Reille

Reille, Reille-Soult

The Reille family, then Reille-Soult, was a true French political dynasty, which reigned without large competitors on the seat of deputy of the Tarn (Castres - Mazamet) and on the whole of the local and regional political life of the basin mazamétain of the beginnings of IIIe République (1870) until the return to the capacity of the de Gaulle General in 1958.

She is recipient of the paradoxical history of the industrial basin of Mazamet (south-eastern of the Tarn, area of Castrate): traditional elites inherited old France, renewing with each generation the alliance of the landed gentry and the Church; it reigned during nearly one century on a mainly working stronghold.

The baron Rene Reille, patriarch of this line of 6 deputies of the Republic, never chooses between the various monarchical clans which dispute the mode after the collapse of the Second Empire (1870). Its descendants, rejoined with the Republic, will not serve the apparatus of any party. The reillism, much more than one ideology, was a pragmatic practice of the capacity, adapting to the news give social without never touching with the fundamental one: the religious defense which could merge in the basin of Mazamet with a working combat (employers being mainly Protestant).

The family always lives in the castle of the Soult Marshal to Saint-Mercies-Soult (Tarn, close to Mazamet).

History of a parliamentary dynasty

Rene Reille entered in policy under Napoleon III and becomes, after the defeat of Sedan, under-secretary of State for the moral Ordre. He was appointed district of Castrate-II (Mazamet, Black Montagne) of 1876 until his death in 1898, without interruption. In these times when the various lines are divided as for the choice of the mode (the Republic is not, for the party of the Order to the capacity until in 1879, qu ' a transition while waiting for a payment from the dynastic question), the baron Reille knew to rejoin behind him the whole of the preserving forces by incarnating all the tendencies. Worthy representing of a prestigious nobility of Empire (direct descendant of 2 marshals of foreground, Reille and Masséna, it was married with downward of the marshal Soult), it had made its classes in the political personnel of Napoleon III. The Bonapartism being in bad posture after the defeat of Sedan, it supports the monarchical restoration without choosing line (Bourbon direct, Orleans). Representative of a landed gentry and “lady of the manor”, burning defender of the Catholic religion, it allured the legitimists (in favor of the Bourbon). In addition, itself businessman, sitting in many boards of directors (mines of Carmaux, dewooling mazamétain, etc), won over to the liberal ideas, it knew to rejoin Orléanistes with its cause. It is on this derier aspect that it was perhaps most original. Denis Woronoff (History of industry in France, Paris, the Threshold, 1996, p. 7) notices that in France, “the culture of the elites forever be accessible to industry, even if she recognized it like an activity necessary. She refused a plenary legitimacy durably to him, in spite of an episodical admiration for her achievements. One derogated always a little to interfere oneself goods. ” Notable land traditional, it engaged in the economic revolutions of time, which enabled him to preserve its social role. It preserved the prestige which it had inherited all while consolidating it while launching its family in the socio-economic changes the industrial society. It attracted sympathies of number of industirels mazamétains (Olombel, Cormouls-Swell), however Protestants and republicans of the first hour. This political pragmatism is illustrated with a certain glare at the time of the crisis boulangist. Savage opponent with this republican general, he becomes resolutely boulangist when Boulanger tries to reverse the mode.

Thus, at one time when the line is divided, the reillism, political pragmatism rested by Rene Reille, the first of a long line of deputies, made a success of the impossible consensus. One can think that it is there one of the reasons, which brought to the success of the parliamentary heritage, family tradition which settles in 1885 with the election of the oldest son of the baron Reille at the general advice of Angles. Reille was from now on a name of rallying. The dynastic practice of the local authority thus begins with the arrival from Andre Reille in policy in 1885, but especially at the time D its election in the first district of Castrate in 1894 thanks to which it consolidates the electoral “stronghold” of Reille. Let us note that it had been presented in 1889 to Saint-Pons (Herault), where it was beaten. The space component (the industrial basins of Castrate and Mazamet) thus seem to have a determining role in the victories accumulated consequently by various the memebres of the family, which remained from now on in their stronghold. With his death in 1898, his/her brother Xavier Reille gives up his military career to come to replace it. The “baron died, lives the baron! ” was also the rule, the same year, for the third wire of Rene Reille, who takes the seat of deputy with died of his father, as for the third generation when François Reille-Soult succeeds his Rene brother, deputy of Mazamet it Montagne in the place of his/her uncle Amédée since 1914, but who found death with the field of honor in 1917. Demolishes in 1924 because of the passage to the departmental list system - it remained majority in the canton of Mazamet -, like had been it for the same reasons Xavier Reille in 1910, it was elected appointed of 1928 to 1958 without discontinuity (except the Vichy-native bracket during which it engaged in Resistance). This dynastic practice was the object of many attacks of their adversaries. The Alarm clock of the Tarn, newspaper of the Republicans of Mazamet, multiplied the gibes on “Andrénou, the daddy's boy” (October 1889) and “Misters Reille, father and wire, company for the exploitation of the mandate of deputy”. They widened even the family stronghold in Albi II (mines of Carmaux), another working bastion of the department of the Tarn, where the son-in-law of the baron Rene, Ludovic de Solages (adversary of Jaurès) is elected appointed.

Beyond the permanence of fundamental, in particular their program of religious defense, Reille owe part of their success with their pragmatism. Since 1891, according to the injunction of the pontifical bubbles Rerum novarum and Inter sollicitudines (Leon XIII), they are joined the Republic and will develop a social program. Xavier and Amédée adhere to the Liberal Action Populaire of Jacques Piou (founded in 1901); first Christian democratic party, whose prgramme aims to the improvement of the fate of the working class. This party allowed to make an evolution of size to the French catholic right-hand side.

The Reille family and workmen

Successes of the Reille-Soult dynasty were uncontested in the south of the Tarn since the first election of the baron father (Rene Reille) until 1958 (arrival of the right-hand side gaullist to the capacity). It is the passage to the list system (1924 in particular) which made them lose their mandates, whereas they remained majority in the department. In 1902, whereas the left carries it everywhere, that the marquis de Solages is beaten by Jaurès with Carmaux, Amédée Reille carries it as of the first turn with 653 votes in advance on Galibert-Tag, industrial catholic of Mazamet, which represented for the local left “the best of the candidates”. In 1914, new turn on the left of the department, but the area of Mazamet remains a preserving small island inside a vast department with the socialist tendencies. How to explain such a supremacy, moreover in a working basin. Let us note initially that the country electorate remained important in the area mazamétaine (but more still in the remainder of the department), and, faithful to a Catholic religion of “reconquest” (strong Protestant community), voted for the clerical line. In addition, the workmen mazamétains of the end of the XIXe century remained the rural ones, even peasants. But it was also the case with Carmaux, which however passed on the left to the same period. It is that the particular methods of the political struggles, superimposed on the class struggles, fixed a paradoxical vote at Mazamet: the catholic workmen voted on the right while the Protestant owners voted on the left. It is necessary to add the social prestige of Reille in an area where the old social representations have a certain strength at the beginning of the XXe century. Descendants of a long line of marshals of Empire (Soult, “the providential man” to which it legend allots the industrial prosperity of the basin, Reille, Masséna), Reilles engaged themselves in the conflicts of time. The baron Rene had made the war of 1870 and Rene Reille-Soult died during the First World War with the combat. François Reille-Soult, the last appointed of the family, had taken a acive share with the resistance networks of the Black Mountain. But it is the alliance of the family with the Church which is at the base of its bright electoral successes. In 1901, in the basin of Mazamet, 65% of the men made their Easter against 50% in the remainder of the department. Reille could rejoin this electorate of mass (country as worker) while being posed like the defenders of the Church besieged by the Republican left (the Separation of the Church and the State and the episode of the Inventories revive the catholic militancy, as at the time of the civil Constitution of the Clergy). Reille also developed a true social speech: “I will endeavor to improve by wise laws the fate of the workers of the ground and workshop but I absolutely push back socialism in all his forms and will fight against these harmful doctrines which preach hatred and lead us to anarchy” (Andre Reille).

A populist electoral practice

Reille, in addition to their prestige and the considerable audience in this catholic bastion militant of a program of religious defense, not being diverted a social question, owed their victory repeated with a particularly effective practical policy. They profited first of all from a powerful framing from the working electorate and peasant of the basin. They had for them the two most powerful media of this beginning of century: a militant press and especially the Church. They multiplied the organizations of framing around their personalities, more than of a party. The preserving Committees and working Committees set up by the baron father (Rene Reille) yielded the place to a section of the ALP, gathering 500 members with Mazamet, against 200 with Castres, however much more populated. But the most powerful organization was perhaps the League of the Ladies of the French Fatherland, which counted 450 members with Mazamet (against 250 in Castres), sponsored by the baroness-mother. This maternalism could appear of a great help in time of election (they did not hesitate to encourage the wives to strike of the bed if their husbands did not vote for Reille). Beyond the framing of the company of the industrial basin of Mazamet, the practical policy of Reille mingled notoriety and prestige élitaire with a family living with Paris, attending the high society of their time, sitting in the large populism and boards of directors. A personality like Amédée Reille, that the Alarm clock of the Tarn had called the “pétardier” because of his many blows of glare, is paradigmatic of this practice of the capacity. When one returned the Sisters of the School of the Cross of Mazamet, which fell under the blow from the law from 1901, on August 1st, 1903 Reille the escorted brothers of 3000 demonstrators, the sisters at the station accompanied. One even shouted there “Dead in Barbey! ” (mayor of Mazamet). In the report of the departmental assembly, Edouard Barbey reports this new blow of glare of Amédée Reille: “And when Mr Reille, assembled on a case waxed with crowd: that those which voted the law of 1901 are marked with the face of a bloody mark. ”

Thus the particular personalities of each representative of the parliamentary dynasty, a political program respecting the fundamental ones which had ensured the victory of the baron-father all while adapting to the political changes and social time, a practice of the capacity at the same time élitaire and populist, ensured the Reille family an uncontested political supremacy during almost a century. And it is in the workmen of Mazamet, fixed in old political behaviors, inherited the country world of the XIXe century, by the economic and social changes whose basin mazamétain was the theater, that Reille found their more faithful electorate. Much had the photograph of the “barou on their premises” (Baron Rene Reille).

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