Catholic Royalism in the Department of the Gard 1814-1852

Catholic royalism in the department of the Gard, 1814-1852

Catholic royalism in the department of the Gard, 1814-1852 BRIAN FITZPATRICK Lecturer in History, Ulster Polytechnic

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge London New York New Rochelle Melbourne Sydney

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The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK 40 West 20th Street, New York NY 10011-4211, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia Ruiz de Alarcon 13, 28014 Madrid, Spain Dock House, The Waterfront, Cape Town 8001, South Africa http://www.cambridge.org © Cambridge University Press 1983 This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 1983 First paperback edition 2002 A catalogue recordfor this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress catalogue card number: 82-14564 ISBN 0 52122454 3 hardback ISBN 0 52152230 7 paperback

FOR OLIVIA

Contents

List ofmaps

page viii

Preface

ix

List ofabbreviations

xii

Chapter one The department of the Gard in the nineteenth century

i

Chapter two The preparation of a counter-revolution

28

Chapter three 1817 to 18 3 o

60

Chapter four The July Revolution

97

Chapterfive Opposition to the July Monarchy, 183 2 to 1848

122

Chapter six The Second Republic

148

Conclusion

x

Glossary

°3 ^

Bibliography

*9 6

Index

2I1

Vll

Maps

1 The department of the Gard: main physical features 2 The department of the Gard in the nineteenth century: administrative subdivisions and principal towns 3 Nimes in the nineteenth century

page xiii xiv 21

Preface

It is now generally agreed by historians of France that there was no such thing as 'the Counter-Revolution', but that there were instead many reactions to the French Revolution which varied in intensity from time to time and from place to place, some more organised and menacing than others. The same degree of discernment has not been displayed by scholars of recent years in their attitudes to the counter-revolutionaries' successors, the ultra-royalists and legitimists. Certainly, the work of MM. Tudesq and Oechslin1 has indicated considerable regional and social diversity in the support given to extreme royalism in the early nineteenth century, but the image of the ultra remains dominated to a great extent by a Ferdinand de Bertier, a Monseigneur Pie, even by Stendhal's caricatures. There was considerably more to the extreme right than the machinations of a handful of disaffected aristocrats and clerics, however, as David Higgs's recent study of Toulouse has already demonstrated. The present study attempts to explore extreme royalism in the south east of France, in a region where it enjoyed an unusual degree of popular support and continuity and where, it will be argued, long-standing cultural differences played a crucial part in defining and sustaining the movement. It may be objected that living in Northern Ireland has coloured my vision in this matter. I would reply that, on the contrary, it has given me a particularly valuable insight into causes of conflict which are no less important and real than the struggles between nationalities and classes which litter the stage of modern history, and which cannot be dismissed glibly as the product of a false consciousness. The cadre of one French department has been retained because it was accepted as a useful territorial unit by the protagonists themselves. This is not to deny that royalism extended far beyond the boundaries of the Gard. That it did will be made quite clear, I hope, in the second chapter. But it was in the Gard that royalism was most evidently 'Catholic', and after the failure of the southern royalists to create an independent Midi, they fell back on the 1

See bibliography.

ix

x Catholic royalism in the Gard department as the most effective unit in which to organise. Indeed the Gard offers a striking example of the royalists' ability to exploit this product of Revolutionary rationalisation. The period covered by this study reveals the continuity and durability of Catholic royalism in the Gard. Although its origins are to be found in the conflicts opened by the Revolution in 1789 and 1790, the events of 1814 and 1815 revitalised and redefined the movement. The collapse of the Bourbon monarchy in 1830 did not herald the decline of Catholic royalism, and the introduction of universal adult male suffrage in 1848, which brought the masses into politics, failed to dilute its influence in the Gard. It is necessary to comment briefly on some of the political vocabulary used in this book. In the early nineteenth century, few, if any, of the political terms current in the twentieth century had acquired a commonly accepted, not to speak of a precise, connotation. Contemporaries customarily used terms like faction, parti, mouvement interchangeably in their references to the political 'parties' emerging in France. I have also used these words interchangeably. Many people assisted me in the research and preparation of this book and I am happy to acknowledge my debt to them. In France, I owe much to the staff of the many archives and libraries I used, particularly to MM. Debant and Chassin du Guerny of the Archives du Gard; Mile Cabanne of the Bibliotheque municipale, Nimes; M. Capieu of the Archives Consistoriales, Nimes; M. le Chanoine Marchand of the Eveche; M. and Mme Lassalle of the Musee Archeologique. Monsieur le Comte Adolphe de Bernis displayed great generosity in giving me access to family papers in the Chateau de Vezenobres; and I have enjoyed the help and friendship of pastors Yves Chabas and Paul Mercoiret, of Raymond Huard, Marc and Anne-Marie Lefevre-Lhande, Maurice Contestin, Christian andJosiane Courgibet, Pierre and Mavis Mercoiret, Hubert and Lindsay Benoist and Jean-Louis Coutanceau. In England, I am grateful to Richard Cobb and Roger Magraw and to William Davies and Susan Ridyard of Cambridge University Press. In Ireland, my greatest debt is to the Ulster Polytechnic which was generous in funding a number of research visits to France, and whose librarians, particularly Norman Russell and Jim Fitzsimons and his colleagues in periodicals and inter-library loans, were unfailingly helpful and efficient in procuring the material I required. Tony Morris gave me constant encouragement, and Mick Shannon and Gerry Moore provided me with sociologists' insights in a painless and lively manner. Anthony Feenan and Ian Alexander are to be thanked for their photographic and map-making skills. I would also like to thank Mr Peter Brown and Mrs Chubb of Dublin University Library, and Mr Patrick Quigg and his colleagues in the library of University College, Cork, particularly Mr Jimmy Murphy of the Lee Makings.

Preface

xi

Finally, Gwynne Lewis, whose scholarship and friendship I have enjoyed since my undergraduate days, has been a constant source of inspiration during the research for this book and during the preparation of the typescript. B.J.F.

Abbreviations

AD AG AN Arch. Consist. PRO

Archives Departementales Archives du Ministere de la Guerre, Vincennes Archives Nationales, Paris Archives Consistoriales Public Record Office, London

xn

Map i The department of the Gard: main physical features

Map 2 The department of the Gard in the nineteenth century: administrative subdivisions and principal towns

CHAPTER ONE

The department of the Gard in the nineteenth century

The Gard was one of eight departments created almost entirely from the old province of Languedoc by the Constituent Assembly. As in the case of the eighty-two other departments which came into existence in February 1790, the Gard represented the wish of the Revolutionaries to rationalise the nation's administrative divisions, taking account of distance and population. Thus, the new department of the Gard replaced a number of ecclesiastical and civil jurisdictions: the former dioceses of Nimes, Uzes and Ales; part of the generalite of Montpellier and all of the senechaussee of Nimes. The new department covered an area of some 5800 square kilometres, extending roughly 120 kilometres from east to west and 108 kilometres from north to south. At the time of its creation, the Gard was estimated to embrace some 315 500 inhabitants. Within its boundaries, the Gard includes a wide range of geographic features, extending from the Mediterranean to the south eastern edge of the Massif Central. Its coastline is short - barely 20 kilometres of sand-bars and salt marshes from the Vidourle river, just west of Aigues-Mortes, to the Petit Rhone, meandering through the Camargue, a monotonous expanse of marshland and lake which stretched, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, some 25 kilometres inland, almost to the gates of Saint-Gilles-du-Gard. From this narrow corridor to the sea, the Gard opens out to the Mediterranean plain which sweeps across the entire department from the Herault in the west to the Rhone in the east, forming a fertile band 15 to 20 kilometres deep. North of the main road from Montpellier to Nimes and Avignon, the plain merges gently into the chalky, undulating Mediterranean heathland known as the Garrigue, which forms the greater part of the Gard's territory. This rugged terrain, softened in places by the fertile valleys of the Gard and Alzon rivers and their small tributaries, extends north east to the Rhone valley, north to the Vivarais and north west to the Cevennes mountains behind the towns of Ales, Anduze and Saint-Hippolyte-du-Fort. The Gard was not a remote department. Lyon was about 240 kilometres to the north, a straight journey from the inland port of Beaucaire by land or water following the Rhone which marked the entire eastern limit of the Gard.

2 Catholic royalism in the Gard To the south east lay Marseille, barely ioo kilometres by road from Nimes via Beaucaire, Tarascon and Aries. Nimes, the chef-lieu of the Gard, was, before the age of the motorway, on the main road from the Rhone valley to the south west, to Toulouse and Spain. In the course of the nineteenth century, the region experienced revolutionary improvements in transport and communications which exposed the population to change and mobility on an unprecedented scale. During the Bourbon Restoration, from 1814 to 1830, the main roads were improved and a canal was cut through the southern end of the department from Beaucaire to Sete, linking the Rhone and Louis XIV's Canal du Midi. Under the July Monarchy, from 1830 to 1848, the semaphore telegraph was extended, dramatically improving communications between the authorities in the Gard and those in Marseille, Avignon, Lyon and, ultimately, Paris; steam shipping became common on the Rhone, and the journey from Aries to Lyon was reduced in good weather to forty hours instead of the week required by the older horse-drawn barges; and the railway arrived, carrying coal and iron from Ales to Nimes and Beaucaire, and transporting goods and passengers at speeds few people had believed possible between Beaucaire, Nimes and Montpellier. Because of its position at such an important crossroads in the Midi, the Gard was as sensitive politically as most frontier departments. The files of the procureurs-generaux and the commissaires de police reveal an abiding interest in

transitory strangers who, according to the moment, could have been Spanish liberals, Piedmontese and Neapolitan carbonari, Spanish carlists or agents of the growing French republican movement. The departmental gendarmerie was constantly on the look-out for convicts who had escaped from the chiourme, proceeding painfully towards deportation from Toulon, and then, after 1830, for deserters from regiments marching to Marseille to take ship for Algeria. The department's coastline also merited the authorities' vigilance. Besides the ports of Aigues-Mortes and Le-Grau-du-Roi, there were dozens of places along the sand-bars and into the Camargue where practised smugglers and outlaws could be put ashore to make their way inland in relative security.1 The absolute monarchy had always maintained at least one of the galleys from the Marseille squadron on patrol off the Camargue to discourage smugglers andfleeingCalvinists as much as marauding Barbary pirates. The north and west of the department were, however, affected considerably less by improvements in communications than were the south and east. The Cevennes were, and still are, an obstacle to profound changes in the road network and to the extension of the railways. Only one main road crossed the mountains, from Nimes to Mende in the Lozere, passing through Florae; another led due north from Ales to Le Puy. The remaining roads, 1

See AN BB 1 8 for the period 1815-39; and AD Gard 4U 5, particularly dossier 300, affaires politiques, an X-1857.

The department of the Gard 3 often inaccessible in winter and spring, served to link the countless hamlets of the Cevennes with the towns of Saint-Jean-du-Gard, Saint-Andre-deValborgne, Lasalle, Saint-Hippolyte-du-Fort and Valleraugue. Physical isolation combined with geographic, economic and cultural particularities which will be discussed below. Together these factors formed a society which differed significantly from that of the southern and eastern parts of the department. The Gard inherited many of those activities which characterised the economy of Lower Languedoc in the eighteenth century: agriculture, textile production, commerce and coal mining.2 In the nineteenth century industrial development and agricultural concentration played a part in expanding certain of these activities at the expense of others, as did other changes beyond the control of the inhabitants of the Gard - the expansion of the port of Marseille, and the unsuitability of the Gard for technical developments in the textile industry. Agriculture remained the basis of the department's economy during the first half of the nineteenth century, with no more than 10 per cent of the working population involved in industry.3 The Languedoc tradition of polyculture observed by Arthur Young on the eve of the Revolution remained widespread: 'Every man has an olive, a mulberry, an almond or a peach tree, and vines scattered among them. '4 Yet even before the Revolution there were signs of concentration on one crop in certain areas, a process which continued through the nineteenth century until almost the entire coastal plain from the Spanish frontier to the Rhone was given over to the production of wine. In the early years of the nineteenth century wine was already the chief agricultural product of the Gard, and vines grew in all but the most mountainous districts of the department.5 Some wines, those of Tavel, Lirac, Chusclan and Roquemaure, along the Rhone, enjoyed a high reputation beyond the confines of the region.6 Most of the Gard's wine, however, was vin ordinaire, destined for everyday use or for distilling. In those years when there was a small harvest because of poor weather or blight, the wine available commanded relatively good prices and provided the peasants with additional income which could be looked upon as an unexpected bonus.7 Population growth, expanding markets in France and abroad, and the gra2

Expilly, Dictionnaire geographique, historique et politique des Gaules et de la France, iv, 45-54. H. Rivoire, Statistique du departement du Gard, 11, 162, 258-61. 4 A. Young, Travels in France during the years 1787, 1788 and 1789, ed. C. Maxwell, p. 46; J. Vidalenc, Le peuple des campagnes, 1815—48, pp. 236-7. 5 S. Savey, 'Essai de reconstruction de la structure agraire des villages de Sardan et d'Asperes (Gard) sous l'ancien regime', Annales du Midi, 81 (1969), 41-54. 6 S. V. Grangent, Description abregee du departement du Gard, redigee en brumaire, an VIII, pp. 12-13. 7 Expilly, iv, 45; Rivoire, Statistique, 11, 258. 3

4 Catholic royalism in the Gard dual emergence of intensive cereal production in other parts of France - the Beauce, notably - induced more and more landowners to turn away from poly culture to specialise in wine, particularly south of Nimes, around Bellegarde, Saint-Gilles, Vauvert, Aimargues and Aigues-Vives.8 In the period which concerns us, the mulberry was the other crop to which more and more peasants turned. Its resurgence was related directly to the expansion of the silk industry, not only in Lower Languedoc, but also in other parts of France. The tree hadflourishedin the countryside around Uzes and Ales and in the valleys of the Cevennes in the eighteenth century when the local silk industry was at its zenith. Like the vine, it provided a profitable alternative to cereals, and one which the peasants knew they could cultivate successfully.9 In 1835, the sub-prefect of the arrondissement of Ales commented that cultivation of the mulberry Vest propagee en proportion des benefices qu'elle a presentes, et ces benefices sont tels que le Cevenol qui semerait aujourd'hui le ble dans un terrain propice a la vegetation du murier passerait aux yeux de ses voisins pour un homme atteint de folie'.10 Even after the collapse of the silk industry in Nimes in the 1840s, the demand from Paris, Lyon and Saint-Etienne for raw and spun silk ensured that sericulture continued in the countryside around Ales, Saint-Jean-du-Gard and Le Vigan, and that the mulberry remained a profitable and widespread part of the Gard's rural economy for many years.11 The two other traditional crops of Lower Languedoc fared less well in the nineteenth century. Cereals, particularly wheat, suffered from serious failures in the years before the Revolution and in the first half of the nineteenth century.12 Moreover, while prices in good years were relatively high for wheat, it was a less profitable crop for small and medium holdings than either the vine or the mulberry, and many producers turned to these crops, which appeared to be yielding more cash in the shorter term. This trend was already evident in 1817, when the prefect of the Gard reported with a note of urgency: 'II n'arrive pas encore de graines de Toulouse, quoi que nous soyons a l'epoque de l'annee ou les arrivages commencent. Votre Excellence sait que le Gard ne produit pas de graines en quantite suffisante pour le nourrir. '13 In 8

A. Jardin and A.-J. Tudesq, La France des notables, 11, 49-50; Vidalenc, Peuple des campagnes, pp. 236-7; AN F lc m Gard 13, mayor of Nimes to minister of interior, 18 February 1815; AN F79O5i, prefect to minister of interior, 22 October and 6 November 1817. 9 Expilly, iv, 45-7; H. Reboul, L'industrie nimoise du tissage au dix-neuvieme siecle. 10 AD Gard 6M 115, sub-prefect of Ales to prefect, 29 November 1835. 11 A. Milward and S. B. Saul, The development of the economies of continental Europe, 1830—1914, p. 81; Reboul, p. 29; AD Gard 6M 119, prefect to minister of interior, 31 August 1838. 12 H. Bourderon, 'La lutte contre la vie chere dans la generalite de Languedoc au dix-huitieme siecle', Annales du Midi, 66 (1954), 155-70; J. Vidalenc, 'La vie economique des departements mediteraneens pendant l'Empire', Rev. d'Hist. mod. et contemp., 1 (1954), 165-96. 13 AN F/9O5i, prefect to minister of interior, 6 November 1817. According to Grangent, the Gard could only produce one third of its cereal requirements in the 1790s: Description, p. 11.

The department of the Gard 5 the 1830s, in spite of their ability to grow more than enough corn, barley and rye for their own needs, peasants around Ales chose instead to concentrate on mulberries, while those in the arrondissement of Uzes, once famous for its wheat, had abandoned cereals entirely to grow both garance and mulberries for the textile industry.14 The olive was the other traditional crop to decline in the nineteenth century, but less through the choice of the peasants than through circumstance. Unlike the vine or cereals, whose fortunes could rise and fall from year to year, the olive tree took fifteen or twenty years to mature, and harsh winters had, therefore, a very serious effect. The frost of 1788-9 caused damage that was not made good until 1812 in the eastern Gard, the centre of commercial olive growing. Similar damage was caused by frost in 1820 and 1830, blighting trees which had just reached maturity. In the north west of the department, geography imposed different agricultural patterns. The olive and the vine stopped on the lower slopes of the mountains where rye, barley and mulberries grew instead. Higher still, chestnuts became one of the most important crops and served to feed man and beast. Animal husbandry was more important here than in other parts of the Gard, and flocks of sheep grazed on the lower slopes of the valleys in winter, moving up to the higher ground in spring and summer before being driven down to Saint-Jean, Sumene, Valleraugue, Treves and Le Vigan where, after shearing fairs, their wool was sold to merchants from the Herault. In most valleys, raw and even spun silk was produced by entire families who grew mulberries and harvested their leaves to feed the silkworms they hatched and raised to the cocoon stage in the vast upper floor, or magnanerie, of their houses. Trade and commerce contributed significantly to the prosperity of Lower Languedoc from Roman times, when Nimes was established on the main highway from Italy to Spain. These countries, accessible by land and sea, were the region's natural trading partners, and by the eleventh century there was a thriving Genoese community in Saint-Gilles-du-Gard, while Nimes was a recognised etape on the route taken by Milanese and Venetian merchants and bankers to Toulouse and Bordeaux.15 In the nineteenth century, the Gard still felt the presence of Piedmontese and Spaniards, this time seeking work in the expanding coalfields and ironworks of Ales. The commercial life of the region increased significantly in the thirteenth century after Languedoc was joined to the territories of the French crown. Louis IX made Aigues-Mortes the principal French port on the Mediterranean, endowing it with municipal and fiscal privileges. It became the chief point of disembarka14 15

AD Gard 6M 115, sub-prefect of Uzes to prefect, 25 November 1835; sub-prefect of Ales to prefect, 29 November 1835. M. and M. Lacave, Bourgeois et marchands en Provence et Languedoc.

6

Catholic royalism in the Gard

tion for Spanish and Italian merchants travelling to Nimes, Toulouse and Bordeaux or attending the fair at Montpellier. Nimes flourished as a centre where wool, oil, leather, wine and spices were bought and sold, and a thriving community of artisans and tradesmen established itself around the Roman arenas and the cathedral. In 1151 the count of Toulouse granted the city the privilege of a tax-free fair once a year after Easter. Shortly after, Nimes became a ville de consulat, boasting an elaborately elected municipal authority, a symbol of prestige and prosperity.16 Lower Languedoc enjoyed its greatest prosperity in the eighteenth century, from the 1730s to the 1770s. This boom was due in no small measure to the annual/o/re de Beaucaire. The small town of Beaucaire, sited on the Rhone only 24 kilometres east of Nimes, had enjoyed the privilege of a tax-free fair since the thirteenth century. The merchants and municipal officers of the town had exploited Beaucaire's position on the frontier of the Holy Roman Empire and on the Rhone, still navigable at this point by sea-going ships, and the fair had gradually become one of the most important trade fairs in the Mediterranean world. It was authorised for the three working days after 22 July, the feast of Saint Mary Magdalene, *ce qui fait qu'elle dure toujours six a cause de la fete de la Magdaleine, de celle de Saint Jacques et de celle de Sainte Anne', wrote Expilly in the eighteenth century.17 The manufactures and products of every region of France and those from most parts of Europe and the Mediterranean were bought and sold in the spacious, vaulted basements of houses which gave on to the Rhone embankment and the principal thoroughfares and which were rented for the duration of the fair by merchants and bankers who used the occasion to engage in purely monetary transactions as well, speculating on the price of raw materials and setting prices for commodities at other, less prestigious fairs. In short, the foire de Beaucaire became the barometer of prosperity in the province of Languedoc, and its importance was duly recognised by the presence of the intendant or his representative. Neighbouring towns benefited considerably from the fair, with its influx of merchants, officials, carters and seamen. Arthur Young was one of those visitors who lodged in Nimes and travelled to the fair by road in 1788, when it was already entering a decline: My quarters at Nismes were at the Louvre, a large, commodious and excellent inn. The house was as much a fair from morning to night as Beaucaire itself could be . . . We sat down, twenty to forty at every meal, mostly motley companies of French, Italians, Spaniards and Germans, with a Greek and an Armenian; and I was informed 16 17

ibid., pp. 59—64. Expilly, 1, 507; H. Chobaut, 'La foire de Beaucaire de 1789 a 1796', Annales hist, de la Rev.fr. (1929), 359-71; P. Leon, 'Vie et mort d'un grand marche international. La foire de Beaucaire, i8eme—I9eme siecles', Rev. de Geographie de Lyon (1953), 309-28.

The department of the Gard

7

that there is hardly a nation in Europe or Asia that have not merchants at this great fair, chiefly for raw silk, of which many millions in value are sold in four days. All the other commodities of the world are to be found there.18 That year, in spite of the slump which had been affecting France for a decade,19 two hundred cargo vessels from France, Spain and Italy put into Beaucaire for the fair.20 During the Revolution and Empire, the fair, like the whole economy of Lower Languedoc, suffered from the internal political upheavals, the British blockade and the slump which attended the last years of the Empire: the value of goods sold at Beaucaire diminished from an estimated 31 900 000 francs in 1806 to 19 700 000 francs in 1811, and sank as low as 17000000 m i8i4. 21 This decline continued during the nineteenth century, so that the fair was no more than a regional market by the 1860s. The reasons were many. The fair no longer enjoyed fiscal exemption; the tonnage and draught of cargo ships increased beyond the capacity of the Rhone; railways eliminated the need for many such fairs by transporting merchandise across land frontiers to large waiting urban markets; and, perhaps most important, the whole centre of gravity of commerce and trade shifted north west to those parts of Europe which had industrialised heavily, making ports like Antwerp and Liverpool the main outlets for the industrial goods going to increasingly far-flung markets like Australia, America and colonised Africa, whose raw materials entered the manufacturing countries through the same ports. 22 Nonetheless, as the prefects' reports demonstrated, the fair continued to have a regional importance as the annual measure of the Gard's prosperity or poverty, and the opening of the railway between the port and the Ales coalfields in the late 1830s helped to slow down Beaucaire's decline by transporting some two million metric tons of coal, iron and other commodities per year in the 1840s.23 Silk, wine, coal and iron were exported from the Gard in the nineteenth century. These travelled mostly by road and river to the northern markets of Lyon and Paris, or along the canal from the Rhone to Sete, continuing thereafter on the Canal du Midi to Beziers, Carcassonne and Toulouse, or by sea from Aigues-Mortes or Agde. 24 Once again, these small ports suffered as a result of the expansion of the port of Marseille in the 1830s and 1840s, and 18 19

20 21 22 23 24

Y o u n g , p. 45. E. Labrousse, La crise de Veconomiefrangaise a la fin de Vancien regime et au debut de la Revolution,

p p . xii—lii. Chobaut, p. 361. Chobaut; Vidalenc, 'Vie economique', p. 196; Leon, pp. 324-5. Leon, pp. 325-8; AN F124476a, prefect's report on 1836 fair. Rivoire, Statistique, 1, 291-5. ibid., 1, 305; A D Gard 6 M 115, reports o f the sub-prefects o n the e c o n o m i c c o n d i t i o n s in their arrondissements, N o v e m b e r 1835.

8

Catholic royalism in the Gard

their commerce was gradually reduced to fish and coastal trade with the east coast of Spain. Although the Gard's economic base remained predominantly agricultural, the department inherited both a considerable textile industry which, like the foire de Beaucaire, failed to recover after the Revolution, and considerable coal deposits which enabled it to participate to some extent in France's industrial growth in the nineteenth century. Lower Languedoc had been an established textile centre since the seventeenth century. Wool and silk were the principal cloths manufactured, and the latter was particularly concentrated in the dioceses of Nimes, Uzes and Ales. The manufacture of silk cloth involved substantial proportions of the rural and urban populations in its various stages: cultivating the mulberry trees; hatching and rearing the silkworms; steaming the cocoons and throwing the strands; spinning, weaving and dyeing. In town and country, entire families might be employed in the different aspects of the process, although in the countryside weaving was more likely to be a part-time occupation supplementing farming. The manufacture of silk reached its zenith in the eighteenth century. The value of the silk cloth manufactured tripled in the first half of the century: the number of looms working in Nimes rose from under 500 in 1749 to more than 2000 in 1754, and the city's weavers were producing more than 100 kinds of cloth.25 Besides pure silks, stockings using lower-grade silk and cotton, and known as bonneterie, were manufactured widely in the eighteenth century.26 The success of the textile industry, and particularly of silk, in this period led to tensions between the two major categories of producers, the marchands faisant fabriquer and the marchandsfabricants or maitres-ouvriers travaillant pour leur compte. As the names imply,

the former were entrepreneurs who bought the raw materials, took orders (or speculated on future demand) and had the orders made up by wage labour, while the latter were artisans who bought their own material, made up their pieces at home and then sold to merchants or clients. Each category was governed in principle by its own reglement, but in fact the marchands

faisant fabriquer were much freer than were the marchands-fabricants who were

bound by an elaborate guild system and fixed tariffs. The marchands faisant fabriquer were capitalists who sought to buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest, a principle which they applied to wages as much as to materials. Thus, they increasingly put out their work to the rural weavers who were free from tariff controls and generally undercut the prevailing guild rates. Gradually the determined entrepreneurs extended their influence, buying and selling at times and in quantities which required capital not available to 25 26

Expilly, iv, 51-4; Reboul, pp. 27-8; Rivoire, Statistique, 11, 1-70; P. L. Baragnon, Abrege de Vhistoire de Nismes de Menard continue jusqu'a nos jours, HI, 3 3 4 - 5 . Reboul, p. 37; Rivoire, Statistique, 11, 14-16; Bourderon, p. 156.

The department of the Gard

9

the artisans, and encouraging the growth in Nimes of an immigrant working class which also operated outside the guild system. The very one-sided competition between entrepreneur and artisan was to seduce many artisans into the counter-revolutionary camp when they saw their oppressors assume power in 1789.27 Competition between the two types of manufacturer was intensified in the deteriorating economic climate of the 1780s. Even before the general depression affected the region, a Spanish prohibition in 1778 considerably reduced the market for silk and cotton goods, and in the two years which preceded the Revolution, the number of looms working in Nimes fell by two thirds. 28 The decline was intensified by the Revolutionary upheaval, and in 1799 the surveyor of the department of the Gard wrote: Nimes etait l'entrepot principal des soies qui se fabriquaient dans les divers cantons; elles s'y consommaient en partie pour les divers usages des fabriques de tout genre qui y etaient etablies; mais, ce commerce etant suspendu depuis plusieurs annees, les habitans des montagnes ont beaucoup neglige la culture des muriers, et ceux de la plaine les ont presque tous arraches parce que la soie n'a pas le prix qu'elle devrait avoir.29 In 1811, towards the end of a slump which had nullified a slight improvement in the silk industry since 1803, the president of the Nimes chamber of commerce calculated that the number of silk spinners had fallen since 1790 from 900 to 200 and that of weavers from 2500 to 900. Stocking knitters had declined from 4000 to 600, and couturieres and brodeuses from 2300 to 300.30 Only the fashion during the Directory and the Empire for handkerchiefs, foulards and other fancy goods made of cotton and silk mixtures, generally known as Madras, had kept roughly 1000 looms working. 31 The return of peace to Europe in 1814 did not bring renewed prosperity to the textile industry in the Gard. Instead, after an initial burst of confidence, shattered by the Hundred Days, the history of employment in textiles was one of oscillation between peaks and troughs, but with the latter dominating. After recovery from the Hundred Days came the 1817-18 slump. By the summer of 1822, 16 000 people were employed in Nimes, but a year later the number had fallen below 7000. The boom of 1824, when nearly 27 000 were employed, was followed by a sharp decline which left only 5000 employed at 27

28 29 30 31

C. Durand, Marseille, Nimes et ses environs en 1815 par un temoin oculaire, 11, 47-8; C. Pouthas, Une famille de bourgeoisie francaise de Louis XVI a Napoleon, etude sur la Revolution a Nimes, pp. 70-1; G. Lewis, The Second Vendee. The continuity of counter-revolution in the department of the Gard, 1789—1815, pp. 4—9; J. N. Hood, 'Patterns of popular protest in the French Revolution: the conceptual contribution of the Gar d\ Journal of Mod. Hist., 48 (1976), 265-8. Reboul, p. 37; Rivoire, Statistique, 11, 14—16; Bourderon, p. 156. Grangent, p. 13. AD Gard 6M 15, Nimes chamber of commerce, June 1811. Reboul, pp. 40-1.

io

Catholic royalism in the Gard

the end of 1828. The political upheavals of 1830 in France aggravated the crisis already provoked by the 1827-9 slump and the dislocation of trade in the eastern Mediterranean, and after a brief and fragile revival in 1832 and 1833, the number of people employed in textiles in Nimes declined steadily from 15 000 to some 9000 in the mid 1840s. Moreover, wages were low as manufacturers did all they could to keep their prices down in order to sell their products.32 This depressed state of affairs continued into the 1850s, largely as a result of the 1848 revolution and the unsettling mixture of hope, doubt, fear and agitation which pervaded French political and economic life until well after the coup d'etat of December 1851. Commenting on the economic climate with particular reference to the Gard's traditional textile sector, Hector Rivoire observed in 1853: La ville de Nimes se ressent encore des evenements qui ont profondement emu le commerce et arrete le mouvement industriel . . . Pour que la ville de Nimes soit a present une des plusflorissantescites industrielles de la France, que lui a-t-il manque? Le genie de la fabrication, les bras, les capitaux Non! - Elle possede ces elements de prosperite, et elle sait en tirer un parti avantageux dans les temps de calme et de stabilite. C'est vers cette situation que tendent tous ses voeux.33 In fact, that was not all that Nimes required to become a major industrial city, particularly as far as textiles were concerned. The city's most important drawback was an acute shortage of water, as Rivoire had noted in 1842 and repeated in 1853,34 This severely hampered the industry's capacity to keep up with the new dyeing and printing techniques developed in Switzerland, and employed in the 1830s and 1840s in other textile towns like Lyon, Mulhouse, Rouen and Paris. Nimes, moreover, aimed at the lower end of the market, producing a range of fancy goods, or nouveautes: handkerchiefs, foulards and shawls of a cotton and silk mixture. In good years, these sold well at home and abroad, but they were vulnerable to the elasticity of popular demand and to protectionist measures introduced by governments to support their own textile industries. While Krefeld and Manchester could offer no alternatives to the first-class silks of Lyon, they most certainly could provide cheap substitutes for the goods on which the Nimois concentrated. The Nimes conseil des prud'hommes declared in 1843: 'Les produits manufactures ne se sont vendus que difficilement, a vils prix. Ce facheux etat des choses ne s'est pas seulement du a la capricieuse mobilite des modes en France, mais aussi aux 32

33 34

AD Gard 6M 115, mayor of Nimes to prefect, 28 November 1835; AN F124476b, reports of conseil des prud'hommes, 1841, 1843; AN F124476c, idem, 1845; Reboul, pp. 46-56 and table facing p. 120. H. Rivoire, 'Notice sur l'industrie de la ville de Nismes, 1853', Memoires de VAcademie du Gard (1852-3), 296-7. Rivoire, Statistique, 11, 24-5; and 'Notice', p. 281.

The department of the Gard

11

droits exageres dont nos produits sont frappes par les tarifs de douanes etrangeres, leur prohibition absolue sur certains marches.'35 The decline of the textile industry was reflected most clearly by the dispersal of the once-profitable stocking manufacture to the villages and hamlets, where it was no longer an industrial but a rural occupation, and by the purchase of only one third of the department's raw silk by local weavers and merchants in 1835. In 1844, only 4 bleaching shops and 7 printing shops were operating, and in 1853, after the ravages of five years political unrest, only 2000 looms were working in Nimes itself36 In marked contrast to the decline of textiles, the production of coal and iron expanded considerably in the nineteenth century, particularly in the 1840s, when the railways went into use in the Gard. Coal had been mined in the region for centuries, essentially for local use.37 In the eighteenth century, however, noblemen anxious to increase their incomes attempted to mine the coal on a commercial basis. Thus, the chevalier de Solages exploited coal seams on his lands at Carmaux, near Albi; and the Conti, Castries, de Bernis and d'Antraigues mined in the comte of Ales and in the Vivarais. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, entrepreneurs from other parts of France sought mining concessions in the region. The most notable of these was Tpubeuf, a Norman, who acquired the right to prospect and mine the considerable area between Viviers and Pont-Saint-Esprit on the Rhone, Aubenas, Anduze, Ales and Uzes. However, Tubeuf s ambitions brought him into conflict with the local gentry - the de Castries at La Grand' Combe and the comte de Provence at Portes, both keen to retain their privileged position in the area - and with the rural population who resented his encroachment on agricultural land and his efforts to prevent them taking the coal which they required and to which they claimed an historic right. In 1787, Tubeuf s concession was considerably reduced, but he still worked Rochebelle, one of the richest veins in the Ales coalfield. Under the Revolution, the Gard's mines were nationalised, but in 1810 they were offered to their previous owners and to any other interested purchasers.38 Tubeuf s heir claimed Rochebelle, but the other rich field, La Grand' Combe, was divided among several entrepreneurs of whom the most important were de Castries, Serre, Mejean and the partners Puech and Goirand.39 Between 1815 and 1837, the smaller concessions were bought out until three giant companies controlled mining in the area: La Societe civile de 35 36 37

38 39

AN F124476b, report of 1 March 1843. Reboul, p. 29; Rivoire, Statistique, 11, 162; and 'Notice', pp. 285-7. G. Galy, 'Sexploitation des houilleres du Languedoc au dix-huitieme siecle', Annales du Midi, 81 (1969), 164-95; Federation historique du Languedoc mediterranean et du Roussillon, Mines et mineurs en Languedoc-Roussillon et regions voisines de Vantiquite a nos jours. F. R o u v i e r e , Ly exploitation des mines nationales du Gard, iyg2—i8io. A D Gard 25J 18, Notice historique sur les mines de Rochebelle.

12

Catholic royalism in the Gard

La Grand' Combe, La Societe des Forges et Fonderies d'Alais and La Societe Deveau at Robiac. Shortly after its foundation in 1833, the Societe civile de La Grand' Combe went into partnership with the Talabot brothers and won the concession to build a railway from Ales to Beaucaire. By 1838, the line linked the mines of La Grand' Combe to the port on the Rhone. When the Forges et Fonderies d'Alais came into being in 1830, its assets included a glassworks and an iron forge. Nearly all the coal extracted by this consortium was used to fuel these two adjuncts, and by the 1840s the forges of Ales were producing 6 million francs' worth of iron a year. The complementary interests of the two companies enabled them to collaborate rather than compete. The railway from Le Grand' Combe to Beaucaire was built with a contribution of 800 metric tons of cast iron and 3000 metric tons of rail made by the Forges et Fonderies, in return for which the railway transported ore and finished goods from the forges at special rates.40 In 1836, the Societe civile de la Grand' Combe was obliged to issue shares to the public in order to finance the extension of the railway from Ales to the mines. The company issued 2200 shares at 500 francs, but the capital raised was not sufficient to meet the costs incurred, partly because of poor management. The directors' and shareholders' reaction to the crisis typified the economic and moral outlook of the Orleanist elite. Odillon Barrot and Marshall Soult, major shareholders in the company, arranged a bridging loan of six million at 4 per cent from the government. The company undertook to provide the government with a supply of coal for fourteen years at a discount of 20 per cent.41 Mining and metallurgy expanded steadily from the 1840s with the slump in the late 1840s marking a brief but painful interlude in a trend which placed the Gard among the top coal-mining and iron-producing regions of France in the early years of the Third Republic. Already in the mid 1840s there were more than 3000 workers employed in these industries, which had a fixed capital of over six thousand million francs and were producing 400000 metric tons of coal and iron.42 It is difficult to generalise about the Gard's economy in the period with which this study is concerned. Diversity remained the rule even though it is possible to detect the beginning of a gradual shift away from the traditional predominance of textiles. The vulnerability of the urban weavers had 40

41 42

ibid.; E. Abric, 'Note statistique sur le bassin houiller d'Alais et les concessions de la compagnie de la Grand' Combe', Memoires de VAcademie du Gard (1833-4), 123-53; Rivoire, Statistique, 11, 175-95; AD Gard 6M 130, sub-prefect of Ales to prefect, 1837; AN CC371 dossier 478; A. Pieyre, Histoire de la ville de Nimes, 1, 35-6, 49-50, 79-80; B. Gille, Recherch.es sur la formation de la grande entreprise capitaliste, 1815-48, pp. 101-5; and Histoire de la Maison Rothschild, 1, 267. AN CC377 dossier 1026; Gille, Maison Rothschild, 1, 382-3. Rivoire, Statistique, 11, 179; R. Price, The economic modernization of France, 1730-1880, pp. 121, 124. National coal production was about 4V2 million tonnes in 1845.

The department of the Gard

13

become only too obvious in the years after 1814, and, little by little, the manufacture of textiles declined in Nimes as merchants farmed out work to the rural population or to those small towns like Anduze where the water supply was suitable for the production of items which could at least keep pace with changing fashions. The dream that Nimes might once again become a major centre of textile manufacture was short-lived. Plans to pipe the required water supply to the city by means of a new Pont du Gard proved to be too complicated and costly in the end. At the same time, modern industries were emerging which would subsequently assume a great importance in the Gard's economy: coal and iron, the railway and gas and chemicals. But until the advent of the Second Empire these industries which were creating a modern industrial work-force remained without the encouragement to expand which only an atmosphere of widespread optimism and a general growth in demand could provide. Evidence of that optimism in the second half of the nineteenth century may be seen in the municipal architecture of Nimes: the splendid raised railway station which replaced the embarcadere, and the imposing Avenue Feucheres which linked the Esplanade and the railway, and on which the new prefecture was built in the 1850s. The Gard was still essentially an agricultural department in which the persistence of poly culture went some way to shielding the population from the worse effects of the major crises which punctuated the first half of the nineteenth century. A cereal-importing department, the Gard was accustomed to higher than average grain prices at the best of times,43 and most peasants grew alternative foodstuffs - chestnuts or pulses usually - on which they could fall back in hard times.44 Moreover, even though the local silk industry was in decline, other centres of silk weaving increased their demand for raw silk, and the Gard's peasants could ensure at least a modest income from cultivating the mulberry tree, rearing the silkworms and growing garance for dyeing purposes. These outlets combined with the relatively small coastal plain in the department to retard the trend towards large-scale wine production already evident in the neighbouring Herault.45 Indeed, the production of wine in relatively limited quantities for sale on the local market enabled many peasants to survive the 1816-17 crisis quite well because of the high prices it commanded.46 Besides attending to their agricultural interests, many peasants were able to supplement their income by taking work from the merchants who dominated the local textile industry. It would, however, 43 44 45

46

See E. Labrousse, R. Romano and F. Dreyfus, he prix dufroment en France de 1726 a 1913. V i d a l e n c , Peuple des campagnes, p p . 231—9. ibid., p. 237; L. Loubere, 'The emergence of the extreme left in Lower Languedoc, 1848—51: social and economic factors in polities', Am. Hist. Rev. 73 (1968), 1020; F. Braudel and E . L a b r o u s s e (eds.), Histoire economique et sociale de la France, 111/2, 6 8 4 . AN F79O5i, prefect to minister of interior, 22 October 1817.

14 Catholic royalism in the Gard be inaccurate to suggest that the rural population experienced no hardship. As in other parts of France, the gardes des eaux et forets were kept busy protecting game and woodland,47 and in times of crisis rural brigandage was rife.48 Undoubtedly the urban popular classes fared worse than the rural population. Higher food prices invariably coincided with unemployment or low wages, and many families depended on charity and poor-relief for their survival in the slumps of 1815-20, 1825-31, 183 5-9 and 1846-9.49 Also scores of small firms collapsed: 44 between 1817 and 1820, 49 between 1826 and 1830, 29 in the period 1847 to 1848.50 For most of the period the working classes, particularly those in the traditional manufactures, were resigned to their precarious circumstances and remained tranquil in times of hardship. In 1818, the prefect, who had been prepared for agitation, wrote with relief: 'La stagnation du travail rend la classe ouvriere on ne peut plus miserable, et non seulement il n'y a aucun desordre, mais on n'entend meme pas de murmures.'51 The 1831 Lyon weavers' revolt had no ramifications in Nimes in spite of the regular movement of labour between the two centres of silk manufacture, and in 1834, when the canuts lyonnais rose for the second time, the Nimes weavers were content to make forays into the countryside to smash the looms of the rural weavers who were undercutting them.52 Later, in 1836 and 1837, weavers returning from Lyon did bring with them 'des idees de coalitions ouvrieres', but nothing resulted except odd groups of five and six men loitering in the streets, surreptitiously putting up inflammatory posters obtained from the Lyon republicans.53 Yet the remarkable docility of the Nimes (and Ales) working classes was as much a cause of concern to the authorities as was the militancy of those classes in other departments. It was a product less of an instinctive patience and resignation than of the bond which linked the working classes to an ambitious social elite which had the power or the promise of patronage when in office, and which otherwise retained the obedience of the impoverished classes by hand-outs. By this means, the ultra-royalists exploited the depressed economy of the department to maintain at their disposal a private army 47

See AD Gard 6M 77-102, police locale, Second Restoration; AN F79477, menus delits, 1824-30. A D Gard 6 M 12, prefect t o minister o f interior 26 January, 12, 16 February 1817; A N F 7 9O5i, prefect t o minister o f interior, 30 January 1818. 49 See, among others, reports to the minister of the interior: AN F n 726, 8 November 1816; F79O5i, 6 November 1817; F79O5O, 30 March 1819; F79658, 3 April 1820; F76769, 16 October 1828; AD Gard 6M 114, 7 November 1834; 6M 117, 14 December 1836; and F124476b, report o f the N i m e s conseil des prud'hommes, 20 July 1841. 50 A D Gard 1 0 U 6, tribunal de commerce, N i m e s . 51 A N F 7 9O5i, prefect t o minister o f interior, 2 January 1818. 52 A D Gard 6 M 114, prefect to minister o f interior, 20 October 1834. 53 A D Gard 6 M 117, prefect t o minister o f interior, 3 January, 15 N o v e m b e r 1836.

48

The department of the Gard

15

which could be summoned on to the streets at short notice, as the events of 1814, 1815 in particular, and 1830 demonstrated. The population of the Gard increased by about one third between 1800 and 1851, from some 304000 (it had decreased since 1790) to 390000, allowing for the unreliability of the estimates. The rate of growth was fairly constant: the population rose to 315000 in 1806 (the 1790 level); 334000 in 1821; 357 000 in 1831; 376 000 in 1841.54 The most populous part of the department was the arrondissement of Nimes, covering the south east. It contained about 35 per cent of the population, with the cantons of Beaucaire, Aramon, Vauvert and Sommieres as well as the three cantons of the city of Nimes. In 1841, the total population of this arrondissement was estimated at 135 000. The arrondissement of Ales had some 88 000 inhabitants, about 23 per cent of the Gard's population. The majority of these lived in the cantons of Ales (20 000), Genolhac (11 000) and Saint-Ambroix (15 000) where the mines and forges were located. The arrondissement of Uzes likewise contained about 23 per cent of the department's population (87 000 inhabitants). Most of these lived in the cantons along the Rhone - Bagnols-sur-Ceze (16000), Pont-Saint-Esprit (15 000) and Roquemaure (11 000) - and in the canton of Uzes (15 000). The least populous part of the Gard was the arrondissement of Le Vigan with 65 000 people in 1841 (17 per cent of the total population).55 Thus, the majority of the Gard's population lived in the eastern half of the department, near Nimes, the Rhone and the fertile plain, as one might expect. The two arrondissements of Nimes and Uzes accounted for almost 60 per cent of the population, and 70 per cent of the Gard's inhabitants lived east of a line from the town of Ales to Aigues-Mortes. But for the purposes of this study, the most important characteristic of the Gard's population in the first half of the nineteenth century was the distinction between Catholic and Protestant, and the size and location of each denomination. The Protestants of the Gard formed the largest Protestant community in France - roughly one third of the entire Protestant population of the country.56 They also formed one third of the Gard's population, numbering some 114 000 in 1820 and 128000 in 1841.57 Within the department, the Protestants were most numerous west of a line from Ales to Aigues-Mortes. In 1851, they accounted for 40 per cent of the arrondissement of Le Vigan, 37 per cent of the arrondissement of Ales (in which they were mainly in the western part), 30 per cent of the arrondissement of Nimes (again, in the western part of the arrondissement), and only some 12 per cent of the arrondissement of Uzes. Even in the city of Nimes, where they formed roughly 37 per cent of the population, Protestants lived mainly on the north 54 56 57

R i v o i r e , Statistique, I, 3 0 7 - 1 3 . 55fo[&^^ 3O9> D . R o b e r t , Les eglises reformees en France, 1800-1830, ibid., p. 528; Rivoire, Statistique, 1, 397.

p . 148.

16 Catholic royalism in the Gard western and western side of the town.58 Within this broad scheme there were certain bastions of Protestantism. To the south west of Nimes, the Vaunage, comprising the cantons of Sommieres and Vauvert, was called 'le petit Canaan' because of its fertility by the Protestants who made up almost 70 per cent of its population. To the north of Nimes, the valley of the Gard river, known as the Gardonenque, was primarily a Protestant stronghold embracing the cantons of Vezenobres (73 per cent Protestant), Ledignan (78 per cent) and Saint-Chaptes (51 per cent). The roads leading north west from Nimes passed through the very heartland of southern Protestantism. In the cantons of Saint-Mamert, Sauve, Saint-Hippolyte-du-Fort, Lasalle, Anduze, SaintJean-du-Gard and Saint-Andre-de-Valborgne more than 65 per cent of the population was Protestant. In short, 13 of the Gard's 38 cantons had a Protestant majority.59 Calvinism had flourished in the late sixteenth century in the Midi - a land already given to heresy in the form of Albigensianism. For a while, Calvinism had become the orthodoxy of the region, pervading all social classes. After the Wars of Religion, the Edict of Nantes guaranteed the status of Protestantism in Languedoc, recognising its civil and military authority. Towns like Montauban, Uzes and Nimes were governed according to the principles of the Reformed Church, and many of the noble families - the Crussol d'Uzes and the de Calviere, for example - formed the Calvinist elite. Under Richelieu, the rights and privileges of the Protestants were eroded quite systematically as the absolutist doctrines he professed could not tolerate the existence of a state within the state. The process culminated in the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV in 1685 and the active persecution of Protestants in France. The Protestants' response to persecution was far from uniform.60 The remaining Calvinist nobility turned, in the main, to Catholicism, in order to preserve their wealth and social rank. Indeed, many had not waited until the Revocation, but had already sensed where their interests lay during the regency of Marie de Medicis and the reign of Louis XIII. Very few were prepared to endure the galleys and prison for their faith as did the marquis de Saigas. Moreover, legal prohibitions which excluded Protestants from public offices, the professions and the universities encouraged many Protestant bourgeois to convert in order to retain their positions. Similar pressures applied to those Protestant businessmen and artisans whose living depended on their ability to work within the framework of Catholic society. In many 58 59 60

A. Encreve, 'Les Protestants du Midi en decembre 1851' in Centre d'histoire contemporaine du Languedoc mediterranean et du Roussillon, Droite etgauche de ij8g a nos jours, pp. 167—8. ibid. D. Ligou, 'L'Eglise reformee du desert, fait economique et social', Rev. d'Hist. icon, et soc. (1954), 146-67.

The department of the Gard

17

cases, these nouveaux convertis, as the Catholics called them, made no more than an outward conversion, continuing to have their children baptised and even married secretly by a fugitive pastor. 61 Besides, the intensity of persecution varied from place to place and with different provincial intendants. Often, nothing more than a formal observance of Catholic requirements was demanded - the Nimes Protestants, for example, had their own pastors and held their services discreetly throughout the entire period of persecution. One small but powerful section of the Protestant elite appears to have enjoyed complete immunity from the consequences of the Revocation because of its economic power. A recent study of the eighteenth-century bankers and financiers suggests that many of the richest Protestants who remained in Languedoc instead of seeking asylum in Switzerland or other Protestant countries continued to prosper: La revocation . . . n'a eu semble-t-il, d'autres consequences que de provoquer un deplacement d'hommes et de capitaux vers la peripherie du royaume, vers la grand ville de tolerance, Paris, et vers les capitales protestantes, Geneve, Londres, Amsterdam. Cette emigration, loin de desservir la finance languedocienne, reussit au contraire, a etendre son credit en elargissant, en multipliant le nombre de ses correspondants, en ouvrant ainsi une province peu familiarisee encore avec les mecanismes de change, aux techniques deja couramment utilisees sur les grandes places d'affaires de l'Europe.62 This explains to a great extent why Protestants were among the most important capitalist entrepreneurs in Lower Languedoc's textile industry at the end of the eighteenth century. The Gilly and Mazade families offer very good examples of this Protestant elite which was able to escape persecution during the eighteenth century. The Gilly family came originally from Calvisson in the Vaunage, but they established themselves in Montpellier as wool merchants. After 1685, two of Pierre Gilly's sons removed to Geneva, where one married the daughter of another Montpellier merchant and considerably expanded the two families' textile interests in Switzerland. The other son, Elysee, went on to Prussia, where he became royal chamberlain. Other Gilly children married into the Hugla family, originally from Alzon, near Le Vigan and Lodeve, and established trade with the West Indies and Cadiz, besides founding the Hugla Commercial Bank. The Mazade, again wealthy textile merchants from Montpellier, were not in the least inconvenienced by the legal prohibitions on Protestants. The family held the venal offices of receveurs des tailles in Toulouse and Lunel as well as being conseillers a la courdes comptes of Montpel61

D. Ligou and P. Joutard in P. Wolff (ed.), Histoire des Protestants en France, pp. 194-5, 218-20,

62

G. C h a u s s i n a n d - N o g a r e t , Les financiers du Languedoc au dix-huitieme

250-1.

siecle, p . 35.

18

Catholic royalism in the Gard

Her. Between 1725 and 1789, the immediate family included twelve/eranm-

generaux, twelve receveurs des finances and three tresoriers-generaux.63

Such entrepreneurs, whose power derived primarily from capitalist wealth were drawn instinctively and logically to the promise of greater economic and political power which the French Revolution offered, and in towns like Nimes, Montpellier and Montauban, they and their proteges were already knocking loudly and aggressively on the doors of the landed and legal elites of Languedoc before the Revolution began. Their challenge, as well as their determination to destroy the artisanal mode of production in textiles, was to be one of the principal triggers of the violent opposition to the Revolution which broke out in 1790. In stark contrast to those groups who managed to come to terms with official intolerance, there were Protestants who endured dreadful sufferings because of their stubborn refusal to compromise. These were chiefly the rural artisans, peasants and labourers who lived around Calvisson and Vauvert and, especially, in the Cevennes. True fundamentalists, these rude and simple disciples of Calvin were reared on the Bible, which was the unique source, not only of their sense of morality and justice, but also of their literacy. Unlike their Catholic counterparts, nearly all these Calvinist peasants and artisans had a grasp of French as well as of their own patois. The response of these unsophisticated Protestants to the banning of their public worship, and to the vicious military expeditions - the dragonnades - was resistance. Inspired by the Bible, they refused to abjure, went underground, were imprisoned, tortured, sent to the galleys, executed. The language of popular Protestantism became impregnated with emotive words - resister, scratched into the wall of the notorious Tour de Constance at AiguesMortes, and still visible; le desert, the name they gave to their years of persecution and clandestine worship in the mountains; galerien pour lafoi, the greatest accolade of all, and which requires no comment. These phrases and words summarised a collective experience which set the Protestants apart from their Catholic neighbours. Some Protestants, inspired by a wave of prophecy, rose up against their persecutors at the end of the seventeenth century and inaugurated an outbreak of violence justified by the Old Testament principle of an eye for an eye. In the course of this guerre des camisards, Protestant bands descended on Catholic and government strongholds like Le-Pont-de-Montvert, where they massacred the troops and the clergy to the cries of 'tuons la bete' and 'sortons de Babylone'. The savage war embarrassed the Protestants of towns like Nimes and Montpellier, where such extremism was unthinkable and was considered to expose the Protestant community to reprisals. The guerre des 63

ibid., pp. 72-3, 250-8.

The department of the Gard

19

camisards also reinforced the prejudices of many Catholics who concluded that the Protestants would, if given the chance, seek to massacre all the Catholics, as they had already done in Nimes in 1567 in the course of the notorious Michelade or massacre of the feast of St Michael.64 Thus, relations between Catholics and Protestants in Lower Languedoc were characterised essentially by distrust and barely concealed dislike. Far from transforming these relations, the Revolutionary era gave them renewed vitality by assimilating them into a new political and economic struggle which simply gave many people real reasons for fostering a hatred which may in many cases have been traditional or residual. It was precisely because the Revolution produced divisions which emphasised old rivalries and quarrels that Catholic royalism could exist as a powerful force in the Gard for much of the nineteenth century.65 In 1790, Nimes became the chef-lieu of the new department of the Gard. It was an obvious choice, having exercised for decades judicial and administrative functions over the dioceses of Uzes and Ales as well as being an established commercial and industrial centre with the largest population for many miles. Yet Nimes had never been a prestigious judicial or administrative centre. It had always lived reluctantly in the shadow of Montpellier, barely 60 kilometres to the west. Montpellier was the centre of the generalite of Lower Languedoc, stretching from Narbonne to Le Puy, and was the seat of the Estates of Languedoc. In commercial matters, too, Nimes took second place; the cour des aides and the tribunal de commerce were at Montpellier, as was the regional bourse. Nimes possessed an Academie Royale des Sciences et Lettres, but the university was at Montpellier. The administrative functions of Nimes were essentially secondary and local: a senechaussee, centre of a marechaussee and seat of a cour presidiale.

The administrative reorganisation carried out in the period 1789-1814 reduced the subservience of Nimes to Montpellier in administrative and judicial terms. Nimes became the seat of the new department's tribunal de commerce, and it acquired a cour d'assises and a cour d'appel which had jurisdiction over the Gard and the neighbouring departments of the Lozere, Ardeche and Vaucluse. Nevertheless, in spite of its garrison and its important location near the Rhone, Nimes did not become the headquarters of a military region - instead it was placed under the command of Montpellier by the new regime, as it had been under the old. Nevertheless, the chef-lieu of the Gard had honourable origins. Growing from the Roman colony of Nemausus, whose boundaries and principal 64

Ligou, 'Eglise reformee du desert'; Ligou and Joutard in Wolff, Histoire des Protestants, pp.

65

J. N. Hood, 'Protestant-Catholic relations and the roots of the first popular counterrevolutionary movement in France', Journal ofMod. Hist., 43 (1971), 245-75; a n d 'Permanence des conflits traditionnels sous la Revolution: l'exemple du Gard', Rev. d'Hist. mod. et contemp., 24 (1977), 602-40.

243-53; P- Joutard, La legende des camisards: une sensibilite au passe.

20 Catholic royalism in the Gard features determined to a large extent its future growth, Nimes expanded to the east, south and west, forming an inverted triangle between the Tour Magne and the Temple of Diana in the north east, the Porte d'Auguste in the east, and the arena in the south. The Roman colony already reflected the determining characteristics of the location: hills to the north, and a stream, the Agau, which emerged from a spring at the site of the Temple of Diana and which flowed south east through the centre of the colony, just north of the Maison Carree. The arena, with its staggered and multi-storeyed tunnels provided housing and shops from Merovingian times to the nineteenth century.66 After the Albigensian Crusade in the thirteenth century Nimes and its environs became part of the French crown's territories. Already the city was a fast-growing centre of trade and manufacture with the complementary legal and administrative functions which gave rise to a prosperous oligarchy by the later Middle Ages.67 The city's activities are plainly seen in the names of the old, central streets: Rue Regale, seat of the presidiale and senechal; the Rues de l'Audience, des Greffes, de la Prevote, de la Curaterie, de la Tresorerie, du Bat d'Argent; Rues de la Monnaie, d'Oree, de la Lombarderie, de laJuiverie, des Broquiers, des Fourbisseurs, du Marche au Bled. By the seventeenth century, opulent town houses had been built on the new Rues du Chapitre, de Bernis, de l'Estoile, Fresque and de l'Espic, reflecting the continuing prosperity of the city. In the late seventeenth century Nimes became an important garrison town as a result of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. One of Vauban's forts was constructed on a hill at the northern tip of the city in 1687, and lower down, on the edge of the old city itself, a large barracks was built seven years later. The casernes, which still function as a military complex, were capable of housing more than 1000 men and 750 horses.68 The fortress and the casernes provided the royal army in Lower Languedoc with a secure base from which the lines of communication from the sea to the Cevennes could be controlled. Ales, the centre of operations against the camisards, had another of Vauban's forts from which the punitive expeditions were directed. The eighteenth century witnessed considerable expansion in the city of Nimes, chiefly because of the boom in the silk industry. Thus, the population rose from an estimated 18 000 to some 50000 between 1722 and 1788.69 The dramatic increase was largely due to immigration, and in the course of the century six large suburbs or faubourgs grew outside the medieval city's 66

See B a r a g n o n ; Pieyre; L. M e n a r d , Histoire civile, ecclesiastique et litteraire de la ville de Nimes; J.-C. Vincens andj. B. T. Baumes, Topographiedela ville de Nismes et de sa banlieue; A. Michel, Nimes etses rues; L. Teisseyre-Sallmann, 'Urbanisme et societe: l'exemple de Nimes aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siecles', Annales ESC, 35 (1980), 965-86. 67 m 69 Lacave, pp. 59-61. Michel, pp. 79-80. Teisseyre-Sallmann, p. 967.

1 Tour Magne 2 Jardins de la Fontaine 3 Canal and Quai de la Fontaine 4 Pont or Place de la Bouquerie 5 citadel (maison centrale) 6 Saint-Charles 7 Boulevard du Grand et Petit Cours 8 casernes 9 Grand Temple 10 Boulevard des Calquieres 11 Cathedral of St Castor 12 eveche {prefecture from 1801 to 1821) 13 prefecture, 1821 to 1857 14 Hotel de Ville 15 maison d'arret 16 Place de la Couronne 17 Esplanade 18 Porte de France 19 arenes 20 Boulevard Saint-Antoine 21 Boulevard de la Comedie 22 theatre 23 Maison Carree 24 Petit Temple 25 Avenue de l'Embarcadere 26 embarcadere 27 Cattle Market 28 Seminary 29 La Placette 30 Temple of Diana 31 Porte d'Auguste 32 Porte Saint-Antoine 33 Porte de la Magdeleine 34 Cours Neuf 500

Map 3 Nimes in the nineteenth century

22 Catholic royalism in the Gard boundaries. To the north, nestling between the fort and the casernes, was the Faubourg des Precheurs. On the eastern side of the city, along the Boulevard des Calquieres, between the casernes and the arena, two faubourgs grew: the Faubourg de Richelieu, near the Chemin d'Avignon, and the Faubourg de la Couronne, south of the Chemin de Beaucaire. On the western side of the city, between the Porte de France, near the arena, and the site of the Temple of Diana, two more faubourgs sprang up: Saint-Antoine and La Magdeleine. Finally, between the Place or Pont de la Bouquerie, where the waters of the Agau, the stream which rose at the Temple of Diana, passed underground, and the fort, the Faubourg de la Bouquerie was built on the Chemin d'Alais (now d'Ales). Thesefaubourgs were quite unlike the old centre of Nimes. They were built on a grid system in the main, with relatively wide streets which crossed at right angles. Yet they were soon cramped with the artisans, workers and agricultural labourers who thronged into them. They were also very much ghettos, whose position attracted immigrants from particular parts of the region. Thus, the eastern faubourgs were inhabited chiefly by Avignonnais. Beaucairois, Arlesiens and Lyonnais, while those on the western side of tht city attracted Cevenols and Alesiens. During the eighteenth century, these faubourgs constituted Nimes's 'industrial belt', leaving the heart of the city for commercial and administrative affairs, as well as for the residences of the very rich. Besides the construction of housing and services for the immigrant population, the eighteenth century saw the completion of extensive public works, again a reflection of the city's prosperity and confidence. The boulevards which circled the old city and which separated it from the new suburbs, if only by fifteen or twenty metres, were transformed into tree-lined avenues and became the focal points of recreation and social life for the inhabitants of the faubourgs. Along the northern edge, the Grand et Petit Cours stretched from the Pont de la Bouquerie to the casernes; from the casernes to the Esplanade ran the Boulevard des Calquieres, so called because of the tanneries which lined it; a further boulevard ran from the arena to the Pont de la Bouquerie, passing in front of the Porte Saint-Antoine and the Porte de la Magdeleine. At the southern end of the Boulevard des Calquieres, a treelined square, again intended to provide a pleasant contrast with the crowded faubourgs, was built on the edge of the Faubourg de la Couronne and was called, therefore, the Place de la Couronne. A little further on, just beyond the arena, and facing the flat, open countryside south of Nimes, a spacious, raised terrace, called the Esplanade, was constructed. The most spectacular of all the public amenities created during the eighteenth century was undoubtedly the park and gardens laid out around the Temple of Diana, in the north western corner of the city. The royal engineer Mareschal was respon-

The department of the Gard 23 sible for a bold project which took the waters of the Agau and channelled them through a series of pools and then into a formal canal before directing them underground at the Pont de la Bouquerie. The precinct around the pools and the Roman ruins was transformed into a formal garden with promenades, stylised bridges, terraces and fountains. The entrance gave directly onto a new, wide boulevard, the Cours Neuf, which ran south west behind the Faubourgs de la Magdeleine and Saint-Antoine. The embankment along the canal became at the same time a choice residential quarter favoured by wealthy merchants - the Quai de la Fontaine. Thus, there was no shortage of open spaces in the city by the end of the eighteenth century, and these were thronged with people from the different faubourgs on Sundays and summer evenings - the bourgeois preferring the Place de la Couronne and the Jardins de la Fontaine, while the popular classes congregated on the boulevards or the Esplanade, depending very much on the faubourg they inhabited. In the first half of the nineteenth century, there was comparatively little expansion. Population growth was moderate, with an increase of no more than 13 000 between 1800 and 1851,70 and it was accommodated largely by linking up the faubourgs so that they formed a solid mass on the northern, eastern and western edges of the city. In 1800, a new theatre was built opposite the Maison Carree on the Boulevard de la Magdeleine, which, with its lower section, the Boulevard Saint-Antoine, became known as the Boulevard de la Comedie. Between 1809 and 1811, the arena was cleared of its dwellings and market stalls and was returned to its primitive use, entertainment. Courses de taureaux, a favourite regional pastime, were held in it on holidays. Under the restored Bourbons, work on the Jardins de la Fontaine was resumed, and tree-lined promenades were cut into the side of the hill on which the Tour Magne stood, and which was named the Mont Cavalier, after the mayor of Nimes in office at the time of its completion. In the late 1830s and in the 1840s, when the railway came to Nimes, the focus of the city's development moved to the southern edge. Crossing the plain from Montpellier to Beaucaire, the railway passed some 500 metres south of the Esplanade where the station, or embarcadere, was built. Consequently, the space between the two was made into a wide, tree-lined avenue on which hotels and, later, public buildings were built. Indeed, in the 1840s, this was the only edge of Nimes on which lavish private and municipal building could take place; the opulent Quai de la Fontaine, almost immediately met the hills and garrigue which bounded the city on the northern and north western fringes; and the rest of the city was enclosed by the suburbs, making impossible any impressive approach worthy of the age of the railway. In the first 70

Vincens and Baumes, p. 462; J. Waton, Conducteur de Vetranger dans Nimes, dans Aries et dans leurs environs, p. 74.

24

Catholic royalism in the Gard

decade of the Second Empire, the prefecture, which had been installed in 1802 in the episcopal palace near the cathedral, then in 1821 removed to the old College Royal in the Grand'rue, was moved to a large, modern building on the new approach to the city from the station, transforming this part of Nimes into an administrative quarter. Throughout the period which concerns this study, political, economic and social life in Nimes continued to revolve around those areas which were already established in the eighteenth century - the heart of the city, around the cathedral of St Castor, the mairie, the prefecture, all three clustered in a space of some 250 square metres; and the edges of th& faubourgs which faced the old city across the three principal boulevards. Thefaubourgs changed little except to spread gradually and to become more and more crowded. They were a warren of streets lined with houses of one, two or three storeys, usually built around a courtyard through which the waste water of up to ten families flowed into the shallow gutters of the streets. The faubourgs were fetid, stinking of discarded silk cocoons as well as of human and animal excrement, a stench relieved only in winter by the cold blasts of the Mistral.71 In 1818, a journalist described the faubourg adjacent to the Pont de la Bouquerie as 'un veritable cloaque dont l'aspect n'est guere moins repoussant que celui des hommes qui l'habitent'.72 For most strangers Nimes was noteworthy because of its Roman remains, and was frequently visited by the leisured and cosmopolitan tourists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries on their way to Italy, or else it was a town in which they had business - one of those southern towns which defied the understanding of the northerners, where the weather was too hot in summer, the food too oily. Indeed, for most northern Frenchmen, theirfirstjourney and often subsequent ones, too - through the Midi was something of a cultural shock in the nineteenth century. Stendhal, disembarking from the Rhone steamer at Avignon, commented that it was just like arriving in Italy (Merimee said Spain) as the language, dress, behaviour and physical appearance of the people were so unlike those of the French.73 Flaubert, crossing the Midi from west to east in 1840, suggested that Nimes was a 'frontier town', technically in Languedoc, but undeniably Provencal in outlook. In Languedoc, he said, there were no distinctive regional attitudes and characteristics: 'Tout y a passe et y a laisse quelque chose: Romains, Goths, Francs du nord aussi, dans la guerre des Albigeois, Espagnols a leur tour, tous y sont venus et y ont chasse sans doute l'element national et primitif.' In Nimes, however, things were quite different: 'La population y est criarde et a vide; elle ressemble un peu, je crois, a ce que devait etre le bas peuple a 71 73

72 Pouthas, p. 69. La Minerve francaise, in, 9 (October 1818), p. 403. Stendhal, Memoires d'un touriste, 1, 280-2; E. Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen. The modernisation of rural France, 1870—1914, pp. 67—114.

The department of the Gard

25 74

Rome, les affranchis, les barbiers, les souteneurs, tous les valets de Plaute.' As far as the working classes of this industrial city were concerned, opinions differed, and were certainly less colourful than Flaubert's view. The journalist from the Minerve frangaise, a liberal opposition newspaper during the Bourbon Restoration, attempted to summarise opinion in 1818: Que dire du peuple de Nismes? J'ai fait cette question a deux personnes egalement bien placees pour y repondre. 'Ce peuple', m'a dit l'une, 'est laborieux, patient, actif, industrieux. Voyez-le dans les ateliers, dans les manufactures, toujours gai, vif, serviable et spirituel.' 'C'est une horde de brigands', m'a dit l'autre, 'courant au meurtre, au pillage, a l'incendie, dansant autour de l'instrument de mort et insultant sans pitie la victime qu'on immole.' Que dire de ces deux assertions contradictoires? Qu'il y a deux peuples a Nismes?75 Writing in 1840, doctor Villerme described the artisans and workers as sober and industrious people, resigned to the vagaries of a precarious economy. Family life, he observed, was important to them, and they led, in the main, ordered lives, aspiring at most to ownership of a small plot of land just outside the city where they and their families could spend Sundays, relaxing and tending a vine or a kitchen garden. 76 There were certainly differences between the lifestyle of the semi-independent artisans, whose entire family would be involved in spinning and weaving silk on a loom, or maybe two, owned by the family or rented from the entrepreneur who contracted out, and that of the numerous unskilled labourers, water carriers, road sweepers, porters, messengers and agricultural labourers who figure so prominently in the reports of the police correctionnelle for drunkenness and brawling. To the more acute observer, the most profound trait of Nimes society was undoubtedly the polarisation between Catholic and Protestant. In this respect, the city was an intensified microcosm of the opposition which underlined social relations throughout the department of the Gard, particularly where the two communities lived side by side. There was no division of skills or of labour; while the Protestants had been identified most clearly with the rise of capitalist textile manufacturing, they had their Catholic counterparts, and the city's labour force was employed, in normal times, by both Catholics and Protestants, irrespective of the employee's denomination. 77 Admittedly, there was a distinction between the Catholic and Protestant elites in the domains of land ownership and public office, where the former enjoyed a virtual monopoly, so that it can be said that the Protestant elite and the Catholic elite were in conflict over the qualifications for admission to public office and positions of influence before the Revolution - wealth and talent versus landed or professional status. But in general, the rivalry which existed 74 75 76

G . Flaubert, Par les champs et par les greves, p p . 7 3 - 4 . La Minerve frangaise, in, 7 (September 1818), p. 323. L. R . V i l l e r m e , Tableau de Vetat physique et moral des ouvriers employes dans les manufactures de 77 coton, de laine et de soie, pp. 186-90. Hood, 'Patterns', pp. 264-8.

26 Catholic royalism in the Gard between the elites before the Revolution was muted considerably because of the influence of Catholic entrepreneurs who were in a position to mediate between the two communities by virtue of their confessional identity on the one hand, and their economic interests on the other.78 Circumstances changed after 1787, when the Edict of Toleration removed the guarantee of superiority which the Catholic elite had enjoyed for so long, and two years later the institutions of 1789, by favouring the wealthy Protestants, provoked a sharp reaction led by a Cobbanesque class of doomed Catholic office holders, fighting a rearguard action against a clearly identified enemy.79 On their own, the counter-revolutionaries like Francois Froment and CharlesFrancois de Trinquelague could not have harboured dreams of leading massive and sustained resistance to the sudden and dramatic change in the status quo which occurred between the spring of 1789 and the summer of 1790. Yet the Gard became the scene of the first popularly supported assault on the Revolution in June 1790, and witnessed further popular counterrevolutionary agitation in 1791 and 1792. In all of these cases, the attack on the Revolution was infused with violent anti-Protestantism. Popular anti-Protestantism was deep-rooted in the area destined to become the Gard long before the Revolution and it predisposed many Catholics to oppose changes which benefited the Protestants. Popular dislike of the Protestants drew its strength from economic and cultural factors which were inextricably linked by the late eighteenth century.80 Uneducated Catholics could easily associate Protestantism with the increasing capitalist pressures on the traditional manufacturing processes in the area, and this association, which was not entirely without foundation, was reinforced by the Catholics' prejudice that such ambition was only to be expected from a community which had been the source of trouble for centuries. The social structure of the ancien regime also reinforced popular anti-Protestantism. The Catholic Church, which had a vested interest in suppressing heresy, was more than a moral and spiritual leader. It discharged important social functions in the community — charity and patronage - which were of no small consideration to the Catholics of Lower Languedoc. In consequence, the Catholic Church permeated the spiritual and material life of the area, giving the Catholics a social and cultural identity. This identity was reinforced through the numerous lay devotional societies of penitents so that the Catholics' existence could revolve almost entirely around Catholic institutions and organisations, reducing drastically the possibility of and the need for social contacts with the heretics in their midst. 78

79

See M. Sonenscher's study of the economic and political complexities: 'Royalists and patriots: Nimes and its hinterland in the late eighteenth century'. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Warwick University, 1977. A . C o b b a n , Aspects of the French Revolution, p p . 9 0 - 1 1 2 ; and The social interpretation of the French 80 Revolution, p p . 54—67. Hood, 'Patterns'.

The department of the Gard

27

Prejudice, suspicion and officially sponsored intolerance were compounded in Nimes by physical separation. Catholics lived in the northern and eastern faubourgs - the bourgades, comprising the Faubourg de la Bouquerie, the area behind the church of St Charles and the Enclos Rey next to the casernes. In contrast, the Protestant quartiers stretched down the western side of the Boulevard Saint-Antoine and the Boulevard de la Comedie, from the Quai de la Fontaine, the preserve of the wealthy, through the quartiers de la Magdeleine and Saint-Laurent to the very centre of popular Protestantism in the city, La Placette. This fundamental physical segregation endured through the nineteenth century, and it provided the basis for the patterns of aggression which proved to be equally enduring. Nimes was a small city - it is still possible to walk leisurely round the three boulevards which outline the heart of the city in less than an hour - and rumours spread quickly. Within minutes of an allegation, hundreds of Catholics, men, women and children, could be on the Boulevard du Cours, mobilising before proceeding to the Pont de la Bouquerie, the no man's land across which stones, bricks and musket-balls flew when tension was high. Protestant-organised attroupements would assemble on the Boulevard Saint-Antoine or on the Boulevard de la Comedie. The main boulevards were also the scenes of revenge or random attacks on passers-by of the other religion. At the best of times a Protestant using the Boulevard du Cours ran the risk of abuse and a handful of stones: when feelings were high, his presence in such a place would have been suicidal.81 Indeed, it was not unusual that contacts between Catholics and Protestants were limited to strictly formal ones such as commerce or those between employer and employee, or else to the occasional clash in the streets. By the 1820s, self-imposed segregation was so complete that Protestants refused to use the municipal hospital for fear of being poisoned because the Catholics controlled the municipal council.82 Thus, a number of factors combined to preserve the existence of two communities within each of which class antagonisms were submerged because of the apparent need for community solidarity against the pretensions of the other. The events of the French Revolution, far from transforming antagonisms, added fresh fuel and effectively reinforced and accentuated them, encouraging the reduction of every major political issue of the nineteenth century to a crude consideration of its probable effects on each community in terms of gain or loss. Little wonder that one reluctant incumbent of the Nimes prefecture should describe the Gard as ^'administration la plus degoutante du royaume'.83 81 82 83

See, for example, the events following the July Revolution in AN BB 18 i315 dossier A73998. La Minerve frangaise, m, 9 (October 1818), pp. 322-4. AN F lb i 176 dossier 14, Villiers du Terrage to Decazes, 5 February 1820.

CHAPTER TWO

The preparation of a counter-revolution

The political changes of 1789 and the Catholics' abortive endeavour to reverse them gave the Protestant elite control of the new department of the Gard. Subsequently, the changing fortunes of the Revolution led to the emergence of new forms of conflict and new alliances: federalism aligned the successful Protestant elite against the radical tendencies of the Revolution; and the popular movement of the Year II had a socio-economic rather than a confessional complexion. In the long term, however, these were short-lived aberrations from the traditional confrontation in the Gard. 'Normality' returned after Thermidor when counter-revolutionary bands reopened the questions posed by the changes of the period 1789-93.* Later, the rule of Napoleon, by imposing centralised authority and favouring the preeminence of wealth, confirmed the Protestants' claim to govern the department. Yet no regime between 1794 and 1815 succeeded in resolving the fundamental antagonism in the Gard. Rather, the transfer of authority from Directory to Consulate to Empire to Restored Monarchy via the Hundred Days, only served to promote instability and to give renewed encouragement to those who had rejected the Revolution from the beginning, and whose ranks had been swollen by countless victims of France's political and economic dislocation. After the blood-letting and continuous guerrilla warfare which characterised the period 1795-9 in the Midi, Bonaparte brought a measure of order and stability to a region which had experienced chaos since 1790.2 His policy was to conciliate the country's elites and to seek to create a loyalty to himself. Indeed, suspicious of the Jacobin elite, he looked more to the traditional, conservative elements of French society for support. Thus, after April 1802, France was once more open to those emigres who wished to return, an opportunity of which many of the Gard's Catholic notables took advantage.3 1 2

3

Lewis, Second Vendee, pp. 41-79; F. Rouviere, Histoiredela Revolution francaise dans le Gard, in, 259-386; G. Guibal, Le mouvement federaliste en Provence en 1793. Lewis, Second Vendee, pp. 81-115; R. C. Cobb, The police and the people. French popular protest, 1789—1820, pp. 131-71; R. Fuoc, La reaction thermidorienne a Lyon; C. Lucas, 'The problem of the Midi in the French Revolution', Trans. Royal Hist. Soc, 28 (1978), 1-25. A N F 7 3336, Liste des individus prevenus d'emigration ay ant droit aux dispositions du SenatusConsulte en date du 6 floreal, an X. 28

The preparation of a counter-revolution 29 Some, in an attempt to rebuild their wealth, even to enhance it, purchased biens nationaux sold by the caisse d'amortissement established in 1808. Rene de

Bernis paid 1850 francs for 241 hectares near Saint-Gilles; d'ArnandVallabrix bought 12 hectares at Uzes; and the Trinquelague family invested 9000 francs in property along the Gard river at Sainte-Anastasie and Dions, adding the latter to their family name afterwards.4 Catholic notables who were soon to play a leading part in the royalist movement were not slow to accept office from Bonaparte. Charles-Francois de Trinquelague, whose counter-revolutionary pedigree ran back to 1790, became premier avocat-

general at the cour imperiale de Nimes; Chazelles de Chusclan was a conseiller at

the prefecture; and Charles de Surville was adjoint to the mayor of Nimes; Saubert de Larcy was mayor of Le Vigan; d'Arnand-Vallabrix was subprefect of Uzes;5 and Jules de Calviere was mayor of Saint-Gilles where his family had possessed large estates since the Wars of Religion.6 His cousin, Jacques-Alexis de Calviere-Vezenobres, whose family returned to the Gard in 1803, would willingly have sought a commission in the army if his parents had not found such zeal out of place.7 Thus, a considerable part of the Catholic landed and professional elite had re-established itself in the Gard long before the First Restoration, and most of those who returned did so in order to consolidate their property. For them, the major issues to be resolved by the Restoration were compensation for losses incurred during the Revolution and confirmation of their own rights to influence local affairs. These were matters which could only be resolved in a national parliament, and the majority of the Catholic notables accepted the constitutional nature of the First Restoration, seeking little more than to take advantage of its institutions and of their own pressure group, the chevaliers de lafoi, to assert their interests and enhance their status.8 In general, the Protestant notables were the principal beneficiaries of Napoleonic rule. Protected from the threat of Jacobinism, their religious status confirmed by the concordat, these notables enjoyed the pre-eminence they had striven for in 1789, even if the imperial economy failed to live up to their expectations. Thus, Protestants occupied the most prestigious public positions in the department - they appeared as deputies to the corps legislatif and they dominated the Nimes municipal council, the conseil-general and the senior judicial positions.9 The Catholics, less fortunate and envious, conse4

F. Rouviere, L'alienation des biens nationaux dans le Gard, pp. 765—809. Almanack imperial, 1808—12. 6 AN FlbI 245—8, maires etadjoints, 1814—46; E. Le Roy Ladurie, Lespaysans du Languedoc, p. 201. 7 Chateau de Vezenobres (Gard), MS. diaries of Pulcherie-Cecile Guignard de Saint-Priest, marquise de Calviere (hereafter Calviere diaries). 8 Among the Catholic notables who sought compensation were Crussol d'Uzes, Rochemore d'Aigremont, d'Assas, d'Urre, Saubert de Larcy, Forbin des Issarts, Sauvan d'Aramon and Narbonne-Pelet. Rouviere, Alienation. 9 Almanack imperial, 1808-12; AD Gard 6M 40, Liste des personnes les plus marquantes du departe5

30

Catholic royalism in the Gard

quently identified the Empire with the triumph of all they had endeavoured to prevent in 1790: 'Les reformes du Gard, plus qu'ailleurs semble-t-il, ne manquaient pas d'orgueil; plus "en vue" que partout ailleurs, ils se trouvaient aussi plus jalouses, plus detestes parfois (a Nimes notamment, ou ils detenaient les principales fortunes). '10 The resentment felt by so many Catholics at the triumph of their enemies was a potent factor in fuelling extreme royalism in 1814 when the Restoration appeared to do nothing to diminish the Protestants' success. The Catholic notables were quick to press their own claims to recognition as soon as Louis XVIII was installed in Paris. Trinquelague sped to the capital to secure considerable advancement in the judiciary,11 Jacques-Alexis de Calviere-Vezenobres obtained a commission in the prestigious regiment of the mousquetaires du roi.12 Others, including Rene de Bernis, Charles de Vogue and Jules de Calviere, looked forward to playing a role in national and local politics befitting large landowners, noblemen and servants of the king who could point to their years in exile, even service in the armee des princes. In pursuing their own interests, the notables overlooked or turned their backs on the frustration and disappointment which pervaded many levels of the Catholic community in the Gard in 1814. The seed of extreme royalism germinated within men who had suffered economic hardship and political persecution under Revolutionary Protestant rule, and whose royalism was determined largely by their desire for revenge. Many, like Froment, Vidal, Boyer and Baron, had lost jobs and relatives as a result of their attempts to prevent the Protestant advance in 1790.13 Others, like Lavondes and Bernavon, were victims of the Empire's economic collapse after 1810.14 Others again, like Vampere, Souchon and the Therme brothers, simply hated Protestants, and had instinctively joined the ranks of the counter-revolution to satisfy their violent temperaments. The collapse of Napoleon and the restoration of a Bourbon king should have been accompanied by humiliation of the Protestants and recognition of the royalists' sacrifices. In the event, these militants were ignored: Froment spent three years unsuccessfully seeking recognition for his part in the counterrevolution, and Lavondes was unable to shake off his creditors by affecting exaggerated royalist sentiments and by threatening them in the name of the 10 11 12 13 14

menu 1811; Arch. Consist. Nimes B53, list of 80 members of the Eglise reformee in setiior administrative posts. Robert, p. 150. AN F79O49, prefect to director-general of police, 28June 1814; AN 124AP 1, Eymard to same, 3 September 1814. Calviere diaries. AD Gard, Fonds legal 341, F. Froment, MS Recueil de divers ecrits relatifs a la Revolution et a la Restauration. Bernavon was a wholesaler in Beaucaire and Lavondes a hides dealer in Nimes. Towards the end of the Empire, both men faced bankruptcy proceedings: AD Gard 10U 6 dossier 17.

The preparation of a counter-revolution

31

15

king. Equally, the ambitions of Souchon remained frustrated. He was denied command of a brigade of gendarmes, the position he sought as a reward for his service in the counter-revolution, and was obliged to remain in the less prestigious position of garde des eaux etforets which he had occupied since 1796.16 Jean Vampere, a poacher by profession, had to content himself with acting as secretary and general factotum to Trinquelague who was far more concerned with his own prospects than with those of Vampere.17 These men constituted the core of the self-styled societe royale which was formed in April 1814. It immediately adopted a hostile attitude to the policies of the restored monarchy, policies aimed at reconciling Revolutionary and royalist France. In practical terms, this meant maintaining in office the Bonapartist prefect, Rolland, and many Protestants. So it was not long before abuse and taunts were hurled at leading Protestant officials by the bitter and frustrated members of the societe royale, in a bid to wreck the possibility of reconciliation.18 The sullen hostility of the societe royale rapidly turned against the Restoration itself. In August 1814, its members refused to join in the official celebration of the feast of St Louis, and instead some thirty penurious lawyers and small businessmen in various stages of bankruptcy held their own 'true blue' celebration in a cafe on the edge of Nimes. There, in the company of well-known thugs and felons, they marked their disaffection from the Restoration by drinking the health of the comte d'Artois, the king's younger brother and advocate since 1789 of counter-revolution based on military action.19 The societaires persisted in their aggressive opposition through the autumn and winter, using all the means at their disposal - threats, disruptive behaviour and petitions designed to frighten the Protestants. The mayor of Nimes described the campaign as a real counter-revolution, one which was using the techniques of the Jacobin Terror to achieve the opposite goal, the reversal of the Revolutionary settlement in the department.20 By the spring of 1815, according to one observer, the Protestants of the Gard were in no doubt of what awaited them if the extreme royalists, or ultra-royalists as they were known, gained power.21 The chances that the vociferous extremists would ever exert influence seemed remote however. They pretended to be working on the instructions of 'les princes', but the investigation of Claude Eymard, an experienced 15

AN F79O49, prefect to Latour-Maubourg, 8 June 1814. AN 124AP 1, Eymard's notes, 1814. " (bid. 18 ibid., Eymard to Beugnot, 6 September 1814. 19 ibid., Etat nominatif des particuliers qui, le 25 aout 1814, jour de la Saint-Louis, ont dine dans la guinguette tenue par le sieur Nicolas Auzias,fixee sous I'esplanade. Report to Beugnot, 30 August 1814. 20 AN FlcHI Gard 13, Daunant to minister of interior, 7 October 1814. 21 J. A. Dulaure, Les tueurs du Midi, p. 28. 16

32 Catholic royalism in the Gard police agent, revealed no evidence to support the claim.22 Certainly, the societe toy ale corresponded with Francois Froment who was in Paris enjoying an honorific yet minor position in the king's establishment, but there is no indication that the Catholic notables like de Calviere, de Rochemore, de Trinquelague, de Bernis or de Surville were as yet involved. It was accepted by the authorities that the ultras' utterances were little more than a broadcast of Froment's dreams, and they amounted to little in the mouths of men like Lavondes, whose reputation as a loudmouth was matched only by that concerning his violent temperament.23 In March 1815, chance gave the ultras the opportunity they had been incapable of creating by their own devices. The episode known as the Hundred Days, when Bonaparte took advantage of the weakness and contradictions of the restored Bourbon government, and marched on Paris to re-establish the Empire, was without doubt the most important factor in forging Catholic royalism as a vital political force in the Gard. Bonaparte's criminal venture divided Frenchmen once again, but more deeply than the Revolution had, because they were now forced to take sides consciously without time for reflection. In the Gard, the coup provided the extreme royalists with all the proof they needed that compromise was a failure. It also brought together the Catholic elite and the Catholic popular and lower middle classes in an alliance which otherwise would have been most improbable. A crucial matter in creating such an alliance was the response of the Protestants to Bonaparte's return. Perhaps not surprisingly in the light of the royalists' provocations since the spring of 1814, the Protestants generally went over to Napoleon once again. Few were prepared to take part in the last-ditch effort to block his advance organised in the Midi by the due d'Angouleme, to whose banner the most aggressive Catholics rallied without hesitation. It was a Protestant general, Gilly, who handed the Gard and the Ardeche over to Bonaparte while the royalist volunteers were attempting to stop him. It was in a Protestant village, Arpaillargues, that returning royalist volunteers were attacked after they had capitulated at La Palud in the Drome. And it was from the Protestant elite that Bonaparte chose his administrators, the Catholics refusing to serve, and becoming the objects of persecution once again.24 A number of notables fled to Spain, where Angouleme established a government in exile using the full powers Louis XVIII had given him in the Midi.25 22 23 24

AN F79O49, Latour-Maubourg to Beugnot, 10 June 1814; AN 124AP 1, Eymard's notes, 1814. AN 124AP 1, Eymard's notes, 1814. F. Daudet, 'Souvenirs d'un vieux royaliste', Rev. du Midi, 3 (1888), 100-3; Lewis, Second Vendee, pp. 173-80; ANF7QO49, prefect to minister of police, 2 May 1815; A N F l b n Gard 4, personnel administratif, Cent-Jours; A D Gard iMi 137, Chartrier de Saigas 71, Etat statistique 25 personnel des ecclesiastiques de la ville de Nismes, May 1815. Calviere diaries.

The preparation of a counter-revolution 33 Exceptional circumstances, therefore, produced an exceptional response, not only for the Gard, but also for the entire Midi. Between April and late June, a handful of southern gentlemen took advantage of their enforced leisure in Spain to analyse the recent past and to devise plans which, they hoped, would secure the future of the Midi - and their own future - on carefully thought-out counter-revolutionary principles. Louis Pons de Villeneuve was appointed general administrator of the Midi by the due d'Angouleme. From a ledger containing his notes and jottings between 1815 and 1818, we can see how he spent his exile in Spain during the Hundred Days.26 Sixty pages of close handwriting are devoted to a study of Montlosier's De la monarchiefrangaise, from which Villeneuve concluded that the monarchy had collapsed in 1789 because of the absence of a strong aristocracy to mediate between king and people. The Revolution had unleashed what Villeneuve called 'les deux demons de l'egalite et de la cupidite', and an effective restoration would be achieved only by compelling France to revert to traditional structures - the provinces, dominated by the local aristocracy. In the past, commented Villeneuve, the provinces 'entrainaient dans leur mouvement tout ce qui leur appartenait. [Les comtes de Flandres, de Toulouse et de Champagne] etaient grands parcequ'ils etaient Tame d'une grande sphere. Mais la resistance de nos jours n'a trouve partout que des individus, nulle part des masses, nul point d'appui, par consequent.' This was a characteristic attack on the social dislocation most conservatives believed the Revolution had brought about, destroying traditional and natural bonds and loyalties and creating in their place an amorphous mass of alienated individuals.27 In contrast to the Revolutionary state, with its emphasis on centralised power, Villeneuve proposed a French nation composed of provincial communities, each with a carefully fostered social hierarchy of which the key element would be the aristocracy. Civil and ecclesiastical jurisdictions would be co-extensive, and the clergy would be the 'moral governors' of society - two concepts which he knowingly or unknowingly adopted from the Revolutionaries and Napoleon. Villeneuve's governmental structures were to be as follows: at the bottom, baronnies, then vicomtes, senechaussees and grandes senechaussees or palatinats. Senechaussees would also be bishoprics, grandes

senechaussees archbishoprics. Villeneuve's bishops would be paid the same salary as a senechal — roughly 60000 francs a year, he suggested.28 Of particular interest are Villeneuve's comments on a biography of that outstanding apologist for the absolute monarchy, Bossuet. Villeneuve had studied with care the Vie de Bossuet by Mgr Beausset, bishop of Ales, and 26 27

28

AD Gard, papers of Louis Pons de Villeneuve (1774-1842). R. Nisbet, 'De Bonald and the concept of the social group', Journal of the History of Ideas, 5 (1944), 315-31Villeneuve papers, MS draft for memoirs, vol. m.

34

Catholic royalism in the Gard

copied the following lines from page 105 of the second volume: 'Les fureurs de la Ligue tenaient autant a des causes politiques qu'a des causes relligieuses [sic], C'etait un violent combat d'ou dependait peut-etre le sort de l'ancienne constitution monarchique de la France. Les institutions politiques de Calvin n'effrayaient pas moins une partie des Francais que ses institutions theologiques.' 29 In the light of the recent history of France, what better justification for mounting an attack on the Revolution and on Protestantism as being essentially anti-monarchist, even anti-French in the sense in which Villeneuve and his associates understood it? Royalism had to be Catholic, and southern royalists, in particular, must always regard the Protestants as disloyal because of the very nature of their beliefs. Villeneuve, then, had identified to his own satisfaction the causes of France's political ills, and had proposed a remedy to prevent them in the future. There remained the question of regaining power in order to apply the remedy. In planning the reconquest of France, Villeneuve had to look no further than Francois Froment. While it is not certain that Froment had direct links with the exiles in Spain, he did write a bitter letter to the comte de Blacas, in exile at Ghent with Louis XVIII, accusing Blacas of criminal neglect in his conduct of the affairs of government during the First Restoration and of irresponsible moderation which only encouraged the enemies of the monarchy to rebel, while disappointing and frustrating the true friends of the king. In his litany of accusations, Froment touched on a number of issues which constituted the blueprint for the Catholic royalist dictatorship in the Midi after June 1815, a dictatorship which was implemented nowhere more successfully than in the Gard: Nierez-vous que depuis l'arrivee de Louis XVIII a Paris et le depart de Buonaparte pour File d'Elbe, la France entiere desirait de voir le ministere s'occuper de l'organisation d'un million de gardes nationales avant de proceder a la reorganisation des troupes de la ligne? Nierez-vous que, le 24 juillet 1814, j'avais propose dans un memoire a Sa Majeste d'organiser, d'affilier, de diriger secretement toutes les societes royalistes du Midi pour surveiller les buonapartistes et pour les combattre avec avantage en cas de necessite?30 These suggestions reveal the counter-revolutionaries' propensity to learn from the Revolution, and to adapt its creations to their own ends - a national guard, for example, or the use of the department for initial organisation because it was such a sensible unit of administration after all was said and done. Froment went on to urge the rejection of the Charter, 'cette edifice sans fondement que les jacobins et le ministere peuvent detruire sans efforts'. Instead, like Villeneuve, he proposed provincial assemblies. Then, in a 29 30

ibid., n o t e s , 1 8 1 5 - 1 8 . F r o m e n t , Seconde lettre a monsieur le comte de Blacas i n Recueil des ecrits.

The preparation of a counter-revolution

35

passage which reads like part of Stendhal's Le rouge et le noir, Froment advocated the creation of hand-picked local militias under the orders of the local gentry, and systematic censorship, not only of the press, but also of the post, so that malcontents could be detected before they had a chance to conspire.31 In effect, these ideas constituted the core of the right's political thought for most of the nineteenth century: strong local government at the expense of central government. This sentiment was eloquently expressed many years later by Jules de Calviere, one of the leading Catholic royalists of the Gard during the Bourbon Restoration: 'Depuis 1814, j'ai combattu mes amis politiques a Paris en soutenant que le restauration de la monarchic devait commencer par la famille, la commune et la province, et que par sa Charte, le roi Louis XVIII avait garde ce qu'il aurait du donner, I'administration locale, et abandonne ce qu'il aurait du garder, le gouvemement.'32 In 1815, however, the southern royalists' preoccupation with decentralisation had a much more radical dimension. They were determined to liberate the Midi without reference to Paris or to the royal will, which they had come to despise. The efforts of the government to unite the country by means of moderation and conciliation had led to wholesale treachery after less than a year. The alternative to conciliation, a thorough purge of the kind advocated by Froment, now appeared not only necessary but even desirable and its victims had designated themselves by rallying to Bonaparte after March 1815. Circumstances, too, gave the southern royalists an unrivalled opportunity to go their own way unhindered. In the panic which surrounded Bonaparte's advance on Paris, the second emigration of the nobles had followed a marked geographic trend. While the government and king had fled north to Ghent, the natural leaders of the southern royalist movement had followed Angouleme to Spain or had crossed into Piedmont. Madrid became the headquarters of these men, and Angouleme, still invested with full powers to organise the administration of the Midi, became a convenient figurehead, enabling the royalists to plan a savage counter-revolution 'au nom du roi'. Finally, after Waterloo, the allied armies occupied only the northern and eastern territory of France, so leaving the entire Midi in the hands of the royalists. The notes, decrees and memoranda of Villeneuve leave no doubt that the southern royalists aimed at establishing in the Midi a provincial administration which would be almost completely independent of Paris, and some writers have seen in their endeavours an attempt to create a royaume du Midi, with Angouleme as its viceroy and Toulouse its capital.33 In the scheme, 31

ibid. AD Gard, Archives de La Tour, Saint-Chaptes, Jules de Calviere to Roger de Larcy, 2 July 1837. 33 J. Loubet, 'Le gouvernement toulousain du due d'Angouleme apres les Cent-Jours', La

32

36 Catholic royalism in the Gard Villeneuve played a central role, and Charles de Remusat, who was the 'official' prefect of the Haute-Garonne, appointed by Louis XVIII in the summer of 1815, described Villeneuve as 'quelque chose comme ministre de l'interieur d'une vice-royaute'.34 As Angouleme's general administrator he had the power of appointments, and chose reliable, local men to establish a royalist administration. In Lower Languedoc, these included the marquis de Montcalm, Rene de Bernis, Charles de Vogue and Jules de Calviere, appointed commissures extraordinaires in the departments of the Herault, Lozere, Ardeche and Gard respectively.35 The reconquest of the southern departments was so successful that Villeneuve pressed a policy of separatism on the due d'Angouleme, whose function seems to have been little more than that of a rubber stamp. Three weeks after the special powers given to the commissaires extraordinaires had been rescinded by Louis XVIII, Villeneuve wrote Angouleme a letter which began: 'Si Ton supposait que le gouvernement de Votre Altesse doit se prolonger indefiniment . . .'. In the letter Villeneuve incorporated extracts from a document he called a Projet d'organisation pour les finances dans le

gouvernement du Midi. The plan was by no means a temporary arrangement. It included a local levy of 5 to 10 per cent on taxes paid, to provide Angouleme's administration with an income of 4000 to 5000 francs a month. 'L'argent', wrote Villeneuve, 'est le nerf non seulement de la guerre, mais de toute chose.' He presented a specimen budget with such items of expenditure as army, police and civil administration. Villeneuve established a newspaper, L'ami du roi, 'le seul [newspaper] officiel pour les actes du gouvernement de Son Altesse royale', to promote the duke's administration in the Midi, and so to give it widespread acceptance as the legitimate government.36 Unfortunately for Villeneuve and his associates, Angouleme finally submitted to the royal will in August, having been summoned by the king to Paris, where reports of his administrators' activities and of their resistance to royal nominees like Remusat had caused considerable alarm. In a draft intended to be published as memoirs, Villeneuve explained his intentions in terms which were widely felt in counter-revolutionary circles at the time: 'Je m'imaginais sincerement que l'epreuve des Cent-Jours avait produit au nord comme au midi une impression terrible, inspire le besoin d'une administration energique et decredite la charte sous laquelle on n'avait rien vu, rien pu, rien fait que de vains discours.'37

34 35 36 37

Revolution frangaise, 64 (1913), 151-61; M. L. de Santi, 'Notes et documents sur les intrigues royalistes dans le Midi de la France de 1792 a 1815', Memoires de VAcademie de Toulouse, n t h series, 4 (1916), 37-H4C. de Remusat, Memoires de ma vie, 1, 213-15. Villeneuve papers, Administration generate du Midi: decree of 3 June, 1815; Calviere diaries. V i l l e n e u v e papers, Administration generate du Midi. ibid., draft for memoirs, vol. m.

The preparation of a counter-revolution

37

In spite of its brief existence - Angouleme annulled all his appointments on 14 August- the gouvernement du M/droffers a striking example of the counterrevolution in action. Although the capital was Toulouse, the Gard was without doubt the counter-revolutionaries' greatest success in terms of establishing a virtually autonomous regime. The reason is clear: in the Gard, political conflict could be reduced to sectarian conflict more successfully than elsewhere, and the counter-revolutionaries, or Catholic royalists, could depend upon support from the Catholic popular classes and peasantry. More than anywhere else in the Midi, the ground had been prepared by the anti-Protestant agitation of the First Restoration and by the Protestant acceptance of Bonaparte in March 1815.38 By means of a carefully conceived plan involving widespread terror and the establishment of an entirely Catholic royalist administration, judiciary and militia between the end of June and mid July, when Angouleme's special powers ceased legally, the department of the Gard became a model of the kind of government Villeneuve had wanted to establish through the entire Midi. Banking on strenuous allied opposition to Napoleon's attempt to regain control of France, the royalists in exile in Madrid had lost no time in reviving the counter-revolutionary networks which had operated on and off in the Midi for twenty-five years.39 Thus, when he landed at the end of June, each commissaire extraordinaire had an armed force at his disposal. Rene de Bernis, commissaire for the Gard and Lozere, had mobilised two battalions, totalling nearly 500 men, at Beaucaire by 5 July, and by the time the volunteers entered Nimes on 17 July, their numbers had swollen to more than 1200, including cavalry.40 The royalist force was sent into the city thirty-six hours before Villeneuve's appointees so that a 'softening up' operation could be carried out without any clear responsibility for violence and destruction being attached to the officials.41 Then a systematic terror campaign was waged against Bonapartists, or, more specifically, Protestants. The mass exodus of the latter from Catholic-dominated towns like Nimes, Uzes and Ales was transformed by the provisional authorities into the myth of a Protestant conspiracy led by the Bonapartist (and Protestant) general Gilly, said to be rallying resistance in the Cevennes. This justified expeditions into Protestant districts 38 39 40

41

ANBB 3 i54, Cavalier to minister of justice, 12 November 1815; ADGard iMi 137, Chartrier de Saigas 71, Daunant to Roggieri (Bonaparte's prefect) 31 May 1815. A D Gard i M i 137, Chartrier d e Saigas 72, R e n e d e Bernis t o minister o f war, 15 July 1815; Villeneuve papers, draft for memoirs, vol. 111. A D Gard i M i 137, Chartrier d e Saigas 72, Armee royale du Gard. Situation au 5 juillet 1813; Saigas 103, Rene de Bernis to minister of war, 19 July 1815; AD Gard 6M 7, reports from rural communes, 26 June to 16 July 1815. AD Gard iMi 137, Chartrier de Saigas 103, Rene de Bernis to minister of war, 19 July 1815; AD Gard 6M 35 dossier 10, proces-verhal of Charles Lefevre; ANF79O49, anon, note, 5 August 1815; Durand, Marseille, Nimes, 11, p. 52; P. J. Lauze de Peret, Causes etprecis des troubles, crimes et desordres dans le departement du Gard et dans d'autres lieux du Midi de la France, p. 207.

38

Catholic royalism in the Gard

by armed irregulars of the Catholic royalist forces who pillaged, extorted money and terrorised the local populations. 42 The same myth, combined with the widespread violence, served to authorise the disarming of the department. But this exercise was carried out in such a way that only the Protestants were relieved of pikes, knives and guns, leaving them utterly at the mercy of the Catholic royalists. 43 Meanwhile, the entire departmental administration was filled with men hand-picked by Villeneuve and his associates in the early days ofJune -Jules de Calviere as prefect, Vidal as commissaire de police for the entire department, de Gabriac, Narbonne-Lara, de Larcy and d'Arnand-Vallabrix as subprefects of Nimes, Ales, Le Vigan and Uzes respectively; 44 these in turn appointed municipal councils and local police officers.45 Where it was not possible to fill a position immediately - as in the case of Cavalier, the procureur-general - intimidation ensured that no resistance to royalist wishes was offered: Cavalier was forced into hiding from mid July to the end of September, thereby bringing the machinery of justice to a standstill and enabling the royalists to fill the prisons with suspects who had no chance of a hearing.46 In October, Cavalier described what had happened in the Gard, observing: Les auteurs des desordres sont dans une faction qui est particuliere, peut-etre, a ce departement a raison de la division de sa population en deux partis, les Protestants et les Catholiques. Les hommes dans cette faction sont royalistes dans ce sens seulement qu'ils ont voulu avec tant d'ardeur que le roi remettrait les choses dans leur ancien etat, du moins en ce qui concerne les cultes et l'admission aux fonctions publiques, qu'ils obtiendraient les places, les grades, les emplois, une domination exclusive, et que la contre-revolution leur fournirait le moyen d'assouvir des haines inveterees et d'exercer leurs vengeances.47 Cavalier was no more than truthful in stating that the royalism of these men was conditional, as their conflict with the king's authority over the question of appointments revealed. In accordance with the royal ordinance of 19 July, terminating the powers of Angouleme's provisional administrators, a list of 42 43

44 45

46

47

AD Gard iMi 137, Chartrier de Saigas 95, report from the Vaunage, 30 August 1815; AD Gard 6M 28, report on the situation in the Protestant cantons, 26 July 1815. A D Gard 6 M 4 2 , Etat general des desarmements effectues dans le departement du Gard, mois de septembre 1815; AG D 3 / n , Colonel de Vassimon to minister of war, 12 October 1815; PRO, Foreign Office 27/130, Colonel Ross to Sir Charles Stuart, 11 February 1816. V i l l e n e u v e papers, Administration generate du Midi: decree o f 3 J u n e 1815. AD Gard iMi 137, Chartrier de Saigas 103, decree of 14 July 1815; AD Gard 6M 45, police a p p o i n t m e n t s , J u l y - A u g u s t 1815; 6 M 6 2 , Tableau des changemens operes dans les places de maire et adjoint, arrondissement de Nismes, 1815. AN BB 3 i54, Cavalier to minister of justice, 23 October 1815; AD Gard 6M 25, register of people detained in the prisons of Nimes, August 1815; 6M 77, correspondence ledger of A n t o i n e Vidal, commissaire-general de police. AN BB 3 i54, Cavalier to minister of justice, 23 October 1815.

The preparation of a counter-revolution

39

official appointments was dispatched to Nimes, and a new prefect arrived in the city on 28 July to take up his post. The marquis Jean-Charles d'ArbaudJouques was proof that Louis XVIII and his advisers had learnt nothing from their bitter experience during the Hundred Days. The son of a parlementaire from Aix who was guillotined during the Revolution, Jouques had emigrated in 1791 and had served in the armee de Condi. In 1799, immediately after 18 Brumaire, he returned to France and began to work his way up the administrative ladder in his native Bouches-du-Rhone, where he became sub-prefect of Aix in 1806. In 1813, he became a member of the Legion of Honour and prefect of the Hautes-Pyrenees. During the First Restoration he was moved to the Charente-Inferieure, from which post he did not resign after Bonaparte regained control of France in March 1815. Apart from that outstanding blemish, Jouques's personal file reveals a man who had been too eager to please the imperial government than could be tolerated by the Catholic royalists of the Gard.48 His arrival in Nimes was, therefore, disconcerting. But it happened at a moment of confusion, after Louis XVIII had revoked Angouleme's authority, but before the latter had formally recognised the king's decision. According to Angouleme, the provisional authorities were still obliged to accept no authority but his own.49 Consequently, Jouques faced the resolute opposition of Angouleme's prefect, Jules de Calviere, of Rene de Bernis and of Vidal. Within days of his arrival, Jouques was summoned to Toulouse by Villeneuve who informed him that his authority was not recognised in the Midi as Angouleme still enjoyed full powers.50 Meanwhile, Villeneuve wrote to Angouleme, then on his way to Paris, to convince him that de Calviere should be maintained in office: 'il etait du pays, sa voix etait connue et cherie. La fievre [in Nimes] s'appaisa: elle aurait probablement coute la vie au marquis d'Arbaud, suspecte aux Nimois.' 51 Vidal, too, had protested to Fouche, minister of police, about the arrival of Jouques. Obviously familiar with the new prefect's compromise during the Hundred Days, the veteran oif the bagarre de Nimes of 1790 explained wryly that the people of Nimes were horrified at the appointment because they saw in it 'le deplacement des administrateurs nommes par le prince, et le retour de ceux qui avaient prete serment de fidelite a Napoleon, qui avaient signe l'acte additionnel'.52 Jouques left Nimes for Toulouse early on 1 August. Villeneuve detained him there for over a week, awaiting instructions from Angouleme, and it was 48 49

50 51 52

A N F l b i 155 dossier 6, d ' A r b a u d - J o u q u e s , renseignements generaux. Villeneuve papers, Administration generate du Midi: minute of a decree signed by Angouleme at Ax (Ariege), 20July 1815; G. de Bertier de Sauvigny, Un type d'ultra royaliste: le comteFerdinand de Bertier et Venigme de la congregation, p p . 1 7 5 - 8 . Villeneuve papers, Administration generate du Midi. ibid., minute of letter to Angouleme, 5 August 1815; MS draft for memoirs, vol. in. AD Gard 6M 29, Vidal to Fouche, 21 August 1815.

40 Catholic royalism in the Gard not until 16 August that Jouques returned to Nimes.53 Although Villeneuve and the royalists of the Gard were finally obliged to accept Jouques's appointment, it is plain that he was compelled to recognise their authority in the department. Until his dismissal in 1817, he served the Catholic royalist cause slavishly, as did the other administrator who had compromised himself during the Hundred Days, d'Arnand-Villabrix, sub-prefect of Uzes.54 Moreover, Jouques's absence for the first half of August enabled the provisional authorities to prepare for the elections to the chamber of deputies. The election of 1815 was the first Restoration election. In 1814, Louis XVIII had maintained the imperial corps legislatif, simply changing its name to the chambre des deputes; there was no question, however, of maintaining the corps legislatif elected during the Hundred Days by a narrow electorate under pressure from the Bonapartist authorities. Consequently, Louis XVIII decided to elect a new parliament as quickly as possible. The decision meant that the election took place in the midst of the White Terror in most of the southern departments. Again, the Gard offers an extreme example of the consequences of the king's decision. The election was to take place in two stages. First, the electors of each arrondissetnent nominated candidates. Then, a departmental electoral college elected the deputies, half of whom had to be chosen from the lists supplied by the colleges d'arrondissement. Because of the exceptional circumstances, prefects were empowered to add ten citizens to each of the colleges d'arrondissement and twenty to the departmental college. De Calviere naturally nominated trusted counter-revolutionaries. 55 To be perfectly sure of the outcome, the Catholic royalists intensified their violence and intimidation at the time of the elections.56 When Jouques arrived in Nimes from Toulouse, the primary assemblies had drawn up their lists, and arrangements had been made for the departmental assembly to meet on 22 August. He had only to oversee the proceedings and endorse the result, tasks he undertook in a spirit intended to reassure the Catholic royalists. His report of the departmental college meeting stressed that *le plus grand calme a regne constamment autour des assemblies electorates', although howling mobs surrounded the building in which the electors met, and sixty Protestants were prevented from attending the sessions.57 It was not surprising that the four deputies elected to represent the Gard were Catholic royalists: two of Angouleme's commissaires extraordinaires, Charles de Vogue and Rene de 53

Villeneuve papers, Administration generate du Midi: minute ofletter to Angouleme, 7 August 1815; AD Gard 6M 29, Vidal to Fouche, 19 August 1815. 54 AN F lc m Gard 13, d'Argout to Decazes, 21 April 1817. 55 A N F l c m Gard 4, Etat nominatif des citoyens adjoints aux colleges electoraux d'arrondissement en execution de Vordonnance du 21 juillet 1815. 56 Lauze d e Peret, Causes, p p . 309, 3 1 5 - 2 0 . 57 ibid., pp. 317-19; AN F*cm Gard 4, elections of 14 and 22 August 1815.

The preparation of a counter-revolution

41

Bernis; Charles-Francois Trinquelague; and Jules de Calviere, who had managed the election so admirably. 58 The conflict between the southern royalists and the Paris government can be seen equally clearly in the appointment of Antoine Vidal as commissairegeneral de police. An associate of Froment since the outbreak of the Revolution, Vidal had lost his job as procureur to the commune of Nimes at the time of the Protestant takeover in 1790, and had been active in most of the counter-revolutionary conspiracies in the south east of France afterwards. In 1815, his task was to direct the White Terror against a population he knew well, and to justify the continuing violence in the department. It was a task he carried out effectively, accounting for arbitrary arrests and irregular punitive expeditions against Protestant villages by referring to the unfortunate breakdown in the judicial machinery and to the myth of a dangerous ProtestantBonapartist conspiracy. 59 At the same time, Vidal lined his pockets with bribes and a share of the looting he alleged his men were unable to prevent. 60 Vidal's post was suppressed by the royal ordinance of 19 July, but by playing off Angouleme's authority against that of the government, by making his work seem indispensable, and by enjoying the complicity of de Calviere, then Jouques, he was able to stay in office until December 1815, when Jouques arranged a golden handshake for him in the guise of arrears of expenses.61 It is impossible to calculate the cost of the White Terror of August 1815 m lives lost or in material damage caused. But a glimpse of its extent is offered in a letter written by the liberal pastor Jacques Olivier-Desmonts at the end of 1815: Toutes nos meilleures maisons ont disparu, et le nombre en augmente tous les jours. Mon consistoire n'est plus compose que de deux anciens et de deux pasteurs. . . . Plus de deux mille personnes ont ete ran^onnees, plus de deux cents tuees, plus de neuf campagnes bailees ou devastees, plus de cent cinquante maisons en ville Tont ete aussi. Plus de trente ou quarante femmes ont ete mises a nue et battuesjusqu'au sang.62 The Catholic royalists denied that they were responsible for such destruction, but the charred ruins of a number of houses owned by wealthy Protestants were still visible three years later. 63 58 AN F lc m Gard 4, elections of 1815. 59 AD Gard 6M 29, Vidal to minister of justice, 29 July and 28 August 1815. 60 AN F79O49, anon, to Fouche, n.d.; ibid., general Lagarde to Decazes, 7 December 1815; AN F79O5O, mons. Burnet to Fouche, n.d. 61 AN F79O49, Jules de Calviere to Fouche, 2 August 1815; ibid., Decazes to d'Arbaud-Jouques, 26 October 1815, and d'Arbaud-Jouques to Decazes, 13 January 1816. 62 Arch. Consist. Nimes B53/24, Olivier-Desmonts to Manoel, 30 December 1815. 63 AN F lc m Gard 13, d'Arbaud-Jouques to Vaublanc, 10 February 1816. In 1818 Jouques published his own account of his term as prefect of the Gard: Troubles et agitations du departement du Gard en 1815. See, too, the impressions of a liberal in La Minerve frangaise, in, 9 (October 1818), pp. 405-6.

42

Catholic royalism in the Gard

The psychological impact of the counter-revolution was likewise profound and enduring. Olivier-Desmonts commented that: Une persecution sourde a fait place a la persecution ouverte et violente. Notre pauvre peuple est accable de misere et de propos menacans. II ne peut ni sortir pour aller travailler ni avoir du pain et du repos qu'en se livrant aux mains de ses ennemis. On a vu plusieurs fois des vingtaines de ces malheureux aller a la messe ou on les rebaptise comme s'ils etaient des Juifs ou des pay ens.64 The response of the Protestants was identical to that of their forefathers at the time of the dragonnades after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and it reflected the Protestants' view that ultimately their political affiliations as individuals were of no account: their religious and cultural identity alone was enough to brand them as disloyal and to put them at risk. This feeling was reinforced by Catholic royalist attitudes to the reopening in November of the Petit Temple, closed since the events of the summer. The scenes which accompanied the opening of the church highlighted yet again the strength of anti-Protestantism among Catholic royalists, and their rejection of any higher authority which countermanded their intentions. In the first place, the Petit Temple was one of two Catholic churches given to the Protestants by the terms of the civil constitution of the clergy in 1790, and confirmed in their possession, first by Napoleon in 1802, then by the 1814 Charter. 65 There had been no attempts to prevent the Protestants using either building during the First Restoration, but it was certainly not the intention of the Catholic royalists to grant freedom of worship in the embittered atmosphere of 1815. The Protestants petitioned the government and Paris authorised them to open the church, instructing the military authorities in the Gard to provide all necessary protection. The military commanders in the region, however, were not appointees of the due d'Angouleme or his commissaires. Instead, they were appointed by the minister for war, and their interest, as professional soldiers, was in discharging their duties effectively. Already, two of their colleagues, Brune and Ramel, had been brutally murdered by self-styled royalists in Avignon and Toulouse. In over-all command of the 9th military division was general de Briche, whose headquarters were in Montpellier; the officer in charge of the Nimes garrison was general Lagarde, who had already incurred the anger of the Catholic royalists by his firm action during rioting in the month of October when he personally arrested Jacques Dupont, otherwise known as Trestaillons, leader of one of the irregular royalist companies called miquelets.66 The planned opening of the 64 65 66

Arch. Consist. Nimes B53/24, Olivier-Desmonts to Manoel, 30 December 1815. Robert, p. 69. AN F79O49, due de Feltre to Decazes, 30, 31 October 1815; PRO Foreign Office 27/130, colonel Ross to Sir Charles Stuart, 21 January 1816; AG D 3 /11, general de Briche to minister of war, 18 October 1815.

The preparation of a counter-revolution

43

Petit Temple, then, represented a challenge to the Catholic royalists from both the Protestants and the 'outside' authorities. A short service was to be held in the Petit Temple on Sunday 12 November. In an attempt to prevent disturbances, Lagarde had ordered out the national guard and regular troops from the garrison. Still a hostile Catholic crowd pressed forward around the temple, abusing and threatening the worshippers, and trying to disrupt the service. Angry, Lagarde intervened personally, driving the crowd back with theflatof his sabre. At that point, a man emerged from the crowd, fired at Lagarde, wounded him, and disappeared back into the crowd, making good his escape.67 Besides underlining the Catholic royalists' contempt for any authority but their own, the incident and its ramifications revealed three important facets of their grip on the department after the White Terror: their control of the national guard; their ability to manipulate the judicial system; and the influence of a clandestine royalist organisation responsible for co-ordinating the royalists' activities in the department. The man who attempted to kill Lagarde was identified as Louis Boissin, a former miquelet, or royalist partisan, and a sergeant serving in the national guard company commanded by one of Antoine Vidal's sons.68 Moreover, the military authorities reported that many of the people demonstrating against the Protestants were the wives and daughters of guardsmen on duty, with a sprinkling of off-duty guardsmen as well. It was observed that the guardsmen on duty around the Petit Temple had been far from energetic in keeping the crowd at bay.69 Immediately, de Briche, Lagarde and Jouques issued a decree intended to bring the national guard to order, and to eliminate from it undesirables like Boissin who had seemingly slipped in unnoticed when the irregular miquelet companies were disbanded in September. By the terms of the new decree, membership of the national guard was open only to men between the ages of 18 and 60 paying at least 20 francs a year in taxes. Servants and men with a criminal record were also to be excluded. The effect of the decree was to reduce the national guard from nearly 2000 men to 1400.70 It may be thought that the measure compromised Jouques in the eyes of the Catholic royalists. In fact, it went some considerable way to resolving a problem of which he and they had been painfully aware for some time. The purge gave the Catholic royalist leaders an unexpected opportunity to rid themselves of the increasingly embarrassing presence of armed bands commanded by the likes of Trestaillons and his counterpart in Uzes, Jean Graffand, alias Quatretaillons. These men had been one of the chief instruments 67 68 69 70

AN BB 3 154, Cavalier to minister of justice, I December 1815. ibid. AG D 3 /i4, de Briche to minister of war, 13 November 1815. ibid., arrete of 17 November 1815.

44 Catholic royalism in the Gard of the White Terror, ranging far and wide into Protestant areas, murdering and pillaging in the name of royalism. They and their armed followers had become a law unto themselves. In the pursuit of their satisfying and remunerative way of life, they showed no inclination to obey any authority, including that of the Catholic royalist leaders who had initially done nothing to discourage the terrorists while the latter's ambitions furthered the royalist cause.71 Among the more notorious crimes committed by the irregular miquelet companies, the murder of six Protestant villagers in the main square of Uzes by Quatretaillon's band revealed the uneasy relationship which existed between the miquelets and the organisers of the White Terror. Quatretaillons's men were sent off on a reconnaissance patrol in the Gardonenque by the Catholic royalist authorities in Uzes, d'Arnand-Vallabrix, the subprefect, and Jacques-Alexis de Calviere-Vezenobres, commander of a cavalry regiment of the royalist forces from Beaucaire, who were only too pleased to get the miquelets out of Uzes. In the course of the reconnaissance, the six villagers from Ners were captured, allegedly because they were armed rebels.72 After the Catholic royalist electoral victory in late August, there remained little which could be achieved by violence. Government had been restored to France, and the appointment of men like Lagarde and de Briche indicated that a change of tactics was required. The continuing lawlessness that men like Trestaillons and Quatretaillons represented could only undermine the carefully constructed Catholic royalist edifice in the Gard by drawing unwelcome attention to the department and by discrediting the royalist movement. Indeed, there had already been undesirable publicity from English and French Protestant sources,73 and, while it could be dismissed reasonably convincingly by Jouques as part of a Protestant and Bonapartist conspiracy inspired by Guizot and others 'totalement domines par l'esprit de secte et de philosophisme',74 detailed reports by trusted administrators would be less easy to discredit. Jouques took the first step to curb the activities of the miquelets at the end of August, when the election was successfully over, and when Fouche, still minister of police, took an unexpected and threatening interest in the Uzes incident involving Quatretaillons. Thus Jouques ordered the disbanding of unauthorised companies, following the instructions of the minister of 71

72 73 74

AD Gard 6M 42, Chabaud-Latour to Jules de Calviere, 2 August 1815: men calling themselves national guards broke into his house in search of arms and valuables on the night of 1—2 August; AD Gard 6M 28, Daunay, conseiller a la com royale de Nimes, to Jouques, 29 August 1815: the letter contains details of the ravages committed in the Gardonenque by armed bands from Nimes and Uzes. AD Gard 6M 28, commissaire de police, Uzes, to Vidal, 28 August 1815. A. Wemyss, 'L'Angleterre et la terreur blanche de 1815 dans le Midi de la France', Annales du Midi, 73 (1961), 287-310; Lewis, Second Vendee, pp. 189-90. AN F lc m Gard 13, d'Arbaud-Jouques to Vaublanc, 10 February 1816.

The preparation of a counter-revolution

45

75

police. The measure had little effect. Many miquelets like Louis Boissin simply transferred to less irregular companies, claiming to be national guard units; other bands ignored the ordinance and carried on as before.76 In September, Trestaillons 'arrested' a man whom he accused of overturning a royalist arc de triomphe77 and he was only arrested himself because Lagarde caught him at the head of an armed band of looters during a night of rioting in Nimes in October.78 In the same month, Lavondes, who commanded a band of miquelets calling themselves the premier regiment du Gard, dit d'Angouleme,

ostentatiously refused to obey the article ofjouques's decree which expressly forbade attempts to extort 'contributions' from the local population.79 At the time of the second purge of the national guard, after the incident involving the attack on Lagarde, Trestaillons, Quatretaillons and Lavondes were in custody, the last-named for threatening the Catholic royalist mayor of Nimes, de Vallongues, and the other two arrested by the military and taken to Montpellier to await trial on charges of murder and robbery. With these, the most violent White Terrorists, under lock and key, the November reorganisation was successful in eliminating the uncontrollable irregular elements of the national guard. At the same time, it did not change the political complexion of the force; on the contrary, the removal of the 'wildcat' elements left a more disciplined body of men at the disposal of the royalist leaders. In this respect, the reformed national guard in the department met Francois Froment's requirements for an armed militia of hand-picked royalists under the command of the local gentry. This had been the intention of the provisional authorities while they were still in Madrid and Barcelona, or in hiding in France during the Hundred Days. In June, a decree was issued from Toulouse, headquarters of Angouleme's administration, to each commissaire extraordinaire to recruit 'secretement un corps de gendarmerie royale, compose d'individus parfaitement surs, intelligents et devoues. II n'y admettra d'hommes de la gendarmerie de Buonaparte que ceux qui auraient donne preuves certaines de leur royalisme.'80 There was no shortage of candidates for such a force in the Catholic cantons of the Gard, and Catholic royalist militias came into existence more or less spontaneously as the armee royale massed under the orders of de Bernis and Jules de Calviere at Beaucaire. They were then hastily rebaptised as national guard companies and given a recognisable command structure by the provi75

AN F79657, ordinance of 28 August 1815; F79O49, d'Arbaud-Jouques to Fouche, 28 August 1815. 76 Quatretaillons was not arrested until late September: AD Gard 6M 42, report of the Bagnolssur-Ceze gendarmerie, 28 September 1815. 77 AD Gard 6M 77, police report, 20 September 1815. 78 AG D 3 / n , de Briche to minister of war, 18 October 1815. 79 AN F79657, d'Arbaud-Jouques to Vaublanc, 30 November 1815. 80 Villeneuve papers, MS draft for memoirs, vol. HI, text of a decree signed by Damas-Crux, 19 June 1815.

4-6

Catholic

royalism

in the Gard

81

sional authorities. Thus, by the beginning of August, Charles de Surville was in charge of the battalions in the arrondissement of Nimes; Charles Denoyer du Roure commanded those in the arrondissement of Ales; de Pancay commanded the arrondissement of Uzes; and the marquis d'Assas commanded the national guard in the arrondissement of Le Vigan. In over-all control was Charles de Vogue who was given the title of inspecteur des gardes nationales du Gard. A similar organisation emerged in the neighbouring Lozere, where Rene de Bernis held the position of inspecteur.82 Nine legions were envisaged for the Gard, each one recruiting from roughly forty communes. However, the strength of each legion, even of each company, varied considerably because the commanders refused to form companies where Protestants would either be entitled to a share of the officer ranks or constitute a significant proportion of the guardsmen. Thus, the Protestant town of Aigues-Vives, south of Nimes, with a population of 1637 had only nine national guards, while the Catholic village of Redessan, with 792 inhabitants, had ninety-nine guardsmen.83 In the arrondissement of Le Vigan, many companies remained permanently under strength instead of recruiting Protestants.84 The applications of two Catholics frdrh Le Vigan show the kind of background the Catholic royalists expected of the national guard's officers: Victor Arnal and Arnaud de la Varede both emigrated in 1791, fought with the armee de Conde, in which service Arnal was decorated for bravery; in March 1815, both men followed the due d'Angouleme and took part in the abortive campaign in the Drome, subsequently spending the Hundred Days under surveillance.85 The composition of the national guard on sectarian lines left no doubt at all about its function as a counterrevolutionary militia, and the force was fully supported by senior officers and administrators who described it as a bulwark against the conspiracies of Protestants and Bonapartists. Colonel de Vassimon, a Catholic royalist officer in the department's gendarmerie, observed to the minister for war in the autumn of 1815 that: 'le desarmement des Sevennes [sic] et de toutes les communes protestantes, l'organisation d'une garde nationale catholique, voila les sures garanties du maintien de la tranquillite et du retour de l'ordre'.86 Even after the purges, the Nimes national guard, the largest in the department, remained utterly unrepresentative of the arrondissement's population. 81

82 83 84 85 86

AD Gard 6M 62, sub-prefect of Nimes to d'Arbaud-Jouques, 26 August 1815; sub-prefect of Ales to d'Arbaud-Jouques, 2 September 1815; 6M 28, mayor of Beaucaire to Jules de Calviere, 21 July 1815. AD Gard iMi 137, Chartrier de Saigas 88, correspondence concerning the national guard of the Lozere, 1815-18. AN F79O5i, d'Argout to Decazes, May 1818. AD Gard iE 966, Charles de Vogue to the marquis d'Assas, 17 January 1817. ibid.; AD Gard iMi 137, Chartrier de Saigas 99* de Sainte-Colombe to Rene de Bernis, 28 May 1816. AG D 3 / u , report of 12 October 1815.

The preparation of a counter-revolution

47

Gaspard Fornier d'Albe, a retired Napoleonic general from an eminent Nimes Protestant family, noted: L'ordonnance du roi avait ordonne le desarmement de ceux des habitans n'ayant pas le droit de faire partie de la garde nationale; les balayeurs de rue, les crocheteurs, les domestiques a gages ne pay ant aucune contribution sont restes armes. Les riches proprietaries et negotiants sont desarmes et exclus de la garde, et on leur fait payer 3 francs pour chaque jour de garde qui est monte pour eux.87 Former's observations were confirmed by a secret police investigation in 1817, when an agent concluded that only one fifth of the Nimes national guard could possibly pay the required tax contribution, and that the rest of the guardsmen were 'des hommes a gages, des portefaix, des veterans des troubles civils'.88 The 20 francs tax contribution was circumvented in a number of ways. As Fornier d'Albe indicated, wealthy Protestants were provided with 'substitutes' of a more reliable character, and were then forced to pay for the services of the 'substitute'. Also, the tax assessment of each commune was distorted so that excess taxes paid by undesirable citizens - Protestants, in most cases could be attributed to ineligible but desirable Catholic royalists. Many of the Catholic royalist guardsmen even derived an income from their service in the national guard because the departmental general staff grossly inflated the force's annual estimates to pay such individuals and to cover the cost of their equipment, a costly burden normally borne by the guardsmen themselves. The prefect, of course, had to examine the estimates and approve them, but Jouques clearly raised no objections. 89 According to Chabaud-Latour, there were never more than twenty token Protestants in the Nimes national guard, and these were carefully excluded from positions of responsibility. 90 The national guard battalions of Uzes and Ales were no less partisan. The force in Uzes was exclusively Catholic in practice, although once again some Protestants had been included in the registers, both for show and for the indemnity they paid for not being called out for service. The majority of the guardsmen were known to be too poor to qualify for membership, and because the November 1815 purge had scarcely affected Uzes, many of them were former associates of Quatretaillons. The national guard of the town of Ales was subsidised by Protestants in the same way as that of Nimes and Uzes. 91 Besides the regularly constituted national guard, Jouques created in De87

AD Gard, Chartrier de Clausonne 331, notes of general Fornier d'Albe, n.d. AN F79O59, Savagnier to Decazes, 2 March 1817. AD Gard 6M 33, d'Argout to Decazes, 3 April 1817. 90 AN F19iO358, dossier on pastor Broussous, notes made during a discussion with ChabaudLatour, n.d. 91 AN F79O5O, police report to Decazes, 3 May 1816; AD Gard 6M 10, Decazes to d'ArbaudJouques, 6 December 1815. 88

89

48

Catholic royalism in the Gard

cember 1815 a compagnie departementale which was made up essentially of those whom he had been unable to keep in the national guard itself. Between December 1815 and May 1816, nearly 30000 francs were spent on the company's pay and equipment. Jouques argued that it was an essential element in peacekeeping, more mobile than the national guard, and containing fifty crack riflemen whose loyalty was 'tel qu'on peut le desirer; officiers et soldats sont devoues a Sa Majeste; aucun d'eux n'a ete admis qu'apres un examen scrupuleux de sa conduite'. In fact, the compagnie departementale was simply a legally sanctioned and officially funded royalist flying column, ready to intervene at a moment's notice anywhere in the department, rather like Trestaillons's and Quatretaillons's bands had done during the White Terror. The 'examen scrupuleux' of which Jouques wrote was nothing more than a check on the recruit's royalism, and the company's history until its dissolution in June 1818 was one of indiscipline and drunkenness. 92 It was, therefore, to their own locally recruited militias that the Catholic royalists looked first and foremost to guarantee their supremacy and to keep the Protestants of the Gard in a state of constant fear. Far from being a democratic national guard intended to keep order and to safeguard property, the militias constituted a private army and also provided an income for many Catholics who, in the depressed economic climate of the Gard, would otherwise have been reduced to poor-relief. Colonel Ross, a British Embassy observer, dispatched to the Gard to investigate reports of anti-Protestant persecution, commented that the department was in urgent need of a regular military force, sufficient to enable them [the civil authorities] to put down every appearance of commotion and to enforce the orders of the king, whether they affect the Protestants or the Catholics; but no force can be so improper for this purpose as the national guard of the department, who, being all Catholics, naturally participate in all the feelings of their brethren against the Protestants.93 Emmanuel d'Argout, the prefect who disbanded the force in 1818, summed up its importance in the Catholic royalists' plans for the department: 'La garde nationale, au lieu d'etre simplement une force passive, dirigeait et gouvernait les communes rurales dans toute l'etendue du departement; tout cedait a l'impulsion des chefs de cette force armee. '94 In effect, the national guard organisation provided the perfect means of communication across the department, and, as d'Argout pointed out, it was not simply an agent of the Catholic royalist organisation, but was in most parts of the Gard the local branch of that organisation, its officers meeting to discuss policy as much as administrative affairs. The political character of the national guard was also 92 93 94

AN F 9 i035, dossier on the compagnie departementale du Gard, 1815-18. PRO Foreign Office 27/130, letter to Sir Charles Stuart, 21 January 1816. A N F 1 C H I G a r d 7, Note sur la situation dans le departement, n . d .

The preparation of a counter-revolution

49

revealed in its contacts with similar organisations in other parts of France. The general staff in Nimes maintained close contacts with their counterparts in the Lozere and the Ardeche, communicating political, often subversive, material along with routine administrative information under the seal of the gardes nationales de France to ensure the utmost secrecy, particularly during the period of Decazes's influence, between 1816 and 1820, when concerted efforts were being made to discredit the ultra-royalists. In the same way, the national guard organisation was used by the Catholic royalists to keep in touch with ultra circles in Paris. The commander in chief of the gardes nationales de France was the comte d'Artois. He composed his general staff of personal friends and political allies including Polignac, Bruges and baron Kentzinger. These men, who met in Artois's apartments in the Pavilion de Marsan, soon became known as the cabinet vert (green was Artois's heraldic colour, and one adopted by most of the southern miquelet companies), and they made no secret of their hopes that Artois would soon replace Louis XVIII on the throne. In the meantime, they fostered loyalty to the prince and regarded the national guard as one of their chief allies, encouraging it to be political and using it to diffuse ultra-royalist propaganda. Most of the seditious tracts and provocative rumours which circulated in royalist circles in Nimes arrived in the national guard mail and were passed around among visitors to the premises of the departmental general staff, which also served as a social club and political meeting place.95 The national guard, then, had a central role in Catholic royalist domination of the department of the Gard. It provided a formal organisation, a mechanism for repression, a vehicle for mobilising popular royalism to the goals of the Catholic elite, a source of revenue and a discreet and efficient means of communication with extreme royalists elsewhere. It was a striking example of the counter-revolutionaries adopting a Revolutionary institution and adapting it to their own needs. In February 1817, Louis Boissin was brought before the assizes of the Gard accused of attempting to murder general Lagarde on 12 November 1815. In the meantime, he had been able to remain at large for seven months in spite of pressure on the authorities from the due d'Angouleme, who had visited Lagarde days after the shooting.96 Indeed, Boissin was eventually captured near Aries thanks to the vigilance of the Bouches-du-Rhone gendarmerie rather than to the efforts of the police and gendarmes of the Gard. Even then, Jouques failed to report the arrest of a man whose action had provoked 95

96

AN F79O5i, Savagnier to Decazes, 25 February 1817; AN 124AP 2, Eymard to Decazes, 19 April 1817; AD Gard 1 Mi 137, Chartrier de Saigas 99, Rene de Bernis to baron Kentzinger, 26 May 1817; AD Gard iE 966, Charles de Vogue to the marquis d'Assas, 27 October 1816; E . - D . Pasquier, Histoire de mon temps. Memoires du chancelier Pasquier, i v , 2 5 3 . AN 239AP 2, due d'Angouleme to Vaublanc, 19 November 1815; Pasquier, iv, 16.

50 Catholic royalistn in the Gard considerable anger in government circles.97 The prefect's nonchalance brought a stern rebuke from the two ministers most concerned to eradicate the influence of ultra-royalism in France: Decazes, minister of police; and Laine, minister of the interior. They impressed upon Jouques the importance of Boissin's trial, which they considered to be a test of strength between the government and the southern ultra-royalists. Moreover, it would be the first trial of a Catholic royalist to be held in the department of the Gard, and the government intended to demonstrate that no group and no part of France was above the law. Consequently, Jouques was given personal responsibility for selecting a reliable jury, for providing adequate security and for ensuring that the court proceedings took place in a dignified manner.98 Plainly Jouques failed to appreciate the importance the government attached to securing the conviction of Boissin, and he chose a jury which included six prominent Catholic royalists and which acquitted Boissin on the grounds of self-defence (legitime defense). In a courtroom surrounded by howling royalists who frequently attempted to disrupt the proceedings, Boissin's defence counsels, Baragnon and Greleau, both noted Catholic royalists, brought before the court a series of witnesses who swore that Lagarde had provoked the shooting.99 It was well known that some of these witnesses had been given statements to learn and to rehearse in a house owned by Gaussin, a textile dyer, and that Boissin's lawyers had made no secret of the fact that he would be acquitted.100 Immediately after the verdict was pronounced, Boissin was carried in triumph to a banquet which was already prepared in the house of Gaude, the publisher of the Journal du Gard. During the banquet, madame de Surville, wife of the commander of the Nimes national guard, presented Boissin with 300 francs which had been collected for him, and with a passport for Spain.101 Involving members of the national guard (Baragnon was a captain in the Nimes battalion), lawyers, police officials, newspapermen and the prefect, and hailed as a triumph over the government, the Boissin trial was an exceptionally spectacular example of the Catholic royalists' determination and ability to pervert justice. However, it was only one example among 97

Marquise de Montcalm, Mon journal, p. 238. The marquise was sister of the president du conseil, Richelieu. 98 AD Gard 6M 11, Decazes to d'Arbaud-Jouques, 3 August 1816; AN F79O5O, police report, 16 September 1816; AN F7o657, Laine to d'Arbaud-Jouques, 25 January 1817. 99 AD Gard 5U 2 dossier 191; AN F79O49, police report to Decazes, 9 February 1817; F79O5O, police report, 2 March 1817; F79657, d'Arbaud-Jouques to Laine, 31 January 1817; BB3154, procureur-general to minister of justice, 4 March 1817; PRO Foreign Office 27/154, Madier de Montjau, conseillera la com royale de Nimes, to Decazes, 8 February 1817. 100 AD Gard, Chartrier de Clausonne 124, H. Former de Clausonne to G. Fornier de Clausonne, 7 February 1817; PRO Foreign Office 27/154, Madier de Montjau to Decazes, 8 February 1817. 101 AD Gard, Chartrier de Clausonne 331, notes of general Fornier d'Albe.

The preparation of a counter-revolution

51

many which had not gone unnoticed by Paris since the White Terror of 1815, particularly since the dissolution of the predominantly ultra-royalist chambre introuvable in September 1816. In the immediate aftermath of the White Terror, the procureur-general at Nimes wrote to the minister of justice: Je n'ai pu, dans les circonstances ou nous sommes, et dans la dissolution la plus monstrueuse de tout ordre social, vous offrir le tableau fidele des desordres de cette ville. Je me suis borne a vous faire connaitre l'impuissance du ministere public et l'inertie de la police judiciaire. Que peuvent les magistrats lorsque la loi n'est rien, que l'autorite reguliere est meconnue et menacee, et que la source de tous les desordres est dans la force meme qui devrait les reprimer?102 Having driven the prosecutors and examining magistrates into hiding, 103 the Catholic royalist police and militias were arresting scores of people, sending them before 'une espece de tribunal revolutionnaire dans le sens royaliste' and incarcerating them in the maison d'arret and the citadel with no recourse to appeal on the grounds that the courts could not try the accused because the judges had fled, or else that they were being held for their own safety.104 In the late autumn, when the success of the White Terror was complete, Jouques informed Vaublanc, then minister of the interior, that he had instructed the courts to commence trying people accused of crimes connected with events in the Gard since March 1815, 'en commen^ant par les plus coupables auteurs des exces commis contre les royalistes'. 105 His task was facilitated by a series of exceptional laws brought into force in the last quarter of 1815 at the behest of the chambre introuvable. The first of these, known as the loi Decazes, was promulgated on 29 October. It permitted the indefinite detention of individuals accused of conspiring against the king, against any member of the royal family, and against the security of the state. On 9 November, a law was passed which made seditious shouts and writings criminal offences; and on 20 December, a law was promulgated creating special courts, cours prevotales, to try political offences. All of these laws were intended to deal with current and future attacks on the Restoration, but they also provided a convenient framework within which retroactive Catholic royalist justice could be dispensed.106 As far as the Gard was concerned, the provision of special courts 102

A N B B 3 i 5 4 , C a v a l i e r t o m i n i s t e r o f j u s t i c e , i S e p t e m b e r 1815. 103 A N 2 3 9 A P 2 d o s s i e r 3 , d u e d ' A n g o u l e m e t o V a u b l a n c , N o v e m b e r 1815; F 7 9O49, V i d a l t o F o u c h e , 2 1 A u g u s t 1815; F7g6s7, d ' A r b a u d - J o u q u e s t o V a u b l a n c , 17 O c t o b e r 1815. 104 AN F79O49, anon, to Fouche, 12 August 1815; AD Gard 6M 10, Fouche to d'ArbaudJouques, 14 August 1815; 6M 25, list of people held in the Nimes prisons by order of the commandant de la place and commissaires de police, August 1815; 6M 83, petition of Pierre Vitte, 14 April 1817. 105 AN F79657, d'Arbaud-Jouques to Vaublanc, 17 October 1815. 106 G. Lewis, 'La terreur blanche et l'application de la Loi Decazes dans le departement du Gard, 1815-17', Annales historiques de la Revolution francaise, 36 (1964), 173-94; AD Gard 6M 41, Etat des individus atteintspar la loi du 2g octobre 1813: 60 persons were held under the provisions of the

52

Catholic royalism in the Gard

was of less importance than the two other laws which exposed individuals to arbitrary arrest; the ordinary courts, shorn of unbiased officials, were more than adequate in dealing with the royalists' enemies, once accused, and the pressure on the disorganised judicial system was such that nobody could, if he dared, question the order in which cases were tried.107 The most outstanding example of Catholic royalist judicial revenge may be seen in the execution in September 1816 of five Protestants, including a woman, from the village of Arpaillargues. They had been found guilty of attacking royalist volunteers returning from Angouleme's defeated force in April 1816, and of murdering two of the royalists. Jouques described the executions as a 'grand acte de la justice la plus impartiale' which produced 'le plus salutaire effet sur l'esprit public'. 108 Another account stated that popular frenzy had rarely reached such a peak; spectators had arrived hours before the time of the executions in order to have a good vantage point. As a pastor accompanied the prisoners to the scaffold, there were demands for his blood as well.109 Quite in contrast to the Boissin trial - and to other proceedings against royalists - the trial of the eight accused (three were sentenced to forced labour) took place amidst public assumption of their guilt, and the verdict matched public expectations: Les crimes des assassins d'Arpaillargues sont incontestables et incontestes. Jamais temoins et victimes n'ont depose avec plus de moderation. Jamais la liberte et l'independence des jures et juges, et leur impartialite, n'ont ete plus evidemment manifestoes que dans la procedure et le jugement des condamnes d'Arpaillargues. Si les condamnes echappaient au glaive des lois, une subversion totale de l'esprit public frapperait ce malheureux departement, et ce ne serait que par le nombre des troupes et le plus grand deplacement de la force qu'on pourrait assurer le chatiment prochain du coupable Boissin.110 The execution of the Arpaillargues Protestants took place only weeks after the leading White Terrorists arrested by Lagarde in October 1815 had been acquitted. Trestaillons, Quatretaillons and Pocheville had been sent from Montpellier to stand trial at Riom (Puy-de-D6me) on charges of murder and robbery. Riom was chosen by the military authorities in an attempt to ensure that a trial could take place outside the poisoned atmosphere of the Gard. Decazes Law between July 1815 and February 1817. AD Gard 6M 62, Etat numerique des

107

prevenus traduits devant leprocureurdu roi de Varrondissement de Nismesjuillet, aout, septembre 1813, indicates that 49 were held for propos seditieux, 26 for resistance augouvernement, 6 for devastation et pillage and 35 for exces graves.

AN 239AP 2 dossier 2, due d'Angouleme to Vaublanc, November 1815. 108 A N F79O53, d'Arbaud-Jouques to Decazes, 24 September 1816; Arch. Consist. Nimes B53/51, procureur-general to the president of the consistorial, 22 September 1816. 109 AD Gard, Chartrier de Clausonne 123, H. Former de Clausonne to G. Former de Clausonne, 29 September 1816. 110 AN F79657, d'Arbaud-Jouques to Laine, 2 September 1816.

The preparation of a counter-revolution

53

Nonetheless, the court was obliged to dismiss the charges brought against the men by the state as no witnesses could be found to testify against them.111 The contrast between the trial of the Protestants of Arpaillargues and that of the royalists did not escape the new minister of the interior, Laine, who demanded an explanation from Jouques, warning him bluntly: 'il est temps, monsieur le marquis, que la justice soit rendue. II est temps que les sujets du roi, quand ils sont soumis, soient proteges.'112 Jouques's reply revealed the extent to which he considered himself not as the representative of central government, but as the defender of local vested interests against the government. He leaped to the defence of the royalists. Trestaillons, according to Jouques, was: 'simple journalier et petit proprietaire, homme sans moyens et sans education. Royaliste des le commencement de la Revolution, son pere perit dans le massacre en 1790 de 900 Catholiques. Dans les Cent-Jours, ses modiques champs ont ete ravages, ses oliviers coupes, ses vignes arrachees.'113 He had become, said Jouques, the scapegoat for all the outrages committed in Nimes in 1815, but while many people were willing to point a finger at him, none would testify in the proper manner. Quatretaillons, wrote the prefect, had been arrested on circumstantial evidence for his part in the Uzes murders. At his trial, witnesses swore that he had not been present in the main square of the town when some of his men (unidentifiable, of course) had shot the six villagers, but that he had gone off to find the authorities in order to hand over his prisoners to them.114 Boissin, Trestaillons, Quatretaillons and Pocheville were not the only White Terrorists to benefit from the royalist conspiracy of silence and intimidation. Rol and Reboul were accused by individual plaintiffs of assault, pillage and murder committed in the summer of 1815. Although proceedings were started against Rol, and a warrant issued for his arrest, he was able to remain at liberty in Nimes itself until the spring of 1817; Reboul did even better, and remained at large for nearly another year. When Jouques's successor had them arrested in May 1818, Nimes was still considered unsafe for their trial, and the pair were sent before the assizes at Valence in the Drome not, perhaps, a very good choice, for the east bank of the Rhone, too, had experienced the extremes of terror and counter-terror since 1793 from Lyon to Aries, and the region between Valence and Orange had been one of the principal hunting grounds of royalist murder gangs like those of the compagnies de Jesus and du soleil and of the band led by the baron de Saint-Christol.115 111

ADGard6M28, Cavalier to d'Arbaud-Jouques, 15 December 1815; ANBB 3 i54, memorandum to the minister of justice, 31 May 1816; F79O49, d'Arbaud-Jouques to Decazes, 14 August 1816. 112 AN F79657, Laine to d'Arbaud-Jouques, 26 August 1816. 113 m ibid., d'Arbaud-Jouques to Laine, 2 September 1816. ibid. 115 7 18 AN F 9O5i, d'Argout to Decazes, 21 April 1817; AN BB ioi9, dossier on Rol and Reboul; Fuoc; Cobb, Police, pp. 131-54; Lewis, Second Vendee.

54 Catholic royalism in the Gard It is not really surprising that the jury at Valence acquitted the two White Terrorists in September 1818.116 Four months later, much weightier evidence was assembled against the men by the authorities in the Gard, then supported fully by the Decazes government. On this occasion, the two were found guilty of murder and attempted murder, but the judges refused to pass sentence because of the inconsistencies and contradictions in the evidence given by the state's witnesses.117 Consequently the two men went free. This second judicial scandal concerning the Gard led to the appointment of a prosecutor whose sole concern was to investigate political crimes committed in the department since 1815, and to report on the way in which they had been handled by the courts. Pataille was successful in securing the conviction of three White Terrorists, Trufemy, Servant and Piolenc, but they were the exception. Pataille's investigation, which lasted until his dismissal after the fall of Decazes, put the entire royalist manipulation of justice into perspective. Commenting on the intimidation of honest officials and witnesses, on the complicity which the White Terrorists enjoyed from Vidal, de Calviere and Jouques in the early days of the Second Restoration, Pataille wrote: Qu'ils ont ete coupables, les magistrats de 1815. Us ont fait de la justice un instrument de politique, ils l'ont asservie lorsqu'elle devrait commander, et ils l'ont detruite pour eux et pour leurs principes. Enfin, Monseigneur, on punirait Trestaillons, Trufemi, trente miserables de cette espece, chefs subalternes d'une plebe a laquelle ils appartiennent eux-memes. Et les chefs de Trestaillons, de Trufemi? Et ceux qui les ont excites, encourages, commandes, ceux qui ont recompense par des epaulettes leurs assassinats, ceux qui disaient: on nous ote Trestaillons trop tot; nous en avons encore besoin. Et leurs magistrats qui, par leur silence (j'emploie l'expression la moins accusatrice) avaient, on peut le dire, suspendu le regne des lois. Que fera-t-on de ces coupables, bien autrement coupables que Trestaillons et Trufemi?118

Indeed, circumstances required the replacement of the entire judicial personnel in order to lay the foundations of an impartial justice in the department. Early in 1818, d'Argout, who had replaced Jouques at the prefecture, emphasised that only the appointment of judges and prosecutors who had no connections with the region could ensure the rule of law.119 He estimated that at least fifteen of the thirty-seven magistrates sitting on the various benches of the Nimes courts had compromised themselves politically through prejudice or weakness, and in Uzes and Ales, the majority of the judges were utterly unreliable.120 As late as 1819, after the government had shown its determination to extirpate Catholic royalism and to pursue White Terrorists, all the 116

AN BB 1 8 ioi9, Rol and Reboul. ibid. 118 AN BB18iO48, Pataille to minister of justice, 16 April 1819. 119 AN F lc m Gard 7, Note sur la situation du departement du Gard, 1818. 120 AN F79O5i, report to d'Argout, 26 July 1817, and d'Argout to Decazes, 18 May 1818. 117

The preparation of a counter-revolution

55

judges but one from the Nimes tribunal de premiere instance made excuses rather than be seen presiding over preliminary hearings initiated by Pataille against a number of royalist agitators.121 No doubt the departure of d'Argout at the beginning of 1819 - he was part of Decazes's celebrated/owraee of peers created to reduce ultra-royalist influence in the upper house - weakened the government's assault on Catholic royalism, but according to Gustave Fornier de Clausonne, a Protestant lawyer who praised Pataille's zeal, the corruption of justice was too complete for reform: 'Le fait est que les fonctionnaires de 1815 ont detruit la justice, et aujourd'hui Ton ne sait plus comment s'y prendre pour rentrer dans la voie.'122 The perversion ofjustice was so great that Trestaillons, Quatretaillons, Lavondes and others got away completely with their crimes, and were able to live and work with impunity among a community which contained the friends and relatives of many of their victims, protected by the acquiescence of the authorities and the fear of those who could testify against them.123 After the fall of Decazes in 1820, no Bourbon government displayed an inclination to bring them to justice. It was well known in Nimes that at the heart of the Catholic royalist organisation was a committee which directed policy and corresponded with similar committees in other departments. Once again, the Boissin affair shed the most revealing light on this aspect of Catholic royalism. It was no secret that the royalists hated Lagarde, who had done his utmost to impose law and order in the department in the months following the White Terror. It soon became perfectly clear that the attempt on his life at the reopening of the Petit Temple was not the work of an individual, and that the confrontation provoked by the Catholic crowd, together with the reticence of the national guard to intervene were intended to create the circumstances in which Lagarde could be discredited and, perhaps, killed. Before the crowd gathered, Boissin was seen leaving the house of Vidal fils, his company commander in the national guard, with two other men, carefully concealing objects under their cloaks. Boissin was not on duty that day, and yet he appeared to be armed.124 After the shooting, Boissin's ability to escape unchallenged and to remain undetected for seven months implied that he had accomplices, but the extent of the conspiracy only became clear after he was arrested and transferred to Nimes to await trial: 'Monsieur Greleau, avocat, directeur du Journal du Gard, ne tarda pas a lui annoncer qu'il fut tranquil, qu'il serait aquitte, que la societe l'avait delibere, et que pour y parvenir, toutes 121

AN BB18IO48, president de la cour royale de Nimes to prefect, 8 April 1819; AD Gard, Chartrier de Clausonne 317, G. Former de Clausonne to general Fornier d'Albe, 20 March 1819. 122 AD Gard, Chartrier de Clausonne 317, to general Fornier d'Albe, 29 April 1819. 123 AN F79O5O, d'Haussez to Decazes, 2 April 1819; BB18IO48, ex-lieutenant de gendarmerie, Uzes, to minister of justice, 16 November 1830; F79658, prefect to director-general of police, 11 September 1824. 124 AN BB 3 i54, Cavalier to minister of justice, 13 December 1815.

56 Catholic royalism in the Gard les mesures necessaires avaient ete prises. '125 What Greleau did not tell Boissin was the decision also taken by the societe toy ale to poison him if he considered turning state's evidence to save himself.126 The societe royale, sometimes called the societe Bolze because it held many of its meetings in a room above the Cafe Bolze, near the casernes, was the successor to the societe royale which had existed in Nimes during the First Restoration, but it was much more powerful as the central organ of an extensive counter-revolutionary organisation rather than a focal point for disaffected but powerless agitators. It was founded in the late summer of 1815 as a non-partisan society limited to two hundred members, whose aims were to uphold the constitution and the monarchy. Among its founder members were the leaders of the White Terror: Rene de Bernis, Jules de Calviere, Charles de Vogue and Jacques-Alexis de Calviere-Vezenobres; their immediate subordinates in the department: de Vallongue, Vidal, de Vassimon; and a number of seasoned counter-revolutionaries: Boyer, Baron and Blanchard (all men of 1790), Bernavon, Bazille, Fajon (who would later accept bribes from d'Argout) and the comte Chazelles de Chusclan. Protestants were noticeable by their absence.127 Similar societies were established at Uzes and Ales, and they corresponded with other secret societies across the Midi, notably in the departments of the Ardeche, Isere, Vaucluse, Lozere, Tarn and Haute-Garonne.128 There were also regular communications to and from the Gard's deputies in Paris during the parliamentary sessions. As Decazes's campaign against the ultra-royalists became more intense, they in turn became more secretive, and much of the correspondence between Nimes and other centres of ultra-royalism was carried in the official mail of convenient government departments in an attempt to fool the police: Trinquelague, deputy for the Gard and president of the court at Montpellier used the Ministry ofJustice mail to write to the Catholic royalists, while de Surville could use both the national guard and the recette generate-particularly useful when corresponding with individual royalists within the Gard itself.129 Besides these channels of communication, the societe royale made use of the frequent journeys to and from Paris, Lyon and Marseille undertaken by members of the organisation. When they did use the normal postal services, the Catholic royalists took care to refer to each other by code names: Jules de Calviere was known as * Andre'; de Surville as * Michel'; the marquise de 125

A D Gard, Chartrier d e C l a u s o n n e 331, notes o f general Fornier d'Albe. AN F79O5i, Eymard to Decazes, 7 April 1817. 127 AN F79O52, prospectus of the cercle dit d'Augier (in whose house it first met), September 1815; AD Gard 6M 10, Decazes to d'Arbaud-Jouques, 18 November 1815. 128 AD Gard 6M 10, ministerial circular to prefects of southern departments, 4 December 1815; PRO Foreign Office 27/130, Sir Charles Stuart to Lord Castlereagh, 8 January 1816; AN F79O5i, d'Argout to Decazes, 17 July 1817. 129 AN F79O5i, d'Argout to Decazes, 15 April, 17 July 1817. 126

The preparation of a counter-revolution

57

Calviere-Vezenobres as 'les beaux-yeux'; and the national guard as 'les chiens de Michel'.130 Besides maintaining contacts with ultra-royalists elsewhere, particularly in the Midi, the societe was intended to exercise control over all aspects of the local administration and to influence - or oppose - government appointments from the 'outside'. All the senior positions in the department, with the exception of the prefect, were in the hands of the societe between 1815 and d'Argout's arrival in the spring of 1817. Even as d'Argout moved into the prefecture, Gustave Former de Clausonne remarked: Monsieur le prefet a de bonnes intentions, on n'en doute pas; mais il est entoure, il est circonvenu par des hommes qui ont un puissant interet a lui faire meconnaitre la verite. Ces hommes font partie de la societe de Bolze. Les uns occupent des grades superieurs de la garde nationale; les autres sont dans les autorites administratives et judiciaires, et c'est dans cette societe qu'ont ete arretees toutes les mesures prises depuis 1815. Elle est soutenue par la garde nationale.131 Even after two years of d'Argout's administration, the influence of the societe royale in the Gard and the extent of its links across the Midi were such that a Nimes barrister was able to produce documents which, he said, proved the existence of a gouvemement occulte taking its instructions from the Pavilion de Marsan rather than from the king's ministers, and which had infiltrated every branch of the local administration. 132 Indeed, d'Argout had found out that the Catholic royalists had placed their men so well that almost none of his correspondence, official or private, escaped their notice for the first year of his term in the Nimes prefecture.133 Besides performing these important functions of leadership and coordination, the societe royale was also the principal bridge between the Catholic royalist leadership and the Catholic popular classes, harnessing the violence of the latter to the political ambitions of the former. It was able to do this most successfully by exploiting the permanent hardship the artisans and working classes experienced in the years after 1815, which included, of course, the disastrous crisis of 1816-17. The societe was the channel through which poor-relief was distributed in the Catholic faubourgs in exchange for support when required in the form ofattroupements, seditious shouts and even attacks on Protestants. The money came ostensibly from donations made by the notables - the de Rochemore sisters and the two de Calviere families, for example. Besides providing temporary relief to the poor, the funds at the 130

A D Gard i M i 137, Chartrier de Saigas 71; A N F79O5O, Cle d'une correspondance etablie entre Nismes et Paris. 131 A D Gard, Chartrier de Clausonne 331, letter to general Fornier d'Albe, n.d. 132 J.-P. Madier de Montjau, Du gouvemement occulte, de ses agens, de ses actes, suivi de pieces officielles sur les troubles de Vaucluse. 133 AN F79O5i, d'Argout to Decazes, 20 April 1818.

58

Catholic royalism in the Gard

disposal of the societe royale paid the wages of a number of the Catholic royalists' full-time agents. At the beginning of a 'campaign' against d'Argout in 1817, Boissin, Carteras and Lavondes, 'sans patrimoine, sans etat et sans credit', were able to indulge in 'diners dispendieux' and 'parties de debauche' with associates from the bourgades and the neighbouring Catholic villages as they discussed their plans.134 The result of the White Terror and of the careful placing of counterrevolutionaries in all the essential offices of public administration and justice was the establishment of a microcosm of that type of society which Villeneuve and Froment had wished to see through the entire Midi. It was successful in the Gard because the conflict between royalists and 'patriots' was of such long standing, predating the Revolution in the form of CatholicProtestant opposition and rivalry. Thus, the enemy was easier to identify as a distinct community with interests which threatened those of the Catholics and of the monarchy itself, the traditional defender of Catholicism and privilege. Replying in 1816 to a letter from Vaublanc, in which the minister of the interior had raised the question of reports of persecution directed against the Protestants of the Gard, d'Arbaud-Jouques replied indignantly: De quel droit, a quel titre, ces hommes exclusivement allies pour le soutien de la tyrannie, osent-ils reclamer le partage des places, de l'autorite, de la force publique sous le regne de la legitimite? Aucune force, aucune adresse, aucune autorite n'arretera rindignation et l'effroi du peuple le jour ou le gouvernement, surpris ou trompe, aura mis une des grandes places du departement dans les mains d'un parti que le peuple regarde avec trop de raisons comme l'ennemi d'un roi qu'il venere et cherit.135 It was, of course, the monarchy, not the monarch, legitimacy, not the policies of a legitimate government, which guaranteed the Catholics' position and which they quoted in defence of their actions. Their experience of Louis XVIII during the First Restoration had revealed how conditional their loyalty to a particular king or government could be. Thus, through the reign of Louis XVIII, ultra-royalists were constantly in search of explanations for the continuing trends towards liberalism, constitutionalism and representative government which was only halted by chance - the death of the due de Berry. The answers they found were simple ones: the king was badly advised by his ministers; the White Terror was not thorough enough, and many Bonapartists and Revolutionaries still filled influential posts in the civil service, where they pressed revolutionary policies on the king; the king was too old and senile to know what was required - hence the ultras' eagerness to see Artois on the throne. In the meantime, the Gard was a foretaste of that paradise to come, a bastion of counter-revolutionary government which its 134

ibid., d'Argout to Decazes, 1 August 1818. 135 A N F lc in Gard 13, d'Arbaud-Jouques to Vaublanc, 10 February 1816.

The preparation of a counter-revolution 59 governors endeavoured to keep as free as possible from outside interference and where royalism was the banner under which one part of the population justified the constant threat of terror directed at the other. In their determination to reimpose Catholic supremacy, the counter-revolutionaries spared no aspect of daily life: their opponents were deprived of jobs, even of pensions;136 the old obligations on householders and shopkeepers to decorate their properties along the routes of religious processions were revived, and feast days like Corpus Christi became ordeals for the Protestants who had no choice but to lock themselves indoors and put up with the taunts of the triumphant Catholic populace;137 Protestants' premises and houses were daubed with royalist slogans such as 'Les Bourbon ou la mort'; and Protestants continued to face 'beggars' in the street who demanded money with the aid of a pistol.138 All this took place under the watchful eye of the police and national guard, whose two cannons kept in readiness outside the Hotel de Ville provoked a visitor to reflect that 'a Nismes on adopte en 1817, pour consolider la legitimite, les moyens qui ont servi a la renverser en 1793'.139 136 137 138 139

AN F79O49, d'Arbaud-Jouques to Cavalier, n October 1815. AN F79O5i, d'Argout to Decazes, 9 June 1817. La Minerve frangaise, 111, 7 (September 1818), p. 324. AN F79O5O, Savagnier to Decazes, 2 March 1817.

CHAPTER THREE

1817 to 1830

In order to derive the greatest benefit from the success of the White Terror of 1815, the Catholic royalists of the Gard required guarantees that their carefully constructed political system would be left to function with a minimum of interference from Paris. Ultimately, the only real guarantee of such freedom lay in the extreme decentralisation of power which the ultra-royalists demanded, and which was to remain a primary objective of the legitimist right through the nineteenth century. Yet when the royal government withdrew Angouleme's regional authority in July 1815 and reaffirmed its commitment to the Charter of 1814, it was already clear that no profound administrative reforms were envisaged. The hopes of the ultra-royalists were finally dashed by the rise of ministers whose constitutional outlook made them implacable enemies of the counter-revolutionaries and whose political and administrative experience had been gained in Napoleon's highly centralised state. Thus, even as the Catholic royalists consolidated their victory, circumstances were beginning to put their achievements at risk. Convinced that the principal threat to the stability of the Restoration came from the ultra-royalists, Elie Decazes, the ambitious minister of police doted upon by Louis XVIII, persuaded the old and infirm monarch to dissolve the fractious chambre introuvable in the early autumn of 1816. The size of the parliament was reduced, and carefully managed elections returned a much more docile majority to the chamber of deputies and diminished considerably the ultra-royalists' parliamentary influence. Their support continued to come from the west and the Midi, and departments like the Gard which returned a completely ultra-royalist deputation were visibly at odds with the government.1 Gradually the key ministries concerned with internal security passed into the hands of Decazes's nominees: the interior to Laine, former deputy for Bordeaux in the imperial corps legislatif, who replaced the royalist sympathiser Vaublanc; war (responsible for the gendarmerie royale) to Gou1

G. de Bertier de Sauvigny, La Restauration, pp. 124-40; Jardin and Tudesq, 1, 40-7. The 1816 elections were organised in accordance with the 1814 Charter and most departments had fewer deputies. In the Gard, where three seats remained, de Calviere, de Vogue and de Trinquelague were re-elected (AN Flcm Gard 4). 60

to 1830 61 vion-Saint-Cyr, a marechal de VEmpire; justice to Pasquier, Napoleon's prefect of police. Decazes kept the ministry of police himself, his obsession with internal security such that he extended his activities more and more into the domain of the minister of the interior and finally combined the two offices in December 1818. Under the new ministry, led by the moderate due de Richelieu but increasingly directed by Decazes, the gulf between the government's intentions and the Catholic royalists' ambitions widened - as the administration of justice in the Gard revealed. Under the partisan, if very naive, supervision of d'Arbaud-Jouques, the Gard's public officials continued to behave as though their department were an autonomous state, apparently oblivious to the corpus of evidence which grew monthly in the offices of the ministries of police, interior and justice and which indicated clearly to the government that the Gard was controlled by a faction.2 The verdict of the Boissin trial and reports of the irregularities which surrounded the trial led the government to make a direct and dramatic intervention in the affairs of the Gard. D'Arbaud-Jouques was sacked, and a judicial inquiry was established to look into Boissin's trial. The inquiry subsequently overruled the Nimes assizes 'in the interest of justice'. 3Jouques was replaced at the prefecture by a man of a very different stamp, Emmanuel d'Argout, whose background revealed him as a product of the Revolution's career open to talent. Born in 1782, d'Argout commenced his administrative career under Napoleon as receveur des contributions indirectes at Antwerp in

1806. He was then appointed auditeur in the conseil d'etat, and was director of the Rhine navigation authority from i8ioto 1814, when he participated in the defence of Paris. Having rallied to the Bourbons, d'Argout was appointed prefect of the Basses-Pyrenees, a position he did not relinquish voluntarily during the Hundred Days, preferring instead to raise a force of volunteers to secure the frontier from any attempted invasion from Spain. The Gard was d'Argout's first public appointment since the Second Restoration, a circumstance which left him in no doubt about his debt to Decazes. In 1819, in another political manoeuvre, Decazes elevated him to the peerage. In 1824, the Villele government stripped him of his title of conseiller d'etat and refused him any public appointment. After the revolution of 1830, d'Argout was appointed minister of the navy, then, in 1831, minister of commerce and 2

3

Conditions in the Gard were not kept as secret as the Catholic royalists might have wished. Protestant publicity from England inspired an inquiry by the British Embassy in Paris (PRO Foreign Office 27/130), and detailed complaints and denunciations were reaching the French government from the Gard. See AN F19iO358, dossier on pastor Broussous; and AN F79O5O, anonymous report to Decazes, 29 October 1816. PRO Office 27/54, Sir Charles Stuart to Lord Castlereagh, 17 February 1817; AD Gard, Chartrier de Clausonne 331, notes of general Fornier d'Albe; AN BB 3 i54, correspondence between the Nimes pro curem-general and the minister of justice, February and March 1817; AN F79O49, decision of the cour de cassation, 13 March 1817.

62

Catholic royalism in the Gard

public works, in which position he achieved a certain notoriety through his intransigent attitude to the Lyon silk weavers. After two years as minister of the interior (involving him once again with the Lyonnais) he was appointed governor of the Bank of France in July 1834.4 D'Argout was a man who had little in common with the majority of the Bourbon Restoration's prefects. Above all he was a careerist, a prefet a poigne in the Napoleonic mould, whose obedience was dictated in no small measure by ambition.5 D'Argout's immediate successor in the Nimes prefecture, d'Haussez, commented on his 'extreme flexibility d'opinions', remarking that in the Basses-Pyrenees in 1814: 'II n'avait pas laisse un maire, pas un garde champetre en place parce qu'il n'en trouvait pas un dont le royalisme etait a la hauteur du sien. Dans le Gard il a destitue des centaines de maires parce que leur liberalisme n'avait pas assez d'eclat.'6 Undoubtedly d'Argout was Decazes's political instrument in the Gard. The minister of police told the new prefect that his task was to 'royaliser la nation et nationaliser le roi', adding that there would be no shortage of secret-police assistance for him. 7 Jouques's dismissal was quite unexpected and came as a severe blow to the Catholic royalists.8 Against the background of the 1816 dissolution, the suppression of Chateaubriand's pamphlet De la monarchie selon la Charte (smuggled copies of which had received great reverence and acclaim in Catholic royalist circles),9 and the replacement of royalist ministers like Vaublanc, the measure was seen by them as a further step towards the victory of the Revolution's principles. Initially many Catholic officials displayed such obsequiousness and servility towards d'Argout that the new prefect could only conclude that they were motivated by the fear of losing their jobs in a purge of which Jouques had merely been the first victim. 10 Other royalists, however, showed a determination to resist. At the instigation of the de Rochemore sisters and the widowed sister of Jules de Calviere, the national guard was surreptitiously mobilised to await instructions. Acting on rumours and suspicion, de Briche was able to snatch over two hundred cartridges and a number of illegally held weapons hidden in the Catholic 4

AN F lb i 155 dossier 6, Emmanuel d'Argout, renseignements generaux. See the excellent study of the Bourbon prefects: N. Richardson, The French prefectoral corps, 1814-30. 6 Baron d'Haussez, Memoires du baron d'Haussez, dernier ministre de la marine sous la Restauration, 1, 264. 7 AN F79O5i, Decazes to d'Argout, 8, 20 March 1817. Eymard, a southerner, already familiar with the problems of the Gard, was seconded to Nimes with two assistants, Savagnier and Thiers. 8 News of the change reached Nimes on 24 February, brought unofficially by Boyer, a Catholic royalist lawyer residing in Paris: AN F?9O5O, police report, 2 March 1817; AD Gard, Chartrier de Clausonne 331, notes of general Fornier d'Albe. 9 AN F79O5O, police report, Nimes, 29 October 1816. 10 ibid., police report, 2 March 1817, and d'Argout to Decazes, 3 March 1817; F79O5i, d'Argout to Decazes, 24 March 1817. 5

to 1830 63 faubourgs. In other parts of the department, Catholic royalists attempted to exploit the wave of rejoicing which swept through the Protestant community on the news ofJouques's dismissal. The commander of the Ales national guard and the sub-prefect of Ales, Narbonne-Lara, reported disloyal gatherings by Bonapartists who considered d'Argout's appointment as the 'avant coureur de ce qu'ils desirent ardemment'.12 The Protestants did demonstrate their joy outwardly: opponents of the Catholic royalists, many of them demi-soldes and veterans of the Napoleonic armies, did indeed sing seditious songs and daub symbols of their Revolutionary past on the walls of public buildings and the homes of Catholic royalists. In Vezenobres, a rowdy farandole was danced in the village square, just below the walls of the chateau which was one of the bastions of Catholic royalism; in the villages of Bernis, Clarensac and Martignargues, Catholics were taunted and abused, and the Protestant adjoint of Martignargues announced loudly and publicly that Jouques had been dismissed for arming brigands and thugs, but that the boot would be on the other foot in future.13 Less spectacular than these outbursts, but no less indicative of Protestant feeling, were the scores of letters and barely legible notes which poured into d'Argout's office accusing the local administration of victimisation and intimidation.14 The change of prefect caused so much confusion among the Catholic royalists that their doyen, Jules de Calviere, returned from the chamber of deputies in the first week of April and immediately sought a meeting with d'Argout. The purpose of the meeting was to persuade the new prefect that the Catholics of the Gard posed no threat to the government, and to assure him of their deep loyalty and affection for the king.15 D'Argout took de Calviere's demarche as nothing more than a stratagem intended to sound his opinions and, perhaps, to forestall any action he may have been considering against the royalists: 'II me semble que les chefs veulent aujourd'hui eviter la lutte qui tournerait a leur desavantage. . . . Us consentiront peut-etre a employer leur credit dans le sens de la volonte du roi pour conserver leurs forces reelles.'16 In fact, de Calviere's ploy failed on two accounts. On the very day of their meeting, the prefect wrote to obtain the dismissal of Flotte-Montauban, secretary at the prefecture', Desponches, commander of n

11

AN F lc m Gard 13, d'Argout to Decazes, 18 March 1817; F79O5i, d'Argout to Decazes, 24 March 1817. 12 AD Gard 6M 47, Narbonne-Lara to d'Argout, 4 March 1817; F79O49, d'Argout to Decazes, 10 December 1817; PRO Foreign Office 27/155, minute of haute police report, 7 March 1817. 13 AD Gard 6M 47, sub-prefect of Ales to prefect, 4, 12 March 1817; 6M 66, commandant de la i$eme legion de gendarmerie to minister of war, 13 March 1817. 14 AD Gard 6M 47 contains over one hundred notes and letters alleging discrimination and administrative malpractice from 1815 to 1817. 15 AN F1CHI Gard 13, d'Argout to Laine, 10 April 1817. 16 AN F79O5i, d'Argout to Decazes, 10 April 1817.

64 Catholic royalism in the Gard the national guard battalion of Sommieres; de Pangay, commander of the Uzes national guard; and Gibrat, commissaire de police of Nimes and Vidal's successor, albeit with more limited powers. At the same time, d'Argout asked Laine to withdraw Gaude's licence to publish the official Journal du Gard. All of them had been implicated in the conspiracy to save Boissin from justice.17 Besides failing to influence d'Argout, de Calviere, by displaying such haste to see the prefect after his own arrival in Nimes, fanned the flames of discontent among many Catholic royalists. Already there was considerable dissension. Those who had wished to oppose the appointment of d'Argout, by force of arms if necessary, accused those officials and notables who accepted the new prefect with feigned deference of wanting nothing more than to keep their jobs. These accusations were made in a rapidly deteriorating economic climate which was affecting badly the poorer classes. The exceptionally wet spring and summer of 1816 had been followed by a disastrous harvest which in turn led to shortages and high food prices. The Gard's textile industry suffered from the consequent contraction of the popular market which it traditionally supplied, and unemployment rose dramatically during the winter of 1817-18.18 The self-interested behaviour of many Catholic notables angered the less fortunate royalists and strained the alliance between the Catholic elite and the popular classes which had made the Gard's Catholic royalist movement such a powerful force. Tension was by no means diminished by de Calviere's eagerness to talk to the prefect; on the contrary, many popular royalists saw the demarche as evidence that even the undisputed leader of the Catholic royalists was more interested in protecting his own interests than in advancing the cause of royalism. Observing the rift in the royalists' ranks, d'Argout attributed it mainly to the inability of the rank and file to appreciate de Calviere's diplomatic skill, but he also perceived that there was, at least in times of economic crisis, a latent antagonism between those who had gained much from the establishment of a Catholic royalist regime in the Gard, and those who, having helped to create that regime, had gained very little from it. D'Argout hoped to exploit this source of conflict to drive a wedge through the otherwise unified royalist camp, but ultimately the short-term fluctuations in the local economy and, more important, the Catholic notables' rapid recognition that generous and 17

18

AN F lc m Gard 13, d'Argout to Laine, 10 April 1817; F79O5i, d'Argout to Decazes, 7 April 1817; AD Gard, Chartrier de Clausonne 331, notes of general Former d'Albe on the Boissin trial. Labrousse, Romano and Dreyfus, p. 102; Reboul, facing p. 120; R. Marjolin, Troubles provoques en France par la disette de 1816-1817', Rev. d'Hist. mod., 8 (1933), 423—60; AN F n 726, prefectoral circulars of 8 November and 16 December 1816; AD Gard 6M 11, circular from minister of police, 27 November 1816; 6M 12, Decazes to d'Argout, 13 March 1817.

1817 to 1830

65

regular hand-outs to the popular royalists were a small price to pay for unity, left him with little scope in the matter.19 Appreciating the extent of the problem he faced, d'Argout quite reasonably concluded that only a long-term solution would work. The plan he envisaged had two facets, each involving gradual change in the department. First, the prefect intended to dismiss only the most compromised and recalcitrant public officials, and even then in small numbers at widely spaced intervals. The measure had a number of distinct advantages, d'Argout believed. It would reduce considerably the risk of a violent Catholic reaction which the prefect feared would occur if he removed all known Catholic royalists at one swoop; it would keep many of them in suspense and fear of dismissal, so making them rather more amenable; and it would avoid an immediate transfer of power to liberals, that is, to Protestants, for any appearance of a Protestant victory would again provoke a Catholic reaction. The same tactic was envisaged for the national guard. D'Argout firmly rejected the possibility of dissolving this immediately because of the danger of bloodshed. He proposed instead to maintain the force on the temporary basis which the government had forced it to accept after the disorders of 1815, and which gave the civil authorities extensive powers of discipline and scrutiny. In this way, d'Argout hoped gradually to admit Protestants to the guard's ranks and officer corps in proportion to their numbers in each locality until an unbiased force could be achieved. Again, only wilfully obstructive royalist officers were to be dismissed.20 The second facet of d'Argout's solution was the erosion of the societe royales influence which he perceived to be the perpetuator of extremist politics. The prefect hoped to achieve this end by exploiting the weaknesses he observed within the apparently monolithic Catholic 'bloc', particularly the diverging social and economic interests which were noticeable at the time of his arrival, and by providing alternative leaders for the Catholic community. This was, in fact, his chief ambition: to create a 'middle ground' composed of that elusive section of the social elite sought after so desperately by politicians contending with polarised opinion. The prefect believed that, in time, men like Sabran, a wealthy Catholic textile manufacturer, the abbe Bonhomme and Jean-Charles de Surville, the Gard's receveur-general, could be invested with enough prestige and influence to become the accepted leaders of Catholic opinion and to form the nucleus of a constitutional royalist party which would also attract conservative Protestants.21 D'Argout's protracted efforts to secure the support of de Surville offer the clearest 19 20 21

AN F lc m Gard 13, d'Argout to Laine, 8 April 1817; ibid., Decazes to Laine, 14 April 1817. A N F l c m Gard 7, Situation du departement du Gard, 1817; F l c m Gard 13, d ' A r g o u t t o Laine, 8 April 1817. AN F79O5i, d'Argout to Laine, 1 August 1817.

66

Catholic royalism in the Gard

example of the prefect's belief that appeals to the self-interest of a number of second-rank Catholic royalists could create a new political climate in the department. Jean-Charles de Surville was a member of the royalist secret society and colonel of the Nimes national guard as well as holding the prestigious and lucrative office of receveur-general. He was the nephew and only inheritor of the abbe Lapierre, one of the leading counter-revolutionaries among the Nimes clergy in 1790, and he was a relative of the marquis de Surville who led a band of White Terrorists in the south east during the Directory. In the Year II, he had been proscribed by the cotnite revolutionnaire de Nimes.22 At first glance, he was a most unlikely choice for the prefect's attempts to subvert the societe toy ale. But de Surville had consolidated his wealth during the Empire, becoming adjoint to the Protestant mayor of Nimes in 1807 and one of the richest men in the Gard by 1811, when his income was 10 000 francs a year.23 In 1815, his prestige increased considerably when he was knighted by the king, made colonel of the national guard and given the post of recev eur. Thus, argued d'Argout, his real interests lay in serving the monarchy, not a local faction: 'Son ambition est satisfaite. II a ete annobli par Sa Majeste et il a obtenu la recette generale du Gard. Son interet est de marcher dans le sens de la volonte du Roi, mais il est gene par les liaisons etroites qu'il a contractees avec les Catholiques les plus emportes. '24 In addition to his obvious interest in serving the king's government rather than a local faction which was already, in d'Argout's view, on the point of collapse, de Surville possessed one outstanding political quality. His position as colonel of the national guard gave him considerable influence over the force's members, and d'Argout clearly saw him as a moderating agent in this regard: 'Tant qu'on laissera subsister une garde nationale, et cela parait necessaire pour quelques annees encore, il sera indispensable d'en laisser le commandement a monsieur de Surville. II est, de tous les habitans de Nismes, le plus interesse a ce qu'elle se conduise bien, et celui qui a le plus d'influence pour y parvenir.'25 But de Surville's political value was not restricted to his interest in commanding a disciplined Catholic armed force. In 1815, he had endeavoured to curb the excesses of the irregular miquelet companies and consequently retained a certain amount of respect in Protestant circles, making him unique among the men who had enjoyed power in the Gard since the White Terror.26 22 23 24 25 26

D u l a u r e , p . 26; A D Gard L 1198, Compte rendu des operations du comite revolutionnaire de Nismes, 2 prairial, a n II; A N F 7 9O5O, Cle d'une correspondance etablie entre Nismes et Paris. A D Gard 6 M 40, Liste des personnes les plus marquantes du departement, 1811. AN F79O5i, d'Argout to Decazes, 24 March 1817. ibid., d'Argout to Decazes, 22 April 1817. ibid., Savagniento d'Argout, 17 April 1817: 'Lors de la reaction de 1815, il a montre quelque desir d'alleger le poids de l'anarchie qui pesait sur les Protestants. Le parti protestant du Gard lui a garde un suffrage qu'il ne donne a aucun autre personnage marquant du parti catholique.'

to 1830 67 D'Argout lost no opportunity to work on de Surville, reminding him not only of his vulnerable position, but also of the advantages he could enjoy in the long term, and hoping to prise him gradually away from the more extreme royalists. Indeed, his stratagem achieved some degree of success: de Surville did exert a moderating influence on both the national guard and the secret society, even urging other men of his social rank to distance themselves from the extremists who dominated the society.27 At the same time, Thiers, one of the agents de la haute police assisting d'Argout, took charge of writing editorials for the Journal du Gard, criticising the ultra-royalist faction and urging support for the king's ministers.28 Faced with such unexpected manoeuvring by the prefect, and confused by the response of men like de Surville, the hard-core royalists could only resort to threats and rumours of an imminent counter-revolution in an endeavour to maintain their supporters' morale, and to one spectacular attempt to discredit d'Argout by provoking him to a duel with one of their less intelligent and very hot-headed militants.29 Such desperate opposition to his policies and presence gave d'Argout reason to believe that he might succeed in breaking the grip of the Catholic royalists on political life in the Gard and end the polarisation of opinion and emotion which had prevailed for so long.30 Time, which d'Argout insisted was the most important element in his reconstruction of political life in the Gard, was, however, unavailable to him. In February 1817, the government had obtained a majority for a bill modifying the electoral system. The Laine law provided for an annual renewal of one fifth of the chamber of deputies in order to reduce the chance of a hostile majority exercising an obstructive power for the entire life of a parliament. The law also changed the mode of election. Henceforth, each department would have only one electoral college, meeting at the chef-lieu of the department. This provision, it was felt, would handicap the extreme right, which drew most of its support from the countryside. It was estimated that many ultra-royalist voters would be reluctant to spend a day on the road to attend an election which might involve board and lodging expenses for four or five days, followed by another day to travel home. Moreover, by holding the election in the chef-lieu, the government increased the prefect's ability to canvass electors and to supervise and influence the proceedings.31 The first 27

ibid., d'Argout to Decazes, 24 March, 19 May and 16 November 1817, 2 January and 4 February 1818. ibid., Decazes to d'Argout, 7 May 1817, and d'Argout to Decazes, 14 May 1817. 29 ibid., d ' A r g o u t t o D e c a z e s , 3 , 3 1 M a y 1817; A N 1 2 4 A P 2, d ' A r g o u t t o E y m a r d , 2 1 , 23 April 1817. 30 AN F lc m Gard 7, d'Argout to Laine, quarterly report, first quarter 1818; F79O5i, d'Argout to Decazes, 30 January, 4 February 1818. 31 R. Remond, La viepolitique en France, 1, 284-5; G. de Bertier de Sauvigny, Restauration, p. 144; J. -J. Oechslin, 'Sociologie, organisation et strategic de l'ultra royalisme', Politique, 3 (1968), 231-59. 28

68

Catholic royalism in the Gard

partial renewal of the chamber took place in September 1817 and as a result the extreme right lost a dozen seats to the government's candidates. The Gard was included in the second batch of departments, whose deputies had to be elected in the autumn of 1818. Thus from the end of 1817, the task of winning the election for the government took precedence over all of d'Argout's other concerns. Not to win would have amounted to dereliction of duty in the prefect's - and probably Decazes's - eyes. In the meantime, in spite of his optimism, d'Argout's success in undoing the mutual hostility which characterised Protestant—Catholic relations had been understandably slight. After an initial burst of enthusiasm and expectation, Protestant opinion had cooled considerably towards the prefect once it became plain that he had not arrived to reinstate Protestants at the expense of Catholics. In May 1817 he observed to Eymard: 'Le departement est tranquille comme un lac. Ce n'est pas que les passions soyent eteintes, mais elles sont comprimees. . . . En revanche, ils me detestent le plus cordialement au monde, Protestants comme Catholiques. Les premiers trouvent que je n'en fais pas assez pour eux. Les seconds trouvent que je suis Jacobin.'32 Nevertheless, a preliminary study of the Gard's electors gave him some hope that he might succeed in rallying enough support to secure the election of an 'officially approved' list reflecting the proportional strength of the Catholic and Protestant inhabitants - two Catholics and one Protestant, but all moderates. In November 1817, he calculated that he could count on 400 out of an estimated 1288 eligible voters for such a list, and he proclaimed his intention to create a majority by the most effective means available to prefects - the promise of promotion and honours, and the liberal use of his discretionary powers in determining the eligibility of those whose tax contributions were borderline. The latter power was most valuable in the context of the Gard's economic fluctuations, when the electorate drawn from the commercial bourgeoisie could vary considerably from one year to the next.33 From the start d'Argout was forced to abandon his plan to elect an agreed list. Only one Catholic, the wealthy marquis d'Aramon, was prepared to stand as an 'official' Catholic candidate, and he subsequently withdrew. Moreover, a group of radical Protestants announced their intention to nominate Bonapartist candidates under the banner of independents, so ensuring that the Protestant vote would be split and making the election of ultra-royalist candidates very likely.34 In order to gain a majority for the government's candidates, whoever they may be, d'Argout required all the Protestant votes and a number of Catholic votes. This consideration deter32 33

34

AN 124AP 2, letter of 24 May 1817. ibid., d'Argout to Eymard, 15 November 1817; F79O5O, d'Argout to Decazes, 6 November 1817, 2 January 1818; AD Gard 6M 62, sub-prefect of Ales to d'Argout, 23 January, 10 February 1818, and sub-prefect of Uzes to d'Argout, 4 February 1818. AN F79O5i, d'Argout to Decazes, 27 December 1817.

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69

mined the prefect to spare no efforts to consolidate the Protestant vote behind his list, and to seek to isolate the Catholic royalist vote by exploiting all the divisions he could find in the Catholic community. His decision led to the lowest ebb which Catholic royalism was to experience during the Bourbon Restoration, but it meant, too, that the movement's roots were left intact, indeed strengthened, by the very kind of attack d'Argout had correctly wished to avoid when he first took office. D'Argout opened his campaign by dismissing the sub-prefects of Uzes and Ales, d'Arnand-Vallabrix and Narbonne-Lara, neither of whom was anything more than an instrument of the societe royale. In order to pre-empt a reaction, neither was openly sacked. D'Arnand-Vallabrix was retired (he was in his late sixties); and Narbonne-Lara was transferred to the sous-prefecture of Florae (Lozere).35 The measure stimulated public opinion - Catholics attributed the move to Protestant machinations, while Protestants displayed annoyance that the sub-prefects' replacements were not local Protestants but there were no disturbances.36 The dismissal of these key administrators was followed by that of the Mayor of Nimes, de Vallongues. He, like the two sub-prefects, had been appointed by de Bernis during the White Terror, and he had remained a most indiscreet partisan of the Catholic royalist cause under d'Argout until the dismissal of d'Arnand-Vallabrix and NarbonneLara, when he quickly realised how vulnerable he was. The late conversion was of no use, and on 3 December a royal ordinance removed him from office. In a final attempt to sabotage the prefect's efforts, Vallongues urged his staff at the Hotel de Ville to walk out with him, but they, whatever their political opinions, refused to take part in a gesture which would have certainly resulted in their own dismissal.37 The removal of the three prominent Catholic royalists, and their replacement by men whom d'Argout felt he could trust, left the prefect reasonably sure that his instructions and inquiries would no longer be leaked to the royalists.38 At the same time, d'Argout embarked on a certain amount of his own police work, intended principally to ascertain the effects of his policies on the Catholic royalists. Out of the budget which he had at his disposal for the secret police, the prefect bought information from Fajon, a bankrupt draper who had been involved with the extreme royalists since 1814. Unlike much information provided by informers, Fajon's verbal reports to the prefect contained details which could be verified in a number of cases because they concerned d'Argout's confidential preparations for the elections and served 35

AN F lb n A N Flcm 37 AN F1bn Decazes, 1817. 38 AN F lb n 36

Gard 15, d'Argout to Decazes, 17 November 1817. G a r d 7, Note sur la situation du departement du Gard, n.d. Gard 15, ordinances of 15 November and 3 December 1817; F79O5i, d'Argout to 27 October, 16 November 1817; F79O54, d'Argout to Decazes, 19 December Gard 15, 22 December 1817.

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Catholic royalism in the Gard

to reveal the extent to which the Catholic royalists were aware of his plans. 39 The picture of Catholic royalism painted by Fajon gave d'Argout encouragement. Unused to fighting elections and to dealing with hostile authorities, the royalists' election committees were in considerable disarray. In those cantons where they enjoyed the connivance of local officials - Le Vigan and Saint-Gilles, particularly - they were able to acquire copies of the tax rolls, and could consequently estimate their electoral strength and then hope to sway voters or appeal against assessments which excluded their supporters. In Ales, they had obtained the list for the entire arrondissement from the secretary at the sous-prefecture. In Nimes and Uzes, however, the royalists' agents were utterly ignorant of the official rolls, and were frantically endeavouring to draw up their own assessment based on 'door-to-door' canvassing. The due d'Uzes was said to be screaming 'a cor et a cri' for the necessary details.40 Fajon further indicated that morale had been at a very low ebb for some time among the royalists, and that the rift between the faction's notables and rank and file had widened since the spring of 1817: On reproche a monsieur de Vogiie son peu de capacite et son peu de generosite. Riche comme il est, il fait peu de sacrifices pour la cause commune. On lui a le mauvais gre d'avoir tant parle de noblesse dans son discours sur la loi du recrutement. . . Fajon, en parlant de monsieur de Bernis, l'a accuse d'ingratitude . . . monsieur de Calviere aurait neglige de donner une direction suivie au parti. . . monsieur de Trinquelague, sans etre hai des ultra, leur est indifferent depuis qu'il est a Paris et qu'il y a accepte les fonctions de conseiller d'etat. On lui reproche d'etre modere et de n'avoir rien fait pour le pays pendant qu'il etait sous-secretaire d'etat pour la justice.41 Money, or lack of it, continued to be a major source of discontent among the poorer Catholics. The subsidies on which many of them relied were believed to come from donations made by the wealthy Catholics, and not from the misuse of public funds like the national guard budget. Thus, when d'Argout tightened his control of such funds, the ensuing shortage of money was blamed on the meanness of the notables who had presumably let it be known that the money was in fact the result of their personal generosity. There was no doubting de Vogue's dismay when he discovered that d'Argout had drastically cut the national guard budget for 1818!42 The result had been hastily organised collections made by the de Rochemore sisters, ostensibly on behalf of the old and infirm of Nimes, but which went into the 39

AN F79O5i, d'Argout to Decazes, 20 April, 26 May 1818. See F. B. Artz, 'The electoral system in France during the Bourbon Restoration, 1815—30', Journal Mod. Hist., 1 (1929), 205-18; A N F l c m Gard 13, d'Argout to Laine, 1 June 1818. 41 A N F79O5i, d'Argout to Decazes, 20 April 1818. 42 AD Gard iE 966, Charles de Vogue to the marquis d'Assas, 11 October 1817; AN F79O5i, d'Argout to Decazes, 20 April 1818. 40

1817 to 1830

71

43

royalists' relief fund. Pressing his informer further on this point, the prefect was gratified to learn that his first impressions that the Catholic royalist movement was not by any means the monolith it appeared to be had some foundation: Fajon m'a repete sur cela une observation quej'ai souvent faite moi-meme; c'etait que les gentilshomme n'etaient point aimes dans le parti ultra. Ce parti ne veut pas etre exploite au profit de la noblesse seule, et chacun de ses membres voudrait retirer un avantage personnel de sa resistance aux volontes du Roi. L'esprit de republicanisme existe done icij usque dans les individus qui voudraient aneantir la Charte pour retablir l'ancienne forme de gouvernement.44 The remark echoed an observation made in 1815 by general Lagarde some days before the attempt on his life: 'II existe generalement une grande erreur sur le Midi, e'est de croire au royalisme du bas peuple.' 45 Indeed the opinion expressed by Fajon was held by the Froments, Lavondes and Bernavons of the department, all men who had lost heavily by the rise of Protestant capitalism in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic era, and who looked - in vain - to the restoration of the Catholic monarchy to redress the balance in their favour. Political success since 1815 had combined with economic hardship to weaken the apparent cohesiveness of the Catholic royalist party and to reveal the irreconcilable aspirations of its leaders on the one hand and its popular supporters on the other. The social divisions within the party did not, however, have any bearing on the royalists' electoral chances in a regime where less than half of one per cent of the citizens were entitled to vote. Nevertheless, the Catholic royalists who could participate also showed signs of deep divisions. According to the terms of the 1817 electoral law, the Gard's representation was reduced to three deputies, and a struggle had commenced to determine which of the five sitting deputies should be selected to contest the election. D'Argout learned that the societe toy ale proposed to renominate Jules de Calviere, the leader of the department's royalists, but to exclude the four other sitting deputies because of dissatisfaction with their performance in Paris. Instead, the former prefect, the marquis d'Arbaud-Jouques, and general Gabriel Donnadieu would stand. Jouques's qualifications were, of course, outstanding; he had never shown any tendency to act independently of the societe royale while he was prefect, and his devotion to that society could only increase if it was instrumental in securing his election. Donnadieu was a Nimois and former republican soldier who, after his conversion to royalism, displayed an extremism which he had previously shown in the service of the republic when 43 44 45

AN F79O5i, d'Argout to Decazes, 24 March 1817 and 20 April 1818. AN F79O5i, d'Argout to Decazes, 20 April 1818. AN F79O49, Lagarde to Decazes, 7 December 1815.

72 Catholic royalism in the Gard he savagely repressed the Vendee rebels. More recently, Donnadieu had caused a stir by his more than zealous action against Didier and his fellow conspirators in the Isere.46 But the plan to elect these candidates went sadly amiss as each of them became the victims of their vanity and lack of tact. In March 1818, Donnadieu lost much of his credibility and influence when Gouvion-Saint-Cyr relieved him of his command and recalled him to Paris. Then the sulking general compromised himself further by indulging in a pathetic if scandalous plot to abduct the king in order to shield him from the nefarious influence of his liberal ministers. This escapade, known as the conspiration du bord de Veau because the conspirators customarily met on the Terrasse du Bord de l'Eau between the Tuileries and the Seine, effectively destroyed Donnadieu's chances of being chosen to stand in the Gard.47 D'Arbaud-Jouques brought about his own downfall by publishing an account of his administration in the Gard.48 According to Fajon, the societe royale had collaborated with Jouques in preparing the book so that it would appear as a justification of the White Terror. Jouques, however, was concerned first and foremost with salvaging his reputation, and he readily acknowledged in the final version that serious crimes had indeed been committed in 1815 in the name of royalism, but against the orders of the provisional authorities and the king's officials. Once again, Fajon voiced the popular distrust of the gentleman: 'sa Qouques's] vanite qui l'a porte a ne donner d'eloges qu'a lui-meme et a un petit nombre de gentilshommes a cause un vif mecontentement', and this vanity finally cost him the nomination.49 Ultimately, the choice reverted to two of the outgoing deputies, Charles de Vogue and de Trinquelague, in spite of their poor standing in the opinion of the local royalists. When Trinquelague was finally selected in the summer of 1818, the royalists' prospects appeared to be so poor that the Pavilion de Marsan was urging them to boycott the elections rather than face humiliation, while a number of Catholics in the Gard were seeking an electoral pact with the extreme left simply to block the election of the prefect's candidates.50 In spite of the Catholic royalists' disarray, the prefect's own preparations were far from easy, the success of his candidates far from certain. He had, by the spring of 1818, gone some way to discredit the Catholic royalists in the eyes of the electorate, but he had not succeeded in winning the support of the Protestant electorate, nor had he removed entirely the possibility of royalistinspired conflict at the time of the election, to disrupt the proceedings, or 46 47 48 49 50

AN F79O5i, d'Argout to Decazes, 26 December 1817 and 20 March 1818. ibid., d'Argout to Decazes, 20 March 1818; J. Cabanis, Charles X, roi ultra, pp. 196-7. Troubles et agitations. A N F 7 9 O 5 i , d ' A r g o u t t o D e c a z e s , M a y 1818; F l c m G a r d 13, d ' A r g o u t t o D e c a z e s , 1 and 3 August 1818. A N F 7 9O5i d ' A r g o u t t o D e c a z e s , 2 0 A p r i l 1818.

1817 to 1830 73 after the election if, as he hoped, the royalists suffered defeat. In fact, the two considerations proved to be complementary. By continuing to remove Catholics from the administration, d'Argout gradually built up some goodwill among the Protestants: in the spring and summer of 1818 he dismissed de Larcy, the remaining 1815 sub-prefect, forty mayors and twenty judicial officials. Others were deliberately kept in a temporary capacity to coerce them into abandoning their links with extreme royalist politics.51 Undoubtedly the most crucial and sensitive measure was d'Argout's decision to disband the national guard. Not only did the force constitute a potential threat to order if its leaders chose to seek an armed confrontation with the authorities; it was also likely to be the Catholic royalists' most effective electoral agent, providing a highly structured communications network across the department, channelling royalist opinion and, ultimately, offering the royalists the possibility of disrupting the election by intimidating liberals. Conscious of the danger involved in moving against the national guard, d'Argout proposed to dissolve it at the beginning of August, the time traditionally taken by the Gard's political class for their summer vacation after the foire de Beaucaire. Nimes, unbearably hot, was deserted, its administrative offices and courts closed until September. Moreover, the foire de Beaucaire, requiring additional policing, offered the perfect opportunity for the prefect to reinforce the Nimes garrison without arousing suspicion. The royal ordinance disbanding the national guard in the department of the Gard was signed on Sunday 26 July and was published in Nimes on Saturday 1 August. Immediately the regular troops stationed in Nimes, Uzes and Ales proceeded under the supervision of the sub-prefects to occupy the national guard's depots and remove its arms, ammunition and records. The operation had been planned with such secrecy and carried out with such speed that only in Ales did a crowd attempt to prevent the troops from carrying off the contents of the depot. However, by no means all the muskets and powder in the custody of the guard were confiscated: as the news of the operation spread through the countryside, many guardsmen took what they could and hid muskets and powder in safe houses and barns.52 The psychological effects of the operation were profound. D'Argout reported that nearly forty royalists who had taken part in the White Terror of 1815 left Nimes while the disarming was still being carried out, fearing that it was simply a prelude to the arrest of suspects. Known royalists were unable to conceal their amazement at the measure and, particularly, at the way in which it had been enacted without their knowledge.53 But besides removing a dangerous private army, the dissolution of the national guard proved to be the single most important 51 52 53

ibid., d'Argout to Decazes, 16, 22 June and 2 July 1818. AN F lc m Gard 13, d'Argout to Decazes, 3 August 1818. ibid., d'Argout to Decazes, 1 August 1818.

74 Catholic royalism in the Gard factor in rallying the Protestants to d'Argout's election campaign. The measure was seen as a token of his good faith, and it crowned his assiduous work to convince the Protestant electorate that they could hope to influence affairs in the department by supporting him. In the remote parts of the department, where radical Protestants had proposed to nominate Bonapartists like general Vignolles, general Former d'Albe and Benjamin Constant, the Protestant clergy swayed the voters by pointing to the prefect's endeavours to break the grip of the Catholic royalists and so increased d'Argout's prospects of securing the Protestant vote for his candidates.54 The question of candidates remained, however, unsettled. With the withdrawal of the Catholic marquis d'Aramon, d'Argout was faced with the problem of finding another Catholic if he hoped to obtain enough Catholic votes to get his list elected. At the same time, the Catholic candidate would have to be acceptable to the Protestants who had promised him their votes. De Surville, who had been d'Argout's initial choice, refused to stand. The solution was found by the minister of police, Decazes, who proposed his father-in-law, the comte de Saint-Aulaire. A Catholic, but an outsider, Saint-Aulaire agreed to stand late in the day at the insistence of his son-in-law in order to make up the list, to offer the moderate Catholic voters an alternative to the extreme royalists and to enable d'Argout to present a 'mixed' list of pro-government candidates. Saint-Aulaire owed his fortune to Napoleon, whom he had served as chamberlain, but in 1814 he had rallied to the constitutional monarchy and had not been willing to accept any office during the Hundred Days. He was clearly seen as a last-ditch candidate, and d'Argout was obliged to work hard to present him as a worthwhile choice.55 The prefect's other candidates were conservative Protestants, ChabaudLatour and Reynaud de Lascours. Both had been involved in the federalist movement of 1793 and had later represented the Gard in Napoleon's corps legislatifbefore rallying to the constitutional monarchy in 1814. Neither man had been implicated in the Hundred Days.56 By the time d'Argout's candidates were officially selected, the prefect had left himself with no time to conduct the election campaign in a gentlemanly fashion: 'Je me remue comme un diable dans un benitier pour l'election', he told Decazes in June 1818.57 According to sympathetic observers, d'Argout's description of his efforts was no exaggeration: 'Le prefet travaille beaucoup pour les elections, et meme d'une maniere qui est scandaleuse. II ne se cache 54 55 56

57

AN F79O5i, d'Argout to Decazes, 26 December 1817; F lcm Gard 7, Note sur la situation du departement du Gard, n.d. AD Gard 6M 36, sub-prefect of Ales to d'Argout, 8 September 1818. A D Gard L 767, Liste des personnes emigrees, 1792; Almanack imperial, 1809; J. F. R o b i n e t , Dictionnaire historique et biographique de la Revolution et de VEmpire, ljSg-iSis, 11, 333; A D Gard 6M 36, sub-prefect of Ales to d'Argout, 8 September 1818. 7 AN F 9O5i, d'Argout to Decazes, 16 June 1818.

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75

pas le moins du monde de tous les efforts, de tous les moyens qu'il employe pour arriver a son but. '58 His methods included open canvassing at theatre and musical performances, together with less scrupulous ploys like the seduction of Jules de Calviere's widowed sister, madame de Bonnafoux, who, having succumbed to his charms, provided the prefect with more or less useful gossip about the Catholic royalists' plans and difficulties.59 D'Argout's piece de resistance, however, was the distribution barely days before the electoral college met of a pamphlet intended to embarrass Charles de Vogue and, particularly, Jules de Calviere, whose reputation for meanness had not diminished in the eyes of the popular royalists. The pamphlet, which was printed out of police funds and distributed by Claude Eymard, announced that no royalists should stay away from elections because of the expense involved: Monsieur le comte de Vogue a pris des mesures pour que les electeurs soyent choyes et traites chacun selon ce qui convient sans qu'il leur en coute rien. II donnera a boire et a manger pendant tout le temps des elections a tous ceux qui promettent de lui donner leur voix. II s'occupera aussi du couchage et des moyens de transport. Des carrosses et des betes de monture seront toujours pretes pour des amis.60 D'Argout's singular devotion was rewarded with success. In spite of last-minute threats of a massacre, the most sinister of which was broadcast on 24 August, the anniversary of the Saint Bartholomew's Day massacre, the Protestants turned out en masse to vote for the prefect's list on 26 October. 61 The royalists, however, remained in confusion. Despite a last-minute promise from the party's candidates that the comte d'Artois was securing allied intervention to depose the king and establish proper government, a statement which was combined with an appeal to vote, many royalists chose to stay away from the electoral college.62 Consequently, the three Catholic royalists, Jules de Calviere, Charles de Vogue and Charles-Frangois de Trinquelague, were beaten decisively.63 The Catholic royalists' fortunes in 1818 reflected the fortunes of the ultra-royalist movement as a whole under the government dominated by 58

AD Gard, Chartrier de Clausonne 317, H. Former de Clausonne to general Fornier d'Albe, 8 September 1818. 59 AN 124AP 2, d'Argout to Eymard, October 1818; F79O5i, d'Argout to minister of interior, 7 September 1818; AD Gard 6M 116, prefect to minister of interior, April 1836 (report on madame de Bonnafoux). 60 AN 124AP 2, d'Argout to Eymard, 16 and 17 October 1818. 61 ANF79O5i, d'Argout to Decazes, 24 August I8I8;F 7 9O5O, Faits et circonstances a Nismes en 1818; F lc m Gard 13, d'Argout to Laine, 12 November 1818. 62 AD Gard 6M 36, sub-prefect of Ales to d'Argout, J3 September 1818; AN F lc m Gard 13, d'Argout to Decazes, 17 September 1818. 63 The result was: Sainte-Aulaire 963 votes; Chabaud-Latour 949; Reynaud de Lascours 937; de Calviere 410; de Vogue 433; de Trinquelague 398 (AN F lcm Gard 4).

76

Catholic royalism in the Gard

Decazes, the minister of police. Indeed, it is unlikely that d'Argout could have succeeded with such ease in wresting the Gard from the royalists unless the over-all political climate had been so hostile to the extreme right. Decazes, enjoying the unqualified confidence of Louis XVIII, had been able to mount a campaign designed to destroy the credibility of the ultra-royalists and to isolate them. As with d'Argout, the end justified the means, and little was spared by the minister of police in his endeavours to smear the extreme right, which he considered to be the principal threat to political stability and to the constitutional order in France. The ultras, however, gave the minister ample scope for his machinations. After the conspiration du bord de Veau of June 1818 came the affair of the note secrete. This involved a memorandum to the representatives in Paris of the allied powers who had decided to hold a congress at Aachen in the autumn. In the note, inspired by Artois's cabinet vert and drafted by Vitrolles (another southerner), the ultras depicted France as a volcano of revolution on the point of erupting again. The only remedy, they argued, was the removal of the government and its replacement with dependable royalists. The note also recommended the continued occupation of France by the allies, or else partition - another attempt by the southerners to rid themselves of the 'tainted' and Paris-dominated north? A copy of the memorandum fell into the hands of the police, and Decazes wasted no time in publishing extracts which cast the ultras in an unpatriotic role - France had just paid her war debts and reparations, and the Aachen congress had been convened to review the country's position, to confirm the withdrawal of the last allied troops and to admit France to the congress system.64 The ultras' cloak-and-dagger activities, bordering on treason, widened the breach between the king and Artois, and did little to help their cause. By the time of the 1818 elections, they were demoralised and generally discredited as a reasonable political opposition. Their decline was reflected in their parliamentary fortunes. Between 1816 and 1819, the ultras lost some 50 seats, falling from 90 to 40. Ultimately, the beneficiaries of Decazes's enforced liberalisation of France were not the constitutional monarchists but the motley group of Bonapartists and former Revolutionaries who called themselves independents, and whose loyalty to the monarchy was doubtful. They included Lafayette, Manuel and Constant among their foremost spokesmen. In the partial renewal of 1818, they gained 20 seats, but their greatest triumph came in the 1819 partial renewal, when 35 independents were elected, including Gregoire, the former constitutional bishop who, as a member of the Convention, voted to execute Louis XVI. The results of the 1819 elections compelled Decazes to revise his policy and to seek an alliance with the centre right instead of the centre left on which he had relied for support since 1816. 64

G. de Bertier de Sauvigny, Restauration, pp. 148-55; Pasquier, iv, 251.

1S17 to 1830 77 Indeed, he went so far as to try and establish an understanding with the extreme right, proposing to modify the electoral system yet again, this time in a way which would give double representation to the wealthiest voters in each department. This volte-face was never completed by Decazes. In February 1820, the due de Berry was murdered, and although it proved impossible to attribute the crime to political motives, the ultra-royalists insisted that the liberal policies of the government had created an anti-monarchist climate in which such crimes could take place. Moreover, Berry was the most popular member of the royal family, next in line to the throne after his father, Artois. As he was apparently childless at the time of his death, it seemed that a blow had been struck which would end the direct Bourbon line within years. The public, whose indignation was aroused by the apparently incomprehensible murder, rallied behind the monarchy in a wave of emotion which redoubled when it became known that Berry's wife was in fact pregnant with the child who was to be known as the enfant du miracle. Decazes, the chief architect of liberalism, was made the scapegoat, and he left office to become ambassador in London within weeks of the murder.65 Even without the death of the due de Berry, it is unlikely that Decazes's about turn would have succeeded. He was indulging in zjeu de bascule which was isolating him from both left and right, with former allies like Dessolles and Gouvion-Saint-Cyr hostile to his overtures to the right, while Vitrolles was the only ultra-royalist spokesman prepared to enter talks with him. Nor had Decazes's manipulation of the constitution and the national administration in order to achieve his ends earned the minister of police much respect: his decision to dissolve the chambre introuvable in 1816 was matched in 1819 by his creation of the famous fournee of fifty-nine liberal peers in order to obtain a majority for the government in the upper house. It is arguable that such blatant use of the constitution, combined with his police and electoral manoeuvres, did much to discredit constitutionalism in France at a critical phase of its development. If the Decazes liberals paid dearly for their zeal in imposing their particular interpretation of the Charte, the ultra-royalists paid even more for their unqualified opposition to the government. Between 1816 and 1820, they lost their influence in both chambers of the parliament, and they were also deprived of their private army, the national guard. In September 1818, after the affairs of the conspiration du bord de Veau and the note secrete, Louis XVIII

agreed to remove the national guard of France from the control of Artois and his associates, and to subordinate it instead to the local civil authorities, mayors prefects and, ultimately, the minister of the interior. The measure did not have the same direct effect on the ultras as the dissolution of the Gard's

65

Chateaubriand was particularly venomous in his remark about Decazes that 'ses pieds lui glisserent dans le sang'. Memoires d'outre-tombe, 11, 12.

78 Catholic royalism in the Gard force had on the Catholic royalists, but it represented yet another step away from their ideal of a loose association of locally organised militias owing their allegiance to the 'real king', their supreme commander, and it did of course put an end to a convenient cover for the ultras' clandestine activities. From the ultras' point of view, the death of the due de Berry was a blessing in disguise. However regrettable the death of the duke might have been, it did provide them with a spectacular casus belli and the opportunity for revenge. From 1820, the history of France was one of a steady shift to the right which obviously accommodated the ultra-royalists more easily even if their wilder ambitions like decentralisation and the government of the country exclusively according to the precepts of the Catholic Church remained unsatisfied. In the department of the Gard, the consequences of the decline and subsequent resurgence of the right were translated into the familiar and traditional duel between Catholic and Protestant. D'Argout's success in weakening Catholic royalism lasted only as long as his political mentor's fortunes, and it is arguable that the consequence of his attack was a pruning of the branches but a strengthening of the roots of the movement. In his determination to impose the government's will on the department, d'Argout had ultimately been forced to fall back on Protestant rather than Catholic support. This meant the appointment of Protestants to public positions and the identification of the Decazes government first and foremost with Protestant interests. Thus, many of the mayors and adjoints removed from office between 1817 and 1819, when d'Argout left to become a peer of France, were replaced by Protestants, even in places where Catholics were in a majority and were particularly sensitive about their superiority - the appointment of d'Hombres-Firmas at Ales was such an example. In Nimes, d'Argout changed the mayor twice in just over a year: Vallongues, who had held the position since 1815, was dismissed in December 1817; and his replacement, La Boissiere, lasted only until March 1819 because he did not meet the prefect's expectations of him. While the position was not offered to a Protestant, d'Argout recommended the next best thing, a Catholic married to a Protestant, Cavalier, who as procureur-general had been chased out of the city in August 1815.66 In the courts, too, where the royalists' influence had been observed, Protestants were brought rapidly to the fore: of seventeen appointments made under d'Argout, five were local Protestants while eight others were men brought into Nimes from other jurisdictions.67 Baron d'Haussez, who succeeded d'Argout in the prefecture in the spring of 1819, commented later: Le parti protestant etait alors tout puissant par la protection que lui accordaient monsieur Guizot, chef de division a l'interieur; messieurs de Sainte-Aulaire, beau66

A N F l b i Gard 4 , d ' A r g o u t t o D e c a z e s , n . d . , Notes sur quelques changements a operer dans les mairies. 67 Journal du Gard, 9 January 1819; Baragnon, iv, 354-5.

i8iy to 1830 79 pere de monsieur Decazes, et Chabaud-Latour, l'un et l'autre deputes du Gard; Boissy d'Anglas et Pelet de la Lozere, Protestants zeles et pairs de France; et, enfin, le comte d'Argout, recemment appele a la pairie.68 Faced with the sudden reversal of their fortunes, the militant royalists resorted to the type of behaviour which had initially drawn attention to them during the First Restoration. Public officials were threatened, and others were told that if the authorities continued to favour the Protestants, the scenes of 1815 would be repeated, but on a grander scale and with the participation of more than the handful who had carried out the murders of the White Terror. As if to give substance to these threats, notorious White Terrorists, including Trestaillons, Trufemi, Carteras and Magnier, appeared on the streets of Nimes conferring ostentatiously with men known to be in the service of de Vogue and Jules de Calviere. These met frequently in selected cafes, where they sat for hours in conspiratorial huddles, ghosts from the recent past whose very names were capable of terrifying Protestants.69 At the same time, Eymard, who had been appointed lieutenant de police in Marseille, reported that ultra-royalist groups in the neighbouring departments of the Ardeche, Vaucluse and Bouches-du-Rhone were increasing their activities as though some 'evenement' was expected.70 Lest they should not be taken seriously, the sulking royalists indulged in a number of random attacks on Protestants going to and from their places of work. In November and December 1818, three Protestants were murdered in these attacks, which succeeded in maintaining a tense atmosphere in the city.71 In March 1818, violence flared up on a large scale. Performances by an actor called Huet, whose repertoire contained a number of loyal songs and recitations, were being given at the new municipal theatre opposite the Maison Carree when news of d'Argout's elevation to the peerage reached Nimes. The theatre, which had attracted large numbers of Catholic royalists eager to get the most out of Huet's performances, became the focal point of a demonstration. A large crowd of Catholics, sporting enormous white cocardes and shouting 'Vive Charles dix!', assembled on the boulevard and began to insult the government, the prefect, the local authorities and, of course, the Protestants. The latter formed a counter-demonstration, drawing support from the Protestant faubourgs behind the theatre. A pitched battle soon broke out, and a week of skirmishing followed in which two demi-soldes were murdered by Catholics, while bands of Protestant peasants from the 68 69 70 71

D'Haussez, 1, 260. AN F79O5O, police report, December 1818; F lcm Gard 13, d'Argout to Laine, 12 November 1818. AN 124AP 2, Eymard's notes and letters to Decazes, 22 January and 2 February 1819. AN F7oo5O, police report, December 1818.

80 Catholic royalism in the Gard Vaunage and Gardonenque marched into Nimes to defend their brethren.72 The city was brought back to order only after general de Briche arrived from Montpellier with reinforcements and imposed a curfew.73 The scale of the disorders had been so great that Decazes, who had held the post of minister of the interior as well as minister of police since December 1818, ordered a full inquiry to be carried out by a newly appointed procureur, Pataille, and to be supervised by d'Argout's successor, d'Haussez. One of the most disturbing features of the rioting had been the presence of so many White Terrorists like Trufemi, Servant, Carteras, Magnier and Hours. The minister of justice, de Serre, instructed Pataille to investigate carefully the records of all those detained during the riots in order to press charges, where appropriate, relating to any crimes committed since July 1815. It was this decision which led to the reopening of a number of cases which had been dropped in 1815 and 1816 because of lack of evidence and witnesses. The most notorious subjects of Pataille's investigations were Trestaillons, Quatretaillons, Trufemi, Servent and Aurillon, all of whom had enjoyed complete freedom in the Gard since the White Terror because of the connivance of the local authorities.74 From the first evidence he assembled, Pataille was convinced that the March disorders were part of a conspiracy to undermine the veneer of law and order which d'Argout had painstakingly sought to superimpose on the Gard. The officials appointed by d'Argout to oversee the department until the arrival of d'Haussez had not made the least attempt to intervene, and so had given the rioters encouragement to escalate the level of violence. The chief culprits were La Boissiere, the mayor, who, d'Argout concluded, was so weak that he might easily bend to pressure from the Catholic royalists, and the secretary at the prefecture, Chazelles-Chusclan, whom the outgoing prefect described as 'entierement devoue au parti ultra'.75 Decazes dismissed the two men immediately, and the replacement of La Boissiere by Cavalier provoked the resignation of the two Catholic adjoints at the mairie.76 Then one of the men arrested for his part in the disorders said that most of the former national guardsmen had been alerted by their old company commanders to 72

73 74 75

76

AD Gard, Chartrier de Clausonne 317, G. Fornier de Clausonne to general Former d'Albe, 10, 15, 20 March 1819; AN F79O5O, police and gendarmerie reports, 9 March 1819; PRO Foreign Office 27/203, British Ambassador's report, 29 March 1819; E. Masse, Sur les Protestants de Nismes et leurs persecuteurs, ou relation circonstanciee des derniers troubles de cette ville\ C . D u r a n d , Un mot sur les nouveaux troubles de Nismes. AD Gard, Chartrier de Clausonne 317, G. Fornier de Clausonne to general Fornier d'Albe, 20 March 1819. A N F 7 9O5O, police report, 8 M a r c h 1819, and D e c a z e s to d'Haussez, 28 March 1819; B B 3 i 5 4 , memorandum on political crimes committed in the Gard from 1815 to 1820. A N F79O5O, gendarmerie report, 9 March 1819; A D Gard, Chartrier d e Clausonne 317, G. Fornier de Clausonne t o general Fornier d'Albe, 20 March 1819; A N F l b i Gard 4, d'Argout t o Decazes, 14 March 1819; Masse, p. 16. A N F l b i Gard 4, d'Haussez t o Decazes, 21 March 1819.

1817 to 1830

81

form up into companies at the sound of the generate, the drum rolls used in the national guard to call out the guard en masse. A number of strategic points had been designated where the men could assemble with arms or to get arms, and where they would await further orders. Questioning the man further, Pataille discovered that the old national guard still existed in secret. The force's old headquarters were still in use by the officers as a club and regular meeting-place- 'il n'y a que l'ecriteau exterieur d'ote', said Pataille- and each week numbers of the former guardsmen called there to receive pay. 77 In fact, the national guard had succeeded in maintaining a considerable amount of its organisation after d'Argout's move to dissolve its official existence. Because of the vigour displayed by the prefect in his attempts to weaken the influence of the royalists, many of the national guard commanders believed that he would sooner or later take some action to neutralise the force. They had decided, therefore, not to challenge him openly, but to salvage what they could of their organisation and reconstitute an armed force 'under ground'. Thus, only days after the dissolution, Charles de Vogue wrote to the department's battalion commanders stressing that: 'en cessant de faire corps, nous demeurerons toujours unis par notre devouement et par les sentiments d'estime que des relations plus particulieres nous ont inspire'. 78 De Vogue's letter made no suggestion that loyalty or obedience to the royal will should be their first and only consideration. A little later, the battalion commander from Saint-Andre-de-Valborgne in the north west of the department assured the marquis d'Assas, who had commanded the entire arrondissement of Le Vigan, that: 'la garde nationale, quoique divisee, sera toujours prete a se rallier lorsque l'interet ou le danger du trone lui en feraient un devoir'. 79 D'Argout had already observed that the old officer corps continued to preserve its identity carefully. On 25 August 1818, the feast of St Louis: Les officiers de la garde nationale, qui avaient l'habitude d'entendre la messe tous les dimanches a l'eglise Saint-Charles, s'y sont rendus hier avec monsieur de Surville, mais sans uniforme. Cette demarche a ete diversement interpretee; elle a ete consideree par les uns comme une affectation a paraitre en corps. II est certain qu'il y a une tendance parmi les officiers a conserver entre eux une espece d'organisation secrete depuis que leur organisation publique n'existe plus. Les meneurs du parti exalte cherchent meme a propager cette idee et ils font continuellement circuler le bruit que cette garde sera un jour reorganised avec les memes elements.80 In a later report, d'Argout referred to a policeman's statement that Henri de 77 78 79 80

AN F79O5O, Pataille to minister of justice, 28 March 1819; BB 18iO48, Guillet {procureur-general) to minister of justice, 18 March 1819. AD Gard iE 966, memorandum of 31 July 1818. ibid., Chabat to d'Assas, 17 September 1818. AN F79O5i, d'Argout to Decazes, 26 August 1818.

82 Catholic royalism in the Gard Bernis, one of the leading Catholic royalists, had said plainly: 'Eh bien, puisqu'on licencie la garde nationale, nous allons en faire une societe secrete.' Pataille and Guillet, the procureurs investigating the events of March 1819 and the men of 1815, concluded from their interrogations that the guard was already well armed once again, and was capable of unleashing a bloodbath at the given signal. Its existence, wrote Pataille, was not simply 'de notoriete publique, ce serait trop peu dire, mais de notoriete universelle'.81 D'Argout's successor, d'Haussez, was less anxious. While he agreed that the national guard structure still existed, he believed that its main purpose was to keep the royalists in touch in a formal manner so that they would remain prepared for the day when, as the officers believed, the force would be reinstated.82 The concerns of the former national guard certainly did resemble those of an ex-soldiers' organisation- social gatherings, welfare and a considerable nostalgic pride in their organisation. However, in the circumstances which prevailed in the Gard, and knowing the sectarian character of the national guard, the continuing existence of that body inevitably gave rise to more concern than other old soldiers' associations might have done. The period of d'Haussez's administration, from March 1819 to January 1820, was no more than an interregnum. The new prefect, a Norman, was reluctant to become involved in the particular problems of the Gard. Destined to become a minister in the Polignac cabinet of 1829, he had a poor opinion of the witch-hunt methods employed by Decazes and d'Argout against the royalists.83 Consequently, his handling of the political problems bequeathed to him by d'Argout's crusade was marked by a distinct lack of commitment which finally led to his dismissal. By then, however, Decazes and the liberal phase of the Restoration had only weeks left. At the same time, the effects of d'Argout's period in the prefecture, followed by his sudden departure, had created uncertainty and tension, as the street violence in March 1819 had shown. Misfortune, then the departure of d'Argout, had bred a new militancy among the royalists, while Protestants, having gained so much satisfaction since 1817, were determined to resist any Catholic counter-attack. As Gustave Former de Clausonne wrote to Former d'Albe, each community had fallen back entirely on its own resources, and an uneasy peace reigned while each side waited for the other to commence hostilities.84 The distance between Catholics and Protestants implied in Former's letter was visible at both formal and informal levels. In Le Vigan, neither Protestant nor Catholic would serve as mayor or adjoint if even one of the three positions involved was offered to a member of the other denomination,85 and 81 82 83 84 85

AN F lc m Gard 13, d'Argout to minister of interior, 14 September 1818. AN F79O5O, Pataille to minister of justice, n.d. ibid., d'Haussez to Decazes, 27 April, 5 July 1819. AD Gard, Chartrier de Clausonne 317, letter to Fornier d'Albe, 21 April 1819. AN F79O5O, police report, Nimes, 8 April 1819.

1817 to 1830

83

in Uzes, the courts and local government almost ground to a halt because of the refusal of Catholics and Protestants to assemble in the same room. 86 Leading Protestant merchants and manufacturers like Lagorce and CavalierBenezet formed their own political club, the societe degrailh, and a number of the club's members advocated a rigidly sectarian policy on employment. 87 D'Haussez's attempts to bring the notables of the two communities together in informal social gatherings failed utterly as well: Mes reunions etaient nombreuses, tres suivies, mais elles servaient a rendre plus visible la haine que chaque parti portait a l'autre. Par une sorte de convention tacite, ils s'accordaient au moins dans un point: ils ne venaient plus a mes reunions que d'une semaine a l'autre, en sorte qu'un jour etait consacre aux Protestants, l'autre aux Catholiques.88 Relations between the popular classes of the two communities, never particularly good, continued to manifest the aggressiveness which had led to the disorders in March, and were characterised by random attacks on Protestants by groups of Catholics, as at Uzes in April, when a man making his way home was set upon and beaten by men 'qui s'etaient fait remarquer dans les exces de 1815' for no other reason than his being a gorge noire,89 and by pitched battles across the traditional 'flashpoints' of Nimes like the Pont de la Bouquerie, where rival crowds stoned each other in April and May with such ferocity that the troops were obliged to intervene. 90 The traditional preLenten carnival underlined the strained atmosphere in Nimes very clearly. In 1818, d'Argout had permitted the week of revelling to take place for the first time since 1814, and, in spite of his reservations, there were no outbreaks of violence occasioned by the wine, bals masques and general licence accorded to the citizens during the carnival period. Indeed, the prefect was delighted that the notables of both communities had attended in considerable numbers the carnival ball he gave in the prefecture.91 A year later, things were quite different. The royalists organised their own carnival, and the streets of the city were thronged with jeering and taunting Catholics, among whon. horrified Protestants recognised a number of White Terrorists. When the Protestants locked themselves in their homes, the revellers made a point of halting their farandoles outside the houses of Protestant notables to chant the slogans of 1815, 'Les Bourbons ou la mort!' and 'A bas les Huguenots!' 92 86 87 89 90 91 92

ibid., 14 April 1819. ibid., d'Haussez to Decazes, 5 July 1819; La Minerve fran$aise, m, 7 (September 1818), pp. w 322-4. D'Haussez, 1, 281. AD Gard 6M 85, police report, Uzes, 5 April 1819. ibid., mayor of Nimes to d'Haussez, 18 May 1819; AN F79O5O, d'Haussez to Decazes, 28 April 1819. A N F 7 9O5i, d ' A r g o u t t o D e c a z e s , 30 January, 25 February 1818. AD Gard 6M 85, police report, 25 February 1819; Chartrier de Clausonne 317, G. Fornier de Clausonne to general Fornier d'Albe, 16, 20 February 1819.

84 Catholic royalism in the Gard D'Haussez's approach to governing the department did nothing to alleviate the tense atmosphere. Both parties looked to him to favour their cause, but neither was satisfied with his admittedly naive attempt to 'get them around the table' in order to resolve their differences in a reasonable and civilised manner. The confusion caused by his arrival is perhaps best illustrated by two observations made only a week after he moved into the prefecture. Reporting on the initial response of the Catholics, the commissaire de police, a d'Argout appointee, said that the ultras 'esperent beaucoup de l'administration du prefet'.93 At almost the same time, Gustave Former de Clausonne, rejoicing that La Boissiere and Chazelles-Chusclan had been dismissed, wrote confidently: 'Nos inquietudes sont tout a fait calmees. L'arrivee de monsieur le prefet, les destitutions qui ont suivi, ont montre tout d'un coup a un certain parti qu'il n'aurait pas beau jeu a faire le mediant. '94 Within weeks the Protestants were disappointed and concerned because d'Haussez was clearly not prepared to continue his predecessor's strenuous policy against the royalists. Indeed, it soon became known that d'Haussez was critical of the way d'Argout had changed the department's administrative personnel, arguing that his policy served only to appease one faction at the expense of continuity and stability. This view brought him into conflict with another of d'Argout's nominees, de Boismont, the sub-prefect of Uzes. The latter asked d'Haussez to remove two adjoints and five municipal councillors from the Uzes municipal council but the prefect refused, commenting that Tinstabilite des emplois avait tellement fatigue les habitans que vous ne trouviez plus personne qui voulut en accepter'.95 In the administration of justice, too, d'Haussez was at odds with the officials appointed at d'Argout's behest. Pataille's investigation into the crimes of the White Terrorists was in progress and the Protestants, impressed by the procureurs energy and commitment, were waiting eagerly to see justice done at last: 'II [Pataille] a tenu la premiere seance de police correctionnelle. . . La . . . il s'est donne le plaisir de mettre en avant des principes dont on n'avait jamais encore fait retentir la salle de premiere instance. C'est le Code a la main qu'il a fait connaitre quels etaient les ennemis du Roi selon la loi.'96 D'Haussez, however, preferred to avoid digging too deeply into the past. Instead, he chose to summon the suspects and warned them to leave Nimes on pain of prosecution, a policy which undermined Pataille's work and won d'Haussez the enmity of the procureur as well as that 93 94 95 96

A N F 7 9O5O, bulletin de police, 2 2 M a r c h 1819. AD Gard, Chartrier de Clausonne 317, G. Fornier de Clausonne to general Fornier d'Albe, 20 March 1819. AD Gard 6M 51, sub-prefect of Uzes to d'Haussez, 10 June 1819; d'Haussez, 1, 270. AD Gard, Chartrier de Clausonne 317, G. Fornier de Clausonne to general Fornier d'Albe, 20 March 1819.

1817 to 1830

85

97

o f the Protestant population as a whole. In this domain, d'Haussez came into conflict once again with the sub-prefect of Uzes, w h o insisted against the prefect's advice on tracking down and arresting Quatretaillons, w h o had been living as quietly as he ever could at Pougnadoresse, near Bagnols. The sub-prefect's determination w o n the claim of the Protestants, whose opinion of d'Haussez was reflected in a comment by Horace Former de Clausonne: Vous savez par le desarmement de Graffand que nous avons un sous prefet qui sait faire les choses. II me parait etre un administrates precieux pour ce departement. La confiance des constitutionnels en lui est complete. II repete que le gouvernement est de bonne foi, et il le prouve par ses actions et paroles. Le superieur immediat de monsieur de Boismont n'a pas du tout le meme caractere que lui, et il le contraint d'autant plus qu'il a pris d'horreur a voir un sous prefet acquerant dans son arrondissement plus d'influence que le prefet.98 Thus, if they received no real help from d'Haussez, the Catholic royalists were at least able to take a certain amount of encouragement from the fact that his attitudes angered the Protestants. Moreover, in a number of places d'Haussez revealed that his sympathies lay more with the royalists than with the liberals and Protestants. In July 1819, he even admitted as much to Decazes himself. Reporting on the rival political clubs in the city, the prefect commented: Si je suis moins bien informe sur ce qui concerne la societe des independants que sur ce qui se rapporte aux reunions opposees, l'excessive reserve des individus qui composent la premiere, leurs habitudes peu expansives, l'impossibilite de penetrer dans la pensee de ceux que je suppose les meneurs par des moyens qui me sont personnels, ainsi que je suis parvenu a le faire a l'egard du parti ultra, ces causes, dis-je, me reduisent jusqu'alors a des conjectures." D'Haussez's memoirs reveal quite clearly his dislike of d'Argout and his proteges: Monsieur d'Argout, en achetant par deux annees de complaisances indicibles le concours que lui avaient donne les Protestants dans les dernieres elections, avait fortement indispose les royalistes. Ce mecontentement s'etait accru encore quand ils avaient vu le prefet revoquer d'abord par une seule ordonnance 163 makes du departement, puis le maire de Nimes, sans qu'on eut d'autres motifs a arguer que du royalisme de ces magistrats.100 It was undoubtedly his tolerant attitude to the royalists and his unwillingness to act merely as Decazes's cipher which led to d'Haussez's transfer to Gre97

AN F79O5O, d'Haussez to Decazes, 24 April, 21 May 1819. AD Gard, Chartrier de Clausonne 318, letter to Fornier d'Albe, 23 July 1819. 99 A N F 7 9O5O, d ' H a u s s e z t o D e c a z e s , 5 J u l y 1819. 100 D'Haussez, 1, 270. 98

86 Catholic royalism in the Gard noble at the end ofJanuary 1820, and not, as he suggested, his weakness for women.101 Indeed, Villiers du Terrage, designated to succeed d'Haussez, commented while trying to avoid being sent to the 'administration la plus degoutante du royaume' that he did not wish to fall victim to the 'manoeuvres sous lesquelles monsieur d'Haussez a succombe'.102 Ironically, within a month of d'Haussez's removal, circumstances changed dramatically in France as a result of the murder of the due de Berry, and, with the change, the Catholic royalists' fortunes improved. Outraged at the deed, the royalists threatened to mobilise the clandestine national guard and to take the law into their own hands. The Protestants, already anxious for the future because of Decazes's decision that liberalism had gone too far, instinctively prepared for a confrontation and alerted their peasant brethren in the Gardonenque and Vaunage.103 The expected violence did not take place, partly because two regular army regiments were deployed to assist the civil authorities, but also because of the dismissal of Decazes, which event was seen by the ultra-royalists as a major victory. Decazes's successor, the due de Richelieu, formed a government in a climate of increasing reaction across Europe. Many people saw the murder of the due de Berry as one of a number of revolutionary-inspired crimes which had begun in 1819 in Germany with the murder of the reactionary writer Kotzebue and had then spread to Spain where the Cadiz military revolt imposed the 1812 constitution on Ferdinand VII, and to Naples, where another cousin of the French Bourbons, Ferdinand I, had to contend with a similar revolt. Richelieu attempted to prevent an all-out reaction in France, but he was obliged to seek the support of the ultra-royalists, whose leader, the comte d'Artois, promised to give it. However, the ultras were only willing to support Richelieu while his cabinet served as a stepping-stone to power, and their clandestine activities redoubled, as Madier de Montjau revealed.104 Indeed, the ultras were not concerned with the government of the day; instead they were preparing for the reign of the comte d'Artois and the advent of the counter-revolution they had dreamed of since 1814. Sir Charles Stuart, British ambassador in Paris commented that Pasquier, minister for foreign affairs, and a number of his colleagues seemed to be more desirous to strengthen their interest with the successor to the throne by a participation in the opinions and animosities of the persons who surround and enjoy the confidence of His Royal Highness, Monsieur, than to calm the increasing alarms 101

102 103

104

ibid., 1, 296.

AN F lb i 176 dossier 14, du Terrage to Decazes, 5 February and 1 March 1820. AN F7674O, report to the director of the seme division de police, 21 December 1819; F76745, commissaire de police Bleynie to Decazes, 23, 24, 25 February 1820; AD Gard, Chartrier de Clausonne 318, G. Fornier de Clausonne to Fornier d'Albe, 24 February 1820. Du gouvernement occulte.

1817 to 1830 87 to which the manifest ascendancy of that^party has already givenrise,both in Paris and in the provinces.105 The move to the right began with Richelieu's cabinet. Measures curbing individual freedom and freedom of the press were introduced in March 1820, and in June a new electoral law, intended to diminish the influence of the bourgeois vote, was passed. This law, often referred to as the loi du double vote, gave two votes to the wealthiest quarter of France's electors - landowners in the main. Three fifths of the country's deputies were elected by citizens paying the required 300 francs tax contribution, and the remaining two fifths were elected by the restricted college composed of the wealthiest twenty-five per cent of the electorate. Moreover, by reintroducing the arrondissement as the basic electoral unit, and by allocating five seats to each department irrespective of population, the law favoured rural constituencies and rural departments. As far as the Catholic royalists were concerned, this legislation did not amount to much on its own. The double vote was a double-edged sword in the Gard because of Protestant commercial wealth. The Protestants could win two out of the five seats in the department in the right conditions - the Ales-Le Vigan constituency and one of the two seats in the restricted college. More important than the legislation was the complicity shown by du Terrage, who replaced d'Haussez as prefect in the spring of 1820. Very quickly he came down on the side of the royalists, to the dismay of the Protestants. First, in April 1820, he appointed to a police vacancy at Protestant Anduze a Catholic dismissed from Nimes by d'Argout. Then, with flagrant disregard for seniority, he bypassed a Protestant and appointed a nephew of Francois Froment to the post of chirurgien-adjoint in the Nimes public hospital, a measure which effectively deprived the Protestant poor of public medical care as they were frightened of being poisoned in the hospital by Froment or his associates.106 Du Terrage, whose property and family were in Paris, was to be an absentee prefect for most of his four-year term - he resigned for health and family reasons in 1824. This, too, favoured the Catholic royalists, for he left the department in the hands of the secretary-general of the prefecture, de Brigaud, a Catholic and a royalist sympathiser if not a militant. In August 1820, de Brigaud held up the publication of a royal ordinance naming a Protestant, Roux-Boudon, as second adjoint to the mayor, and the marquis d'Urre third until approaches were made to Paris to have the order changed and d'Urre appointed second adjoint rather than third.107 105 106 107

PRO Foreign Office 27/266, report to Castlereagh, 13 April 1820. AD Gard, Chartrier de Clausonne 135, G. Former de Clausonne to Fornier d'Albe, 14 April 1820. AN F7o658, du Terrage to director-general of police, 29 October 1820.

88

Catholic royalism in the GarA

The clearest indication of du Terrage's support for the Catholic royalists can be seen in the way he organised the election of November 1820 to raise the Gard's deputation from three to five. The sitting deputies, all constitutionnels elected in 1818, were to remain, but the restricted college composed of the wealthiest voters was to elect two more deputies. The prefect's involvement in this election was precisely the reverse of d'Argout's involvement in that of 1818. The defeat of 1818, already grounded in internal divisions in the Catholic royalists' ranks, had left a legacy of even greater division. Blaming the candidates for that defeat, Rene de Bernis and Isidore de Ricard made plain their intentions to contest the election against de Vogiie and de Calviere, each of whom had assumed the right to stand. Du Terrage reported disconsolately: Pour comble de disgrace entre ces concurrents, les reproches les plus amers ne sont pas epargnes. Si seuls ils etaient dans l'arene, sans doute ils se respecteraient trop pour oublier a ce point la pudeur et la politique, mais, les coureurs de chaque troupe se soucient peu de ces convenances, et deja par leur imprudence j'ai vu porter de part et d'autre plus d'une de ces blessures envenimees dont l'amour propre saigne toute la vie. II serait inutile de vous dire combien l'opposition se rejouit et s'apprete a tirer parti de cette situation. Fixee en ce moment sur un seul candidat, elle le verra reussir indubitablement si la majorite ne se rallie en toute hate.108 Gradually the royalists' choice narrowed down. At the beginning of November, de Vogiie was a certainty, but the second seat was still being contested by de Calviere and de Ricard, and du Terrage felt confident that he would be able to bring the electors behind de Calviere. He wrote, too, about the liberal opposition: 'malgre toutes les demarches pour faire inscrire les electeurs de leur parti, ils ne seront pas en majorite dans le college electoral'. On 7 November, two weeks before the election, the royalists' choice was fixed on de Calviere and de Vogiie. Du Terrage felt obliged to brief them about their responsibilities: Je n'ai pas manque de faire sentir au parti royaliste que le moment etait venu pour lui de rehabiliter l'honneur de ce pays. Des personnes qui dans plus d'un ecrit ont ete signalees sous les plus sinistres couleurs vont etre tres probablement nominees. II ne tiendra qu'a elles, je le leur repeterai souvent de mettre en evidence que ce n'est qu'au malheur du temps, a la fuite de la populace, a l'absence de toute force publique que peuvent etre imputes les horribles exces qui ont ete commis.109 In the same report du Terrage estimated very accurately the votes he expected

to go to the royalist candidates and to the opposition. After the voting, de Vogiie and de Calviere were elected as du Terrage had hoped, but there had plainly been a split in the royalist camp which reflected personal jealousies and ambitions. In succeeding elections, that split would be magnified and 108

ibid., 2 November 1820.

m

ibid., 7 November 1820.

to 1830

89

would cast a shadow over the resurgence of Catholic royalism in the Gard. 110 Richelieu resigned in December 1821 when Monsieur and his friends withdrew their support, confident that a cabinet composed only of ultraroyalists could be formed. Villele, a landowner from the Toulouse area, and a former planter in the colonies, became prime minister. The transition to the right was accompanied by renewed prosperity in the Gard, one of those rare interludes in a usually precarious economy. High agricultural prices coincided with the highest level of employment and wages since 1814, and from the summer of 1820 to that of 1823 the department's working and farming population enjoyed a prosperity which the prefect aptly described as 'une diversion si vive a la politique'. 111 When, in 1824, Artois succeeded Louis XVIII as Charles X, Catholic royalist supremacy was guaranteed. Writing in 1827, de Brigaud, secretary at the prefecture, conveyed his impressions (as a Catholic royalist) of the political climate in the Gard: L'esprit public dont Votre Excellence desire connaitre l'exacte situation dans ce departement, est generalement bon; il est reste, a quelques exceptions pres, tel qu'il s'est montre en 1815, et les memes sentimens de devouement au Roi qui se sont manifestos a cette epoque existent encore partout. Seulement le royalisme, aujourd'hui calme et satisfait, a perdu 1'effervescence qui portait quelque trouble dans les premiers moments de son triomphe, et Ton voit peu a peu les haines que les evenemens avaient enfantees, s'eteindre, et les hommes se rapprocher.112 The extent to which hatred had given way to a rapprochement was questionable. In 1829, Herman, then prefect, decided to invite four hundred notables of both communities to a reception in the prefecture. His own staff (which included de Brigaud) sabotaged the plan by omitting to send invitations to a number of Protestants who would expect to be invited, so leaving the Protestants with the feeling that some of their notables had been snubbed. The Catholics were informed that all manner of Protestants had been invited to mingle with the Catholic elite of the city. As a result, few people accepted the invitation. 113 Nobody would have disagreed that the royalists were generally calmer and more satisfied than they had been since 1815. Control of the department had reverted to them, and they made certain of taking the lion's share of the prestigious and influential posts wherever possible: mayors, premiers adjoints, conseillers a la prefecture, receveurs, premiers avocats and procureurs appointed

after 1821 were Catholics, often appointed in preference to a more qualified 110 AN F lc m Gard 5, election of November 1820; AN 369AP 1, Adolphe Cremieux to ChabaudLatour, 15 November 1820. 111 Labrousse, Romano and Dreyfus, p. 102; AN F76769, du Terrage to minister of interior, 3 January 1823. 112 AN F76769, report of 5 March 1827. 113 ibid., prefect to minister of interior, 20 March 1829.

90 Catholic royalism in the Gard or more able Protestant.114 Moreover, between 1824 and 1828, the day-today administration of the department was left entirely to local officials. The prefect, Plannelli de Lavallette, was deputy for the Isere and spent much of the year in Paris and Grenoble. He was also a chevalier de lafoi, as were three of the Gard's deputies between 1822 and 1827- Crussol d'Uzes, de Calviere and de Calviere-Vezenobres.115 In the Protestants' eyes, Lavallette was 'comme tous les prefets de cette honorable epoque, c'est a dire un vilain monsieur'.116 De Brigaud was also right in saying that Catholic royalism had lost its earlier effervescence. The conquest of power was gradual and unopposed, and, in any case, the burning issues which could confirm the victory of counter-revolution - for instance the indemnity, the role of the Catholic Church and censorship - were being debated in Paris. Once Catholic royalists achieved power in the Gard, there was little else they could do except enjoy it. Even in the enjoyment of power, their attitudes had mellowed considerably. Certainly, de Trinquelague Jils, premier president de la cour royale, could praise the Catholics as *des elemens salutaires que la providence a places [in the Gard] pour servir de contrepoison' to the evil of Protestantism.117 Certainly, the regular reports to the minister of the interior on la situation politique and lfesprit public steadily denounced the Protestants of the Gard as chronic conspirators, systematically opposed to the monarchic principle.118 After all, anti-Protestantism had been the cement of the region's royalism since the early days of the Revolution, and it still served as a guarantee or a reserve on which to draw in order to justify the royalists' claims that the Gard was a special case requiring special measures. In practice, however, the Catholic elite had settled on a rough rule of proportionality in allocating public offices. This meant that the Protestants, while never totally excluded, would never be in a position to determine the outcome of local affairs. It was, of course, diametrically opposed to the censitary basis of the regime, and the Protestants never ceased complaining that they were under-represented, having more wealth than the Catholics.119 The principle was, however, endorsed by the government. Enunciating it for the first time in the course of his preparations for the 1822 election for the chamber of deputies (partial renewal of onefifthof the departments), Jules de Calviere wrote to the minister of justice stating that four out of the five 114

AN F lb n Gard 5, quinquennial review of mayors and adjoints, 1825; F76j6g, prefect to minister of interior, n.d. (1829); Almanack royal, 1825-30. 115 G. de Bertier de Sauvigny, Comte Ferdinand, p. 356. 116 AD Gard, Chartrier de Clausonne 317, H. Fornier de Clausonne to G. Former de Clausonne, n.d. (1827). 117 AN BB17A23 dossier 8, 23 March 1823 in Compte rendu des assises du Gard. 118 See AD Gard 6M 35-40, ordre public, 1825-30. 119 AN F7676o, prefect to minister of interior, n.d. (1829); AN BB3O363 dossier 1, procureurgeneral to minister of justice, 1 April 1849.

i8iy to 1830 91 deputies to be elected would be 'pris dans les rangs des royalistes votant a droite; le cinquieme, celui de l'arrondissement d'Alais, tombera probablement en partage aux liberaux'. De Calviere then presented his nominations for presiding officers at the elections: de Vogue, de Ricard and himself. A blank space was left for Ales-Le Vigan, indicating the ultras' lack of involvement in that constituency.120 Indeed, Protestants dominated liberal opinion there, and it was no surprise that their candidates in the elections between 1824 and 1830 were the Protestants de Vignolles (1824), Chabaud-Latour (1825, by-election), and Reynaud de Lascours (1827, 1830). In 1827, de Brigaud notified the minister of the interior of the death of de Seynes, a Protestant conseiller-general: 'Tous les arrondissements etant represented proportionnellement a leur importance, il y a lieu de choisir le nouveau membre dans 1'arrondissement de Nismes auquel apartenait le defunt. II etait Protestant, et il convient egalement de le remplacer par un de ses coreligionnaires pour maintenir leur contingent de six sur vingt.'121 In 1828 and 1829, when the deaths of de Barre and Boileau de Castelneau, both Protestants, created more vacancies on the conseil-general, the same rule was respected,122 and immediately after the July Revolution of 1830, the Orleanist prefect, Lacoste, made a point of keeping the balance, even though it was clear that the Catholics rejected the new regime in the main while the Protestants gave it their support: 'Le conseil-general aura huit Protestants sur douze Catholiques. C'est un peu plus que la proportion de la population des deux communions ne donnerait aux premiers, mais il faut remarquer qu'ils sont a la fois plus riches et plus attaches a l'ordre constitutionnel.'123 Numeric proportionality had been the demand of the Catholics of the Gard in 1789 and 1790, when the first elected councils and committees were established, and it would be their proposal in the first elections to a national assembly based on universal adult male suffrage in April 1848. The Catholics argued that it was the Protestants' constant refusal to accept the formula which provoked conflict.124 The chief reason for the Catholic royalists' recognition that the Protestants were entitled to representation in accordance with their numbers - that is to roughly one third of the available positions can be found in de Brigaud's remarks that the royalists were satisfied in the 1820s. Their confidence that the political system at large was on their side contrasted strongly with their insecurity in 1814, when nobody was quite sure what the Charte really meant, and also in 1817-19, when they were under 120

AN BB5357, memorandum to the minister of justice, 19 September 1822. AN F lb n Gard 5, recommendations to the minister of the interior, n.d. (1827). 122 ibid., nominations to the conseil-general, 1826, 1827, 1828, 1829. 123 ibid., Lacoste to minister of interior, 9 October 1830. 124 ibid., prefect to minister of interior, 23 January and 14 March 1852, and Note sur Vetat des partis dans le departement du Gard (1852) written by Charles de Calviere-Vezenobres and Casimir Murjas. 121

92 Catholic royalism in the Gard attack from the Decazes government. In the 1820s, moreover, the royalists had the giving of whatever positions they condescended to offer. There was no question of compulsion. From the Protestants' point of view, there was no doubt about who ran the department. The judicial inquiry conducted by Pataille came to an end, and Pataille was transferred from the Gard in 1822, leaving most of the individuals under investigation free. Madier de Montjau, who had already denounced the existence of a 'gouvernemente occulte', summed up the Protestants' position: 'Nous continuons a jouir ici de toute la tranquillite que nous garantissent la bonte paternelle du panache blanc, l'impartialite du ministere, la clemence des Troistaillons.'125 Indeed, Trestaillons was living contentedly in Nimes, a daily reminder of the horrors of 1815. His rival in crime, Quatretaillons, was at large too. Pataille's inquiries were shelved after his departure, and in 1825 the procureur-general told the government: 'Le temps a semble commander l'oubli, et de mon cote, je n'ai pas du donner le stimulant pour que Ton s'occupat de l'arrestation de Graffand, condamne pour crimes commis sous la banniere royaliste.'126 As Horace Fornier de Clausonne remarked in 1821, the Protestants were also subjected to the indignity of seeing other, more powerful men of 1815 receive their rewards at last.127 Cavalier, the liberal mayor of Nimes since 1820, was replaced in 1824 by Vallongues who had been mayor during the White Terror and who had openly applauded Louis Boissin's acquittal. In its announcement of his appointment, the Journal du Gard wrote of Vallongues's 'zele pour la chose publique', and of the 'souvenir de sa sage administration'.128 Du Roure, who had commanded the Ales national guard, succeeded the liberal Boismont at the Uzes sous-prefecture.129 Even Souchon, a veteran of the anti-Protestant demonstrations of the First Restoration, was given an obituary in the Journal du Gard, which described him as a former victim of the 'persecutions qu'on exercait contre les amis du trone'. The editor concluded: 'Le Roi perd, en Monsieur Souchon, un fidele serviteur.'130 Religious tensions were exploited carefully, particularly by the mass of the Catholic people, for whom Catholicism was as much a political badge as it was a faith. In the increasingly clerical climate of the reign of Charles X, it became a badge of superiority, of triumphalism. On religious festivals the Protestants were obliged to decorate their houses and close their premises as the processions passed by, and the annual mission in the city was a time of 125

AD Gard, Chartrier de Clausonne 316, to general Fornier d'Albe, 29 March 1822. AN BB18iO48, to the minister of justice, 17 August 1825. AD Gard, Chartrier de Clausonne 124, H. Fornier de Clausonne to G. Fornier de Clausonne, 22 August 1821. 128 Journal du Gard, 1 September 1824. 129 ibid., 19 March 1825. 130 ibid., 16 February 1823.

126

127

1817 to 1830 93 particular trial for the Protestants. Normally, the mission lasted a week or even a month - although the 1826 mission in Nimes lasted from the beginning of January to Ash Wednesday - and priests from the abbe Rauzan's societe des missions de France preached a mixture of hell-fire and royalism in a spectacularly dramatic manner such as Stendhal lampooned in Lamiel. Fasting, processions and services of penitence often generated near-hysteria in the faithful, and neither the missionaries nor the worshippers were particularly sensitive to the feelings of heretics. During the 1826 mission, conducted by sixteen missionary priests, the Protestants of Nimes were obliged, for fear of being assaulted, to remain indoors each evening while the churches emptied. After the mission finished, an enraged crowd attacked a wedding party outside the Grand Temple because it was a mixed marriage, and the Catholic clergy had refused the sacrament to the Catholic bride.131 The satisfaction of 'lording it over the Protestants', and the irrational emotion that, somehow, past wrongs had been avenged, were the only privileges enjoyed by the mass of the Catholic people in the last years of the Restoration: there was not even the chance of plunder or personal revenge as there had been in 1815. In 1826, the first signs of an economic recession were visible, when the number of looms working in Nimes fell from 9000 to 6000, and when much of the cloth manufactured remained unsold.132 Not for the first time, the city experienced a crisis of over-production as speculators, eager to exploit the textile boom of 1824-6, cut corners, skimped on quality and over-produced.133 As the rest of France succumbed to the recession, the predicament of the textile workers worsened because of their tradition of concentrating on nouveautes - cheap items, often imitations of first-class garments - intended for the popular market which was, of course, the most vulnerable.134 By 1828, the nadir of the depression in the Gard, barely 5500 weavers were at work, compared with 13000 at the beginning of 1827. Wages were very low, and merchants, in an attempt to keep their own costs down, were once again giving out work to the cottage weavers in the surrounding countryside. This caused protests, but the urban weavers remained docile in general. Many had small plots of land which helped to sustain the family. The bulk of Nimes working class was once again dependent on charity.135 Misery increased as food prices rose after nine years of stable, even falling prices. The price of a hectolitre of wheat increased by 17 per cent in the year 1826-7 a n d by a further 13 per cent the following year. By the spring of 183o, it had reached 31.5 francs, the highest price since 1818.136 131 132 134 135 136

AN F7676g, Lavallette to minister of interior, 12 December 1825; BB 1 8 ii36 dossier 70 000, Chabaud-Latour to minister of justice, 23 March 1826. 133 Rivoire, Statistique, 11, 28-9. Reboul, p. 44; Rivoire, 'Notice', pp. 272-4. Rivoire, 'Notice', p. 277. Reboul, facing p. 120; AN ¥7676g, de Brigaud to minister of interior, 16 October 1828. Labrousse, Romano and Dreyfus, p. 102.

94

Catholic royalism in the Gard

As in 1789 and 1848, the economic recession coincided with a political crisis and with mounting hostility to the government from a growing liberal opposition. This dissatisfaction was made most evident in the Gard by the daubing of crude slogans on the walls of public buildings, by the surreptitious hoisting of tricolour flags on prominent points - the Tour Magne, for instance - and by increased reports ofmenees liberates.137 This political crisis accentuated divisive tendencies which had already been evident to some extent among the Catholic notables in the Gard, and, for the last three years of the Restoration, it looked as though the traditional unity of the Catholic right in the department would give way to new political alignments in which sectarian rivalry would play a less significant role. The 1824 general election, following the successful and popular military intervention in Spain, returned a chamber of deputies with an ultra-royalist majority - the chambre retrouvee. Yet, at the very moment of their triumph, the ultras began to fragment and to reveal internal feuds and differences which the presence of a growing republican and Bonapartist opposition had hidden between 1816 and 1820. Villele, the prime minister, squabbled with Chateaubriand, who immediately led a counter-opposition to Villele's policies. Then, by dismissing the devout chevalier de lafoi Mathieu de Montmorency, Villele drew upon himself the wrath of the extreme clerical royalists whose spokesman was La Bourdonnaye. There were important issues involved. If Villele was primarily concerned with balancing the government's books, La Bourdonnaye's clique demanded more reactionary and theocratic legislation, while Chateaubriand's ambitions were to reconcile the legitimate monarchy to the post-Revolutionary world rather than to seek revenge or to attempt to turn back the hands of the clock. Thus, when Villele proved unacceptable to a majority of the deputies in 1827, he was replaced by Martignac at the beginning of 1828. The latter's task was to create a more solid base of support for the monarchy and the government by reforming Church-state relations, the censorship laws and the mode of appointing local government representatives. Martignac's programme failed. Instead of rallying the liberals, it whetted their appetite for more change, and, at the same time, it alienated the right. But Martignac's government was paralysed by the lack of support it received from the king himself. At the bottom of the political crisis of the late 1820s was the conflict between Charles X's view of the constitutional monarchy and that of a growing number of parliamentarians. Relieved to be rid of Martignac, Charles appointed Jules de Polignac in 1829. The latter's political myopia complemented the king's stubbornness, and, having aroused more hostility than ever in liberal circles, their policies led to the overthrow of the regime in July 1830. 137

See An F76769, political reports of prefect, 1828-30; and B B 1 8 I I 6 I dossier 623, reports of procureur-general, 1828—30.

1817 to 1830 95 The first signs of a change in the Gard's political alignments came in the 1822 election to renew the department's parliamentary representation. The Catholic royalists had accepted that the Ales-Le Vigan constituency would elect a liberal, but they counted on winning the four other seats: Nimes, Uzes and the two deputies elected by the restricted college comprising only the wealthiest voters. However, the Nimes electoral college chose FrancoisIsidore de Ricard, avocat-general. De Ricard, a Catholic and a constitutional or liberal royalist, had already thrown his hat into the ring in 1820, challenging Jules de Calviere, but the latter had succeeded in winning the nomination.138 In 1822, however, de Ricard obtained the endorsement of the Nimes legal establishment, Catholic and Protestant, and was elected.139 He repeated this success in 1824, in the election which produced the chambre retrouvee, and again in 1827, this time in the restricted college, by doing a deal with Joachim de Chastellier, moderate Catholic mayor of Nimes, and Chabaud-Latour^i/i, Protestant liberal. The three arranged for their supporters to transfer votes only within the group. Consequently, de Ricard and de Chastellier were elected by the restricted college, while Chabaud-Latour was elected in place of de Ricard in the Nimes constituency. For the liberals, the result, which left only one 'orthodox' Catholic royalist elected - Crussol d'Uzes - was a clear victory: 'Le succes est complet; le joug qui pesait sur le departement est enfin brise. Monsieur de Calviere a ete battu par une majorite de quarante voix. Les elections sont un vrai coup d'etat pour le Gard; le departement est affranchi.'140 De Ricard and de Chastellier were judged as traitors by the Catholic royalists. They had broken ranks, it was said, simply to satisfy their ambition: 'Le resultat des elections est affligeant partout. II Test plus encore pour le departement parce qu'au malheur de faire un mauvais choix, nous ajoutons celui de la deloyaute, et la jalousie entre pour la premiere fois dans nos rangs. '141 Undoubtedly personal ambition did enter de Ricard's and de Chastellier's calculations: both men accepted peerages from the July Monarchy in 1835, having 'survived' the July Revolution in office. But there was certainly more. Gonet, premier president du tribunal de premiere instance in Nimes, complaining in 1828 that the prefect was deliberately excluding him from the electoral register, wrote to the minister of the interior: A voir tant d'empressement a m'exclure, Votre Excellence va sans doute penser qu'un republicain forcene ou un imperialiste incurable peut seul inspirer une telle agitation. Qu'Elle se rassure. II s'agit seulement d'un de ces royalistes de tradition et de 138 AN 369AP 1, Adolphe Cremieux to Chabaud-Latour, 15 November 1820. 139 AD Gard, Chartrier de Clausonne 318, G. Fornier de Clausonne to general Fornier d'Albe, 22 May 1822. 140 ibid., 319, G. Fornier de Clausonne to general Fornier d'Albe, 19 November 1827. 141 AD Gard 22J 5, Fonds Deveau-Robiac, Jules de Calviere to Deveau, 3 December 1827.

96

Catholic royalism in the Gard

sentiments dont la famille a traverse la Revolution dans les cachots ou sur la terre de Immigration, qui, lui-meme, fils d'un ancien avocat du roi, s'est depuis la Restauration consacre au service de Sa Majeste, et n'a cesse de la servir avec zele, honneur et devouement. J'ai concouru, il est vrai, a porter a la chambre elective, les Ricard, les Chastellier, les Daunant. Dans l'union de ces hommes honorables, j'ai vu le gage de 1'union si desirable de mes concitoyens, le presage de l'oubli de nos discordes passees, un moyen assure de prevenir de nouveaux malheurs. Voila tous mes torts, et comment une administration (monsieur de La Vallette) qui ne daigne meme pas rendre visite aux elus, pourrait-elle les pardonner a celui qu'elle considere comme l'auteur principal de l'election?142

In the 1830 election, the same three deputies (de Ricard, de Chastellier and Daunant), who had approved the censorious reply to the speech from the throne in the 1830 session of parliament, were re-elected in spite of the prefect's efforts to ensure the election of government supporters.143 On this occasion, Jules de Calviere was beaten once again by de Ricard in the restricted electoral college, and the 'orthodox' royalists were left with Crussol d'Uzes once again. The Gard was one of the departments in which the 1830 election was delayed by the government because of the 'mauvais esprit' detected there. It was hoped that a resounding victory for king and cabinet in tamer departments would induce the fractious departments to fall in line. Such was not the case, and the chamber of deputies returned in June and July 1830 revealed increased support for those critics of the royal policy. The result was the issue of the four ordinances intended to curb parliament and the electorate in favour of the king's ministers. The ensuing protest, turning to revolution, threw out king and cabinet. Its consequences for politics in the Gard were profound. There is no evidence that any of the department's deputies challenged the legitimacy of Charles X. Rather, they wanted to modify the relationship between the executive and legislative powers. By overthrowing the last Bourbon king of France, Parisians thrust the people of the Gard into their traditional mode of conflict and destroyed the modest non-confessional political alliances which had been built up since 1824. The usurpation of power by Louis-Philippe, as the legitimists saw it, forced both communities back on their own resources because the Catholics at any rate would not accept the overthrow of a legitimate monarch and the substitution of one whose position was to depend exclusively on a contract. It was only too clear that any contract would have to offer advantages to the liberals - in other words, to the Protestants and their allies. 142 143

AN F lc m Gard 5, Gonet to minister of interior, 2 November 1828. AN F76778, commandant of the l^eme legion de gendarmerie to minister of war, 8 June 1830; AD Gard, Chartrier de Clausonne 320, G. Fornier de Clausonne to general Former d'Albe, 5 June 1830.

CHAPTER FOUR

The July Revolution

News of the ordinances reached Nimes on 29 July; that of the Parisian insurrection and rumours of the abdication of Charles X on 3 August. Immediately, the leaders of the various political factions in the city called meetings. These sent delegates to a meeting with the mayor and prefect. It is clear that all the notables regarded as their first priority the maintenance of order. A statement was issued urging all citizens to remain calm and to ignore rumours. It was signed by Gonet, Vidal pere and fils, Roux-Carbonnel, Blachier and Froment for the Catholics. The statement was endorsed by the mayor, de Chastellier, and by the prefect, Herman. The ad hoc committee designated fifty representatives to broadcast the statement throughout the city. At the same time, the prefect, aware of the fragility of peace in Nimes at the best of times, sent to Montpellier for reinforcements for the garrison.1 No doubt the notables feared popular violence in the absence of clear central authority, particularly after three years of hardship, and it was known that events in Paris had been significantly influenced by popular action in the streets. However, by the time the July Revolution took place, the Gard's economy had already 'turned the corner', and was improving, however slowly and slightly. In fact, commentators blamed the prolongation of the depression into 1832 on the political upheaval itself, which dislocated even further a precarious economy and diminished investors' confidence in France.2 There had been, moreover, no evidence that independently organised popular action could happen. The urban working classes continued to divide along confessional lines to an extent which precluded any real awareness that there might be a common 'class enemy' and a common 'class interest'.3 Moreover, the notables had learnt from the rift which d'Argout had tried to exploit in 1817, and they were careful to be seen to take an interest 1 2

3

AD Gard 6M 130, prefect to minister of interior, 3 August 1830; Chartrier de Clausonne 320, G. Fornier de Clausonne to general Fornier d'Albe, 1, 3 August 1830. AD Gard 6M 115, mayor of Nimes to prefect, 28 November 1835; Rivoire, Statistique, 11, 30-2; Pieyre, 1, 13. See also C. Johnson, 'The Revolution of 1830 in French economic history', i n j . Merriman (ed.), 1830 in France, pp. 139-89. AD Gard 6M 122, prefect to minister of interior, 25 March 1835; Reboul, pp. 130-1; E. B. D. Frossard, Tableau pittoresque, scientifique et moral de Nimes et ses environs, 11, 168.

97

98

Catholic royalism in the Gard

in the Catholic poor and unemployed. All accounts indicate that, barring the increase in poaching and rural brigandage, the population of the Gard bore the cyclical recessions of the early nineteenth century with resignation, having become accustomed to more frequent fluctuations in wages and employment in the context of their own local economy. The two great Lyon insurrections in the 1830s revealed the extent to which the Gard's urban weavers could remain unaffected by working-class and artisan protest elsewhere in France. In neither case, to the astonishment of the authorities, did the Nimois, whose contacts with the canuts were close and long-standing, embark on a similar protest. Instead, they fell back on their traditional safety net and turned to their notables for assistance. Indeed, since the Year II, almost all popular violence in the Gard had been incited by the notables for their own purposes, even if that violence did sometimes go beyond limits acceptable to them - as in 1815, for example. The events of 1830 were no exception, and peace was maintained in the department until a number of Catholic royalist leaders perceived the implication of the July Revolution for their own political future. They then chose to unleash violence in a bid to retain power. Foremost in the conspiracy to oppose change after the July Revolution was Jean-Charles de Surville. A member of the Nimes municipal council and receveur des contributions since the White Terror, his political opinions undoubtedly exposed de Surville to the loss of his prestigious and lucrative position if the source of patronage passed into the hands of the ultra-royalists' opponents. The Decazes period had already revealed how easily local power could change hands in a centralised state, and it was understood that the chief pretenders to patronage from a liberal government were the Protestant bourgeoisie. At the same time, de Surville was the former colonel of the Nimes national guard, and the man largely responsible for rebuilding it in secret after the dissolution of the force in 1818. The fragile peace which was maintained in Nimes in early August, and the absence of decisive information from Paris, created circumstances in which a Catholic royalist militia could be used to assert Catholic royalist supremacy, and it comes as no surprise that de Surville should have told the prefect that he could place a force of 2000 armed men at the disposal of the legitimate king's administration within twenty-four hours.4 De Surville knew that he could rely, too, on the tacit support of the Swiss regiment de Bontemps, more openly Catholic and pro-Bourbon than any of the Swiss regiments which had previously been garrisoned in Nimes. Thus, on 5 August, when the assembled notables opened the dispatches from Paris with the prefect and the military authorities, only de Surville and Bontemps refused to act upon unsigned instruc4

AD Gard, Chartrier de Clausonne 320, G. Fornier de Clausonne to general Former d'Albe, 3 August 1830; AD Gard 6M 104, minister of interior to prefect of the Gard, 20 January 1831.

The July Revolution

99

5

tions to fly the tricolour. In the end, a group of liberals took it upon themselves to parade around the city's three principal boulevards with a tricolour, proclaiming a new regime and chanting 'Vive la paix! Vive Tunion!' The news was carried into the countryside, and in the Protestant Vaunage, south west of Nimes, there was a proliferation of tricolours and toasts to the revolution. 6 By the end of the first week in August, the new regime was given de facto recognition in the Gard. The abdication of Charles X and Louis-Philippe d'Orleans's acceptance of the title of lieutenant-general of the kingdom provoked the resignation of a number of local officials, among whom were the prefect and the procureur-general. Before leaving the prefecture, Herman, the prefect, summoned Chabaud-Latour, president of the conseil-general and Protestant notable, who, with the consent of the committee of notables, assumed the presidency of an interim administration. He appointed another Protestant, Viger, from Sommieres, a barrister at the courroyale, as procureurgeneral.7 Convinced of an unqualified victory for the liberal cause and acutely conscious of the prestige and responsibility his new position conferred upon him, Viger composed on 8 August the first of a series of lengthy reports on the establishment of the July Monarchy in the Gard, all of which reveal the efforts of an aspiring public figure to please his patrons and to convince them of the unquestionable rationality of those who shared his political opinions in the department: Le parti vainqueur a ete admirable, jamais on n'aurait cru que la ou tant de vexations, tant de pillages, tant d'assassinats avaient ete commis a une autre epoque, et paraissaient appeler de sanglants represailles, on ne trouverait que le pardon le plus genereux. Ce sera une belle page dans notre histoire et elle servira a prouver de quel cote etaient la verite et la justice.8 In fact Viger was blind to the precarious nature of the peace in Nimes. Already on 4 August, Bourbon supporters and those of the new regime (whatever it was) had come to blows, and the absence of widespread violence reflected little more than the reluctance of the Catholic royalists to react openly until they were quite sure that the outcome of the July Revolution was detrimental to their interests. 9 The first opportunity the Catholics took to manifest their implacable hostility to the new regime was its official birthday. On 15 August - an astounding choice for a department with such strong 5

ibid., Chartrier de Clausonne 320, G. Former de Clausonne to general Former d'Albe, 5 August 1830. ibid., and 6M 104, mayor of Calvisson to prefect, 6 August 1830. 7 AN F 9 5i2, general Bachelin to minister of war, 10 August 1830; S. Posener, 'La revolution de juillet dans le departement du Gard d'apres des documents inedits des archives nationals', Mercure de France, 221 (August 1930), 612. 8 AD Gard iE 1071, Viger to minister of interior, 8 August 1830. 9 AD Gard 6M 130, prefect to minister of interior, 4 August 1830. 6

ioo Catholic royalism in the Gard religious affiliations - the revised Charter and a large tricolour flag were solemnly carried around the principal boulevards of Nimes. The Swiss regiment refused to leave its quarters in the casernes, and there was only a squadron of chasseurs on hand to reinforce the local gendarmerie - whose opinions were not well known, in any case. As the procession passed in front of the Catholic faubourgs on the northern edge of the city, it was subjected to taunts, insults and shouts of'Vive Charles X!' from the inhabitants. In the late afternoon and evening the cafes along the Cours between the Place de la Bouquerie and the casernes became rallying points for angry and often inebriated Catholics returning from a day spent in the cabarets and guinguettes of the countryside around the city.10 Protestants and any other alleged supporters of the new regime were greeted with abuse and volleys of stones which left five people badly wounded, one of whom died during the night. In reply, Protestants from the western faubourgs knifed a Catholic shoemaker at the Place de la Bouquerie. He too died, and, after a quiet night, the skirmishes redoubled on 16 August, leaving six more people seriously wounded.11 Viger minimised the episode, stressing that the confrontations had been confined to the lower classes and did not involve the elites of either community.12 Nevertheless, the signs of serious future conflict were there: the Protestants had declared themselves for the new regime, the Catholics against it, and it remained only to channel the anger of the Catholic peuple in a more sinister fashion. Viger could point to the exceptions among the Gard's notables: de Chastellier, who remained as mayor until the end of 1831 when he was replaced by the Protestant Girard, and who sat as deputy for the Gard until 1837 when he was ousted by the Catholic royalists, who re-entered parliamentary politics with determination; Olivier de Sardan pastor and doyen of the Nimes consistorial, who remained loyal to the Bourbons, only to be replaced in 1831 by Samuel Vincent, whose opinions had cost him the position in 1824. But such exceptions, besides being short-lived, were few and were no bulwark against the resurgence of conflict on familiar, traditional lines. The matter of the oath of allegiance brought the elites into the conflict in September, and as Catholics refused, the senior administrative posts inevitably went to willing Protestants so that these quickly regained a pre-eminence which they had not known since the time of Napoleon. The Annuaire for 1840 reveals that the mayor, two conseillers in the prefecture, the premier president de la cour royale, the vice-president du tribunal de

premiere instance and the director of the departmental caisse d'epargne were elders of the Eglise reformee, whose pastors were also united in their support for the July Monarchy.13 10

AN BB 1 8 i3i5 dossier A7 3998, Viger to minister of justice, n.d. 12 ibid. ibid. 13 Annuaire pour le departement du Gard, 1840; see also the Almanack royal for the period of the July 11

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The Catholic community, from its clergy and notables to its lowliest echelons, was alienated and resentful. Two jaundiced Catholic comments on life in the Gard, the first written in 1832, the second in 1846, reveal the loathing felt by the Catholics: En quoi consiste, a Nismes, la liberte? A avoir un maire protestant, une police protestante, une garde nationale protestante, des gardes-champetres protestans, des concierges protestans, des infirmiers protestans, des marchands de tabacs protestans, etc, etc, etc. Or, le gouvernement de Louis-Philippe a donne tout cela a Nismes. Done le gouvernement de Louis-Philippe est eminement liberal.14 Aucun Catholique depuis 1830 n'etait dans le conseil municipal a Vezenobres. Depuis la Revolution de juillet ils etaient presque dans tout le departement du Gard exclus de toutes les administrations. Monsieur Guizot, Protestant, originaire de Saint-Genies-de-Malgoires, donnait aux Protestants la domination dans le Gard, et ils ne sont qu'un petit tiers de la population.15 The most comprehensive statement on the unchanging polarisation of Nimes society in the 1830s came from the pen of a Protestant pastor, Frossard, who published in 1834 a survey of the city's economic and social life as Vincens and Baumes had done thirty-two years earlier: Celui qui desire connaitre le caractere et l'etat moral de la population nismoise ne doit pas s'attendre a remarquer des differences bien marquees entre les classes qui divisent ailleurs la societe. Ici toute la difference ne se trouve point dans cette distinction d'usage. Les traditions de famille, les souvenirs historiques, les convictions politiques et religieuses l'ont placee ailleurs. II s'agit ici moins de pauvres et de riches, moins de savans et d'ignorans, d'agriculteurs et d'industriels que de Protestans et de Catholiques, de liberaux et de carlistes; et cette funeste distinction qui s'est perpetuee de generation en generation vient fletrir les plus nobles pensees et faire avorter les vastes plans de philanthropic chretienne. Elle divise la societe en deux camps qui se retrouvent en face et toujours hostiles dans la vie civile et industrielle; et la foule d'artisans qui inonde les boulevards des Casernes [the Catholics] ne se melera jamais, le dimanche soir, au peuple qui se promene sur le boulevard de la Comedie [the Protestants].16 Catholic royalists, or legitimists as they became known to their friends, carlists to their detractors, refused simply to lie down under their sudden defeat. The rioting which followed the official inauguration of the July

Monarchy on 15 and 16 August was a declaration of war against the new regime, and particularly against those who were going to operate it in the Gard. In the course of the next eighteen years, legitimist opposition would 14 15 16

Monarchy, and AD Gard 6M 122, prefect's quarterly report, 21 January 1840, which emphasises the Protestant clergy's support for the regime. L'Abeille nimoise, n.d. (1832), p. 8. Calviere diaries. Frossard, Tableau pittoresque, 11, 168.

102 Catholic royalism in the Gard take many forms, none totally successful, but some more effective than others in weakening the grip of the Protestant notables on the department. The initial response was violence, a reflection of Catholic rage and disappointment at seeing power wrested from their community, and of their determination to strike out at those who had replaced them. Immediately after the rioting, supporters of the new regime demanded the prompt formation of a national guard and, in the meantime, the issue of weapons to trustworthy citizens.17 The first Orleanist prefect, Lacoste, had arrived in Nimes in the midst of the street battles, and he resolved to leave public order in the hands of the army until a national guard could be created. At the same time, he and Viger gave priority to establishing legally constituted local authorities in the department so that these could oversee the formation of local national guard battalions. It was an urgent measure, as some of the more important towns, including Uzes, Ales, Beaucaire and Saint-Gilles were in chaos because the Catholic officials had walked out of their offices, taking with them boxes of documents which they refused to hand over to representatives of a regime they would not recognise.18 It was in the midst of this anarchy that the Catholics provoked a second, more serious confrontation which nearly developed into a repeat of the bagarre de Nimes of 1790.

The occasion of the outbreak was the departure, on 29 August, of the Swiss regiment de Bontemps. In common with other Swiss troops hired by the Bourbons, the regiment was relieved of its duties by the July Monarchy, and was setting off for Besangon on the first stage of its journey to Switzerland. It was to be replaced in the Nimes garrison by a French regular regiment commanded by a local Protestant, Louis-Fortune de Boulogne, baron de Lascours, who had represented the Ales-Le Vigan constituency of the Gard as a liberal since 1827. The change of regiment was perceived quite correctly by the Catholics of Nimes as evidence of a future clamp-down. It was most unlikely that a regular army unit commanded by officers sympathetic to the new regime would stand back as the Swiss had done and tolerate antiProtestant and unpatriotic demonstrations. A crowd of Catholics accompanied the departing regiment to the outskirts of the city, and, on its return, began chanting royalist songs as it congregated on the Cours, just in front of the popular Catholic quarters, the bourgades and the Enclos Rey. Anxious to assert his authority immediately, Lascours led a squad of troops to the scene. Although these did not attempt to break up the crowd, their very presence was enough to provoke more bravado and insults. Somebody, one of the officers, or an Orleanist official - it is not clear - thought he heard a shot from 17 18

AN BB 1 8 i3is dossier A7 3998. AD Gard iE 1071, Viger to minister of justice, 3 August 1830; AN F lb n Gard 5, Lacoste to minister of interior, 25 August 1830.

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the crowd. Immediately the memory of the attempt on general Lagarde in 1815 sprang to mind, and the authorities and those Orleanists who had gathered behind the troops concluded that one of the royalists had tried to murder Lascours. The troops maintained order, so the Orleanists marched on the city hall and the prefecture to demand arms. The authorities naturally refused the demand, but this moderation only incensed the patriots even more. A few days earlier, the courts had acquitted a number of Catholics accused of murdering a Protestant during the riots of 15 and 16 August, and there was widespread feeling among the supporters of the new regime that a much harder line was required against the carlists.19 If the authorities were reluctant to act, the patriots were prepared to take the law into their own hands. Consequently, a crowd broke into an armourer's and a powder store, seizing weapons, powder and shot. One hundred armed men later appeared on the streets and formed a number of vigilante patrols. They also established fixed positions around the city, including one at the Porte d'Ales, facing the Catholic bourgades across the Place de la Bouquerie. As 29 August was a Sunday, the activities of the self-appointed defenders of the July Monarchy did not pass unnoticed by the population of the bourgades, still agitated after the morning's attroupement, and thronging the Cours for the customary Sunday evening promenades. It was not long before some of the Catholics brought out guns and commenced sporadic firing at the patriots' position. These replied, and shooting continued through the night. At dawn, when the army was able to form a cordon sanitaire between the two factions, the Orleanists had sustained 5 dead and 7 wounded; the carlists, 2 dead and 5 wounded.20 The situation was even worse than the authorities believed. During the night, the carlists had sent emissaries out into the Catholic countryside south and east of the city to raise support. In Bouillargues, Manduel, Redessan, Garons and Marguerittes, the inhabitants were told that the departure of the Swiss had exposed the Catholics of Nimes to a massacre which had just commenced; that churches and the homes of Catholic notables were being looted and burnt; 'que e'en etait fait des Catholiques de Nismes si ceux des villages voisins ne venaient pas a leur secours'. The villagers responded to the appeal of their co-religionists, and throughout the day of 30 August, contingents assembled between Marguerittes and the Pont du Gard before marching on Nimes. As dawn broke on 31 August, horrified Orleanists saw a ragged peasant army nearly 2000 strong, armed with an assortment of weapons including hunting guns, pitchforks and scythes, assembled outside the city. Immediately, the armed irregulars within Nimes sent representa19 20

AN BB 1 8 i3i5 dossier A7 3998, Viger to minister of justice, 30 August 1830. ibid., and Viger to minister of justice, 8 September 1830.

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Catholic royalism in the Gard

tives into the Vaunage and the Gardonenque, the closest Protestant areas, in order to mobilise support for the apparently beleaguered city. By the afternoon, armed Protestants were pouring into Nimes, where they made camp on the Esplanade. The prefect and Lascours had sent a courier to Montpellier for more troops; those inside the city were fully occupied keeping the Catholics and Protestants apart. In the meantime, they appealed to the archbishop and to the abbe Bonhomme, whose parish, Saint-Charles, included the bourgades, to use their influence with the Catholics in order to avert a bloodbath. Indeed, Bonhomme's assurances to the assembled Catholic peasants that there was no threat of a pogrom led to the dispersal of most of them. The remainder withdrew some distance and waited. The next morning, i September, the reinforcements from Montpellier, including cavalry and artillery, were able to disperse those who were still outside Nimes without meeting any resistance. The prefect then imposed a curfew on the city, ordered the Protestant irregulars to leave, disarmed the Orleanist vigilantes and ordered a full inquiry.21 The overt violence of August 1830 was only the most visible challenge to the new status quo, and other forms of hostility and intimidation followed. Eighty Catholics had been arrested during the trouble at the end of August, and proceedings were due to start against them in September. However, when the moment came, only five magistrates could be found to undertake the inquiry, and 'le tribunal de premiere instance en masse', wrote Viger, 'sauf messieurs Lombard et Gonet, avait quitte le siege. Le procureur du Roi s'est enfui hier. Enfin, depuis trois jours, le juge d'instruction avait disparu. '22 Finally only ten of the accused were sent for trial, but fearing that the proceedings would be transformed into a parody of justice by perjury and the intimidation of witnesses, the courts appealed to the minister of justice, Dupont de l'Eure, to seek a royal amnesty to put an end to the whole affair. Thus, in October, the king of the French unconditionally amnestied all those implicated in the troubles of August in Nimes.23 Unrest and sporadic violence persisted throughout France as disillusion grew among republicans, Bonapartists and all those who had first welcomed the July Revolution with enthusiasm, and who quickly realised how limited that revolution was going to be.24 And Viger's optimism gave way to 21

22 23 24

ibid., Viger to minister ofjustice, 8 September 1830. In 1830 pastor Frossard published his own account of the events which reflects the close affinity between the Eglise reformee and the new regime: Evenements de Nimes depuis le 27 juillet jusqu'au 2 septembre 1830. Another pastor, Tachard, was given responsibility for drawing up the list of victims of the troubles, to be forwarded to the commission des recompenses nationales in order to seek compensation for widows, orphans and the disabled (AN F ld m 79). AN BB 18 I3I5 dossier A7 3998, Viger to minister ofjustice, 1 September 1830. ibid., minister ofjustice to Louis-Philippe, n.d., and royal ordinance of 9 October 1830. P. Pilbeam, The emergence of opposition to the Orleanist monarchy, August 1830-April 1831', Eng. Hist. Rev., 85 (1970), 12-28, and 'Popular violence in provincial France after the

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concern at the possibility of a legitimist conspiracy involving the Gard: Ce serait fermer les yeux a la lumiere que de revoquer en doute l'odieux projet qu'ont eu les ennemis de notre gouvernement d'organiser une Vendee meridionale dont le siege principal devait etre a Nismes. . . A Test de notre ville se trouve un grand nombre de villages populeux qu'on a tente de soulever au nom de la religion et qu'on a fait marcher sous la banniere de la croix.25 The threat of such a conspiracy - imagined at the time - made the establishment of a reliable national guard all the more urgent, so that the regular troops could be released from the more routine aspects of police work in Nimes and be available to respond quickly to reports of disorder in any part of the department. The task of organising the guard proved to be a depressing one. There was no shortage of volunteers from among the Protestants, but Catholics were notably absent from the force, either by choice or because they did not feel welcome. Consequently those areas which least needed a strong battalion because there was a consensus in favour of the July Monarchy had one, while places like Nimes, Uzes and Saint-Ambroix, where disorders were frequent, had a battalion which was unrepresentative of the local inhabitants because composed entirely of Protestants, often a minority in the local population as a whole, and which did not enjoy the support of a substantial proportion of the citizenry. Instead of being a local body concerned with the protection of lives and property, the national guard was perceived as yet another instrument of Protestant, Orleanist rule. In areas where the guards had to contend with a Catholic population which Viger described as 'aigrie, haineuse et passioneV they quickly became demoralised and were tempted to take the law into their own hands to 'eteindre les Carlistes et les exterminer s'ils osent remuer'. 26 As if problems of morale were not enough, in almost every canton in which the national guard was formed the commanders complained of an acute shortage of weapons. When, in December, the task of establishing the force was completed, the new prefect, Chaper, presented the Nimes battalion with its colours. In his report to the minister of the interior Chaper noted wistfully: 'Nous avions 3500 hommes, mais nous en aurions eu 10 000 si les fusils ne manquaient. '27 During the first months of its existence, the July Monarchy's administrators and supporters in the Gard had to endure a constant stream of abuse,

25 26 27

1830 Revolution', Eng. Hist. Rev., 91 (1976), 278-97; R. Price, 'Popular disturbances in the French provinces after the July Revolution of 1830', Europ. Studies Rev., 1 (1971)7 323—55AN BB 18 i3i5 dossier A7 3998, Viger to minister of justice, 8 September 1830. AN F95i2, registers concerning the formation of the national guard, autumn 1830; AD Gard iE 1071, Viger to minister ofjustice, n.d.;6M 104, sub-prefect of Ales to prefect, ijuly 1831. AD Gard ij 9 dossier 1, Chaper to minister of interior, 5 December 1830; AN F95i2, national guard registers.

106 Catholic royalism in the Gard taunts and provocations, of the kind which had been common during the First Restoration, and which were intended to insinuate that worse was to come. Anti-Protestant graffiti were commonplace, as were attacks on the new regime's symbols on public buildings. There were also efforts to obstruct the administration whenever possible. In Parignargues, to the west of Nimes, a crowd tried to prevent the mayor from removing the bust of Charles X from the tnairie, and then took the bust themselves, carrying it like an object of veneration to their church, where it was displayed along with other symbols of the former regime, making the church a veritable shrine to the Bourbons in an overwhelmingly Protestant and Orleanist canton. Attempts to have the seditious objects removed met with point-blank refusal.28 In Uzes, Ales, Sumene, and even Arpaillargues, a bastion of Protestantism, Orleanists walked the streets in fear of abuse, and sometimes of physical assault;29 in Nimes, at the beginning of December, a group of men seized a national guardsman one night and flung him head first over the parapet of the Esplanade.30 The town of Ales witnessed the most subversive opposition to the new administration. There was an active and influential legitimist society there, the cercle de I'eveche, to which belonged most of the former administrative and legal officials of the town, together with a number of'new' men, too young to have been involved in the events of 1815. The cercles leaders were Roger de Larcy, son of the White Terror sub-prefect of Le Vigan, a lawyer and assistant to the procureur du roi (also a Catholic royalist) until the July Revolution, when he refused (with the procureur) to take the oath of allegiance to Louis-Philippe; Deveau de Robiac, de Larcy's brother-in-law and former mayor of Robiac (the oath of allegiance again); and the marquis de la Fare, landowner and son of an emigre.2'1 These three men, through their colleagues and sympathisers in the courts, were able to make nonsense of the law in Ales: the tribunal de premiere instance consistently dismissed cases against individuals accused of sedition and made life intolerable for the Orleanist procureur and his assistants. Because of the judges' tenure, Viger could only overcome the obstruction by ordering that all preliminary hearings be held in the Anduze tribunal instead.32 In their own way, the Catholic clergy made their hostility felt too. Lacoste had managed to offend the bishop of Nimes, and while the bishop and the abbe Bonhomme could support the authorities on matters of public order to 28 29 30 31 32

AD Gard 6M 103, mayor of Parignargues to prefect, 25 October 1830. AN BB 18 1315 dossier A7 3998, Chabaud-Latour to minister ofjustice, 5 November 1830; AD Gard 6M103, gendarmerie reports for last quarter, 1830. AD Gard ij 9 dossier 1, prefect to minister ofjustice, 8 December 1830. AD Gard 6M 104, sub-prefect of Ales to prefect, 23 February 1831. ADGard iE 1078, procureur du rois, Ales, to Viger, 1 December 1830; AN BB 18 i315 dossier A7 3998, Viger to minister ofjustice, 25 December 1830, 17 February 1831, and sub-prefect, Ales, to minister of cukes et instruction publique, April 1831.

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avoid bloodshed, even they would show no loyalty to the regime itself and steadfastly ignored instructions to offer public prayers for Louis-Philippe during services. Other priests went further and preached openly against the government and its employees from their pulpits, while those involved in public duties - teaching, and administering poor-relief, for example- refused to take the oath of allegiance which the authorities attempted to impose on them.33 Not surprisingly, the Catholics' undisguised and almost universal hostility to the regime, and the administration's apparent weakness in the face of it, provoked a Protestant backlash. It began in November, when the ministers of Charles X were put on trial. Orleanists in the Gard began clamouring for the trial of the men of 1815 as well, and the authorities were put in the embarrassing position of having to deny their own supporters' demands, which, to the Protestants of the Gard, were no more than just.34 In January 1831, after more Catholic-inspired rioting in Nimes, during which the police allegedly made no effort to make arrests, and when another national guardsman going off duty was physically assaulted by Catholics, one hundred enraged guardsmen invaded the city hall and sent for the prefect. Chaper was presented with a list of demands which included the dismissal of the police officers of the town; that of several officials in the city hall and the prefecture; and an immediate move against the carlists. The mayor, de Chastellier, was severely criticised.35 A similar protest took place shortly afterwards in Anduze, a town in which Protestants made up 80 per cent of the population. There, the demonstration assumed an economic and social dimension which reflected the continuing slump in the department. Besides demanding the dismissal of a number of officials, the protesters urged the poor to break into the houses of the wealthy.36 More serious anti-Catholic rioting occurred in February when a mob invaded the seminary in Nimes, smashing statues and stained-glass windows. This incident appears to have been inspired by the Parisian response to the legitimists's attempt to commemorate the death of the due de Berry, and similar incidents took place in Tarascon and Aix-en-Provence as legitimists and patriots clashed.37 In Nimes, however, the insurgents found letters in the seminary which implicated clerics and a number of Catholic notables, including Charles de Surville, in a vague conspiracy to oppose by all means the July 33 34 35 36 37

AD Gard V 3, Lacoste to the bishop of Nimes, 25 October 1830; AD Gard ij 9 dossier 1, Chaper to the bishop of Nimes, 3 January 1831. AN BB 18 I3I5 dossier A7 3998, Gasquet to minister of justice, 3 December 1830, Viger to minister of justice, 20 November 1830. AD Gard ij 9 dossier 1, Chaper to minister of interior, 11 January 1831;) AD Gard iE 1071, Viger to minister of justice, n.d. (January 1831). AN BB 18 I3I5 dossier A7 3998, Viger to minister of justice, 24 January 1831. AN BB5 i74, reports from the cours royales of Nimes and Aix-en-Provence, February 1831.

108 Catholic royalism in the Gard 38 Monarchy. In normal circumstances, anti-clerical outbursts were of little concern to the authorities; by channelling destructive energies towards a traditional bete noire of the liberals, they served to deflect antagonism from the more glaring deficiencies of a regime whose social policy was increasingly conservative. In the Gard, however, the point was quickly reached where such attacks would cause more trouble than the Orleanists would wish for. This was well illustrated only a month later when, in the prevailing atmosphere of anti-clericalism, the prefect and the local authorities decided to remove the crosses erected in public places to commemorate the missions of the Bourbon Restoration.39 It was a decision provoked by the more radical Protestants of Nimes, and one which the prefect knew could unleash a violent response from the Catholics, not only of Nimes, but also from the neighbouring villages who had already demonstrated that attacks on Catholicism and on their fellow Catholics in the city aroused their fury. Proceeding cautiously, the prefect sought the advice of his sub-prefects. These informed him that the mission crosses in the other arrondissements were not a source of grievance to the Protestants, and that the notables considered it wisest to leave them alone. In Nimes, however, the pressure to remove them remained.40 News, or rumours, that the crosses were to go spread through Nimes on Friday 11 March. In the afternoon, crowds from the bourgades and the Enclos Rey gathered around the crosses which stood in front of the cathedral, the church of St Charles and the two large churches on the Boulevard des Calquieres (Saint-Baudile near the casernes and the Capucines near the Esplanade). The crowds took up the chant 'Vive la Croix! Vive Charles X!' No action was taken by the authorities, but large groups of Catholics took turns to stand guard over the crosses during the night. The next morning, the entire population of the Catholic faubourgs thronged the streets preparing to resist any attempts to remove or deface the symbols of their faith. A deputation of Catholic notables went to the prefecture to appeal to the prefect not to remove the crosses unless he wanted to be responsible for provoking a bloodbath. Chaper had no intention of giving way, and ordered the garrison to turn out to protect the military engineers who took down the crosses under the sullen eye of a hostile crowd. Stones were thrown at the sappers and at the national guards, two of whom panicked and fired. Nobody was hit, and no rioting broke out until later, when carlists embarked on a weekend of arson against property owned by Orleanists in the city and its environs.41 38 39 40 41

ibid., report o f the cour royale de Nimes. Pilbeam, 'Popular violence', pp. 288—9. AD Gard 6M 104, sub-prefects' reports, 12, 13, 14 March 1831. AN F76y8o dossier 7, gendarmerie reports, 13, 14 March 1831.

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The authorities regarded the affair as a victory. The threat of a bloodbath did not materialise, and Viger commented that the carlists had become resigned to the government's ability to administer the department in spite of their avowed opposition. Indeed, Viger claimed, the threat from the left was more dangerous. By the left, he meant those who had initially welcomed the July Monarchy, but whose support had waned as they became increasingly dissatisfied with the character of the regime. Among these, he singled out the victims of Catholic royalist persecution in 1815, who had looked to the July Revolution for revenge; the poor, who had hoped to gain from the social upheaval of revolution; republican idealists (few in number, he stressed); and the politically ambitious.42 The report was written only a month after Casimir Perier became prime minister, confirming the triumph of the conservatives over the progressives, and inaugurating a brand of conservatism which was to be the hallmark of the July Monarchy until its downfall.43 Viger was no doubt partly right. The revolt in Lyon in the autumn of 1831, and the republican riots in Paris in June 1832, indicated how much hostility to the policies of the July Monarchy there was on the left. But in the Gard at least the main threat to the regime was always to come from the legitimists who, unlike their colleagues in other parts of France, had a good deal of popular support in both town and country, making them on occasion a force to contend with. Why, then, it may be asked, did they fail to make more of the highly charged incident involving the removal of the Nimes mission crosses? The answer would appear to be that the legitimist leaders in the Gard were opposed, by the spring of 1831, to a fresh outburst of impassioned popular violence. In the anti-clerical climate, such action would certainly lead to punitive repression by the government, which could only increase its standing in the eyes of its lukewarm supporters by taking a firm stand against legitimists. Thus, legitimist-inspired violence could have an undesirable unifying effect advantageous to the government. That was not the only reason. Roger Price has argued persuasively that, whatever their dynastic allegiance, the legitimists were as much 'men of order' as the Orleanist notables who had succeeded them in power, and that they were not inclined to support any popular unrest in the volatile climate of 1830-2.^ There is little doubt that the notables who approached Chaper with the threat of a bloodbath did so as a matter of form, without the least intention of unleashing one. When their 'diplomatic' approach failed, they were content to let the authorities proceed. Indeed, the removal of the crosses in spite of the 42 43 44

AD Gard iE 1071, Viger to minister of justice, 23 April 1831. Pilbeam, 'Popular violence'; J. Rule and C. Tilly, 'Political process in revolutionary France' in Merriman, 1830 in France, pp. 41-85. R. Price, 'Legitimist opposition to the revolution of 1830 in the provinces', Hist. Journal, 17 (1974), 755-78.

no Catholic royalism in the Gard notables' intervention provided them with more ammunition in the form of further popular resentment which could be exploited at a future date. In the long term, the affair strengthened the legitimists' hand. Lacoste, who returned to the Gard as prefect in October 1831, reported to the government: 'Vous ne saurez croire, Monsieur le Ministre, combien l'enlevement des croix de Nismes au mois de mars dernier a fait de tort a notre cause, combien de bons citoyens se sont alors ecartes de l'administration, combien de frayeurs veritables, combien de profondes irritations cet acte a produit chez les ecclesiastiques.'45 This result was, however, a bonus for the legitimists. At the time of the incident, their overriding preoccupation was with maintaining control over the Catholic popular classes and channelling their grievances and hostility to suitable political ends. Two other incidents lend support to this view. While the legitimist notables encouraged widespread demonstrations against the July Monarchy on the anniversary of the July Revolution, involving riots in many of the Gard's towns,46 they refused to encourage civil disobedience or strikes in November, when the Lyon weavers, with whom the Nimois had regular contact, revolted. Lacoste expressed his amazement - and relief — that instead of fomenting discord among the working classes of Nimes, who had been enduring very low wages all year, the legitimists were resolutely opposing any talk of an insurrection. Rather, they had resorted to their traditional paternalism, organising the Catholic workers into pious societies through which relief was distributed and the virtues of Catholicism and legitimism were preached.47 The purpose was clear: the notables could nip in the bud any working-class movement - although the authorities believed that such a development was most unlikely in the Gard anyway because of the confessional rift among the working classes;48 they could strengthen their grip on the Catholic peuple; and they could ensure that their own ideal of a counter-revolution led by the legitimist elite and followed by the reign of Henri V over a land of plenty was progressively implanted in the popular mind. In fact, at the time when the Gard's authorities removed the mission crosses and Viger was confident that legitimism in the area had ceased to constitute a threat, the legitimists were involved in conspiracy - or, more accurately, conspiracies, for there were several variations on the theme between 1830 and 1832. All were ill-conceived, naive and badly prepared, 45 46

47 48

AD Gard 6M 104, Lacoste to Casimir Perier, 26 December 1831. AD Gard iE 1071, Viger to minister of justice, 26 July 1831; 6M 105, sub-prefect, Uzes, to prefect, 4 August 1831; AN F7678o dossier 7, Ales gendarmerie report to minister of interior, 25 July 1831. AD Gard 6M 104, Lacoste to Casimir Perier, 26 December 1831; 6M 106, police reports, Nimes, 13 November, 9 December 1831. AD Gard 6M 106, police reports for September and October 1831.

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but they at least provided the faithful with the illusion that something was being done, or was going to be done before long, and at a time when morale was at low ebb. From their exile at Holyrood in Scotland, Charles X's courtiers dreamed of a third restoration which would put the old monarch's grandson, the due de Bordeaux, on the throne, with his mother, the duchesse de Berry, as regent until the boy's coming of age in September 1833. It is true that certain legitimists continued to regard Charles X as king, and that the young prince himself refused to accept any of the symbols of kingship until 1844, when both Charles and the due d'Angouleme were dead and there could be no question of Bordeaux's rights, but it was accepted by most legitimists (and, most important, by the rank and file) that only Bordeaux, or Henri V, as he was already called, stood a chance of gaining acceptance if a counterrevolution could be organised. As far as the feasibility of a counterrevolution was concerned, legitimists like Bourmont, Blacas, Bordigne and the indefatigable Ferdinand de Bertier believed that they could count on help from some of the European sovereigns. The July Revolution could be seen as an attack on the 1815 treaties, and concern about France's intentions was increased by traditional French interest in the Belgian revolt against the Dutch in August 1830. Even though the major powers - Britain, Austria, Prussia and even Russia, the principal object of French royalist affections had recognised with more or less reluctance the new state of affairs in France by the beginning of 1831, Orleanist politicians were haunted by the fear of France's isolation and the possibility of serious conflict with one or more of the powers. This tension offered the legitimists a glimmer of hope during the first two years of the July Monarchy's existence. They vainly believed that the allies' attachment to the principles of 1815 would lead them to look kindly on efforts to restore the legitimate monarchy. It was a fine example of the legitimists' tendency to sacrifice realism to wishful thinking, for they seem to have paid more attention to the denunciations of the new French regime made by the Tsar than to the accommodation made by those powers in a position to intervene - Britain and Prussia. The idea of allied intervention to restore or to strengthen Bourbon rule in France was not novel. Royalists had sought it in 1789 and throughout the Great Revolution; and, more recently, the note secrete of 1818 had been written in order to persuade the allies that liberalism was eroding legitimacy under Decazes's government. In neither case had the appeal for support been greeted with enthusiasm; in 1792 Austria and Prussia ultimately took up arms against France because she threatened their interests directly; and in 1818, there was a markedly cool response to the ultra-royalists' pleas, at a time when the allies were reasonably united and still concerned that the balance of power they had contrived at Vienna in 1815 should prevail. By 1830, the

H2 Catholic royalism in the Gard allies had largely gone their own ways, following the dictates of self-interest, and concerted action was far less probable than at any time since 1815. Nevertheless, the notion of such intervention had not lost its appeal in legitimist circles where ageing men who had never really come to terms with the post-revolutionary world clutched desperately at straws. The correspondence of men like Bertier, Bordigne and Blacas with Charles X and the duchesse de Berry in 1830 and 1831 reveals their misplaced confidence.49 Writing in November 1830, at the beginning of the London conference on the future of Belgium, which naturally raised the question of LouisPhilippe's foreign policy, and at a time when the Tsar was still referring to the new king of the French as a vile usurper, de Bordigne informed the duchesse de Berry that it would not be difficult to restore the Bourbons by means of an insurrection, but that the real difficulty would lie in establishing the future king securely in the hearts of the people. Already in 1814, de Bertier and his fellow royalists had found the allies unwilling to throw their support behind a candidate who did not stand a reasonable chance of commanding the respect, if not immediately the affection, of the French people. Consequently, de Bordigne set out a number of proposals designed to win popular support for Henri V. These included a greater degree of local government, the extension of the franchise to the popular classes, the abolition of conscription, freedom of the press, and the promise of free education. Government would be based on a liberal interpretation of the Charter of 1814. 'L'on ne saurait trop repeter', insisted de Bordigne, 'que des cinq ou six premiers actes de la Restauration dependra necessairement son avenir.'50 For the counter-revolution itself, the conspirators had divided France into six military divisions: Brittany, the Vendee, the Bordelais, Languedoc, the Lyonnais and Provence. The legitimists looked chiefly to the west for support and initiatives. In Brittany and the Vendee they estimated they had 90 000 men at their disposal, and they counted on Tenergie de leurs soldats', and 'ce vieil enthousiasme monarchique' which they attributed to the region.51 The Midi was of secondary importance, not only because of its remoteness from Paris, but also because the conspirators had doubts about the reliability of southern legitimists. They referred to 'le caractere des habitans, plus ardens de paroles et peu constans dans des entreprises difficiles et de longue haleine'. As in 1790, anti-Protestantism rather than devotion to the monarchy perse would provide the spark.52 However, one constant factor in legitimist thought ensured that the Midi, with all its peculiarities and local allegiances, could not be neglected - the myth of Spanish intervention. 49

50 51

G. de Bertier de Sauvigny, 'La conspiration des legitimistes et de la duchesse de Berry contre Louis-Philippe, 1830-32', Etudes d'Hist. mod. etcontemp., 3 (1951), xvii-125; R. Bullen, 'France and the problem of intervention in Spain, 1834-36', Hist. Journal, 20 (1977), 363-5. G. de Bertier de Sauvigny, 'Conspiration', pp. 33-4. 52 ibid., pp. 32-4, 47-55. ibid., pp. 13-14.

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Already in 1818, d'Argout, as prefect of the Gard, had learnt the importance which the Catholic royalists attached to military support from across the Pyrenees. The dream of 80 000 Spanish legionaries, ready to 'liberate' the Midi from liberalism and Protestantism, was carefully fostered in the dark days of the Decazes ministry. Indeed, for a number of Catholic royalists, Spain represented an acceptable alternative to a France dominated by Paris, and therefore by revolutionary principles. According to d'Argout's informant, 'le pis aller etait d'appartenir a l'Espagne'.53 Since the days of the French Revolution, strong links had existed between the royalists of Madrid and Barcelona and those of Toulouse and Marseille. Belief in Spanish aid had been reinforced since 1823, when the French Bourbons gave military assistance to Ferdinand VII, caught between liberals and absolutists. In 1830 de Bordigne reported that sources in Madrid had shown willingness to return the compliment by putting funds and 60 000 men at the disposal of a royalist council to be set up in the Midi. Bordigne was not enthusiastic at the idea: presumably he was suspicious of the southern separatist tradition on which an ambitious Spanish government might capitalise by creating in effect a satellite province on the French side of the Pyrenees.54 Whatever may have been their reservations about the Midi, the legitimist conspirators took care to organise a network of subordinates in the southern departments. The reports of Bertier and Bordigne indicate that preparations for an armed insurrection had been made by November 1830 in the Tarn-etGaronne, Tarn, Haute-Garonne, Aveyron, Ardeche, Lozere, Herault, Gard, Bouches-du-Rhone and Var.55 The Gard was part of the legitimists' fifth division, under the orders ofJean-Charles de Surville, former receveur of the department, who had moved to Marseille. The legitimists regarded the Gard as capable of supplying an armed force and an experienced civil administration to take over from the Orleanists in the aftermath of the planned insurrection. Moreover, controlling communications from east to west and from north to south down the Rhone valley, the Gard would be the pivot of any insurrection in the Midi - as it had been in the federalist revolt of 1793. Bertie recommended that 40 000 francs be put at the disposal of the department's legitimists to pay their volunteers.56 In the Gard, preparations were being made in the autumn of 1830. The police and their informers recorded an increase in the number and frequency of meetings taking place in the houses of well-known Catholic royalists. Drapers' shops sold out of green serge, the basis of the miquelet uniforms of 1790 and 1815, and the authorities concluded that carlist militia companies 53 54 55 56

AN F79O5i, d'Argout to Decazes, 20 April 1818. G. de Bertier de Sauvigny, 'Conspiration', pp. 40-1. ibid., pp. 47-54, 27-9. ibid., pp. 47-54-

H4 Catholic royalism in the Gard 57 were being equipped. The manifest state of unreadiness of the national guard, still in the process of being formed and seriously short of weapons, gave rise to fear and speculation about the legitimists' access to firearms. Nobody doubted that there were caches dating from 1815 and from the 1818 'disarming' of the ultra-royalist national guard in the Catholic villages around Nimes, even if the allegation that the marquis de Valfons had three hundred rifles under the floorboards of his chateau near Saint-Chaptes was probably an exaggeration.58 Fears and suspicions were further fuelled by the increasing audacity of the carlists towards the end of 1830. In the last quarter, Viger reported fifty-seven serious incidents of a political nature, including assaults on national guards and civil administrators in Nimes, Uzes and Le Vigan, attempts to sabotage the tirage au sort to make up the department's contingent for conscription, and the theft of jury lists in Uzes.59 It was alleged, too, that the legitimists intended to open the maison centrale, whose 1200 inmates would be encouraged to cause as much chaos as they could in Nimes before making good their escape. It was wishful thinking or pure fantasy, perhaps, but the prefect took the rumour seriously enough to suspend the prison governor who was suspected of connivance with the legitimists.60 The legitimists' preparations assumed a more determined form just before Christmas, when more than a hundred of them attended a meeting held on 20 December in Nimes, in a house just off the Cours. The prefect of the neighbouring Bouches-du-Rhone had appointed a secret police agent to keep watch on legitimists travelling to and from Marseille. The man had taken a particular interest in the movements between Nimes and Marseilles, and at the beginning of December had learnt of the proposed meeting in Nimes. The prefects of the two departments concerned agreed that the agent should travel to Nimes for the meeting. It turned out to be a rally at which Charles de Calviere, son of the marquis de Calviere-Vezenobres, spoke to assure the assembled legitimists that the insurrection would take place before long, and that the signal was to be the invasion of the Midi either by Spanish troops crossing the Pyrenees or by Piedmontese troops entering the Var. But the real star of the evening was Jean Graffand, alias Quatretaillons, that veteran of the 1815 White Terror, who had been brought out of his well-protected retirement near Bagnols-sur-Ceze, complete with pistols, a musket, a sabre and crossed bandoliers of ammunition. Graffand and a number of leaders 57 58 59

60

AN BB 18 I3I5 dossier A 7 3998, Viger to minister of justice, 6 December 1830. AD Gard 6M 103, Muzet^i/5 to minister of war, 3 December 1830; 6M 105, police report; Nimes, 3 December 1830. AN BB 18 I3I5 dossier A7 3998, report for last quarter, 1830; AGE5 dossier 161, gendarmerie reports, January 1831; AD Gard ij 9 dossier 1, Chaper to minister of interior, 8 December 1830, 6, 11 January 1831. AD Gard ij 9 dossier 1, Chaper to minister of interior, 6, 11 January 1831.

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whom the spy could not identify went on to a smaller meeting in the bourgades.61

News of the meeting, confirmation that Catholic notables like de Calviere, and de Surville in Marseille, were involved, and, most of all, the reappearance of Quatretaillons, spurred the authorities in the Gard to take action. Indeed, Quatretaillons had already been the object of police activity since the July Revolution as a result of petitions concerning his presence in and around Bagnols in spite of a death sentence passed on him in absentia in 1820.62 Forced to go into hiding, Quatretaillons was nearly taken by the gendarmerie at Aries in mid December, but he escaped, killing two gendarmes in the process.63 After his spectacular appearance fully armed in Nimes on 20 December, the gendarmerie redoubled its efforts to capture him. He was finally surrounded in an isolated farmhouse near Courbessac, just north east of Nimes, on 30 December. Once again he attempted to escape by fleeing into the night, but this time he was mortally wounded and died before the gendarmes could transport him to Nimes. 64 Shortly after his death an anonymous and highly romanticised account of his life was published. 65 The pamphlet does, however, throw some light on the mentality of those Catholic royalist die-hards who saw in the likes of Quatretaillons an instinctive and healthy reaction to the Revolution's legacy of centralised authority: 'Qu'a-til manque a Graffan pour devenir un personnage dans le genre de ceux d'Homer, de Calderon, de Walter Scott? Du Moyen Age. >66 Explaining that he typified the people of the Midi, to whose 'un-French' temperament the Revolutionary and Napoleonic era had been unacceptable, the author continued: Parlez-leur [the people of the Midi] des Bourbon, des gens qui veulent tout remettre sur l'ancien pied, qui, par consequent, delivreront ces gens-la des nouveaux poids et mesures, d'une nouvelle legislation. . . enfin de tout ce que nous avons innove depuis 1789 et impose au Midi. II se trouve que les liberaux sont des aristocrates dans ces provinces, et que les Washington, les Guillaume Tell pour elles sont Messieurs Bourmont et Blacas.67 The local loyalties which were such a strong feature of southern legitimism were noted somewhat less dramatically by Montalivet, minister of the interior. Referring to Villele's role, he commented that he was not only the hub of a military organisation which stretched from Bayonne to Marseille, but 'On peut dire qu'il est le vice-roi de la France aquitanique', an expression which recalled the brief period in the summer of 1815 when the full powers 61

AD Gard 6M 105, prefect, Bouches-du-Rhone, to Chaper, 11, 17, 27 December 1830. AN BB18iO48, Viger to minister of justice, 8 October 1830. 63 ibid., commandant of the 15th gendarmerie to minister of war, 13 December 1830. 64 ibid., minister of war to minister of interior, 5 January 1831. 62

65

Vie de Graffan.