Millet, Ville de Cherbourg,” 1 February 1887, 3001 M3, AMB; “Procès verbaux de la remise officielle à la municipalité Bordelaise du monument élevé à Léon Gambetta,” [1905] 3019 MI, AMB; “Souscriptions accordées par la ville de Grenoble pendant la période 1870–1903 pour l'érection de statues ou de monuments publics,” [1903] 3001 M3, AMB; Letter from Mayor of Bezenas to Mayor of Bordeaux, 22 December 1895, 3001 M3, AMB.

71 Agulhon, Maurice, “Politics, Images, and Symbols in Post-Revolutionary France,” Rites of Power, Wilentz, Sean, ed., 194.Google Scholar

72 Clifford Geertz, “Centers, Kings, and Charisma: Reflections on the Symbolics of Power,” Rites, 25,16. Some excellent examples of how royalty attempted to mark its possession of the kingdom by effecting a national tour are given in the description of the tour of Charles IX and the Mother Queen Catherine of Medicis in 1564 and of Louis XIV in 1643, in Guenée, Bernard, “Des limites féodales aux frontieres politiques,” La Nation, Pt. 2 of Les helix de mémoire, Nora, Pierre, ed. 28, 40.Google Scholar

73 Gadoffre, Gilbert, “French National Images and the Problem of National Stereotypes,” International Social Science Bulletin (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), III (Autumn 1951), 579.Google Scholar

74 Hargrove, , “Statues de Paris,” 271Google Scholar; Ozouf, Mona, “Le Panthéon-l'école normale des morts,” La République, I, of Les lieux de mérnoire, Nora, Pierre, ed. (Paris: Gallimard, 1984), 163.Google Scholar

75 Weber, Eugene, Action Francaise-Royalism and Reaction in Twentieth Century France (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1962), 42.Google Scholar

76 Aronoff, Myron J., “Ideology and Interest: The Dialectics of Politics,” Political Anthropology, Yearbook, I, Aronoff, Myron J., ed. (New Brunswick, N.J., 1980), 17–18.Google Scholar

77 The indifference to statuary after World War I may have been exaggerated by Ozouf. Frenchmen registered some concern over the smelting down of the Republican statuary during Vichy and the German occupation; in Paris an official bulletin recognized the “legitimate and touching emotion of the populations who see the disappearance of the well known monument which is dear to them.” In the provinces, the authorities had to deal with popular opposition to removal of statuary: Hargrove, , “Statues de Paris,” 274–5.Google Scholar