Bonapartism is a family of French political thought, inspired by the actions of the emperors Napoleon I and Napoleon III. The term has two meanings:
in the strict sense, Bonapartism aims to establish an imperial regime in France headed by a member of the family of Napoleon Bonaparte;
in a broader sense, Bonapartism aimed to establish a national state with a strong and centralized executive, but of republican essence and based on regular consultation of the people through plebiscites.
Brief history of Bonapartism
Bonapartism therefore does not necessarily imply adherence to a hereditary system of political organization but can, on the contrary, accommodate a republican form of government. It is based on the fusion of elites and popular support. These two facets can be distinct or confused, depending on the person and the period.
Once Napoleon Bonaparte was in power, there was a management Bonapartism from 1799 to 1815. During this period of the Consulate and the First Empire Napoleon created the institutions that still govern France today: the famous "granite masses": high schools, the French Civil Code, military schools, etc.
There was a Bonapartist current from the fall of the First Empire in 1814. The strength of this current allowed the return of the Empire during the Hundred Days in 1815. Under the Second Restoration and the July Monarchy, this movement continued to exist and its sympathizers continued to claim the political experience of the consular and imperial government. The Bonapartist movement had an important political influence in the nineteenth century; it developed thanks to the rise of the Napoleonic legend, but it was with Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte that it came to power in 1848. It was reconstituted after the fall of the Second Empire and had a real political influence during the first decades of the Third Republic before being marginalized.
The Bonapartism of the Hundred Days
After the fall of the First Empire, Bonapartism remained among a handful of pamphleteers and faithful. During the Hundred Days, a Jacobin Bonapartism appeared, mixing the epinal image of the Little Corporal with the memories of the Revolution. It can accommodate a temporary dictatorship "until peace". The very hypothesis of a postponement of the authority of the national representation (where they would be only a minority) does not frighten them. The Jacobin Bonapartists have democratic aspirations, often more egalitarian than libertarian and always anticlerical and anti-Bourbonnian. Among the characteristic themes of this Bonapartism:
The emphasis on a return to tithes and feudal rights and a questioning of the sale of national estates as a propaganda theme and repellent;
A suspicious hatred of nobles and priests;
The defense of freedom (the freedom of the press was total under the Hundred Days);
The theme of the fatherland in danger, translated into violent invectives against the Europe of kings.
Jacobin Bonapartism was organized within federations that channelled the revolutionary spirit and Bonapartist opinion into a common concern for national honour, which had been scorned in 1814. For the federates of the various provinces, Napoleon I symbolized the fatherland and the French Revolution, which he rehabilitated.
However, in 1815 the federates were unable to play the role of the popular societies or the surveillance committees of Year II, for the dual reason of lack of manpower and mutual distrust. The distrust of certain Jacobin leaders with regard to a revival of imperial despotism (to be distinguished from the dictatorship considered necessary) but above all governmental distrust. Napoleon did not favour the federations because he saw without sympathy the new Jacobinism predominating in Bonapartism. He did not want to be the "king of a jacquerie" and he allowed himself to be persuaded that only a liberal constitution and regime could save the situation.
Liberal Bonapartism
This is the version put into practice under the Hundred Days with the suppression of censorship, that of the additional act to the constitutions of the Empire, the result of the collaboration between Benjamin Constant and Napoleon I. This additional act, among other liberal provisions, recognized the deputies as representatives of the people. This liberal regime was not, however, a parliamentary regime.
The Jacobin Bonapartists, advocates of the hard way or of a new 1793, viewed with concern what they perceived as a caricature of the Empire created by Parisian intellectuals.
The Bonapartism of 1815, that of the flight of the Eagle, is a patriotic current. It shifted Bonapartism to the left, as shown by the objective alliance between liberals and Bonapartists during the Restoration .
For Jean Tulard, the Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène became the breviary of Bonapartism and in fact its publication in 1823 prevented the dilution of the Bonapartist movement within the liberal nebula. This contribution to the development of Bonapartism was made possible by the fact that Napoleon presented his historical work in this text in the light of a political reflection combining several fundamental themes.
With the Memorial, Napoleon regained post mortem control of Bonapartist doctrine, which had eluded him since 1815.
Sociology and political positioning of Bonapartism
To modify under the Restoration, the sociology of the Bonapartist current is essentially military or peasant, not so much the officers in half-soldiers, but the non-commissioned officers and men of troop (to the number of one and a half million) returned to their home, returned to the land where they influence the rural opinion.
Nevertheless, the social spectrum covered by the Bonapartist movement was wide, and political positions took precedence over social affiliation reflexes.
The imperial experience progressively evolved from a couple "popular sovereignty - Jacobinism" to a couple "divine right - absolutism".
The Bonapartists were able to refer to one or the other of these orientations, the patriotic reference making it possible to weld the various currents.
Under the Restoration, Bonapartism acquired its fundamental characteristics: it was a formula of power combining (passive) democracy and (active) authority, a centrist formula situated between the counter-revolutionary right and the Jacobin left, relying on an authoritarian government and a centralizing administration.
The themes of Bonapartism
The fundamental themes of Bonapartism have changed little over the course of its history. They are found in the Memorial of Saint Helena, a text in which Napoleon, through the intermediary of Las Cases, gives a strong historical foundation to Bonapartism, and skillfully and strongly integrates liberal and national ideas. This integration was done without distorting the essential foundations of Bonapartism as it had been constituted in the first years of the Restoration and it remained coherent with the historical practice of Napoleon's government. The essential themes are:
the preservation of the positive achievements of the French Revolution; Note that only the positive aspects of the revolution were preserved.
the popular legitimacy of the head of state sanctioned by the vote;
the equality before the law ;
the hierarchical conception of society involving the constitution of an elite based on merit;
the pre-eminence of the executive government over the parliamentary assemblies;
the appropriateness of a centralized administration;
the desire for national reconciliation beyond divisive parties;
the greatness of the Fatherland;
the respect of the principle of nationalities.
Bonapartism cannot really be limited to "the attachment to the imperial government founded by Napoleon and to his dynasty". The political idea of Napoleon Bonaparte is the attempt to synthesize the different currents that opposed each other during the French Revolution.
According to Frédéric Bluche, Bonapartism could not be classified as right-wing because it was located in the center of the political spectrum and social interests.
However, for René Rémond, Bonapartism, even if some of its currents are on the left, is one of the three currents of the right. It is individualized in the refusal of division between parties, in favor of the affirmation of greatness and national unity, thus opposing the class front of socialisms, the partisan struggles of parliamentarianism, the censal separation of the Orleanist liberal elitism or the reactionary anti-modernism of legitimism. This political ideology values a plebiscitary leader to whom circumstances allow, in order to save the country from disunity, to establish an executive concentrated in his hands that merges the elites into a hierarchical authority.
For Paul de Cassagnac, only the Empire could give back "to the French monarchy its primitive and true form, the elective form tempered by a reasonable heredity".
In fact, before the emergence of Gaullism, Bonapartism, in its presidential or imperial form, was the only major political current to have advocated the election of the head of state by universal suffrage, an election that conferred on him an unquestionable political primacy.
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