François Guizot - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

François Pierre Guillaume Guizot , born the October 4th 1787 with Nimes, dead the September 12th 1874 with the Valley-Richer with Saint-Ouen-the-Pine (Apple-brandy), is a Historien and Politician French.

Brief biography

Resulting from a middle-class and Protestant family Huguenot E, his/her father is guillotine in 1794 under the Terreur. It leaves then in Exil with his mother - woman of principles, liberal, and influenced by Rousseau - for Geneva, where it receives a good education.

Come in Paris to study the right in 1805, in 18 years, it is pointed out by its qualities of writing, is congratulated by Chateaubriand. It Marie in 1812 with a writer, Pauline de Meulan, who dies in 1827, and he keeps a son, also called François (1819-1837). Widower, it remarie in 1828 with a niece of Pauline, Elisa Dillon, of which he will have two girls, Henriette and Pauline, then a son, Guillaume (1833). His second wife dies shortly after.

Its political action

It awaits the Restauration to begin in policy. Between 1826 and 1830, it publishes a series of large frescos on the French history and also on the History of England.

In January 1830, it is elected appointed of Lisieux, and signs the Adresse of the 221 against the policy of Charles X. Its preferences going towards a parliamentary Monarchie, it is made lawyer of Louis-Philippe that the Révolution of July leads finally to the throne, and Guizot with the government, as a Minister of Interior Department (1830), then Ministre for the State education (1832-1836). It marks its passage to the government by a restoration of the state education. This period is characterized by a practically constant opposition to Thiers.

The withdrawal of Thiers - too warlike - puts the marshal Soult at the official head of the government, but it is Guizot which is the true leader (1840-1847). The Pacific, considering alliance between France and the United Kingdom necessary, it makes the sacrifice of the pride of some and allows - with the assistance of Sir Robert Peel - the reconciliation of the two countries, contrary to Lord Palmerston which - warlike as Thiers - thinks that France must be controlled, weakened, in the optics of a future war. There Lord Palmerston replaced by Lord Aberdeen, it finds a diplomat peaceful, simple and defender of the scholarship to his measurement, sealing the bringing together of the two liberal nations of Europe in a Harmony . The crises continue, but are attenuated on the two sides.

The fall of the British government Peel, the return of Lord Palmerston - anti-French - and the crisis of Spanish succession break the Franco-British bonds - liberals - and pose the need for approaching Metternich, famous absolutist. He becomes president of the Council in 1847 and although posts of it very little time chief of the government, he influences more than very other the policy of the time by federating around his person a conservative party trying to maintain a balance between a democratization of the company and a return to the revolution.

Its economic assessment

Economically, he encouraged the businesses by creating the conditions of prosperity but while thinking above all of agriculture, the trade and finance. Quite to the contrary of the Industrialiste S like Saint-Simon, he thought that industrialization was dangerous insofar as it has as Corollaire to involve the formation of a proletariat which he regarded as socially unstable and politically dangerous.

However, under its ministry, France industrialized itself like never:

It supported the collection of the capital by stimulating the foundation of several hundreds of savings banks on all the territory.
It also supported the acceleration of work of infrastructures (roads, channels, railroads). In 1842, it makes adopt the great law organizing the constitution of railway networks irrigating star France since the capital. In six years the French rail network passes from 570 kilometers made up of sections scattered a little everywhere in the Hexagone to a first structured network of 1.900 km and construction accelerated under the Second Empire.
the legislation on work was very softened, the industrialists could compress the wages and had freedom to lay off what allowed them to be able to adapt to the fluctutations of the request. However, it founded the booklet of work which the workers were obligatorily to present to each new employer, which made it possible the latter to locate the bad elements and especially the agitators.

In fifteen years, the productions of coal and iron doubled and the number of industrial steam engines was multiplied by eight; the first industrial basins are constituted around the towns of Lyon, Paris, Mulhouse, in the North of France and in Basse-Seine; the first concentrations end in the emergence of powerful textile, metallurgical and mining groups.

Its political assessment

He was a liberal conservative and considered that there was not inevitably continuity between political liberalism and the economic liberalism. But he was not a liberal free-trader because he considered that free-trade was only one theory from England, which under the conditions of the time could only support the British interests. He estimated that French agriculture needed to be protected and in addition the industrialists themselves, organized in associations, pushed the government to raise the customs tariffs.

For Guizot, the problems to which France were to face were not economic but before any policies and sociological. He estimated that after fifty years of wars and revolutions since 1789, the country in a great uncertainty, was divided between two extrèmes; on the one hand, the royalists, nostalgic of the Old mode who had never lost the hope to restore the feudal order and other the republicans, of which some were tried by the re-establishment of excesses of Terror. He thought that the liberals had the responsibility of invent a company of freedoms and peace but without giving up the assets of the Revolution and especially to ensure the victory of the middle-class over the aristocracy. For him the French revolution was summarized in a combat between enemy interests, the third-state being drawn up against the privileged orders, then the rabble against the middle-class. It was about a war of the classes whose exit was going to fix the direction of the History durably.

Guizot was partly the inventor of the concept of Class struggle that Karl Marx then systematized. He is regarded as the father of this mode of interpretation of the history. However, he did not think that the Prolétariat was intended to play a part dominating and he estimated that the workmen were to remain in the place subordinate which is theirs in the company, that he acted of displaced having lost their bonds with the ground and which, so cannot thus be responsible citizens. Joining again with the political theories of ancient Greece, he thought that the democracy was a too serious thing so that the unstable ones can obtain the right to say their mot. the right to vote was to be held with those which have and pay taxes.

In 1848 its falls is caused by its obstinacy not to amend the electoral law. It is the person in charge of the political dissatisfaction which causes the revolution of February 1848 which reverses the Monarchie of July.

In its sociological assessment, it should be stressed that it made vote in 1841 a law prohibiting to make work the children in manufactures below the eight years age, and that he asked on several occasions the Abolition of slavery in the colonies. In May 1844, it made some admit the principle with the National Assembly. In 1845 and 1846, the problem returned in debate but without leading on the practical methods of the emancipation. In fact the law envisaged the end of slavery… but for later. However accomplished préparatif work was used by the Republicans when they voted, on the initiative of Victor Schoelcher, the final end of the Esclavage in 1848.

End of its life

Exiled to the the United Kingdom, it is devoted again to its work of historian, with for subject the First English revolution. It thus passes from key European politician to historian, philosopher and observer of his time, the writing enabling him to live and to achieve themselves in an appreciated retirement. He remains an active French intellectual so much by his continuity of action in the French Academy (since 1836), that in the community calvinist - defending its faith, respecting that of the others. He continues to popularize the history until the end of his life, and he dies the September 12th 1874.

Complete biography

Its origins

He was born in Nimes in a middle-class family and Protesting E. His/her parents were married secretly by Protestant Pasteur. The April 8th 1794 his/her father, Andre Guizot, shown federalism, died on the scaffold in Nimes into full Terreur. As from this moment, his/her mother dealt with her education. It was a frail woman, with the simple manners, but with a great strength of character.

Mrs Guizot was a typical Huguenot E of 16th century, believing, inébranlable on her principles and the direction of the duty. She formed the character of her son and shared all the vicissitudes of her life. At the time of its power, its simple silhouette, always in mourning of her husband, always remained in the middle of the circle of his/her political friends. During its exile in 1848, it followed it to London, there died at a advanced age and was buried with Kensal Green.

Driven out of Nimes by the revolution, Mrs Guizot and her son left for Geneva, where it accepted his education. In spite of its opinions calvinist S, the theories of Jean-Jacques Rousseau influenced Mrs Guizot. She was firmly liberal E, and she adopted even the concept inculcated in the Emile , that any man was to know a manual trade. Guizot learned joinery, and succeeds in building a table of its own hands, which it preserved. However, in the work which it entitled Mémoires of my time , Guizot omits all the details of its childhood.

Its arrival in Paris

Its literary talents were to be considerable, because when it arrived at Paris in 1805, at 18 years, to continue its studies with the Faculty of Law, it entered as tutor the house of Philippe Alfred Stapfer, ex-minister Swiss. It was put soon to write in a newspaper published by Suard, the Publiciste , which introduced it into the literary circle Parisian.

In October 1809, at 22 years, its criticism on the Martyrs of François-Rene de Chateaubriand, accepted the approval and the thanks of the author, and it continued to contribute to periodicals. At Suard, it became acquainted with Pauline Meulan, a 14 year old elder woman its, aristocrat liberal of the Old Mode, forced by the tests of the revolution to earn its living in the literature and engaged for the drafting of a series of articles in the Publiciste . These contributions were stopped by its disease, but immediately taken again by an unknown writer. It was discovered that it was François Guizot who replaced it. This collaboration was transformed into friendship, then in love, and 1812, Miss de Meulan, author of many work on female education, married the young man. She died in 1827. They had an only son, born in 1819 and died in 1837 of Phtisie. In 1828, Guizot married Elisa Dillon, niece of his first wife and also author. She died in 1833, leaving a son, Maurice Guillaume (1833 - 1892), which acquired a reputation like scientist and author.

Its political beginnings

During the Empire, Guizot, entirely absorptive by its literary work, published a collection of Synonyme S (1809), a test on the fine arts (1811), and a translation of work of Edward Gibbon, accompanied by notes (1812). These writings pointed out it by Louis de Fontanes, large Master of the University, which granted to him the pulpit of modern history to the Sorbonne in 1812. Its first lecture (reprinted in its memories) was given the December 11th. It omitted the compliment with the Empereur, in spite of the councils of its Master, but its course marked the beginning of the revival in the historical research in France with the 19th century. It had then acquired a considerable position in the Parisian company and had bound of friendship with Royer-Collard and the leaders of the liberal party, of which the duke of Broglie. Absent from Paris to the fall of Napoleon in 1814, it was chosen, on the recommendation of Royer-Collard, to be used the government as Louis XVIII, as a general secretary with the ministry for the Interior, under the abbot of Montesquiou. With the return of Napoleon of the isle of Elba, he resigned immediately, the March 25th 1815, and turned over to his literary studies. After the Hundred Days, it reappeared with Ghent; he saw Louis XVIII, and in the name of the liberal party he indicated that only the adoption of a liberal policy could ensure the perenniality of the Restauration, opinion which was badly accepted by the advisers of the king. Its visit in Ghent, whereas France was the object of one second invasion, was the subject of land-marks reproaches made in Guizot during its life by its political opponents, for his lack of patriotism. The “man of Ghent” was one of the not very flattering terms used against him during his power. The question was then to know if the return to monarchy would be made on liberal bases or by a return to the old mode of before 1789 preached by the ultra S. In these remarkable circumstances, it was this young 27 year old professor, without name and political experiment, which was selected to carry this message to the king, and a proof that the Revolution as Guizot said it “had made its work”.

During the Second Restoration, Guizot was general secretary with the Ministère of Justice under Bored-Marbois, but he resigned with his chief in 1816. Again, in 1819, he was managing director of the communes and departments to the ministry for the Interior, but lost its employment with the fall of Decazes in 1820. Guizot was then an influential member, with Royer-Collard, of the “Doctrinaires”, a small part firmly attached to the Charte and the crown, and pleading for a policy of the happy medium between the absolutism and a government heir to the revolutionary period. Their opinions more evoked the rigor of a sect that the elasticity of a political party. Adhering to the great principles freedom and of tolerance, they were firmly opposed to the anarchistic traditions of the Revolution. The elements of social instability were always active; they hoped to subject them, not by reactionaries measurements, but by the application firm of the capacity within the framework of a constitution, based on the vote of the middle-class and defended by the greatest literary talents of the moment. They were in the same way opposite with the democratic spirit of the time, the military traditions of the Empire, and the sectarianism and absolutism of the court. The fate of such a party was foreseeable. They lived by a policy of resistance, and perished by another revolution (1830). They are more known for their constant opposition to the popular requests than for the services than without any doubt they returned to the cause of moderate freedom.

In 1820, when the reaction was with its apogee after the assassination of the Duc of Berry and the fall of the Decazes ministry, Guizot was dislocated of its functions and suspended in 1822. He played then a big role among the chiefs of the liberal opposition to the government of Charles X, without however entering to the Parliament. He collaborated in particular in the Globe . It was also its literary period most active. In 1822, it published its courses under the title Histoire of the origins of the representative government, 1821-1822 , as well as a work on the Capital punishment for political offense and several important political lampoons. From 1822 to 1830, it published two important collections of historical sources, the memories of the history of England in 26 volumes, and the Mémoires on the French history in 31 volumes, revisited the translations of Shakespeare, and made appear a volume of tests on the French history. The most remarkable work was the first part of sound Histoire of the revolution of England de Charles I with Charles II in two volumes (1826-1827), delivers great merit and impartial, which it summarized and supplemented in 1848 during his exile in the United Kingdom. The administration Martignac restores Guizot with its pulpit of professor in 1828 and with the Council of State. At this point in time it gave its famous courses, which increased its reputation of historian at the most point, and placed it among the best writers of France and Europe. These courses were the base of the Histoire of civilization in Europe (1828) and of sound Histoire of civilization in France (1830), and are regarded as the traditional ones of the modern history.

Its entry with the government

The fame of Guizot rested on its qualities of writer on the public affairs and lecturer on the modern history. It is only with lâge of forty-three years that it showed its talents of speaker. In January 1830, he was elected with the House of Commons by the town of Lisieux, seat which he preserved during all his political life. Guizot immediately assumed an important position with the Parliament, and its first speech was to defend celebrates it Adresse of the 221, in answer to the speech threatening of the throne, which was followed by the dissolution of the room and was a precursory event of another revolution. On its return of Nimes on July 27th, the fall of Charles X was imminent. Guizot was called by his/her friends Casimir Perier, Jacques Laffitte, Villemain and Dupin to establish the protest of the liberal deputies against the Ordonnances of Saint-Cloud of July 25th. It endeavoured with them to control the revolutionary character of it. Guizot was convinced that it was a bad luck for a parliamentary government in France and that the self-conceit and the stupidity of Charles X and prince de Polignac returned a change of inevitable hereditary line. It became nevertheless one of burning the supporters of Louis Philippe. In August 1830, Guizot was named Minister of Interior Department, but he resigned in November. He had now joined the benches of the Parti resistance, and during the ten eight following years he was a determined enemy of the democracy, the inflexible champion of “the monarchy limited by a limited number of middle-class men”

In 1831, Casimir Perier formed a more vigorous administration and compacts, which was completed by its death in 1832. The months which followed were marked by agitation carlist and republican, and it was not that the October 11th 1832 qu' a stable government was formed, in which the marshal Soult was president of the Council, the duke of Broglie took the Foreign affairs, Adolphe Thiers the ministry for the Interior, and Guizot the ministry for the State education. It had owed its nomination, in spite of the hostility of Thiers and the reserves of the king, with the insistence of the duke of Broglie which had declared that it would agree to enter to the government only in the condition which his/her friend Guizot out of barrel also. Thiers obtained that it received only one technical ministry, for whom the former professor in the Sorbonne had all necessary competences moreover. Guizot accepted without making difficulties, convinced that the superiority of its oratorical talent would enable him despite everything to play a great part at the Parliament, and thus on the political scene.

Guizot, however, was already unpopular near the most advanced liberal party. There remained unpopular all its life. “I do not seek unpopularity, I do not think anything of it”, said it. It is when it occupied this function with the ministry for the state education, second-rate but of first importance, that its great competences were most useful for the country. The duties that this station imposed to him were appropriate perfectly for its literary tastes, and it controlled the subject. It endeavoured in first to make pass the law of the June 28th 1833 and the three years following to apply it. While creating and by organizing primary education in France, this law marked one period of the national history.

In fifteen years, under its influence, the number of these elementary schools climbed from ten to twenty three thousand; the teacher training schools for the main , and the system of inspection, were introduced; and of the councils of education, under the shared authority of the laymen and the monks, were created. Educations secondary and academic were also the object of its enlightened protection and its care, and an extraordinary impulse was given to the philosophical studies and the historical research. One of the companies of the Institute of France, the Academy of Science morals and political, which had been removed by Napoleon, was started again by Guizot on October 26th 1832). Certain former members of the company, Talleyrand, Sieyès, Roederer and Lakanal, took again their seat and of new celebrities made their entry by election there, to discuss major political and social problems. The Société of the French history was founded for the publication of historical work and a vast company of publication of the medieval chronic and diplomatic documents was launched to the expenses of the State, as well as a General inspection of the historic buildings.

The objective of the cabinet of October 1832 was to organize a conservative party and to implement a policy of resistance to the Republican party, which threatened the existence of monarchy. With its great pride, its measurements never exceeded the limits of the law and it is by the legal exercise of the capacity that it repressed the insurrection at the origin of the civil war of Lyon and of the revolt of Paris. The force of the ministry did not rest on its members, but only on the fact that Guizot and Thiers worked in cordial co-operation. The two large rivals at the Parliament followed the same way; but none of both could be subjected to the supremacy of the other, and the circumstances almost always rejected Thiers in the opposition, while Guizot assumed the responsibility for the capacity.

They were plain only once, in 1839, but it was in the opposition to Mathieu Molé, which had formed an intermediate government. This coalition between Guizot and the leaders of the center left and the left, Thiers and Odilon Deck-beam, born from its ambition and its jealousy towards Mole, is regarded as one of the principal errors of its life. The victory was obtained at the price of the principles, and government by Guizot attacks it worsened the crisis and the republican insurrection. None of the three chiefs this alliance took ministerial position, and Guizot was not dissatisfied to accept the post of ambassador with London, which drew aside it from the parliamentary combat for a time. It was in spring 1840, and Thiers gained little time after the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.

Guizot was accepted with honor by the queen Victoria and the London company. Its literary work was very estimated, its respected person, and France represented abroad by one as of its principal speakers. It was famous being poured in the British history and the English literature, and sincerely attached to the alliance of the two nations and the cause of peace. As he noticed it itself, he was foreign the United Kingdom and to beginner in diplomacy; the state of confusion of the question Syria, where the French government had dissociated itself from the common policy of Europe, and perhaps the complete absence of confidence between the ambassador and the Foreign Minister, placed it in an embarrassing and false position. The warnings which it transmitted to Thiers were not believed. The treaty of July 15th was signed without it advised and being carried out by it against its opinion. During a few weeks, Europe seemed to be at the edge of the war, until the king put an end to the crisis by refusing his assent with the preparations of Thiers and by pointing out Guizot of London to form a ministry and to help his Majesty in what it called “my tough fight against anarchy”.

Chief of the government without saying it

Thus started, in dark and unfavourable circumstances, on October 29th 1840, the government whose Guizot remained the head thinking during nearly eight years, in the shade of the Prime Minister Maréchal Soult. Its first concern was to maintain peace and to restore the friendly relations with the other European powers. It succeeds in calming the agitated elements and especially bandaging the wounds of clean love of France thanks to untameable courage and the splendid eloquence with which it faced the opposition, reunifying and reinforcing the conservative party, which felt the presence of a large leader at his head, calling with the saving and the prudence of the nation rather than to vanity and the ambition. In its pacificatory task, he was fortunately assisted by the government of Sir Robert Peel in the United Kingdom with the autumn 1841. Between Lord Palmerston and Guizot existed a dangerous incompatibility of characters.

With the Palmerston government, Guizot all over the world felt in each British agent a bitter and active adversary; from its great combativeness resulted a perpetual conflict and against-intrigues. Lord Palmerston wrote that the war between the United Kingdom and France was, early or late, inevitable. Guizot thought that such a war would be a calamity of largest and never considered it. At Lord Aberdeen, secretary with the Foreign affairs of Sir Robert Peel, Guizot found a friend and an ally sympathetic nerve. Their meeting in London had been short, but it was transformed quickly into mutual respect and confidence. Both were men of great principles and honor; the Scottish Presbytérianisme which had moulded the faith of Aberdeen found in the minister huguenot France; both were men with the simple tastes, seeking the improvement of the school system and the culture; both had a deep aversion for the war and felt little qualified to carry out this kind of adventurous operations which ignited the imagination of their respective opponents. From the point of view of Lord Palmerston and Thiers, their policy was petty and pitiful; but it was a policy which ensured peace in the world and what is called unified the two great free nations of the west of Europe in the Harmony. None of both would have dropped to seize an advantage at the expense of the other; they maintained this shared interest for peace like paramount; and when differences emerged, in parts far away from the world (with Tahiti with Affaire Pritchard, with the Morocco, on the Coast-with-the Or, current Ghana), they solved them while bringing back them to their insignificance. The opposition denounced the foreign politics of Guizot like meanly servile towards the United Kingdom. “You will have in vain amonceler your calumnies, you will never arrive at the height of my scorn! ” he with contempt answered. In the same way, the British opposition attacked on this topic Lord Aberdeen, but in vain; king Louis Philippe visited the Château of Windsor and the Victoria queen, in 1843, remained with the Castle of Have. In 1845, the British and French troops fought side by side at the beginning of the forwarding of the Río of Plata.

The fall of the Peel government in 1846 modified the climate of the relations; and the return of Palmerston to the foreign affairs led Guizot to think that it was again exposed to the competition of the British cabinet. A friendly agreement had been established with Have between the two courses about the marriage of the young queen in Spain, but the language of Lord Palmerston and the control of Sir Henry Bulwer (future Lord Dalling) in Madrid let think of Guizot which this agreement was broken, and which it was envisaged to put a Saxony-Cobourg on the Spanish throne. Determined to resist such an intrigue, Guizot and the King plunged the head the first in an against-intrigue, completely contrary with their engagement with the United Kingdom, and fatal with the happiness of the queen of Spain. By their influence, it was pushed to marry with kid of the house of the Bourbon, and its married sister with youngest wire of the king of French, in violation of the promises of Louis Philippe. Although this action was carried out at one time of triumph of the French policy, it was in fatal truth with monarchy the more so as it discredited the minister. It was carried out with a mixture of secrecy and violence, masked by a subterfuge. Its immediate effect was the rupture of Franco-British alliance, throwing Guizot in a closer co-operation with Metternich and the courses of the north of Europe.

In 1847 it became President of the council.

Assessment of its political action

The history of the Guizot government, longest and the last of the Monarchy of July, carries the print of great qualities and defects of the political character of its initiator and intellectual guide. Its primary goal was to reunify and discipline the conservative party which had divided by dissensions and changes of ministry. It reached that point fully thanks to its courage and to its eloquence which made of him the leader at the Parliament, as by the recourse to all the means of influence which France too liberally gives to a minister dominating. Nobody never doubted the purity and the satisfying of Guizot in his personal behaviors. He scorned the money, lived and died poor. Even if it supported the desire for earning money in the French nation, its practices preserved their primitive simplicity. But it was not deprived to exploit at the others low passions of which it was itself free: some of its instruments were twisted; it used them to eliminate what it regarded as twisted at the others. Abuses and serious deficiencies were revealed even in the rows of the government, and the corruption of the administration was denounced under an incorruptible minister. Licet uti alieno vitio (it is allowed to use the defects of the others) is a as false proposal in policy as in theology.

How to speak about its parliamentary eloquence? It was abrupt, austere, conclusive and pressing. Without persuasion, nor humor, seldom decorated, it condensed in a few words with the force of a supreme authority. Guizot was more at ease and energetic as ministerial speaker defending his positions that like powerful orator of the opposition. Like Pitt, it was the type of authority that the loads, the spirit, gaîté, the irony and the speeches of its adversaries left marble. He was not either a fine tactician of the parliamentary play able to change the course of a battle by abrupt interventions in the course of debate. Its confidence in itself and in the majority of the Parliament, which it had worked according to its will, was unlimited, and this long exercise of the capacity made him forget that in a country like France, there was, out of the Parliament elected by a small electorate, people in front of whom the minister and the king himself were to answer their acts.

A government based on the principle of resistance and repression and marked by the mistrust and the fear of the popular capacity, a diplomatic system which seeks to revive the traditions of the old mode, a sovereign which largely exceeds increases the terminals of its constitutional capacities and them each year, a minister who, although far away from the servility of a courtier, was too obséquieux towards the influence of the king, singularly in dissension with the promises of the revolution of July, limited the policy of the administration. The sights of Guizot on the policy were primarily historical and philosophical. Its tastes and its competences gave him little perspicacity in the administration of the government. He did not know anything with finances; the businesses and the trade were foreign for him; he was not very familiar of the military and naval businesses; all these subjects were covered via his/her friends Pierre Sylvain Dumon (1797 - 1870), Charles Marie Tanneguy, Count Duchâtel (1803-1867), or the Maréchal Bugeaud. The consequence was the little of measurements leading to improvements carried out by its administration. Its government lent even less the ear to its request for reform of the Parliament.

On this subject, the prejudices of the king were insurmountable, and its ministers had the weakness to yield to it. It was impossible to defend a system which rested on the vote of 200 000 citizens and in whom half of the members were named. Nothing had been easier than to reinforce the conservative party by granting the right to vote with the owners, but resistance was the only response of the government to the moderate requests of the opposition. The warnings repeated by their friends or enemies were ignored; and they remained completely unconscious danger until the moment when it crushed them. It is strange that Guizot never recognized, that it is in the moment or on its end, the nature of its error; it was described like the champion of the liberal party and the constitution. It completely failed to perceive that a broader vision of the liberal destiny of France and that a absolute confidence in its personal theories would have preserved the constitutional monarchy and prevent the disasters, which were finally fatal with all the principles which it defended. But with the obstinate conviction of the absolute truth, it adhered to its own doctrines until the end.

The fall

In 1847, Guizot again refused electoral reforms with the opposition which conducted the campaign of Banquets then and which Guizot tried to prohibit.

The last scene of its political life was singularly characteristic of its faith in a lost cause. The afternoon of the February 23rd 1848, it convened its minister, who sat at the room, to inform it that the situation in Paris and in the country during the agitation of the banquets for a reform and the effervescence and the division of the opinion in the royal family, led it to doubt its maintenance to the ministry. This doubt, answered Guizot, is decisive and he resigned instantaneously, turning over to the room only to announce that the government was dissolved and that Mole had been called by the king, Mole failed to form a government, and between midnight and an hour of the morning, Guizot, who with his practice had lain down early, was again called with the Tuileries. The king asking him council, Guizot answered, “We are not more the ministers of His Majesty, it is with the different one to decide course to follow. But a thing is obvious: the revolt of the street must be stopped; these barricades taken; and for this work it seems to me that the Bugeaud marshal must be invested full powerss, and order to take military measurements, and as your Majesty does not have ministry in this moment, I am ready to write and contresign such an order”. The marshal, who was present, assumed the task, saying “I was never yet beaten, and I would not be it tomorrow. The barricades must be taken before the paddle”. In front of this demonstration of energy the king hesitated, and added soon: “I must warn you that Mr Thiers and his friends are in the part at side forming a government! ”. Then, Guizot retorted “it Then is their role to make the provisions which are appropriate” and it left the places. Thiers and Deck-beam decided to withdraw the troops. The king and Guizot met again with Clarmont. It was the most difficult situation of the life of Guizot, but fortunately it found refuge in Paris for a few days furnished with a humble painter in miniatures which it had taken in friendship, and little time after escaped through Belgium and from there in London, where it arrived the March 3rd. His/her mother and her daughters had preceded it, and it was quickly installed in a modest house of Crescent Pelham to Brompton.

Return to a role of ordinary citizen

The English company, in spite of the disapproval of many people with respect to her recent policy, accepted the deposed politician with as much distinction and respect that it had shown of them eight years before for the ambassador of the king. Money sums were placed at its disposal, which he refused. One also spoke about a post of professor with Oxford, which it was unable to accept. There remained approximately a year in the United Kingdom, being devoted to the history. It published two additional volumes on the English revolution, and in 1854 its Histoire of the Republic of England and Cromwell (1649-1658)

Guizot survived the fall of monarchy and the government which it had served twenty-six years. It passed suddenly from the position of one of the most powerful statesmen and most active to Europe to the position of a philosopher and a citizen spectator of the human businesses. It was conscious that the fracture between him and the public life were final; no murmur of disappointed ambition passed its lips; it seems that the fever of speaker and the ministerial power had left it and still left it larger than front, occupied by its mail, the conversations with his/her friends, and with the head of a patriarchal circle which he liked. Most of time, it resided at the Valley-Richer, an old Cistercian abbey, close to Lisieux in Normandy, which had been sold during the Revolution. His/her two daughters, who were married with two descendants of the Dutch Family De Witt, if pleasant with the faith and the manners of the Huguenot S French, held its house. One of his/her sons-in-law cultivated the property. And Guizot devoted its last years with a constant energy to its work of writing, which was in fact its principal means of subsistence. There remained proud, independent, simple and combative until the end; and its years of retirement were perhaps happiest and most serene of its life.

Two institutions preserved their freedom even under the Second Empire the Institute of France and the Consistoire protesting. In both, Guizot continued until the end to take an active share. He was member of three of the five academies: The Academy of Science Morals and Policies which owed him its restoration, and it became one of the first members in 1832; the Academy of the inscriptions and the humanities elected it in 1833 with the succession of André Dacier; and in 1836 he became member of the French Academy. In these erudite companies, Guizot continued nearly forty years to take an active interest and to have an influence. He was the champion jealous of their independence. Its voice had a considerable weight in the choice of the new candidates; and its constant goal was to preserve the dignity and the purity of the literature.

In the protesting Consistory of Paris, Guizot exerted the same influence. Its education and its experiment of the life contributed to reinforce the convictions of a religious temperament. It remained, its life during, a believer in the truths of the revelation, and one of its last writings relates to the Christian religion. But although it inflexibly adhered to the church his fathers and combatit the rationalist tendencies of its time, which seemed to threaten it of destruction, it did not retain any nuance of the intolerance of the Calvinism. It respected the Catholic church, religion of the majority; and the writings of the large prelates, Bossuet and Bourdaloue, were as familiar for him as those of its religion, and were used in the religious exercises of the family.

In these literary activities and the retirement of Valley Richer the years were passed calmly and quickly. His small children growing around him, it started to direct their attention towards the history. These lessons became its last work “ French history told with my grandchildren ”, who although having a simple, popular and gravitational form is not less complete and deep. This history is completed in 1798, and was continued until 1870 by his/her daughter Mrs Guizot de Witt starting from the notes of his/her father.

Until the summer 1874, the mental strength of Guizot and its activity were intact. He died quietly, and it is said that he recited worms of Corneille and texts of the Holy Scriptures on its bed of death.

Others

You enrich… the polemic

Rare, are in the history, the statesmen who remain in the history for their formula rhetoric. Guizot belongs to those there. And, " You enrich… " became a stake of confrontations, even of polemical caricature.

The historians are not certain exact origin of this sentence. But the majority are intended to confirm that the quotation is truncated, which retains unfortunately the public opinion and the political detractors.

For some, it is in 1840, when Guizot becomes effective chief of the government which he pronounced a little later: “ you Light, enrich you, improve the moral and material condition of our France”.

For others, Guizot would have formulated the sentence thus “you by work and by the saving and you Enrich will become voters” (to retort to the detractors who launched that the right to vote was reserved only with the people being able to pay the 300 Francs of taxable quota). Its last biographer, Gabriel de Broglie, could not find the quotation exactly. During electoral banquets, Guizot turned around similar topics, but it forever succeeded in much finding this expression synthetic which will be, finally, forged against him by its political adversaries. At least it corresponded in its frame of mind, and besides the Monarchy of July sank not to have wanted to widen the vote censitaire.

No one does not prevent from thinking that the two assumptions are true.

Quotations

“Ridges of the savings rather than of the children”
“the revolutions employ almost as many years to be finished to prepare. ” (Parliamentary History of France)
“It is as in 1830, worse than in 1830” (In connection with the revolution of 1848)
“the throne is not an armchair empties”

Its literary production and historical

Dictionary of the synonyms of the French language 1809
Of the state of the fine arts in France 1810
Yearly of education, 1811-1815 6 vol.
Life of the French poets of the century of Louis XIV 1813
Some ideas on freedom of the press 1814
Of the government representative of the current status of France 1816
Test on the actual position of the state education in France 1817
Of the government of France since the Restoration. Conspiracies and political justice 1820
Of the means of government and opposition in the actual position of France. Government of France and current ministry. History of the representative government in Europe, 1821 2 vol.
Of the souveraineté" 1822

Of the capital punishment in political matters 1822

Test on the French history of Ve to Xe century 1823

History of Charles Ier, 1827 2 vol.

general History of civilization in Europe 1828

History of civilization in France, 1830 4 vol.

the presbytery at the edge of the sea 1831

Rome and its popes 1832

the ministry for the reform and Parliament reformed 1833

Tests on the French history 1836

Monk, historical study 1837

Religion in the modern societies 1838

Life, correspondence and written of Washington 1839-1840

Washington 1841

Madam de Rumfort 1842

Of the conspiracies and justice policies 1845

Of the means of government and opposition in the actual position of France 1846

History of the revolution of England since the advent of Charles Ier until his death 1846

Mr. Guizot and his friends. Did democracy in France 1849

Pourquoi the revolution of England succeed? Speech on the history of the revolution of England 1850

biographical Studies on the revolution of England. Studies on the fine arts in general 1851

Shakespeare and its time. Crow and its time 1852

Abélard and Héloïse 1853

Edouard III and middle-class men of Calais 1854

History of the Republic of England, 1855 2 vol. Sir Robert Peel

History of the protectorate of Cromwell and the re-establishment of Stuarts, 1856 2 vol.

Memories to be used for the history of my time, 1858-1867 8 vol.

love in the marriage 1860

the Church and the Christian company in 1861 . Academic speeches 1861

a project of royal marriage 1862

parliamentary History of France, collection of speech, 1863 5 vol. Three generations

Mediations on the gasoline of the Christian religion 1864

William the Conqueror 1865

Meditations on the actual position of the Christian religion 1866

France and Prussia persons in charge in front of Europe 1868

Meditations on the Christian religion in its relationship with the actual position of the companies and the spirits. Biographical mixtures and political arts persons 1868

Mixtures and histories 1869

French history since the times most moved back until in 1789 1870-1875 5 vol.

the duke of Broglie 1872

lives of four large French Christians 1873

French Academy

François Guizot was elected with the French Academy, the April 28th 1836, with the armchair 40, succeeding the count Destutt de Tracy, died the March 9th 1836. Its official reception took place the December 22nd 1836. After its disappearance, which has occurred the September 12th 1874, it was replaced, the December 16th 1875, by Jean-Baptiste Dumas.

Distinctions and decorations

member of the Academy of the inscriptions and the humanities (1833)
Grand Cross of the Legion of honor

References

See too

Law Guizot, 1833 law on education.
Price Guizot
Price Guizot-Apple-brandy

External bonds

François Guizot seen by Honore Daumier
Card biographical of the French Academy
Guizot the liberal
Europe of Guizot
Memories to be used for the History of my time

Sources

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