Christina Carroll

This article examines Napoléon III's attempt to reimagine the Second Empire during the early 1860s in the face of growing public frustration with France's domestic and foreign politics. It argues that Napoléon III sought to secure the Second Empire's popularity by associating it with the legacy of ancient Rome and the memory of Napoléon I. He also worked to expand the meaning of the empire's identity by defining it not only as a political program within France but also as an expansive, multinational structure. The article shows that this vision of empire came into focus in a series of political conflicts over the Mexican expedition and the ideal organization of Algeria. Its examination of this conversation surrounding empire and its meanings highlights how discourses of European racial superiority over colonial others intersected with arguments about the organization of the French state in nineteenth-century imperial thought.
Cet article examine les tentatives de Napoléon III pour réinventer le Second Empire au début des années 1860. Face au mécontentement populaire avec sa politique intérieure et extérieure, l'empereur essaya de renforcer le soutien populaire au Second Empire en l'associant avec l'héritage de Rome antique et la mémoire de Napoléon Ier. Il voulut également élargir la signification de l'Empire en le définissant non seulement comme un programme politique hexagonal mais aussi comme une structure multinationale étendue. Cette vision de l'empire se clarifia à travers une série de débats sur l'invasion du Mexique et l'organisation idéale de l'Algérie. Dans le cadre de la pensée impériale du dix-neuvième siècle, les discours de supériorité raciale des Européens vis-à-vis des sujets coloniaux se croisèrent avec des idées sur l'organisation étatique française.

In the 1880s and 1890s, a wave of histories of colonial empire appeared in France. But even though they were produced by members of similar republican colonial advocacy groups, these accounts narrated the history of empire in contradictory ways. Some positioned “colonial empire” as an enterprise with ancient roots, while others treated modern colonization as distinct. Some argued that French colonial empire was a unique enterprise in line with republican ideals, but others insisted that it was a European-wide project that transcended domestic political questions. By tracing the differences between these accounts, this article highlights the flexibility that characterized late nineteenth-century republican understandings of empire. It also points to the ways republican advocates for colonial expansion during this period looked both historically and comparatively to legitimize their visions for empire’s future in France.

In the early 1860s, Napoleon III attempted to restructure Algeria and its relationship to France by reimagining the colony as a “royaume arabe.” This reimagining was intended in part to help resolve ongoing conflicts between the settlers and indigenous population in Algeria. But it was also part of a broader project to redefine the purpose of the Second Empire itself. In the face of growing popular frustration with France’s domestic and foreign politics, the emperor sought to affirm the Second Empire’s importance and secure its popularity by associating it with Napoleon I’s powerful legacy of expansion. His early definition of “empire” – as a political program emphasizing order and stability within France and the liberation of nations outside of it – was no longer sufficient to capture the imagination and loyalty of his subjects. He therefore tried to expand the meaning of imperial identity, and to reconstitute the French Empire as both a French political program and a multinational entity. This new “French Empire” would be simultaneously metropolitan and overseas, and it would incorporate different nationalities beneath its rule even as it transcended all of them. Eyeing the weakening Ottoman Empire on the other side of the Mediterranean, Napoleon III dreamed of expanding his imperial reach into North African territories that had long ago belonged to Rome. The emperor saw Algeria as an opportunity to both articulate and test this new imperial model.

This paper examines how Napoleon III sought to mobilize the idea of the “royaume arabe” to redefine both Algeria and the Second Empire alike. It looks at the ways in which a variety of intellectual legacies – from Napoleonic imperialism and revolutionary nationalism to the Saint-Simonian theory of racial progress – helped give shape to the new understanding of empire and Algeria that he proposed. And finally, it reflects on the legacy of Napoleon III’s imperial vision in early Republican France. Through this analysis, this paper sheds light on the tensions and shifting currents that defined the discourse of empire in the 1860s and early 1870s. It also reveals the interconnections between metropolitan and colonial understandings of empire during this period.

During the Third Republic, France embarked on a major project of colonial conquest, vastly increasing its territorial holdings in Asia and Africa. The government invested considerable resources in this expansion, but disagreements about the wisdom of having an empire persisted, especially in the early years. These disagreements partially stemmed from the early French Republic’s deep political and ideological rifts. But they also resulted from the fact that the very idea of “empire” had a long, ambiguous history that was itself bound up in political division and turmoil. The concept could be linked to multiple governmental regimes and used to signify either a particular political system within metropolitan France or the state’s relationship to conquered, colonized territory overseas.

The conversation about empire in the Third Republic was further complicated by the memory of Napoleon III and the vision of empire that he articulated in the final decade of his reign. France’s defeat in the Franco-Prussian War had tarnished Bonapartism generally and Napoleon III in particular in the eyes of much of the population. Indeed, the republican government that came to power in the wake of 1870-71 defended its legitimacy by defining itself explicitly against the imperial government that preceded it. As the republicans embarked on their own overseas empire-building project in the years that followed, the ambiguity of “empire” and its referents became increasingly troubling. Over the course of the next thirty years, they struggled to redefine the idea of empire, free it from its Napoleonic legacy, and justify their colonial ambitions.

This paper begins by examining the way that two influential thinkers – Lucien-Anatole Prévost-Paradol and Paul Leroy-Beaulieu - sought to articulate a new, colonial model of empire in the last years of the Second Empire. It argues that while these authors’ ideas were not very influential when first published, they ultimately came to help constitute a foundation for a republican vision of empire untainted by Bonapartism and defeat. The second half of the essay continues by examining the ways in which their respective conceptions of empire were taken up and modified by republican intellectuals and politicians in the early years of the Third Republic. Through this analysis, this paper sheds light on the tensions and shifting currents that defined the discourse of empire in the transitional period of the 1870s. It also highlights the importance of the memory of the Bonapartist empires in early republican France. Finally, it reveals the connections between metropolitan and colonial understandings of empire during this period, and explains how these two visions became separate models over the course of the late nineteenth century.

The Franco-Prussian War lasted barely more than half a year – France declared war against Prussia in July of 1870, and by late January of 1871, it had been disastrously defeated. Despite its relatively brief duration, however, the war wrought large changes in the French political, social, and cultural landscape. It not only left the country territorially dismembered and in debt to Germany: it also brought about a political revolution and a subsequent civil war that left the country deeply internally divided. As a result, the war occupied a prominent and contentious place in French collective memory for much of the nineteenth century.

This paper examines the contestations that characterized French memory of this war by looking at four literary representations of 1870-71 – by Erckmann-Chatrian, Zola, the Margueritte brothers, and Octave Feuillet - and comparing their content, publication history, and reception. It contends that part of the reason the war’s memory remained divisive for so long is that its interpretation was believed to have both political and national implications. Writers seeking to make sense of the war grounded their understandings in particular narratives about the relationships between the defeat, the Second Empire, the Third Republic, and the French nation. They could thus read the Franco-Prussian War as a failure of Bonapartism, republicanism, or of the nation itself. This paper studies these interpretations, along with the responses to them as a window into the shifting politics of memory and nation in late nineteenth-century France.