Family Dynasty, Revolutionary Society: The Cochins of Paris, 1750-1922 (Contributions to the Study of World History)

Family Dynasty, Revolutionary Society The Cochins of Paris, 1750–1922

LAURENCE H. WINNIE

GREENWOOD PRESS

Family Dynasty, Revolutionary Society

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Family Dynasty, Revolutionary Society The Cochins of Paris, 1750–1922

LAURENCE H. WINNIE

Contributions to the Study of World History, Number 82

GREENWOOD PRESS Westport, Connecticut • London

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Winnie, Laurence H., 1953– Family dynasty, revolutionary society : the Cochins of Paris, 1750–1922 / Laurence H. Winnie. p. cm.—(Contributions to the study of world history, ISSN 0885–9159 ; no. 82) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–313–31361–X (alk. paper) 1. Cochin family. 2. Paris (France)—Biography. 3. France—History—Revolution, 1789–1799—Influence. 4. Businesspeople—France—Paris—Political activity. 5. Middle class—France—Paris—Social life and customs. I. Title. II. Series. DC705.A1 W56 2002 944'.3604'092221—dcaB 00–042946 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright
2002 by Laurence H. Winnie All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 00–042946 ISBN: 0–313–31361–X ISSN: 0885–9159 First published in 2002 Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.greenwood.com Printed in the United States of America TM

The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984). 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Copyright Acknowledgment The author and publisher gratefully acknowledge permission for the use of the following material: Material from the Cochin Family Archive, including all photographs, used by permission of the Cochin family.

Contents

Preface

vii

CHAPTER

1

Introduction

CHAPTER

2

Family Matters

19

CHAPTER

3

Wealth and Income

49

CHAPTER

4

Charity and Social Reform

75

CHAPTER

5

Religion and the Church

115

CHAPTER

6

Politics and the Revolution I

141

CHAPTER

7

Politics and the Revolution II: The Third Republic

171

CHAPTER

8

Conclusion

213

Appendix: Timeline of Cochin Family Events in Relation to French History

219

Bibliography

221

Index

237 A photo essay follows p. 114.

1

Preface

This book would not have been possible without the support of a large number of individuals and institutions, only a few of which can be acknowledged here. The Baron Denys Cochin and his family generously made available to the author the family archives at Beauvoir, Seine-et-Marne, and, moreover, made the young American historian feel welcomed in their family circle. The writing and research of Family Dynasty, Revolutionary Society were supported and encouraged by the French government, Bourse Chateaubriand, the Departments of History at the University of Michigan, at Stanford University and at Yale. Support for the publication of this book was provided by the Hilles Fund of the Whitney Humanities Center at Yale.

Chapter 1

Introduction

This book tells the story of a Parisian notable family’s experience of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It does not seek to restate the familiar thesis that the notables were alienated from modern French life. My motives in writing it were to answer two fundamental questions: What were the issues that separated these beneficiaries of the Old Re´gime urban framework from the age after the Revolution? Second, what did France lose by their disenchantment and that of others like them? The answer usually given to the first question is that the notables were unhappy with democratic politics and that their incompetence at it excluded them from power locally and nationally over the long run. They were further disturbed by the treatment of the Church and the diminished role assigned Catholicism in public life. They experienced some of these changes by 1848, and by the early years of the Third Republic they were being pushed aside by the new men of the Republic, both politicians and administrators. There were many reasons why they could no longer rule public life in the 1870s, so many that it has never been difficult for Marxists, socialists, and liberals alike to push them off the historical stage, for reasons of either common sense or ideological necessity. They were the past, remnants of the Old Re´gime. Yet the picture was never so simple. Over sixty years ago Daniel Hale´vy drew an unsurpassed portrait of how ridiculous some of the notables could be.1 Their attachment to monarchism and the comte de Chambord were telling during the formative years of the Third Republic; of that Hale´vy left no doubt. Yet Hale´vy’s work was also redolent with an admiration for the great figures of the early Republic—notables included—who appeared to be impressively able and principled compared to the politicians who succeeded them. The end of the notables, however necessary it seemed at the time, was, he felt, the end of

2

Family Dynasty, Revolutionary Society

something significant in French public life. Andre´-Jean Tudesq, the notables’ greatest historian, wrote two massive volumes cataloguing the many forms of power they exercised in French society earlier in the century, from 1840 to 1847. These did not disappear overnight, though he portrayed his notables as succumbing to the new awareness of challenges from other classes, and, finally, growing class conflict.2 Christophe Charle has charted the evolution of the new cadre of Third Republican leaders that would replace them, for the Third Republic would have its own elites. It is noteworthy that the many layers of the notables’ power elaborated by Tudesq are absent in Charle’s work because his elite arose primarily as a governmental and administrative corps.3 Were the notables removed from power because of other factors besides political conflict? It is not clear that they were inevitably the victims of industrial or urban expansion. Robert Locke’s work throws cold water on the idea that industrialization alone was a factor in the decline of Legitimists or Legitimism.4 The same was likely the case for Orleanist notables as well. In fact, it was in the realm of politics that the French notables suffered their heaviest defeats, and as these accumulated, many notable families removed themselves from public life voluntarily. The notables did not just disappear, of course; many families still serve in public life, if not in the same way they did in the nineteenth century. But it was an eclipse, and the notables’ eclipse, like their rise, was a complex matter. If we do not accept that it was, vaguely, an inevitable replacement, and if it was not caused by industrial changes in a direct way, what caused this retreat from a preeminence they enjoyed for a significant part of the nineteenth century? Why could they not adapt to the new politics? It occurred to me that by watching the fortunes and careers of an Old Re´gime notable family through the nineteenth century, we could better understand this. We could see what the nineteenth century came to be in their eyes. And insofar as the nineteenth century gradually came to adopt the ideals of the Revolution, we could see how those ideals (and their effects) looked to a group of notables. The revisionist view has been that the Revolution spread as a new way of feeling, thinking, and speaking about public life, and particularly government. These new ways were accepted—or not accepted—by the diverse people who made up French society. In general, revisionism has not been interested in social context. Who heard and accepted this new mode of government? Who heard and walked away from it? This is a crucial issue, on reflection. Where people are located in a social order exerts a significant influence on whether they are disposed to accept certain ideas. Their attachments to other ideas, their images of themselves reflected in their interactions with others, help human beings determine what is true or right. This history of the Cochins delves into these social, cultural, religious, and familial crosscurrents that pulled succeeding generations of Cochins into public life after the Revolution and in the end kept them from embracing the Third Republic. The Cochins were liberal Orleanists and, as we shall see, highly critical of both old Rights (Legitimism) and new Rights (the Action Franc¸aise).

Introduction

3

Far from indifferent, they were highly attuned to the economic changes created by the nineteenth century and the “social question” it engendered. In critical times the Cochins were side by side with their Legitimist in-laws, the Benoist d’Azy. But at others, the Cochins embraced many of the values that the Revolution, at least in some of its guises, espoused. Survivors from a proud past, the Cochins—and others like them—could keep up with the times. They developed in more impressive ways than many on their left or their right. The cultural strengths they developed in nineteenth-century French public life were impressive. But in the end, they and the Republic parted ways. The other side of the question is what French society lost from their alienation from the Third Republic. Conservative and Royalist observers have lamented the retreat of these older ruling classes. But they never bother to undertake the hard labor of sorting through the baggage of those excluded from further travel. We are left to assume that their cultural belongings contained little of value for the journey forward in time. The assumption is gratifying and clarifying, but not necessarily true. Democracy in France has been the subject of serious criticism by foreigners and the French alike. Much of it is based on the presumption that public life and political culture in modern France were derived from the Revolution—the crucial, central claim that all the French republics made about themselves. The second belief was that democratic France pushed aside the older ruling groups and had to do this for its own survival. However true these claims are, the fact remains that democratic and liberal regimes, and that modern public life in general, are the result of contributions of many kinds. This story of the Cochins cannot rewrite French history in the nineteenth century as if they were not eventually pushed aside. But it can identify the demands they made, the liabilities they carried, and the political gifts they had to offer. Certainly France all through the nineteenth century benefited from the contributions to public life of these Parisian bourgeoisie. French life and politics might have benefited more had the Cochins stayed in the arena and had a larger role than they did. The Cochins of Paris were first merchants and then noblesse de cloche on rue St.-Jacques. They were articulate about themselves and eloquently explained their actions and their criticisms of the direction in which France was developing around them in the nineteenth century. Neither Legitimists nor Republicans, as liberal Orleanists they struggled with a degree of independence to explain their world and their role in it. Their independence put them at a loss at times. Never at the centers of power, they had to watch and maneuver in the flow and drift of public life to find a place.5 A successful and proud family, the Cochins had a solid sense of who they were. Their ideal of who they were fit as readily into the familiar categories of the Old Re´gime as the new. During the Restoration the Cochins took the initial steps for formal recognition of their title. But they soon withdrew from pressing their claim. Though barons, and notables through the nineteenth century, being

4

Family Dynasty, Revolutionary Society

bourgeois de Paris remained the center of their identity. The Cochins were proudest of their accomplishments in France’s greatest city, lived most of their lives in Paris, and maintained an active civic life even as they rose to national prominence. In times of crisis and discouragement they referred to their bourgeois origins, which gave them comfort and a sense of place. They experienced most of the public crises in Paris: the Revolution; 1830; 1848; the coup d’e´tat of 1851; the Prussian invasion; the Commune; Boulanger; the Ferry laws; Dreyfus; the separation of Church and State; the outbreak of the Great War. Here they enjoyed their most secure place, implied by an old family motto: “Better one of the oldest of the bourgeois than the newest of the nobles.”6 They were always mindful of the “honor” and “independence” of the family they celebrated—and did not hesitate to resign from positions of power and responsibility to protest government actions. They produced an impressive succession of individuals from the eighteenth century to the twentieth, some of whom were the subject of biographies by contemporaries.7 Merchant, alderman, priest, philanthropist, social reformer and educator, author, liberal Catholic leader, politician, Academician, historian, cabinet minister—all these roles were played by the Cochins studied here. Articulate, active, yet reserved, they also left reflections on their times and their family, some retrieved from their rifling through the family papers. Always aware of the past, the Cochin family looked obsessively to the family’s history to give meaning to outside events. This was part of an exercise in spiritual survival in a France that was drifting away from their ideals. Any history of a powerful and prominent family, and certainly a history of the Cochins, must relate private life to public life. Social theorists have provided useful terms referring to public or civic life, such as the “bourgeois public sphere.”8 For the family and private life the terms are less distinct. In the Cochins’ case, the two poles of private matters and public ones were mutually sustaining and applied to every topic: society, politics, culture, social reform, economics, and most important, religion. The Cochins themselves were conscious of this; not only did they regard their family as the source of private comfort, peace, and inspiration, but, like many conservatives, they made the family the focus of their reform of French society. In their case the truism applied that the family was the source of the autonomous public individual. One of the most useful ways to see this interaction is in what is here called their “public careers” (career meant in the broadest sense, not restricted to a succession of recognized offices). Through seven generations the Cochins followed public careers that they believed reflected their private ideals, since they enjoyed a relative freedom from the necessity of earning a living. Of course the comparison of public careers from different generations cannot be simple or direct. Family name and family successes were interactive; the successes and failures of the family’s leading figures subtly changed the texture of family membership. Further, there was always the difficulty of expressing the values, or, as they put it, fulfilling family duties rooted in the past, in changed

Introduction

5

circumstances. To some degree every generation has choices about which parts of a family legacy to emphasize and which to play down. Each generation of Cochins had to face changed political and social climates that did not allow them to act on all these ideals. Because their public lives were an outgrowth of their private ones, many changes in public life became a source of anxiety and discontent for the Cochins. On the other hand, some changes in public life offered new opportunities for their private values. So, some changes they welcomed. Some they could adjust to, and these helped to redefine them—as bourgeois, as notables, and as Cochins in the modern era. Others changes they resisted or ignored as best they could. The Cochins’ ethic of political action and social identity was explicitly imposed on family members.9 In their case, significantly enough, it was rooted in their experience as a bourgeois Catholic merchant family devoted to charity and public service in the Paris of the Old Re´gime. In the Cochins’ case a career demanded participation within (and often the reform of) the institutions at hand. The Cochins’ view did not fit perfectly into the assumed “classic relationship” of bourgeois-homme-citoyen, where the public citizen acted in a rational manner, and where reason and desire met for the public good. Here the rational underpinnings of this life, which theories of the bourgeois public sphere call for, are simply absent. Instead, the Cochins’ ethic was dominated by powerful moral and religious tones reinforced by their experience of civic life in eighteenthcentury Paris. The Cochins had elaborated their own public persona before the appearance of the Revolution’s “citoyen.” Theirs was of a Parisian “citadin,” and it was rooted in the Old Re´gime. Yet their idea of self and service adapted to the nineteenth century with little alteration; the Cochins fit well into a world where the qualification for public office was “capacite´.”10 They favored anchoring politics to French society by making social notables the political elite. In other words, the Cochins agreed with the politics of moral order and the vital public role for notables in French society.11 Among other things, this was meant to check democratic politics, most often conjured up as social anarchy and political radicalism. But the Cochins were crucially different in that they believed that French society was being prepared for an inevitably liberal and democratic future. This was the most important reason to reform public life: to imprint their own values on society, to make this democratic future conservative, accepting, and liberal. Between 1685 and 1688 Claude Cochin (1656–1728), a mercer from Montlhe´ry, south of Paris, settled on rue St.-Jacques, Paris.12 The Cochins were important merchants in Montlhe´ry, where they had served as pre´voˆts royals, judicial officers, in the fifteenth century. Claude Cochin, one of nine children, was not the first member of the family to have business in Paris. Cochins appeared on rue St.-Jacques forty years before he settled there.13 Claude was deeply involved in the sober life of the merchant bourgeoisie of Paris. He was a vestryman at his parish, St. Benoıˆt, overseeing the budget and charity work,

6

Family Dynasty, Revolutionary Society

and his business—a partnership with another mercer and draper on rue St.Jacques, Jean Leve´—prospered.14 His three surviving children married within this small circle of merchants: Claude Denis (1698–1786) married Leve´’s daughter, Gabrielle (d. 1763) in a double wedding with his sister, Marie-Claude (1701– 1774), who married Jean Leve´ fils (1697–1755). In the next generation—a very short time—the Cochins attained the pinnacle of bourgeois responsibility and respectability. Claude’s son, Claude Denis (1698–1786), too, joined the Parisian mercer’s guild and was one of its overseers. He managed the Franciscans’ foreign funds (beginning in 1741) and was appointed a processionary of the relic of Ste. Genevie`ve, patron saint of Paris. The Crown appointed Claude Denis Cochin charitable collector for the Hoˆpital Ge´ne´ral due to his “ability and intelligence in business as well as his charity to the poor.”15 He and his brother-in-law, Alexandre Pierre Henry, were administrators of the Hoˆpital Ge´ne´ral and Enfants-Trouve´s.16 Finally, from 1751 to 1753, he served as alderman (e´chevin) of Paris.17 Though the Crown had direct jurisdiction over the capital, the provost of merchants and the aldermen, who led the Bureau de Ville, were responsible for the smooth functioning of the city in all matters pertaining to commerce and social welfare. At the apex of corporate life in Paris, Claude Denis the alderman dealt with the most mundane services essential to a city: “trade . . . tax . . . defense, police, street cleaning, water, building regulations, and facilities for investment.”18 Claude Denis was the most eminent Cochin under the Old Re´gime. Through his hard work, his ambition, his reputation for honesty and good business sense, and his service to the institutions of his city, the Cochins acquired the public signs of esteem (conside´ration) and respectability recognized not only on rue St.-Jacques but throughout the city. Two of Claude Denis’s three sons built upon this legacy while breaking its narrow limits. In 1756 Claude Denis’s second son, Jean Denis Cochin (1726– 1783), was appointed cure´ of the parish St.-Jacques du Haut-pas on rue St.Jacques. At an early age Jean Denis was dissuaded from joining the Carthusians; instead he attended the seminary at St. Magloire on rue St.-Jacques and received a doctorate from the Sorbonne. Jean Denis was vicaire at St. E´tienne-du-Mont when the Archbishop Christophe de Beaumont appointed him cure´ of St.Jacques du Haut-pas. He remained there the rest of his life. The parish was very poor; the quartier was made up of tradesmen and beggars in addition to the academics and printers along rue St.-Jacques. In early 1780 Jean Denis estimated half the parish’s 8–10,000 inhabitants were assisted by charity.19 Jean Denis Cochin’s was a typical urban parish of the Old Re´gime, where the resources were always inadequate to the human need. When word came, probably in late 1779 or early 1780, that the Capuchins on rue St.-Jacques were to be given a new monastery across the river on the chausse´e d’Antin, Jean Denis asked for part of their land on rue St.-Jacques, bought two houses on the edge of the land facing the Observatory to demolish, and had the Crown donate about 1,350 toises (about 2,500 meters) of land. The large two-winged Hospice St.-Jacques,

Introduction

7

for the sick poor, was finished in April 1782. The cost of the grounds and furnishings was 180,481 livres, without including the estimated 200,000 livre endowment needed to maintain the hospice.20 The Cochin family contributed handsomely to the project, but there were many outstanding bills, and much left undone, when Jean Denis Cochin died on June 3, 1783.21 Jean Denis’s older brother, Claude Denis (1724–1797), bought his father’s half of the Cochin-Leve´ business, but in 1768 he and his brother-in-law Jean Leve´ bought an office—and a second when the first was discontinued—of disbursar (payeur des rentes) for the Town Hall of Paris.22 Disbursars were created in the late sixteenth century to help the state raise capital. They were accounting officers, earning 5 percent of the payments owed depositors. Claude Denis never explained the purchase of the office, but his account book shows that in good years (the 1770s) it yielded about 20,000 livres for each of its two holders.23 More significant, public office offered security and prestige, especially when it required a reputation for trustworthiness and business acumen. Claude Denis also threw himself into the Herculean task of continuing his brother’s work. He helped direct the hospice, collected donations as its treasurer from 1783 to 1790, paid its taxes, and fought bitterly with the new cure´ of St.-Jacques du Haut-pas and those in the parish who opposed the hospice. The granting of letters patent in 1790 was not the end of trouble facing the fledgling hospice. The Revolution imposed shortages, overcrowding, and overregulation on the Hospice St.Jacques, as it did the entire hospital system of Paris.24 Claude Denis served in an official and unofficial capacity as an administrator of the hospice during most of the Revolution. He was also elected to the Commune of Paris in its first and second Assemblies from July 25 to September 29, 1789. From August 18 to the end of his term, Claude Denis was one of the commissioners dealing with provisioning Paris. He was reelected on September 18, 1789, but quit later that month.25 He was appointed to organize the revenues of the no-longer-existing clergy of France in October 1790 (over 12,000 accounts) before his disbursar office was discontinued.26 Claude Denis’s efforts at protecting his brother’s hospice ended only with his own illness. On September 1, 1793, he suffered a paralysis—apparently a stroke—and could not sign his name. By 1795 his son Jacques Denis was given power of attorney. He regularly visited his father at 214 rue St.-Jacques until his death 16 Frimaire, V (December 6, 1796). While Claude Denis accommodated to the unexpected Revolution, his son Jacques Denis’s (1757–1837) rebuilding their lives amid the trials of revolutionary politics and war emphasized the family’s social conservatism. Trained in the law (the first of his family to attend the University) Jacques Denis added to the family fortune through his law practice and, apparently, as a private banker in Paris. He was unhappy with Napoleon Bonaparte, whom he saw as the beneficiary of what he termed the “revolution of 1793,” for Jacques Denis a time of lapsed morality. He worked on—patiently amassing his money, tending to the hospice, succeeding his father in closing the disbursars’ offices, and

8

Family Dynasty, Revolutionary Society

helping to reopen the parish of St.-Jacques du Haut-pas in 1803, where he served as treasurer.27 He transformed his growing wealth into country estates, applied for the formal recognition of the family title, and during the Restoration served as mayor of the 12th arrondissement (and later near his rural estates). From 1824 to 1827 he served a term in the Chamber of Deputies. His career fit perfectly the Napoleonic and the Restoration strategy of reestablishing a government with the help of stable and conservative notables. But what seemed an easy accommodation between the Bourbons and the Parisian Cochins was not so easy after all. After two years of paying fees and writing letters to secure the title due them from his grandfather’s e´chevinage, Jacques Denis dropped the matter in 1821. Further, though a beneficiary of the Restoration’s patronage, Jacques Denis sided with the Constitutional Monarchists in the Chamber, an indication of his disenchantment with Ultra-monarchist policy. He was later silent about his son’s acceptance of the Orleanist Monarchy, and, unfortunately, Jacques Denis had little to say about politics at all. He was attached to hard work, hierarchy, and order, a conservative, charitable, Christian order that included local notables. Lawyer, banker, businessman, chaˆtelain, mayor of his arrondissement, Jacques Denis Cochin reached adulthood under the Old Re´gime—he first became a father on July 14, 1789—and longed for the return of peace and order after the Empire. The Cochins’ notion of order was not Legitimist. Jacques Denis’s son Jean Denis Cochin (1789–1841) sided with the July Monarchy in 1830. Trained as a lawyer like his father, and named after his grand-uncle the cure´, Jean Denis combined their talents for administration and charity. He became one of the most prominent administrators and philanthropists of the city in the first decade of the July Monarchy. He studied law and, under the Restoration, served at the Supreme Court and Council of State (Cour de Cassation and the Conseil d’E´tat). In 1820 he married into the Legitimist Benoist d’Azy family. Jean Denis was appointed to the General Council of Civic Hospitals (Conseil Ge´ne´ral des Hospices Civils) after serving as its counsel and succeeded his father as mayor of the 12th arrondissement in 1825. By 1832 he was named to the General Council of the Seine (Conseil Ge´ne´ral de la Seine) and was elected twice to the Chamber, in 1837 and in 1839. Officials asked him, as they had asked his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, to run or reorganize a number of charitable institutions in the city. Along with these appointments and elections, Jean Denis maintained a parallel interest in private works of education and social reform. In 1828, he opened a model infant school (salle d’asile) and authored one of the definitive handbooks on the subject, Manuel des fondateurs et des directeurs des premie`res e´coles de l’enfance, connues sous le nom de salles d’asile (1832). In 1829 he helped start a workhouse to end begging in Paris. Both projects were responses to the social problems of his arrondissement around rue St.-Jacques; both were attempts to form, or re-form, the “character” of the child or beggar. Jean Denis’s social reform, like that of his father and his son, was cautiously transformative and meliorative. He responded to the new “social problem” con-

Introduction

9

servatively, projecting his private sense of moral behavior onto public social reform. The father, Jacques Denis, had helped rebuild institutions after the break of the Revolution; the son, Jean Denis, added to this a frenetic attempt in the familiar setting of the city to better the morals and behavior of its needy classes through new institutions. In the midst of these labors he died suddenly in August 1841. Jean Denis’s second son, Augustin Cochin (1823–1872), was best known as one of the Liberal Catholics, a collaborator with the great names of the movement at midcentury: Albert de Broglie, Fe´lix Dupanloup, Henri-Dominique Lacordaire, Charles Montalembert, and Fre´de´ric Falloux at their periodical, Le Correspondant. His public career had familiar underpinnings. Augustin continued the acts of charity carried out by his grandfather, great-grandfather, and grand-uncle. He earned his degree in law in 1845 and continued his association with his father’s maternal school, renamed Maison Cochin, and the Hospice St.-Jacques, renamed Cochin Hospital. But at Colle`ge Rollin, Augustin was influenced by the abbe´ Augustin Se´nac and the ideas of Jean-Baptiste BordasDemoulin (1798–1859), for whom the crumbling social order could be saved from the injustice and selfishness of new industrial wealth only by Christianity. Augustin sought new ways that he and others could repair the torn social fabric: He worked with Fre´de´ric Ozanam at his Society of St. Vincent de Paul and the Patronage of Young Apprentices; founded with Armand de Melun the influential Annales de la charite´; and became a collaborator with Fre´de´ric Le Play, to whom Augustin was introduced by his uncle and future father-in-law, Denis Benoist d’Azy. In 1849 Augustin was appointed to Falloux’s commission on primary and secondary education, where he began his Liberal Catholic career. This was the first sign of crisis in the Cochins’ public careers. For Augustin’s Catholicism was expansive, aimed at re-Christianizing the modern world. To best achieve this, Church and State needed greater independence from each other, so that the Church might enjoy the rights and freedoms other institutions and individuals enjoyed. This liberal view that French Catholicism could reach out to the modern world was anathema to the church of Pius IX and Louis Veuillot. Augustin’s political liberalism was equally unwelcome. Endowed with energy, patience, and the faith that events moved toward liberalism, under the Second Empire Augustin was limited by the new constellation of forces. Though 1848 had made him, too, fear “the Reds,” Augustin was also wary of the Prince President. Like his father and grandfather, he enjoyed appointment—as vice-mayor (maire adjoint), this time of the 10th arrondissement, in 1850 and then mayor in 1853— and served on the General Council of the Seine. Arrested in his own mairie with his father-in-law and the Assembly in December 1851, Augustin repeatedly sought a modus vivendi with the regime. But his liberalism and his Catholicism were obstacles to good relations with an Empire looking for support from a Church that was anxious for a bulwark against Italian nationalism. Being avowedly liberal and Catholic also worked against Augustin in his forays into elec-

10

Family Dynasty, Revolutionary Society

toral politics in 1863 and 1869, though he just missed appointment to E´mile Ollivier’s cabinet in 1870. Augustin Cochin died not yet fifty, serving as Thiers’s prefect at Versailles, hoping for a more stable and peaceable political order than the nascent Republic promised. From Augustin’s generation on, Catholicism was an influence on the Cochins’ politics in a new and different way. Liberal Catholicism was dormant in the 1870s and 1880s, effectively silenced by the (first) Vatican Council. Yet the Cochins’ Catholicism handicapped them outside the Church as well. The early Republic eroded much of the political dominance of the notables, old or new, and one tool was anticlericalism. One might say the Cochins retained their liberal instincts despite the Ultramontanism of the Church, and their Catholicism despite the anticlericalism of the Republic. Augustin’s career revealed the new alignment of forces pushing the Cochins to the margins of these aspects of French public life. Augustin’s son, Denys (1851–1922), studied at Pasteur’s laboratory, traveled, hunted, collected art, fostered Catholic education under the Third Republic, wrote two impressive interpretations of French thought, and was elected to the Acade´mie Franc¸aise in 1912. Yet these accomplishments of a wealthy baron under the Third Republic seemed to have been overshadowed by his involvement in politics—or better, his frustration with politics. His disillusionment with the Third Republic colored almost every aspect of his political life. During his long, successful public career—he was elected to the City Council (Conseil Municipal) from 1881 to 1890, to the Chamber of Deputies from 1893 to 1919 (his father’s unfulfilled dream), and was in the Ministry of War from 1915 to 1917—he watched the Republic veer from crisis to crisis, and it frequently lashed out at the Church. Denys was the first Cochin to struggle under democratic politics. Victim, as a candidate, of Boulangism, and unhappy with rightwing nationalist movements, Denys also opposed the Republic’s secularizing encroachment upon public institutions and its manipulation of public opinion. While he was on the City Council, the cure´’s creation, Cochin Hospital, was stripped of all Catholic association. From Denys’s view, new men, of obscure origins, had mastered the country. Yet Denys Cochin was also betrayed by his own loyalties. He remained sympathetic to the Orleanist cause after its flirtation with Boulangism; he defended the military courts in the Dreyfus Affair; he tried to soften the Vatican’s posture during the Separation (though here he was ultimately successful). Yet this important and intelligent figure in the Chamber understood his own dilemma. Denys recognized that much in modern public life was incompatible with his ideals. Prominent though he was, Denys was left with no other roles than those of an unappreciated laborer for the Catholic cause and a conservatively liberal critic of the powerful Republic, an unhappy witness, from his point of view, to the politics of modern France. Denys’s oldest son, Augustin (1876–1916), was the seventh generation of Cochins born in Paris, and he and a brother were the only Cochins to die in war. After graduating from the E´cole des Chartes, he traveled to provincial

Introduction

11

archives, returning home to rue de Babylone and the family chaˆteau at Beauvoir to produce a distillation of his research. La Campagne e´lectoral en 1789 en Bourgogne appeared in 1904. He penned a powerful polemic against the historian Alphonse Aulard and republican history of the Revolution, La Crise de l’histoire re´volutionnaire: Taine et M. Aulard in 1909. His larger and more impressive historical works, Les Socie´te´s de pense´e et la re´volution en Bretagne (1788–1789) (1925) in two volumes; Les Actes du gouvernement re´volutionnaire (1934–1935) in three volumes; and the collections of his important speculative essays on the meaning of the Revolution, published under such titles as Abstractions re´volutionnaires et re´alisme catholique (1935) and La Re´volution et la libre pense´e (1924), all appeared posthumously. His bitter, eccentric work on the French Revolution placed Jacobinism at its center. The Revolution was a great, infernal machine, a political virus that altered French society for its own perpetuation. Augustin Cochin’s work was an attempt to free himself from its intellectual grasp, to show the mechanism of this political machine, to show up its idols and academic idolaters hard at work in the Third Republic. As his father had, Augustin accused the Republic of repudiating traditional liberalism, of robbing France of its identity. Not surprisingly, Augustin never had a public career like other Cochins; he led a life without the demands that virtually defined the lives of his father, grandfather, great-grandfather, through six generations. His work, and his life, represented a loss of hope for his family’s conservative liberalism. He portrayed a Revolution, and its modern, democratic life, without any inherent value, meaning, or purpose. By his account, the subversion of private integrity and public morality was complete. Augustin worked on until the interruption of the war to expose the historical roots of modern French society. His intellectual path took the form of historical research supported by family wealth. The familiar energy and discipline were focused on this single hermetic task. Ultimately his view of the Revolution reflected the fate of his family. By the early years of the twentieth century, the family, through him, looked back on what had survived in public life that reflected their ideals; it looked back on what had failed in which they had put their hopes. What was the cause of these painful turns in French history? Who was to blame? No single group, no bungling monarch. For Augustin the cause was systemic: social and political changes in the eighteenth century that triumphed conspiratorially yet, on reflection, inevitably, over all other political and social alternatives. Augustin’s history explained a present in which his family no longer had a place. Certainly the Cochins found parts of public life in the nineteenth century that they admired and parts that they rejected. But in small ways and large, they also redefined themselves in the face of historical change. How did they imagine—or even reinvent—their identities in a new and sometimes hostile cultural landscape? What seemed strange to them about its public life that they nevertheless put up with? And what did they refuse to give up, to alter, and what

12

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was the cost of this persistence? By what process did they reason these things through across seven generations? The Cochins’ responses were not simple, and they were arrived at with much reflection, anxiety, and, sometimes, bitterness. Their reactions in turn suggest new observations about the old bourgeoisie and modern France, highlighting, in a new way, the characteristics of nineteenthcentury French public life. The Cochins talked about what we would call cultural conflict. Initially they had no innate hostility to the events of 1789. Claude Denis Cochin served in the Assembly of Paris in the early months of the Revolution in a manner in keeping with his role as an important bourgeois of Paris—as though the Assembly were a response of the city to a short-term emergency. But he and his son Jacques Denis and their families soon viewed the Revolution as a time of destructiveness and moral anarchy. For three generations ensconced, protected, and prosperous within the old institutions of the Parisian bourgeoisie, the Cochins never saw the Revolution as the moment of their “coming to power.” Quite the opposite. They experienced revolutionary change as unnecessary destruction and violence, from which they recoiled due to their ingrained attachment to order and morality. Yet they prospered in its more orderly aftermath; they were the perfect local notables to fill offices under the Restoration and the July Monarchy. Indeed, the world for half a century after the Revolution provided them with a comfortable arena of action, in many ways better than that of the Old Re´gime. In the long run, however, this world turned against them, and the changes that brought this about are best described as cultural. The eventual ascendancy of democratic republicanism in the Third Republic included a reshaping of French society in an attempt to fit its social realities to an ideal of the Revolution.28 The Cochins’ opportunities in public life were gradually closed off. The Third Republic moved against the ideas and institutions to which the Cochins were attached, in a campaign to eliminate competing centers of social, political, and cultural influence. By this time the Cochins believed the Republic was engaged in a cultural war against them. The last two generations of Cochins, Denys and Augustin, fought these changes and mourned the losses with great eloquence. While Augustin was praised by Franc¸ois Furet as a theorist offering a view of the Revolution distinct from the intentions of its agents, Augustin, like his father, actually saw the Revolution through the lens of the Third Republic. He believed this new form of sociability was both impersonal and without profound content; at once creator and product of a republican intolerance that in its own interest was destroying French public life. Augustin struck back, declaring that individualism, private initiative, tolerance, good will, Catholicism, social improvement, moral order, public service, private opinion, and personal principle were all at risk. These values, Augustin complained, had no meaning or effect in this new society in which everything was hostage to free-floating democratic opinion. Augustin’s historical work declared this new sociability and its politics unprecedented, a uniquely modern phenomenon never before seen in human history. Augustin was writing from his disillusionment.

Introduction

13

The Cochins’ cultural conflict with the Revolution leads directly to the issue of class, or social category, and political choice. No doubt one could point to many individuals, and families, of the traditional bourgeoisie who supported the Revolution (certainly many more of the newer middle classes formed in the nineteenth century supported it, at least as an idea). Much of the Cochins’ way of life, way of thinking and feeling—their culture, their urbanity—urged them against the Revolution. But the Cochins were also drawn to some of its reformist ideals. They did not just maintain, but expanded, their participation in government and social reform during the nineteenth century—keeping a link with their past in the Old Re´gime. But perhaps most important, their social status, their wealth, and their experience strengthened their immunity to institutional intimidation. Their milieu reinforced their interest in conservative liberalism and the coexistence of competing political choices; it sharpened their dislike of violence and of violent political emotions; and it fostered their involvement in charity and social reform. This culture derived from their experience and their social standing and was the basis of their politics, including their political liberalism.29 To their origins in the old Parisian bourgeoisie, one admirer noted, they owed “a broad education, eclectic taste, and sometimes out-and-out boldness.”30 This book shows how these characteristics were expressed by this very independent family. This study is divided into eight parts. The early chapters are devoted to the family’s private and public life arranged in expanding concentric circles—its generation of family identity and individual characters; its home life; its material resources. The later sections deal with the Cochins’ interactions with institutions outside the family—its involvement in charity and social reform, then with the Church. It closes with two chapters concerning its relation to politics and the Revolution. While some of the individuals studied here deserve full-length biographies, the attempt has been a family history across two centuries. Much of the material on the family comes from the Cochin family archive at Beauvoir, Seine-et-Marne. The archival materials used in this study are of several types. Some papers were to remain, unpublished, in the family archive. Others are intended for the public—manuscripts of books and articles on public issues, for example. Financial records are incomplete. There are edited versions of works of Cochins prepared by subsequent members of the family, and finally the archives contain seventeenth- and eighteenth-century marriage and business contracts, copies of entries of parish registers, or the E´tat Civil, marking the official changes in their lives. The volume of material varies from generation to generation. I have tried to use the words of the Cochins themselves, where appropriate, in order to give the reader a clear sense of how they thought and felt. NOTES 1. Daniel Hale´vy, La Fin des notables (Paris: Grasset, 1930); La Re´publique des ducs (Paris: Grasset, 1937).

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2. Andre´-Jean Tudesq, Les Grands Notables en France, 1840–1849; e´tude historique d’une psychologie sociale, 2 vols. (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1964). 3. Christophe Charle, Les E´lites de la Re´publique (Paris: Fayard, 1987). 4. Robert R. Locke, French Legitimists and the Politics of Moral Order in the Early Third Republic (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974). 5. Tudesq; for longitudinal studies on families (predominantly under the Old Re´gime), see Robert Forster, The House of Saulx-Tavanes: Versailles and Burgundy, 1700– 1830 (Baltimore MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1971), Forster, Merchants, Landlords, Magistrates: The Depont Family in Eighteenth-Century France (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980), and Christine Adams, “Defining E´tat in Eighteenth-Century France: The Lamothe Family of Bordeaux,” Journal of Family History, 17, no. 1 (1992), pp. 25–45. 6. “Mieux vaut eˆtre un des plus anciens parmi les bourgeois que l’un des plus re´cents parmi les nobles.” 7. Alfred Falloux, Augustin Cochin, 3d ed. (Paris: Didier, 1875); English translation by Augustus Craven (London: Chapman and Hall, 1877). The work of Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, Victor Bucaille, Henri Rollet, Marjorie Farrar, Jean-Marie Mayeur, and Franc¸ois Furet, among others, have included Cochins and their roles in French public life. 8. Ju¨rgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, trans. by Thomas Burger (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989). (Originally published 1962.) For other aspects of French bourgeois life, among the vast number of titles: Bernhard Groethuysen, Die Entstehung der bu¨rgerlichen Welt- und Lebensanschauung in Frankreich: vol. 1, Das Bu¨rgertum und die katholische Weltanschauung: vol. 2, Die Soziallehren der katholischen Kirche und das Bu¨rgertum (Halle: Niemeyer, 1927–1930). 9. Habermas, 114–17. The private sphere of the individual and the family created, but was not created by, politics. Private means, which created the individual, was never supposed to be provided by the political, though the political demanded such men of capacite´. This separation—and, hence, bourgeois culture—collapses when the relation breaks down: Public values then shape the individual as a private person in “leisure time” (pp. 156, 160). 10. Pierre Rosanvallon, Le Moment Guizot (Paris: Gallimard, 1985), 95–104. 11. See Tudesq and Locke. Applying this formula of “citoyen” to the Cochins, or to republicans in the Third Republic as Habermas would, presents difficulties. Did republicans show greater “individualism” and “rationalism” in public life? 12. In February 1685 Claude and his brothers Pierre and Jean signed the register at the burial of their father Jean at Montlhe´ry, and Claude signed “Claude Cochin de Montlhe´ry.” Three years later, however, he joined the Parisian mercer’s guild, on February 21, 1688. Four years later Claude Cochin married Marie Claude Paris (d. 1750?), daughter of a Parisian merchant. When a nineteen-month-old daughter of Claude’s was buried at Montlhe´ry in November 1694, Claude was identified as “bourgeois and merchant of Paris.” In 1697 they lost a twenty-three-month-old girl but buried her at the parish of St. Benoıˆt, on rue St.-Jacques, Paris. Boıˆte “E´tat civil 1651, 1674, 1680, Livre,” 27 novembre 1680–30 de´cembre 1700, and “Inhumations,” Ste. Trinite´ parish, Montlhe´ry Hoˆtel de Ville. Copy from the register of the “corps des marchands merciers, grossiers et joailliers de la Ville de Paris,” in AC, A1. 13. In April 1640 an earlier Claude Cochin and Jehan Saunier were parties in a contract, being described as “merchants living in Montlhe´ry, being presently lodged rue

Introduction

15

faubourg St.-Jacques, in the house of the gallery,” from a contract for rent of a parcel of land “en la prairie de Villiers,” 3 km NE of Montlhe´ry, April 25, 1640, in AC, A1. This Claude Cochin, likely the one Montlhe´ry parish records show as being born in 1598, may have been the brother of a Jehan Cochin (in the 1630s Claude Cochin and his wife, Marthe Asselin, had seven children baptized at Holy Trinity Church in Montlhe´ry. Their second child married Denis Saulnier, mercer). Likely this uncle Claude Cochin and his partner traveled between Paris and Montlhe´ry on business. One source claims the Cochins owned the house on rue St.-Jacques as early as 1621. See Les noˆtres . . . voici par qui nous sommes, by the sons and daughters of Jules Bour (1839–1912) (Paris: Paul Dupont, 1945), 117. This is likely 247 rue St.-Jacques. Dictionnaire historique des rues de Paris, 2 vols. (Paris: E´ditions de Minuit, 1954, 1963). The current system of house numbers dates from 1805, and this house may have been numbered 214 earlier (ibid., 34). A Denis Cochin was pre´voˆt from 1482 and 1488 and the name appears again in 1490–1493; V. A. Malte-Brun, Montlhe´ry: Son chaˆteau et ses seigneurs (Paris: August Aubry, 1870), 101. Claude’s father, Jean or Jehan Cochin (1618–1685), had relatives who traveled to Paris. On October 12, 1636, Barbe Cochin, Jean’s sister, was buried at St.-Benoıˆt, on rue St.-Jacques (“Extraits,” AC, A1). On September 5, 1682, Jean Cochin, merchant of Montlhe´ry, was in Paris at the marriage of Pierre Cochin, a spice merchant of the city. This Pierre could have been a nephew, or part of a collateral branch of Cochins. Pierre’s father, also Pierre, was a vestryman at St. Benoıˆt, on rue St.Jacques. L’Abbe´ Valentin Dufour, “Les charniers des e´glises de Paris . . .” extrait du Bulletin d’histoire et d’arche´ologie, October 1884; E´mile Wiriot, Paris de la Seine a` la cite´ universitaire: Le quartier St. Jacques et les quartiers voisins, leurs transformations a` travers les sie`cles (Paris: Talra, 1930), 92. St. Benoıˆt stood on the corner of what is now rue St.-Jacques and rue des E´coles. It was demolished during Haussmann’s rebuilding, the only vestige being rue de cimitie`re St. Benoıˆt next to the Colle`ge de France (E´mile Wiriot, Paris de la Seine a` la cı´te´ universitaire; le quartier Saint-Jacques et les quartiers voisins leurs transformations a` travers les sie`cles [Paris: Talra, 1930], 92). 14. Jean Leve´ fils died “ancien conseil ancien garde du corps de la draperie” and was buried in 1755 at St. Benoıˆt (E´tat civil, “Leve´,” de´ce`s). 15. “Votre capacite´ et votre intelligence pour les affaires, aussi, que votre charite´ envers les pauvres.” Appointment, February 18, 1752, AC, B1. 16. A. Brie`le, Inventaire sommaire des archives hospitaliers, vol. 3, 179–84, addresses the dissolution of the seventeenth-century hospital of St.-Jacques au Pe`lerins on rue St.Denis, and the deposition of its goods to two other hospitals under the supervision of Cochin and Henry in 1781. 17. Nobility was ordered as early as 1577 for the pre´voˆt des marchands and the four e´chevins of Paris. See Mousnier, The Institutions of France under the Absolute Monarchy, 1598–1789, vol. 1, trans. Brian Pearce (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 130, 584. Details of Claude Denis’s life are in AC, A1 and B1, and Henry Cochin, “Mission franciscaine de la Sainte Terre aux XVIIe et XVIIIe sie`cles (Claude Denis Cochin),” E´tudes franciscaines, septembre–octobre 1923, pp. 451–59. 18. Orest Ranum, Paris in the Age of Absolutism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1968), 27–28. 19. L’abbe´ J. Grente, Une paroisse de Paris sous l’ancien re´gime: Saint Jacques du Haut Pas 1566–1792 (Paris-Auteuil: Imprimerie des Orphelins apprentis–D. Fontaine, 1897), 164. On the problem of the poor and sick in the parish, see Grente, 166. Soon after Jean Denis was appointed, he had all the monies for the poor put into his hands

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without any accounting; this amounted to a considerable sum—1,672 livres per year (AN LL794, p. 482). St.-Jacques du Haut-pas already had considerable charitable activity: Each year it distributed 14,000 pounds of bread per year, as well as clothing, food, and wood. In the eighteenth century the parish had established several schools, and in 1769 Jean Denis began yet another one for boys (AN LL794; see also Grente, 82–85, 164– 67). 20. AC, Cd5, statement of June 3, 1783, at the decease of the cure´. These and other details of the founding of the hospice are recorded in several short histories, one found in AC, Cd5 (“Estat de Situation de l’hospice de St. Jacques du haut pas au de´ce`s de Mr Jean Denis Cochin cure´ de la dite paroisse arrive´ le 3 juin 1783,” dated July 18, 1783), and three, all in Claude Denis’s script, in AC, Cd3 (“Me´moires pour l’hospice des pauvres malades de St. Jacques du haut pas a` l’effet de l’obtention des lettres patentes pour l’affirmissement de ce pieux et utile e´tablissement,” and two others, untitled). Included in AC, Cd4, “Superficie du Terrain de l’Ancien Clos de Capuciens accorde´ par Messieurs les commissaires du Roi en octobre 1782,” with a map showing the property bought from Mlle. Bikeron. 21. He was buried at the parish church; his heart at the hospice. Jean Denis did not enjoy good health. In 1771, he caught smallpox and recovered. In 1778, he again thought of leaving the parish, but was dissuaded, and was prevailed upon to take the post of superior at Val-de-Graˆce, making him an abbe´. Jean Denis Cochin was the author of several works of devotion. In his will the cure´ requested “M. Cochin payeur de rentes mon fre`re, de se charger [de] l’exe´cution de mon pre´sent testament avec le sentiment de charite´ et d’amour des pauvres que je luy connais, il est bien capable en assurant l’exe´cution de mes derniers Volunte´s.” The cure´’s will was dated July 3, 1782, with codicils on May 1 and 3, 1783. Text is from a short, undated memoire in his brother Claude Denis’s script, AC, Cd3. 22. In September 1768 Cochin and Leve´ paid 200,000 livres for the office from a friend and fellow parishioner at St. Benoıˆt, Antoine Pierre Desplaces. Claude Denis was the titular holder of the office, but Leve´ apparently bought out Cochin for one-third of the cost of Cochin’s office. Contract between Leve´ and Cochin, July 29, 1769, AC, Ca4. These offices supplied the Crown with funds. Cochin and Leve´ were subject to the Crown’s practice of abolishing offices only to reestablish them at a higher price. Their office was discontinued in July 1772. Cochin and Leve´ were repaid, and by December 1774, they had purchased another office of the same kind. This one became available when it reverted to its owner’s children. Contract, April 30 or 31, 1787, AC, Ca4. 23. Papers on the office are in AC, Ca4. 24. During the Revolution Claude Denis criticized the municipality for not paying the hospice money due it from government bonds left to its account. The law of November 5, 1790, declared all the goods of establishments, communities, and corporations of any kind to be part of the property of the state and liable to sale. Although this law exempted hospitals, charitable institutions, and organizations for the poor, and allowed them the use of their goods, the Constitution of 1791 made the state the true owner. Louis Parturier, L’Assistance a` Paris sous l’ancien re´gime et pendant la Re´volution (originally published 1897; reprinted Gene`ve: Megariotis Reprints, 1978), 211. The historiography of charity and the hospital laws during the Revolution is extensive. Two surveys are Shelby T. McCloy, Government Assistance in Eighteenth-Century France (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1946); and, more recently, Alan T. Forrest, The French Revolution and the Poor (Oxford: Blackwell, 1981).

Introduction

17

Claude Denis was concerned about the future of the Hospice St.-Jacques under this new regime in an undated report in his script, probably early December 1790, in AC, Cd3. In this report, he still clearly hoped private charitable giving would be continued. Claude Denis argued with authorities, en pleine re´volution. He resigned from the board of the Hoˆpital Ge´ne´ral in 1790 in protest against new taxes on its supplies. He also bluntly told the Bureau des Impositions that the Hospice of St.-Jacques du Haut-pas— for a while named Hospice du Sud—should not be subject to hospital laws and could not pay any taxes; nor did he return the hospital census forms required by the authorities. An undated draft for the mayor and officers of the Commune, probably dating from the fall of 1792 (Cochin began this argument in January 1792); “Me´moire pour l’hospice de St. Jacques du haut pas remis au bureau des impositions . . .” in AC, Cd3; and a letter from Claude Denis Cochin to the secretaire greffier of the Bureau des Hoˆpitaux, 29 Brumaire II (November 19, 1793). 25. Actes de la Commune de Paris pendant la Re´volution, 7 vols., publie´ et annote´ par Sigismond Lacroix (Paris: Cerf, 1894–1898), I, 6; I, 512; I, 536–38; I, 622–23; II, 264; II, 682; III, 57. On September 7, 1789, the Conseil du Roi gave Paris the authority to provision itself. On August 21 Claude Denis was serving on the Comite´ des Subsistances with his friends Courtin and de Fresne (I, 300). See Marcel Reinhard, Nouvelle histoire de Paris: La Re´volution (Paris: Hachette, 1971), 147–49. See Lacroix, II, 682; II, 109; VII, 337, 338. Claude Denis was among those who signed a petition declining to affirm that they had served without pay. 26. Claude Denis’s appointment and the papers concerning the revenues of the clergy are in AC, Cd4. He claimed his investment in the office was still reimbursable at 300,000 livres in an account drawn up by his son: “Revenues de Claude Denys [sic] Cochin payeur des rentes,” for 1792 in AC, Ca1. 27. The history of the parish during the Revolution is given in Grente, 213–32. Jacques Denis’s appointment as chief of the new board to discharge all the disbursars of their accounts is dated 29 Thermidor IV (August 16, 1796), in AC, Da1. The disbursars— Claude Denis Cochin among them—complained bitterly about their growing duties and demanded “justice” for the dismantling of their offices in the form of a new, “profitable replacement” which would be useful to the Republic. “Petition en Indemnite´ . . .” by a group of the disbursars, dated “an VI, 1797 vieux style” is on AC, Ca3; there was no reply. It is not clear how long the payeurs and controlleurs des rentes were allowed to profit from their offices. The law of August 24, 1793, forbidding officeholders from making interest after 1793 specifically excluded them. By May 1797 Jacques Denis had liquidated his father’s office. “Notice” from the “Commissaires de la Comptabilite´ Nationale,” 5 Prairial V (May 24, 1797), in AC, Ca4. 28. Hale´vy, La Fin des notables, 5–9. 29. D. M. G. Sutherland, France 1789–1815: Revolution and Counterrevolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986); Timothy Tackett, “Nobles and Third Estate in the Revolutionary Dynamic of the National Assembly, 1789–90,” American Historical Review 94, no. 2 (April 1989), pp. 271–301. On eighteenth-century discussions of “bourgeois” and the “bourgeoisie”: Jean V. Alter, Les Origines de la satire antibourgeois en France, 2 vols. (Geneva; Droz, 1966–1970); Marivaux, Journaux et oeuvres diverses (Paris, 1713); Charles Pinot Duclos, Conside´rations sur les moeurs de ce sie`cle, 4th ed. (Paris, 1764); Jacques Savary de Bruslons, Dictionnaire universel de commerce, d’histoire naturelle, et des arts et des me´tiers (Copenhagen, 1759); Michel Vovelle et Daniel Roche, “Bourgeois rentiers et proprie´taires: Ele´ments pour la de´finition d’une

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cate´gorie sociale a` la fin du XVIIIe sie`cle,” in Actes du quatrie`me congre`s national des socie´te´s savantes: Section d’histoire moderne et contemporaine, 1959 (Paris: Ministe`re de L’e´ducation nationale, 1960), 412–52; Joseph di Corcia, “Bourg, Bourgeois, Bourgeois de Paris from the Eleventh to the Eighteenth Century,” Journal of Modern History 50 (June 1978), pp. 207–33; Elinor G. Barber, The Bourgeoisie of Eighteenth-Century France (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1955). By the late nineteenth century a bourgeois was anyone who earned and spent money in a particular way. Theodore Zeldin, France 1848–1945, vol. I, Ambition, Love and Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973), 12–22; Edmond Goblot, La Barrie`re et le niveau: E´tude sociologique sur la bourgeoisie franc¸aise (Paris: Fe´lix Alcan, 1925). The use of “bourgeois” as a term of opprobrium was in place by the mid-eighteenth century in France. It was reemphasized in the 1830s, when it produced its double, Bohemian society. Jerrold Siegel, Bohemian Paris: Culture, Politics, and the Boundaries of Bourgeois Life, 1830–1930 (New York: Viking Penguin, 1986). 30. “La large culture, le gouˆt e´clectique, avec parfois certaines audaces.” Victor Bucaille, “Denys Cochin,” Le Correspondant 287 (n.s. 251) (April 10, 1922), p. 31.

Chapter 2

Family Matters

The Cochins’ powerful presence on rue St.-Jacques during the Old Re´gime, and in the life of Paris and France in the modern era, was attributable to individuals with common interests, but it also emanated from a family, with all the energy and sympathies families produce. The Cochins were well aware of the fact that their family made possible their public careers. They were also aware that their family had its own logic and demands. The Cochin family engendered a legacy and produced individuals who were offered, at least, a set of assumptions and practices, and it did this from the Old Re´gime through the modern era. The family, we must assume, played some part in making these liberal notables conservatively liberal. This chapter will present the Cochins as they experienced the phenomenon of family membership to see how it played a role in their public activities. We will do this by looking at key parts of the Cochin family life as best it can be reconstructed, relying frequently on their own reflections. Some caution is in order. Not surprisingly, the direct evidence is fragmentary and some of what remains is unremarkable. Further, the import of being a family member was not unchanging. The lives of individuals and of whole families are always a mixture of the deliberate and the accidental. What it meant to be a Cochin in the nineteenth century, for example, was unavoidably different from what it meant in the eighteenth. However, what did remain remarkably the same was the distinction of being a Cochin, and the obligation of living up to that distinction. To be a Cochin was an honor and a duty that had to be ceaselessly lived out in acts of public service and charity in the quartier, the city, and eventually at the national level. Yet it also had to be constantly revised, sometimes in hostile political and cultural moments. This chapter, then, will discuss

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how the Cochins experienced their family, and how the family ideals lived on through the individuals the family produced. Were the Cochins unique in thinking that their family was central to their lives? Hardly. Families have been central to every life, significant for the good or the bad. The aim here, rather, is to understand the content of this attachment, the meaning of not just being a member of a family, but of the Cochin family in particular. Histories of French families generally don’t go very far into this topic except to state that the family was important to the individual, evidenced by conformity, rebellion, or—usually—some combination of the two. Prominent families sometimes had histories or chronicles written, and for the truly eminent, family history intersected with national history. Sometimes families were the subject of study because of an individual, or a group of individuals, they produced. This may include the study of “types” of individuals. Jonathan Dewald’s recent study of the early modern French nobility broke new ground on the notion of self; Dewald placed the conflict between conscience de soi and family membership (with the expectations of the wider world) at the center the formation of noble consciousness.1 This same theme—the relation of the individual to the family—can also serve quite different historical ends. The formation of the self used to be a staple of studies of the origin of capitalism.2 There has been less on its relation to liberalism. For the modern period there has not been much written on the topics of family and the formation of individual identity.3 In fact, there has been less family history written about the modern period. Tudesq’s detailed study of the notables under the July Monarchy is one of the exceptions. It dealt with their political and social power, and family membership was part of that power. Most notables in the 1840s saw themselves as deeply embedded in a family; unfortunately, Tudesq provided few of their reflections on this topic.4 Robert Forster’s study of the Depont family showed these merchants of La Rochelle most immediately concerned with advancement and the dangers of shifting occupations. They devoted less attention to the idea of family identity or family history per se.5 Likewise Forster’s study of the noble Saulx-Tavanes of Burgundy contained reflections on the concerns of the family as it made its way through the eighteenth century and into the nineteenth, but the emphasis was almost always on the management of property and the careers of family members.6 A recent study (restricted to the eighteenth century) of the Lamothe family by Christine Adams brought this issue of occupation and family membership into relief through the interplay of notions of e´tat interne and e´tat externe.7 Here the topic of family membership was raised by decisions about occupation and moral behavior. The Lamothe family maintained considerable control over its members to the point of prohibiting marriages and bringing one member back from Paris to the sein de la famille, but they spent little time musing over the meaning of family. There is, unfortunately, no French equivalent to Davidoff and Hall’s study of the relation of individual and family in nineteenth-century England.8

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The general field of the history of the family has not produced more definitive answers. Thirty years of labor in this vineyard have produced no more than a broad consensus about the western family. Early efforts in the history of the family were focused on defining the modern western family. In a field whose first and primary goal was to clarify slowly evolving social structures, accounting for the rapid changes in the modern period took a back seat. Eventually a variety of approaches were employed that were to reveal what the Western European family was and how it functioned. The results have not given us the definitive picture that the history of the family first sought: there is no single “modern” type of family, nor do patterns of family formation or behavior show much uniformity across different regions or periods. Variety and flexibility are the key as families of all kinds—in Western Europe and elsewhere—have become included in the study of the family. More dynamic notions of “strategies” and adaptation have overlain the earlier, more static, interest in “structure.” The rapid changes of the nineteenth century are usually seen as the result of the Industrial Revolution, depicted as a recent but irreversible set of economic and social changes. Yet it no longer follows that families of the same class adjusted at the same pace or in the same way, and the adaptation of families in societies with many social levels was more complex still. In fact, family history has undermined ideas about modernization. In her recent review of the state of family history, Tamara Hareven pointed out that recent scholarship has uprooted “the linear view of social change advanced by modernization theory. . . . Familial and industrial adaptation processes were not merely parallel but interrelated as a part of a personal and historical continuum.”9 In the modern period, families did not necessarily experience change as “modernization.”A family enjoying wealth and social power might be able to meet change on its own terms. The nineteenth century remains one of the most interesting periods for family history, and the most intriguing question is the relation between modern politics and the family.10 Families produced individuals, nurtured them, taught them, inspired them, restricted them, and sometimes suffocated them. The Cochins knew this. So did everyone around them who reflected for even a moment on their own family experience. Then more than now individuals instinctively acted as a family when faced with change and conformed to the demands of family interest. The Cochins thought and felt and acted in conscious knowledge that what they did would reflect on their family, would aid or disturb it. They knew opportunities opened up—or were closed off—because of their membership in the family. This chapter will show what the family experience was—in this case, how it linked itself through marriage and business to other families, its immediate locale, rue St.-Jacques, and the Cochins’ two parishes, St.-Benoıˆt and St.-Jacques du Haut-pas, and how individuals fit into the family experience. In this way we hope to gain some insight into their character.

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MARRIAGE AND PERPETUATION Marriage was the royal route to family perpetuation. New households produced the next generation, but they were also the means by which wealth could be passed on without diminution and even augmented. Especially important, marriage provided links of kinship, an essential asset even to the modern western family. The new household became a source of support and hope to both families and a site of education into family membership and served as evidence of the continuation of the family name. New households would become the springboard for the children into society, in large ways and small. The choice of a marriage partner in the eighteenth-century Parisian bourgeoisie was both important and significant. Daumard and Furet’s study of 2,597 Parisian marriage contracts in 1749 showed that the choice of partners was generally from within a professional group rather than a wider group, or class, of wealthy bourgeois. A departure from this narrower choice would have suggested the presence of a class consciousness among these Parisians at mideighteenth century—a notion of equivalency among the city’s financial, professional, official, and commercial groups.11 Marriages in the Cochin family stayed strictly within narrow bounds, narrower than is sometimes easily imaginable. Until the end of the eighteenth century, when they ceased being merchants, Cochin sons married exclusively the daughters of merchants as far back as there are records on the family.12 For example, Claude Cochin (b. 1598), the merchant of Montlhe´ry who appeared on rue St.Jacques 1640, was married to Marthe Asselin; in October 1616, Jean Cochin, merchant in Montlhe´ry, married Louise Asselin. The Asselin merchants appeared along with the Cochins on the lists of pre´voˆts royals of the town. There was probably a double marriage between the two merchant families in this generation. Claude and Marthe’s second child, a daughter, married Denis Saulnier, or Saunier, “marchand mercier,” of Montlhe´ry, certainly from the family of Claude’s business partner, Jean Saulnier. Claude Cochin (1656–1728) not only moved to Paris permanently but in 1692 married Marie Claude Paris (d. 1750?), daughter of a Parisian merchant.13 Claude’s three children continued the pattern of marrying into merchant families in Paris. Claude’s son, Claude Denis, married his father’s partner’s daughter, Gabrielle Leve´ (d. 1754), and his daughter Marie Claude Cochin (1701–1774) married Gabrielle’s brother Jean Leve´ (1697–1755) on the same day, January 8, 1720.14 These marriages reinforced the stability and regularity in their lives. Almost half a century after their marriage, Jean and Marie Claude Leve´ were still living on rue St.-Jacques and were members of the parish of St. Benoıˆt; so was Claude Denis’s family.15 In 1725 the third Cochin daughter, Louise (1705–1773), married Jean Denis Lempereur, “marchand bourgeois de Paris,” from a Parisian merchant and notary family. Claude Denis’s youngest child, Marie Jeanne Cochin (1722–1792), married Charles Constantin Despeignes, “Marchand bourgeois de Paris,” from another illustrious merchant family.16 The practice continued into the next generation.

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In 1748 Claude Denis fils married Marie Anne Henry (1727–1763), daughter of Pierre Henry, “marchand bourgeois de Paris,” on rue St.-Denis, and of Jeanne Guichou, of another prominent merchant family.17 Present at their wedding were relatives from families into which the Cochins had married—Henry, Despeignes, Paris, Leve´, Despres, Lempereur—and from families cousins had married into— Doyen, Pe´an de St. Gilles, Mouette, and Cheres. The marriages of the Cochins in this period followed the pattern of marrying directly into prominent merchant families, and these new households almost without a single exception produced more wealth and more children. But with the son of Claude Denis the younger, Jacques Denis (1757–1837), the pattern changed. He did not marry a merchant’s daughter but chose instead an army officer’s widow with only modest means who already had a son: Ange´lique de Montour, ne´e Matigny de la Boissie`re (1760–1839). In almost all cases, we cannot be sure how the husband and wife met in the Cochin marriages; but in this case we do know: She was his neighbor on rue Canivet off Place St.-Sulpice. Jacques Denis provided her with an income according to the marriage contract.18 He would also turn his merchant wealth into a public office and had the distinction of being the last generation of Cochin merchants. It would be hard to say what the decisive factor was in his choice of a wife— whether it had more to do with his change in profession or a sense of class equivalency in the years just before the Revolution. Jacques Denis’s older sisters also broadened their choices, if only slightly. Claude Marie Anne (1751–1825) married Marie Armand Durand (d. March 16, 1795), “Conseiller du Roy, notaire de Paris,” the same year Marie Rosalie (1756–1824) married Pierre Nau de Beauregard (b. 1743), “ne´gociant.”19 Most important, this pattern of marrying in what might be termed a “class” setting—more accurately, a social-economic “caste”—was set for the remaining generations of Cochins to 1914. Beginning with Jacques Denis’s generation, no merchants ever appear again, likely indicating an elevation in status above mere buying and selling. Jean Denis’s (1789– 1841) wife, Augustine Benoist, was from a newly ennobled family.20 Jean Denis’s son Augustin (1823–1872) married into the same family (his older brother Guillaume never married).21 Augustin’s eldest son, Denys (1851–1922), married He´le`ne Pe´an de St. Gilles (1857–1946), of a Parisian notary family. His brothers Henry and Pierre married notable women from outside Parisian circles. In sum, the Cochins married into equivalent notable families outside the merchant world beginning at the time of the Revolution. But the widening of this occupational or professional circle needs to be qualified, as the following instance will show. Members of the Pe´an de St. Gilles family were at the wedding of the younger Claude Denis to Marie Anne Henry in 1748; the bride was the niece of Pierre Alexandre Pe´an de St. Gilles (1690– 1769) and Marie Jeanne Henry.22 Their son, Pierre Henri Pe´an de St. Gilles (1726–1786) “notaire, ne´gociant,” married Jean Leve´’s and Marie Claude Cochin’s daughter, Marie The´re`se Leve´. Thus Denys Cochin and He´le`ne Pe´an de St. Gilles, married in 1876, were twice related and distant cousins—two of

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her great-great-great-grandparents were Jean Leve´ (1697–1755) and Marie Claude Cochin (1701–1774), married in the double wedding in 1720. Certainly other such distant relationships existed among families whose records are not so well preserved. In all, from the time Claude Cochin arrived in Paris, the Cochins married directly into fifteen other families in Paris over the seven generations up to 1914.23 There were four instances of a double marriage; three times Cochins married twice into the same family in the same generation (the Asselins, the Naus, and the Leve´s), and one in succeeding generations—the Benoists, in 1820 and 1849. Occasionally the remaining evidence shows other kinds of intertwining of lives. For example, the younger Claude Denis signed the certificate of apprenticeship for the mercer’s guild for Pierre Nau, age twenty-two, son of a merchant; five and a half years later Nau married his daughter, Marie Rosalie (1756–1824).24 The family life that was created by these unions took place in an equally restricted space. One source places the Cochins’ original house on rue St.Jacques, “the house of the gallery,” at 107 rue St.-Jacques. We do not know for certain that the Cochins owned this house. The current street numbering system of Paris was established only in 1805. We do know that by the end of the eighteenth century they were owners of what became 247 rue St.-Jacques and lived there until it was apparently sold in the 1860s.25 The bourgeois house served several functions, for normally the lower floors were used for the storage of goods and for offices in which to transact business. To the best of our knowledge, Claude, Claude Denis, and his son Claude Denis all ran their businesses from their homes. The house, then, served a central function to the family. It housed not only the family, but often relatives, apprentices, clerks, visitors, and at least several servants. The topmost floors were likely rented out. In it we know were conceived, born, and died several generations of the family. The existing houses that might possibly be the Cochins’ on rue St.-Jacques appear to be of eighteenth-century origin, solidly built, with four to five floors. They contained a good deal of furnishings—linen, silver, paintings, books, and furniture—that were passed from generation to generation. The inventories drawn up at the death of a member of a household do not betray any special characteristics about them. In 1771 Claude Denis the elder rented a small house with a garden and a room for his servant on rue St.-Jacques next to the seminary of St.-Magloire, perhaps for quiet and privacy, but he may have sought space for a garden. He owned a greenhouse and garden in Chaˆtillon, Seine, where he raised exotic plants, one of his hobbies.26 In the late 1780s Jacques Denis Cochin had moved to 4 rue Canivet, off Place St.-Sulpice. This was the first house the Cochins owned off rue St.-Jacques. There Jacques Denis met and married Suzanne Matigny de la Boissie`re. Yet after the birth of their first child, on the day the Bastille was taken, he and his wife moved back to 264 rue St.-Jacques, perhaps to be near his aging father. There they were joining his widowed sister, Claude Marie Anne Durand (1751– 1825), who had recently moved into 264 (she had been living apart from her

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husband since 1782). Another sister, Marie Rosailie Nau (1756–1824), occupied rue Canivet with her husband. Jacques Denis and his family returned to rue Canivet in March 1815.27 But Jacques Denis broke out of this pattern of urban life, fulfilling the dream of the wealthy bourgeois. In April 1798 he bought a chaˆteau with farms, La Roche, on the Paris-Fontainebleau road. In 1812 he purchased a second chaˆteau and farms at Montceaux, just south of Plessis-Chenay. This was always rented out. What had been a traditional investment for the wealthy bourgeois since the seventeenth century was seen by Jacques Denis as something more, as a refuge from the tumultuous world after the Revolution. Jacques Denis Cochin, country gentleman, bought the property “to provide my children with a beautiful family property completely unsullied by nationalization.”28 The farms brought a safe and steady income, and the chaˆteau introduced a new level of privacy and, perhaps, luxury. The schools and streets of Paris in the winter, and the gardens and woods of La Roche in the summer, became an integral part of the childhood memories of his children and grandchildren. When Augustin Cochin inherited La Roche at the death of his uncle, he renovated the chaˆteau and filled it with the Louis XV furniture that had been stored in the barn. He and his wife lavished attention on their favorite salons, the red for his wife, and the blue for himself. She painted the panels above the door of the dining room, and when Augustin returned from Malines, in Belgium, in 1863 he brought large tapestries to finish off the room.29 Yet for all the attention lavished on La Roche, the Cochins’ lives were centered on Paris; above all they thought of themselves as Parisian. The purchase of La Roche meant no let-up in the Cochins’ immersion in the life of their quartier. In September 1815, when he was appointed mayor of the 12th arrondissement, Jacques Denis had not far to walk to the mairie at 133 rue du Faubourg St.-Jacques. He lived at 247 until 1820, when he returned to 3 rue Canivet.30 As a student and young bachelor, Augustin lived on rue St.-Jacques and then rue de l’Arbre sec. He and his wife lived on rue St.-Guillaume with their young sons until they moved to 86 rue de Grenelle to live above his fatherin-law in 1867.31 It was there they lived during the siege of Paris, and Augustin fled with his family to La Roche only with great reluctance. In the next generation, Denys Cochin sold La Roche. By that time, 1911, the traffic from Paris had made it far less of a retreat. His wife’s family had a beautiful chaˆteau, Beauvoir, in Seine-et-Marne, and substantial houses at 51 and 53 rue de Babylone in the 7th arrondissement. Beauvoir was a suitable weekend and summer retreat for the busy municipal councilor and later deputy (representing the 8th arrondissement), whose life and family were still wedded to Paris. Indeed, Denys was a gourmand of the rich life of the Paris of the Third Republic. As had his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, he studied law there, and all his children were educated there. He was married in the church of La Madeleine. He and his wife He´le`ne were friends with the composer Vincent d’Indy and his wife while Denys worked at Louis Pasteur’s laboratory in the rue d’Ulm from

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1877 to 1880. The family commissioned Maurice Denis to paint the Legend of Saint Hubert on the staircase of 51 rue de Babylone in the fall of 1896, and the artist became a family friend.32 The Cochins’ house on rue de Babylone became the unofficial residence of the Cardinal Archbishop Franc¸ois Richard when he was expelled from his residence on rue de Grenelle in 1906. All the great events in public life unfolded for the Cochins in Paris, as they had for them over two hundred years. Their houses, their paintings, their books, their furnishings, and their sense of self, though altered and replaced through the generations, remained those of Parisians first and foremost. THE MEANING OF FAMILY LIFE Behind the trappings of family life lay, of course, an affective life. This, too, has been of interest to historians of the family, and recent scholarship has tended to revise earlier notions about changes in the emotional life of families from the medieval to the modern period.33 Needless to say, definitive evidence about this ephemeral topic is hard to find. Often enough, little or no trace of the emotional life of people appears in the surviving documents. And to what degree the evidence accurately reflects reality is hard to say. Historians must consider, however, what does remain, and we must consider the little that remains from the Cochin family as at least a glimpse of their affections, if not the complete view of them. The written record about what their spouses and children meant and how they saw family life starts only at the beginning of the nineteenth century (not surprisingly), and shows a very satisfying and fulfilling experience of family life. In August 1804 Jacques Denis Cochin closed his musings on profit and Providence with a reflection on his happiness as a husband and father of two teenaged children: I thank with all the Sincerity of my heart He who has wished to shower me with his favors in blessing my works. And who to soften them and share them gave me in his indulgence a kind and interesting Companion in whose company I have enjoyed for sixteen years without fail the measure of happiness allowed the upright man to enjoy here below, and the wonderful Children who promise its continuation.34

These wives and mothers in the Cochin family were the recipients of love and affection almost to the point of worship. We cannot recover the words and gestures of love between wives and husbands to gauge the affection between them. As is so often the case, these remain private and were heard only by the other. But we can estimate the importance of the too-silent wives and mothers indirectly: Their absence literally changed the course of their husbands’ and children’s lives. The best example is the marriage of Jean Denis Cochin and Augustine Benoist (1801–1827), a union that lasted less than four years. She was subject to recurrent illness and told her husband she had a premonition that

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she would die before he would; she would take vows if he predeceased her. Jean Denis penned a note “To Augustine, For her alone” asking her not to do so for the sake of their sons, Denis and Augustin.35 The following April, 1827, she died from diphtheria contracted while caring for them. Her death was a watershed in Jean Denis’s life. He left the Cour de Cassation and by that summer had traveled to London to study firsthand English methods of “charitable education,” especially those aimed at young children.36 He decided early that poor children had a greater need for the care and attention hitherto aimed at the poor adult: The same moral influence on poor adults and heads of family should be extended and with better result, to the children of the poor during the whole of their childhood, and it is from this point of view that we consider the children’s schools and infant schools as the essential counterpart to the workhouses.37

Just over a year after Augustine’s death, Jean Denis’s infant school (salle d’asile) was opened on rue St.-Hippolyte in the 12th arrondissement, and it was filled with 1,000 children and 200 adults. Never remarrying, Jean Denis departed on a hyperactive life, an attempt to provide maternal care to the many poor children in his arrondissement. Augustine’s influence remained. The experience of the following generations showed the importance of the Cochin women in the life of the family. Though Jean Denis and his sons did not spend much time together,38 Augustin’s experience of a truncated family accentuated his joyous experience of fatherhood and his attachment to his meditative, mystical, and more pessimistic wife, Ade´line Benoist d’Azy.39 To her he wrote his most profound, his most unbridled, and most meditative letters on public matters. One son’s, Henry’s (1854–1926), unpublished memoir of his own sense of guilt should be included amid his equally convincing memories of happiness and love between Augustin and his wife and sons. The family traveled to the south of France and Rome, and Augustin wrote warm and encouraging letters to them while they were apart—during the siege of Paris and while Denys was at the Lyce´e Louis-leGrand, or away at war, for example.40 This was a close and loving family, quite unlike that of Augustin’s own childhood. Denys Cochin’s (1851–1922) family was larger than had been the pattern for several generations. He and He´le`ne Pe´an de St.-Gilles had three boys and three girls. From all appearances theirs was a successful marriage. Denys gave the children lessons in Latin, biblical history, or the New Testament in the morning while he shaved. This large family included a Scottish governess, “Miss Margaret” Pretty, who taught English and art. From May to January the family stayed at one of two chaˆteaux: La Roche or Beauvoir, the latter owned by He´le`ne’s parents. Though Denys was busy as a municipal councilor and later deputy, the railroad made possible frequent visits when they were in the country. In all, the experience of being a husband and father seemed a happy burden and

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privilege for both Augustin and Denys. Both appreciated the importance of their capable and supportive wives. They brought not only wealth and a good name to the marriage and were the organizers of the household, but by the nineteenth century we have evidence of the degree to which their husbands consulted them and saw them as a source of support and solace in a hostile world. For the Cochins, as for other French families, the women were often the most important guardians of the family life and tradition. The Cochins acknowledged the importance of the women of the family in more public ways. Jacques Denis’s speeches to local notables given during the Restoration include one on the education of girls, in which he emphasized the importance of women in the household: “Mothers have great, important functions to fulfill concerning their children: they are their first teachers.”41 Catholic social action as an extension or substitute for the family was a commonplace in the papers of Jacques Denis, Jean Denis, and his son, Augustin.42 The reason for this might be that the Cochins, like many others involved in social action in this period, were conservatives or paternalists. But it is difficult to escape from the impression that it was also because the family played so prominent a role in their lives, in the formation of their own senses of the self. The individual without a family was disadvantaged in the world. The Society of St. Vincent de Paul and the Cercle des Jeunes Ouvriers, in which they were active, served as a substitute for the family—another chance for the child or the young man to find a good place in the world, by giving him a sense of attachment and selfrespect. This could only be done by engaging their affections, loyalty, and trust. The infant school of Jean Denis was not meant to be just help for the poor or laboring mother; for the child it functioned in a maternal way, offering an environment of love, order, good example, and safety. It was also the source of religious instruction, a topic on the mind of every Catholic after the Revolution. Jacques Denis warned his fellow notables: If in the home they [children] never hear an act of devotion. . . . In vain will your respectable teachers tell you children: fear God, follow the commandments. In vain we will say God is charity, one does not love God unless one loves one’s neighbor, if in the presence of their parents children hear only criticisms, bits of scandal.43

The emphasis on Christian morality being preserved by the family was never far from the Cochins’ thoughts. A half-century later Jacques Denis’s grandson enumerated the causes of what he called “la bonne de´mocratie,” linking the domestic, the charitable, and the political; “good” democracy was possible, he emphasized, only by public virtue, Christianity, education, moral instruction, family spirit, and the spirit of liberty.44 The private and the public, affections and politics, were indissolubly joined for the Cochins. They believed this was the case for everyone else.

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INDIVIDUALS How were the characters of these family members formed, and how did they reflect on this experience as adults? What was the family’s role in the unbroken creation of powerfully engaged individuals, and, incidentally, some of its less successful members? The record is fragmentary, but the material allows a glimpse into the experience of being a Cochin. The first model, as it were, of individual character was Claude Denis pe`re. He represented the successful merchant become e´chevin and was the most notable Cochin of the Old Re´gime. Claude Denis represented the cultivated bourgeois life par excellence. Hints of his personality have reached us beyond the balance sheet. A catalogue of his collection of plants at his greenhouse near Chaˆtillon was prepared by Louis Antoine Prosper He´rissant (1745–1769), “Imprimeur du cabinet du roi,” with the enticing title Jardin des curieux; but apparently it was never published. Claude Denis was, his great-great-greatgrandson Henry wrote, “of a cultivated mind, loving letters and the arts, nature and the natural sciences, he knew many learned people . . . sculptors [and] . . . engravers, such as his relatives the Charles Nicolas Cochins.”45 Generous and civic-minded, Claude Denis set an example of a Cochin who served the institutions of his city, using his skills and wealth to improve the lives of others. He symbolized the tradition of civic rule at the same time that he offered an example of an intelligent chef de famille with broad interests, far beyond the concern with making money. These were accomplishments attainable in a great city. His grandson Jacques Denis (1757–1837) provided an elaboration on this model of character. Significantly, the earliest view we have of a Cochin’s childhood is Jacques Denis’s, from the second half of the eighteenth century. Jacques Denis had four sisters and a younger brother born between 1751 and 1761 (the second and fourth sisters apparently died young). The children were brought up with a firm hand in a wealthy, austere household. The questions and responses young Jacques Denis copied into his surviving exercise books were apparently based on Bishop Joachim Colbert’s (1667–1738) Jansenist Montpellier catechism.46 This was a popular catechism, tending to emphasize the unworthiness of the repentant and the dangers of the love of the world. In this setting the family was a fundamental source of moral training. Jacques Denis’s notebooks link personal behavior, family, and business success. “Impurity” may ruin business dealings because, as Jacques Denis copied, “to satisfy one’s passions, one spends Badly one’s money.”47 The section “On Avarice” emphasized that love for the poor was not incompatible with wealth, for one can live simply, give alms, and be poor in spirit. There were warnings against the mixing of the sexes, and entertainments (spectacles); the latter excited the senses, he was told, and were a form of concupiscence. Likely earlier generations of Cochin boys were raised in much the same way as Jacques Denis: taught the family business, appointed a guardian, and allowed to manage some of their inheritance to learn to handle money.48 Like his father

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and, likely, his grandfather, Jacques Denis at fifteen-and-a-half was given his independence (e´mancipation) under the guardianship of his father and his uncle, Charles Constantin Despeignes.49 He received his inheritance (almost 30,000 livres) and an accounting of his father’s expenses.50 Thus, Jacques Denis learned to handle money—though he could not sell any of his goods until age twentyfive—under the watchful eyes of the serious and sober men of his family. The connection between virtue and wealth never wore off of Jacques Denis. These matters (along with his family) were the main concern of his life, and, it should be stressed, they remained of greater importance than the political upheavals he witnessed. This was made amply clear in the account books he kept. From 1789 to 1819, he recorded in them the doubling of his wealth as well as his reflections on the careful stewardship of his resources. His August 1800 entry contained a typical identification of work and activity with the movement of the universe; he gave thanks to “Eternal providence who does not abandon his creatures who by their activity and their order fulfill the purpose of creation.”51 Entries for subsequent years included requests that he not misuse the leisure his wealth provided and that he be able to pass on to his children this “pure and justified” inheritance.52 Indeed, profit and earnings beyond maintaining one’s social estate was owed to God: “Whatever exceeds our needs, whatever doesn’t serve in maintaining one’s station, is the share belonging to providence, the portion necessary to repair the obvious inequality of wealth.”53 Wealth brought responsibility. He lectured other wealthy and responsible men—men of his type—that charity was a duty, and its neglect was unthinkable: “inequality of wealth would be a disorder of which God Himself would be guilty.”54 “Resources” wasted on vain pursuits meant that “Virtue” was lost; only virtuous wealth could make or maintain social justice. This Augustinian—Jansenist—sensibility was a deeply ingrained part of Jacques Denis’s personality, and from all we can tell it originated from the family milieu. This is how he interpreted social and political problems as an adult, through the ideas he already had—and mostly inherited—about wealth and virtue. He habitually reacted to outside events in terms of responsibility; irony and paradox were absent from his experience of public or private life. This sensibility had another result. As duty and morality reigned in his heart, Jacques Denis sustained few moments of levity. He was the perfect example of the honneˆte homme. Fe´licite´ Hugues Lamennais, who knew him, reported that Jacques Denis Cochin was “a perfect upright man who laughs twice a year in good years and hardly speaks more than that.”55 As a deputy, Jacques Denis had little to say during his almost four years in the Chamber.56 The last Cochin to reach maturity before the Revolution, and the only one leaving reflections on making money, Jacques Denis reflected more from the generations before him than he projected to the ones that followed. His sons and grandsons became administrators, reformers, authors, and politicians, men in the public eye, more suited to public life. They represented a new model of character. They were more voluble than Jacques Denis. His son Jean Denis spoke and spoke well. Raised in the world of the law, philanthropy,

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and administration, he showed he was a man of good will and principle who sought to improve society through enlightened administration. So it was with all subsequent generations of Cochins until the last, ending with the historian Augustin Cochin. Yet Jean Denis shared other traits with his father Jacques Denis. We know little of his childhood, but like his father, Jean Denis was an intense and emotionally distant adult, a serious man, with no leaven of selfreflection or humor. His wife Augustine Benoist was religious, but the family tradition has it that, like many bourgeois during the Orleanist monarchy, Jean Denis had little interest in religion.57 Here he departed from earlier generations. But like his father and earlier generations, Jean Denis was a stern and caring father who impressed upon his young son Augustin the heavy burden of being a Cochin; his very existence was inseparable from the family: It is not for your father that you have been brought into the world[,] but to be worthy of yourself[,] to be a father, husband, citizen, and to further the honorable life of which your family and your country have given the example—your father is the seed which has brought you into the world[,] he is your root[,] you are his stalk[,] your children shall be the fruit, we make up a single tree.58

It was not only the father who gave such admonitions. Jean Denis’s two boys, Denis Guillaume and Augustin, often visited their grandparents at La Roche. Jacques Denis and Ange´lique, whose memories stretched back to well before the Revolution, also reminded the new generation of the importance of membership in the family. The grandmother Ange´lique (1760–1839) wrote to Augustin, for example, about the importance of being a Cochin: You feel it already though quite young, and will always take the right path, which is the one of duty in general at the head of which I put the duties of religion. . . . Your brother will be charged with the fourth volume of the history of the Cochins. It is for him to take the path with a firm and steady step.59

(In this case the standard bearer would prove to be the younger son, Augustin.) The careful tutoring at home, the summers spent at La Roche, and, later, at the chaˆteau at Beauvoir, school life in Paris, conversations and letters among parents and children, the example set by the parents, grandparents, nurses, and teachers—these sites and these contacts through the generations ensured that the special significance of being a Cochin was passed down from one generation to the next. Two generations after Augustin was admonished, the tone had not changed much. In 1915 his grandson Augustin wrote home reflecting on the first year of the horrific War. That year the family had lost a son, Augustin’s brother Jacques. The note of duty to the family name still rang clear in the letter the soldier son wrote to the politician father: In the appalling sacrifice of this year, our family must set the example as always, and remain at the head. It’s not I, it’s grandfather and you who have raised the family honor so high. I do little enough to uphold this honor, nothing compared

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Family Dynasty, Revolutionary Society to what you do—but more than I would have hoped. May God help you and keep you for the good of our dear and unfortunate country.60

Living worthy of such a legacy not only proved exhausting but called for a tightly wound sense of self among those active members of each generation. The lives of Jacques Denis, Jean Denis, Augustin, and Denys Cochin—spanning the nineteenth century—have in common the attempt to set an example. Their ideal of social reform, of reforming character, of the moralisation des autres, was an extension of how they idealized and created individuals in their own family. Within the family the individual was to be protected from his own desires, seen in Jansenist terms. In the first half of the nineteenth century, young Augustin was told to avoid spicy foods and prolonged baths because they promoted physical (certainly sexual) excitement.61 Augustin in turn wrote more than once of the importance of “purity,” and warned his son Denys of the dangers lurking for young men who wanted to make a place for themselves in the world: “Half this desire comes from above, half from below; we have wings and paws, a high forehead and genitals, sublime thoughts and base senses. It is more and more necessary to have the soul free and the body restrained; thus constraint: that of work and purity.”62 Augustin’s father had to address the problem of de´cence among younger children in his Manuel des salles d’asile in 1832. Here he counseled the directors of the infants’ school that children have no idea of modesty or decency, and that it was better to leave them in ignorance about sexual matters. Adults should correct indecent behavior with as little explanation as possible, “sans vivacite´, et comme avec indiffe´rence.”63 The influence of and respect accorded to the teacher should help maintain the child in the proper moral habits. Vice could be diminished by a healthy environment. In the case of the adolescent or young adult, responsibilities and work—and the weight of being a family member—were called upon when “impurity,” when the body, threatened to take control. Within the family this sense of modesty and control had a cliche´d bourgeois result. Only Denys Cochin’s brother Henry (1854–1926) mentioned it, but it was likely experienced by others in the Cochin family. In middle age this politician and Boccaccio scholar wrote movingly of his love for his father, but also of the other lifelong feelings from being the son of Augustin Cochin, the saintly Liberal Catholic: “I remember well very well that when I was a child, this feeling of shame [honte] of which I speak was to me quite natural and so spontaneous that I suffered from it without knowing it.”64 Henry’s life of accomplishment never eased this feeling of shame. He acknowledged that it arose from feelings of inadequacy when he thought of his father. “He raised us with the thought of public life as that of a duty and a moral beauty. We could not turn down the duty if it offered itself. We had been fed too completely on these ideals to be able to renounce them.”65 The Cochins always followed the path of self-control and discipline, of the head controlling the body; it was a way for them to meet the demands of public life already met by several generations of

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Cochins. The individual was to dedicate himself to the spiritual over the physical, to order over chaos. Once established, this order spurred the higher aspirations to action, it was thought. This was, generally, the very idealistic pattern by which the family posed—and imposed—its demands on individuals in each generation. Character and family identity, of course, had their political side. The Cochins remained liberal Orleanists despite two marriages with a Legitimist family (the Benoist d’Azys) early in the century, friendships with Legitimist public figures (such as Antoine Pierre Berryer and Alfred de Falloux) in the middle of the century, and association with Nationalist figures such as Charles Maurras at the end of the century. Here the relation of political outlook and family membership was most clear. Family provided a sense of continuity, and this continuity also applies to politics, imprinting it on each generation despite changed circumstances. One of the reasons for the successful maintenance of this politics was that the Cochins were not part of a political class in power for any length of time in the nineteenth century. They were able to neither shape nor assume the dominant public tone of politics for long. They were never wedded to a party; it is more accurate to say they were wedded to a moment of political life that contained, or promised, a route to power. Differently freighted, their politics remained part of their family, an outgrowth of their own ideas developed about its past and how the family could contribute to French public life. The Cochins fit in where their ideals allowed them. Their attachment to moral order was so powerful that their politics remained domestic, as it were—appropriate at some political moments (more often during the Orleanist monarchy), intermittently at other times (the Second Empire comes to mind)—and at still others almost not at all (the Third Republic of Combes). The Cochins generally lacked a happy political flexibility, as some of their personalities lead one to suspect. The last two generations still displayed and defended their political ideals after their demise under the Third Republic. Here they resembled many other families— Legitimist, Orleanist, and Republican—through their willingness to be both involved in, and rebuffed by, public life. The creation of individuals of character within a family and the passing down of ideals from individual to individual is always something of a mystery. In this setting the family helped create and sustain the striving individual, though, to be sure, not without a price. To say that only emulation and admiration were present in this process, with no trace of tension, is certainly not true. And one suspects the burden could be oppressive: Denis Guillaume (1822–1887) and, in the next generation, Pierre Cochin (1857–?) lived in genteel obscurity in the shadow of their active and more public brothers, Augustin and Denys and Henry. But what is most striking is the family’s success in maintaining itself and passing on its ideals. The issue from generation to generation was never how to overthrow being a Cochin, but rather how to define it and fulfill it under changing circumstances. The apparent continuity of character is striking, as is the reliance on the family as a source of support. Family remained more powerful than the

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pull of the outside world. The Cochins were not directed by public values; they were directed by “private” values, which promoted public involvement. Their ideals pushed them toward involvement partly because involvement was how they identified and valued themselves.

CHEF DE FAMILLE The family sometimes required that an additional duty be added to the usual cares of a husband and father: that of chef de famille. The men of the Cochin family accepted the charge with a serious and sober mien. It is evident from the family papers that the office entailed a range of duties, from the quotidian to the extraordinary. Claude Denis fils, as we have noted, was made guardian of his younger, mentally incapacitated brother, Jacques Denis (1729–1795), when their father Claude Denis started to lose his health.66 Claude Denis had already assumed direction of the unfinished hospice project in the summer of 1783 and was executor of his other brother’s, the cure´’s, estate (most of which was destined for the hospice). The Cochin men enjoyed the trust of outsiders in handling business, and even government, matters. The same note was struck within the family; the cure´ wrote of his brother in his will: “I ask M. Cochin disbursar my brother, to undertake the execution of my present testament with the spirit of charity and the love of the poor by which I know him[;] he is certainly capable of assuring the execution of my last Wishes.”67 The legal establishment of the hospice consumed seven years and demanded constant labor from Claude Denis, chef de famille: he met with numerous notables in Paris and Versailles; drafted the letters patent required for the hospice’s permanent establishment; kept track of the hospice’s shaky finances; battled part of the parish of St.-Jacques du Hautpas and its cure´, Antheaume, over the project; helped publish the cure´’s devotional works; wrote three pamphlets soliciting outside support for the hospice; paid the droit d’indemnite´ for the land on which the hospice was constructed (2,401 livres)68; and then became one of the administrators of the hospice during the Revolution, firing off blunt refusals to follow regulations and demanding provisions during times of shortages.69 There were more obvious duties. Soon after the birth of their first child, the day the Bastille was taken, Jacques Denis and his wife Ange´lique moved from their house on rue Canivet to 264 rue St.-Jacques; his sister Marie Rosalie Nau (1756–1824) moved into rue Canivet with her husband at the same time his other sister Claude Marie Anne Cochin (1751–1825), separated from her husband Armand Durand, joined the new parents on rue St.-Jacques.70 The duties of father and chef de famille could become substantial. A distant cousin—and juring priest—Pierre Simon Cochin (1731–1815), named Jacques Denis his executor. Pierre Simon described Jacques Denis in his will as “mon parent tre`s attache´ et tre`s e´claire´.”71 Pierre Simon’s niece and nephew were declared untrustworthy by their uncle and were not to inherit any of the estate, which was

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to go to a grand-nephew. Jacques Denis was handling the grand-nephew’s affairs twelve years later. Jacques Denis’s papers show him handling matters for other families, acting as a family lawyer; and likely others noticed his adept and sedulous care of the Cochin family’s affairs—an unintentional advertisement of his abilities.72 This captaining of the family vessel was unquestionably important to the Cochins themselves. They recognized how important it was to the family’s success and survival. Jacques Denis wrote in his will, dated “9bre 1827,” of the trust he had in his son’s abilities: “I know the position of head of the family brings with it responsibilities that he will never disavow[;] I do only justice in conferring on him this honor, and I thank him for all the guarantees his conduct has given me to this day, since they leave me with the hope that he will always live worthy of his name.”73 There were, of course, times that family matters did not go well. There are two major incidents during the seven generations in Paris when the head of the family had to intervene: once to protest the harmful actions of a relative and once where the reputation of the family was placed under a cloud and had to be cleared. In the first instance, Claude Denis fils, head of the family, was also the victim. He objected to his business partner and brother-in-law enforcing the clause in their contract of purchase of their disbursar’s office. The offending clause agreed to in December 1774 gave Jean Leve´ and his children full ownership of the office, which Leve´’s son put into effect in the summer of 1787. Details are sketchy, but the partners may have agreed to this because Claude Denis didn’t have enough money at the time of the purchase. Evidently Cochin never dreamed Leve´ would put the clause into effect; indeed, Leve´’s son probably understood its enforcement touched the family feeling, since he waited until Claude Denis pe`re, his father’s business partner, was incapacitated by a stroke (Claude Denis pe`re and Jean Leve´ pe`re had been in the mercery business for over half a century on rue St.-Jacques, to everyone’s profit). In the only letter we have between them, Claude Denis wrote that his family were “completely revolted” by young Leve´’s demand and found his request “very unjust.” He believed Leve´ had no hard feelings against him, but he knew that Cochin had “plus de famille et moins de fortune que M. Leve´.” Claude Denis reminded Leve´ that he said during their partnership that “fathers and mothers, as you yourself have judiciously observed, have to devote themselves to their family. Accordingly, I have conferred with mine.” The head of the Cochin family attempted a reconciliation within the extended family group, where cooperation had reigned for so long: “I desire with all my heart that what has taken place between us will reunite us if possible by even stronger links of friendship than those that join us now.”74 But Claude Denis’s appeals to the Leve´ sense of family were in vain. Apparently for Leve´ his immediate gain, or gain for his immediate family, was more important. Less than a year after Claude Denis penned this letter, he signed a contract agreeing to hand over his part of the tax

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farming office to Leve´, making it forever the property of Leve´’s children.75 This was an ignoble end to a long and profitable relationship, an outcome Claude Denis as chef de famille was powerless to avert. Roughly a century later, the head of the family, Denys Cochin, was faced with what he considered a scandalous court case instituted by a distant relative. In 1889 the niece and nephew of Dominique Adolph Cochin filed suit in the Tribunal Civil de la Seine over the will of their uncle, who had died in February 1888.76 The uncle had a long history of mental instability and hallucinations, dating from a fall from a horse at the age of ten. The uncle apparently left his estate to Denys Cochin and his family, and the niece and nephew claimed that the will was the product of an unstable mind. Their suit claimed that uncle Adolph sang and drank in the kitchen with the servants and had adulterous relations with the cook, “la fille Rousseau,” who bore him three girls and a boy between 1871 and 1882. Though uncle Adolph spent the last fifteen years of his life in an institution and was declared legally incompetent in 1873, Denys Cochin and his family decided to settle the case quietly. The plaintiffs described Denys’s side of the family as “distant and rich” (“e´loigne´s et riches”) in contrast to Adolph’s branch. Denys and his mother, Mme. Augustin Cochin, paid the niece and nephew 12,000 francs “to avoid a scandalous trial.”77 Many questions remain about the handling of this incident by the chef de famille. The family surely consulted legal counsel; but were they acting according to their own inclinations, or on purely professional advice? We do not know how much cousin Adolph’s estate was worth—was it more than 12,000 or less? Should the Cochin family have been concerned about the scandalous behavior of a distant relative declared insane? Their own remark seems to eliminate a pure sense of justice as their motive. Justice was probably served by this payment, but Denys surely also wanted to avoid a scandal just as he was running again for a seat in the Chamber of Deputies. His political ambitions may have set him up for the scheme, since his ambitions were well known. The case of uncle Adolph may simply have been a deft shakedown. Certainly the head of the family was unwilling to have the name Cochin linked to scandal. While the heads of the family through these seven generations were successful in maintaining and expanding the material, moral, and intellectual wealth of the family, there were inevitably some disappointments. For instance, not all members of the family remained in contact with it. The Leve´ family disappears— understandably—after the falling out over the disbursar office in 1786–1787. One wonders then what became of the relationship between Marie Claude Cochin (1701–1774) and her son Jean Leve´. We hear no more of some of the other families into which the Cochins married in the eighteenth century: the Parises and the Henrys, for example. The other links between families were more permanent—the same names recur as uncles and aunts, first and second cousins, and attendees at the important events of the family: Desprez, Nau, Durand, Pe´an de St.-Gilles, Guichou, Desplasses, and Benoist. There was at

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least one separation, already mentioned, between Claude Marie Anne Cochin and her husband, Armand Durand. There were surely more unhappy marriages, but none ended in the breakup of a household. One son was declared mentally incompetent; two never married, one being the cure´ Jean Denis; but no daughters, even as widows, entered religious orders. There is no record of widows or widowers without children. The surviving record shows a total of six children who died, but this is certainly an undercount, for we know Jacques Denis and his wife Ange´lique had several who did not live, and more must have gone unreported.78 In the next generation at least one daughter was born to Jean Denis and his wife, Augustine Benoist: Ange´lique was born in 1822, “de´ce´de´e peu d’heures apre`s sa naissance.”79 So not all the effort and planning of a chef de famille could produce unmitigated success for seven generations. But the perpetuation and growth of the Cochins, their joining to other important Parisian families, the maintenance of their status in the city of Paris, gives the overall impression of care, success, and good luck. The material losses due to the Revolution, were more than offset by an impressive increase in wealth brought in by Jacques Denis. Cochin chefs de famille generally met with success in what they could control and enjoyed good luck in most of what they could not. The almost complete silence on the part of the Cochin women is striking. Members of the Parisian bourgeoisie, teachers, transmitters of the Cochin pride and sense of self, as we have seen, supervisors of the servants (no doubt), companions, lovers, sisters-in-law, widows, grandmothers—they left few words of their own in the surviving record about their lives. The products of conservative, well-to-do households, they evidently centered their concerns on providing a tireless and loving care of the assets entrusted to them—assets material, moral, and spiritual. We know too little about them; we have no record of their schooling, for example. Oddly, there is no remark left by a son, husband, father, brother, or daughter about the eccentricities or the interests of these women. Augustin’s wife, Ade´line (1830–1892), published a book of her Me´ditations, a conventional inspirational work.80 It gives away nothing about the author; the meditations on traditional Catholic topics show her as content to remain within accepted themes. The silence that surrounds these women is disappointing, for the record implies they were active, forceful, and upright women whose sense of duty, work, and charity were acute. How many thousands of hours of charity and religious work are we unaware of? Their fathers, fathers-in-law, husbands, and sons participated in exceedingly visible ways in charity and social reform activities; often these were inspired by and recorded in books and articles they had written. How much of their wives’ and daughters’ labors in these same fields was left unrecorded? Once again, the powerful factor of gender in shaping both experience and its recording was at play. We know these strong characters left behind stories of genuine heroism. For example, during the Occupation Mme. Denys Cochin (1857–1946) hid members of the Resistance in the basement of her house on rue de Babylone, not far from Gestapo offices. This is an

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eloquent statement about her character, and we long for more. The views of these women and their memories would have added much to the record left by their husbands, brothers, sons, and fathers-in-law. They must, however, be recognized as present in the record even if virtually silent about their own feelings and impressions. Their acts, their participation in the family was, after all, their central concern, and no doubt they had influence—perhaps decisive influence—on crucial decisions of the family. We cannot know and probably will never know in more detail. We can see, however, their creation, their contribution, and their ceaseless activity in the success of the family; at least we cannot claim that they have not spoken to us through their acts. THE FAMILY THROUGH ITS HISTORY One of the ways the several generations of Cochins thought about their family was through its past—hardly a surprising approach. Their own history of themselves took several forms. The earliest records the Cochins kept of themselves were the copies of baptisms, marriage contracts, business agreements, and funeral announcements they possessed. As we have seen, by the 1690s Claude Cochin, formerly of Montlhe´ry, became “bourgeois et marchand de Paris” in the records of the Ste. Trinite´ parish of Montlhe´ry. The Cochins of Paris knew of their roots in Montlhe´ry; likely they knew the name Denys Cochin appeared among the royal provosts of Montlhe´ry in 1482–1488 and 1490–1493.81 The family knew about Claude Cochin (b. 1598), likely an uncle of the Claude Cochin (1653–1728) who settled on rue St.-Jacques, from a contract dated April 25, 1640.82 A copy of this still rests in the family archive. The family knew and maintained the records of the life of the Claude Cochin, from whom it descended. They obtained a copy from the register of the “corps des marchands merciers, grossiers et joailliers de la Ville de Paris” showing his registering as a member of that guild on February 21, 1688.83 The relatively few records on Claude Denis pe`re nevertheless kept to memory a good deal of information. The notarized contracts concerning his business activities with Jean Leve´ provide clues about his business, and the record of his children’s marriages listed all the family members present, a meticulous reminder of the Cochins’ incorporation into the Parisian merchant world. It was not uncommon that ten family names appeared in a marriage contract and that the relationship among them all was carefully noted by the notary or his assistant. Thus, in the next generation, the marriage contract between Claude Denis’s son Claude Denis and Marie Anne Henry (1727–1763) on November 10, 1748, contains thirteen families: Cheres, Cochin, Despeignes, Desprez, Doyen, Guichou, Henry, Lempereur, Leve´, Mariette, Mouette, Paris, and Pe´an de St.-Gilles.84 In this the Cochins departed not one bit from the normal practice at the time. For Claude Denis pe`re, the most prominent Cochin under the Old Re´gime, the records capture the official life: his joining the mercer’s guild, his appoint-

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ment as overseer of the Franciscans’ foreign funds, his appointment as one of the Receivers for the Hoˆpital Ge´ne´ral. When he died, the printed funeral announcements broadcast the achievements of the public man.85 While a few of the entries from official records may have been made in the nineteenth century, the bulk of the documentation in these early years is original and must have been known to the family. By the end of the eighteenth century their collecting of their past became more self-conscious. Almost every scrap of paper concerning the Hospice Cochin was kept, since Claude Denis fils worked so hard at getting its letters patent from 1783 to 1790. No doubt this was more than a matter of good recordkeeping. Similarly, with other “public projects”—such as Jean Denis Cochin’s infants’ school, or his workhouse, or with manuscripts and materials for books—the family carefully retained the record of these lives. The growing importance of the public careers of the family in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—of Jean Denis, his son Augustin, and his son Denys and the historical work of his son Augustin—ensured that their papers would be treasured. Included in the Cochin archives are materials in Augustin Cochin’s hand, likely an effort of the 1840s or 1850s. This group of papers comprise an attempt at reconstructive genealogy, and perhaps was intended as a beginning to a family history. Augustin took excerpts from public records (the E´tat Civil) concerning his family. They were potentially the more valuable, since the work was done before the Commune, whose fires destroyed the records of so many Parisian families. Unfortunately, the vague genealogies and notes he made on the family are not very informative. And they seemed not to have resulted in any fullblown family history; he likely used them while preparing a preface to a new edition of his father’s Manuel in 1853.86 In the family’s hands the past could prove slippery. The gathering and keeping of these records did not prevent Augustin—or those who preceded him—from mixing up the family tree, thereby inadvertently falsifying the family past. To this day some of the family believe themselves related to the great Parisian barrister Henri Cochin (1687–1747). Augustin assumed that the artists CharlesNicolas Cochin, pe`re et fils (1688–1754; 1715–1790), were also part of the family. Neither of these is provable on the available evidence.87 Conversely, it is not clear that the Cochins through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries accounted for other, likely genuine, branches of their family. For example, on September 5, 1682, Claude’s father, Jean Cochin, merchant of Montlhe´ry, was present at the wedding of a certain Pierre Cochin in Paris. The groom’s father, also Pierre, was a vestryman at St.-Benoıˆt on rue St.-Jacques, where, Claude would later be a parishioner and vestryman himself.88 But there is no evidence the Cochins of Montlhe´ry or their descendants ever maintained this tie, and they never mention this branch of the Cochins. Nor is there word in our Cochins’ papers of descendants of Pierre Cochin, “marchand de Paris,” living on another street, St.-Andre´-des-Arts. Cochin is not a common name, and it is possible that the links between these families can no longer be established; they may have

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been forgotten by the eighteenth century. Whatever the reality, it is significant that the Cochins of Montlhe´ry and, later, rue St.-Jacques, did not maintain these ties. The other Parisian bourgeois families into which the Cochins married played a larger role in their lives. Besides these informal family histories, the Cochins produced more formal and public ones. Beginning in the nineteenth century the Cochins began publishing works of earlier Cochins and writing panegyrics on them.89 The cure´ Jean Denis Cochin published a number of religious works, and several of these were reprinted into the nineteenth century. These were the first printed works by a member of the family—suitably, of a religious nature—and they kept the Cochin name before a certain audience. His brother Claude Denis had an edition of his sermons published.90 As a successful young lawyer in government offices (the Cabinet du Roi and the Cour de Cassation), Jean Denis Cochin wrote a preface to the seventh edition of the works of the famous barrister Henri Cochin, mentioned above.91 His son Augustin wrote an essay on his father’s charitable efforts, which appeared as an introduction to the fourth and fifth edition of his father’s classic Manuel.92 Augustin’s son Henry collected and edited two volumes of his father’s letters and other manuscripts and a collection of documents concerning the secularization of Cochin Hospital.93 The father and later the mother of the historian Augustin Cochin worked tirelessly over a decade to have the bulk of their son’s work published after his death in World War I.94 These works constituted considerable effort and served at once to memorialize the individual and the family and were often undertaken as a filial obligation. They were also the public documents of the family’s contribution to the public life of France, an advertisement of its energy and prominence, and a reminder to the younger generation of its legacy. Thus six generations of Cochins were suitably proud of their family and reasonably well informed about it. But, as we will see, the established forms of public prominence did not fit them very well; in fact, their problems with them betrayed a lingering independence, and, ultimately, a lingering problem of maintaining their identity. By the Restoration they took steps to register the title they earned through Claude Denis’s aldermanic office. In the eighteenth century, nobility was usually a recognition of service to the King or accompanied the possession of an important office that was then transmitted to the individual and the family.95 It is oddly characteristic, then, that in 1821, after initiating procedures for registering their title with the Commission du Sceau, the family let the matter drop. After setting up a perpetual estate (majorat) and paying the 4,000 franc fee in 1820, the Cochins were denied their request that the letters of their nobility mention the founding of the Cochin Hospital by the cure´ Jean Denis Cochin.96 This refusal was so important that Jacques Denis and Jean Denis dropped their pursuit of the official recognition of their title.97 Tellingly, it was the ommission of their role as important bourgeois, as founders of the Hospital, that annoyed them. Despite this, the Cochins continued their involvement with local matters as important notables. The family served as mayors in their arron-

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dissements of Paris for three uninterrupted generations and served on numerous councils and boards, especially the Conseil Ge´ne´ral des Hospices et des Hoˆpitaux de Paris and its successors. Jacques Denis was elected to the Chamber from Paris in 1824, and his son Jean Denis in 1837 and 1839. Yet it was not only their services to the city or the aldermanic office that Augustin referred to while searching for grounds to celebrate the family at mid-nineteenth century. These works were for Augustin—and here he reflected a key Cochin habit of mind— only a reflection of character: “Dedication to the city, faith, work, charity, noble ideals, revered traditions handed down from one century to the next in honorable lives, these are the Cochin family’s true claims to nobility.”98 Thus this family of noblesse de cloche, of bourgeois ennobled from urban office in the eighteenth century, saw its legitimation in the virtues of several generations of Cochins. This identity could be lived up to only by leading “honorable lives” in their city—as pure a bourgeois nobility as could be found.99

NOTES 1. Jonathan Dewald, Aristocratic Experience and the Origins of Modern Culture: France, 1570–1715 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993). 2. Bernhard Groethuysen’s work on the French bourgeoisie, for example, envisioned a sense of self developed in the early modern period that placed it outside the bounds of Catholic scruples; a new and more autonomous sense of self produced capitalists and capitalism. Bernhard Groethuysen, Die Entstehung der bu¨rgerlichen Welt- und Lebensanschauung in Frankreich: vol. 1, Das Bu¨rgertum und die katholischen Weltanschauung; vol. 2, Die Soziallehren der katholischen Kirche und das Bu¨rgertum (Halle: Niemeyer, 1927–1930). 3. For those books on the topic of the family and the individual in the postRevolutionary period, one may cite the works of Pernoud, Duby, Forster, and Tudesq, discussed below. 4. Andre´-Jean Tudesq, Les grands notables en France (1840–1849), 2 vols. (Paris: PUF, 1964). 5. Robert Forster, Merchants, Landlords, Magistrates: The Depont Family in Eighteenth-Century France (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980). 6. Robert Forster, The House of Saulx-Tavanes: Versailles and Burgundy, 1700–1830 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1971). 7. Christine Adams, “Defining E´tat in Eighteenth-Century France: The Lamothe Family of Bordeaux,” Journal of Family History 17, no. 1 (1992), pp. 25–46. 8. Lenore Davidoff and Catherine Hall, Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class, 1780–1850 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987). 9. Tamara K. Hareven, “The History of the Family and the Complexity of Social Change,” American Historical Review 96, no. 1 (February 1991), p. 115. 10. Among others: Jacques Donzelot, The Policing of Families, trans. Robert Hurley (New York: Pantheon, 1979); Neil J. Smelser, Social Change in the Industrial Revolution: An Application of Theory to the British Cotton Industry (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1959); Michael Anderson, Family Structure in Nineteenth-Century Lancashire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971); Elinore G. Barber, The Bour-

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geoisie in Eighteenth-Century France (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955); Re´gine Pernoud, Histoire de la bourgeoisie en France, 2 vols. (Paris: E´ditions du Seuil, 1962, 1981), Bourgeoisies de Provence et re´volution (Grenoble: Presses Universitaires de Grenoble, 1984), A History of the Private Life, vol. 4, From the Fires of Revolution to the Great War, ed. Michelle Perrot, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990) (orig. pub. as Histoire de la vie prive´e, vol. 4, De la Re´volution a` la grande guerre [Paris: E´ditions du Seuil, 1987]); Fe´lix Ponteil, Les Classes bourgeoises et l’ave`nement de la de´mocratie (Paris: E´ditions Albin Michel, 1968, 1989). 11. A Daumard and F. Furet, Structures et relations sociales a` Paris au XVIIIe sie`cle (Paris: Armand Colin, 1961), 82–83. 12. Victor-Adolphe Malte-Brun, Monthe´ry, son chaˆteau et ses seigneurs: Notice historique et arche´ologique (Paris: A. Aubrey: 1870), 100–101. Michel Asselin appears as pre´voˆt royal in 1448–1449 and 1465–1469. Their daughter Barbe Cochin (1620–1656) was buried at St.-Benoıˆt, Paris. 13. Her brother Denys Paris was also a merchant and was present at his niece and nephew’s wedding in January 1720. “Extraits des registres,” AC, A1. 14. Jean Leve´ pe`re was dead by 1720, but an uncle, Guillaume Desprez, “Libraire imprimeur du Roi,” was present at the wedding. 15. Contract Claude Denis Cochin pe`re and Jean Denis Leve´, July 29, 1769, AC, Ca4. 16. The elder Claude Denis’s third son, Jacques Denis (1729–1795), was feebleminded and placed under his father’s and, subsequently, his brother’s care; though married, he had no children. One daughter, Catherine Gabrielle (1721–?), and one son, Jean Franc¸ois (1733–1746), did not survive to marry. 17. Marriage contract between Claude Denis Cochin fils and Marie Anne Henry, November 10, 1748, in AC, Ca1. 18. Marriage contract between Jacques Denis Cochin and Ange´lique Matigny de la Boissie`re, August 3, 1788, AC, Da1. 19. Claude Marie Anne had apparently been widowed after the death of her husband, a member of the Nau family. Her younger sister, then, likely married a brother-in-law. 20. Augustine’s father, Pierre Vincent Benoist (1758–1834), was the son of the procureur du roi at Angers. Pierre went to Paris at an early age, where he hoped to be a writer. He produced several articles but soon filled minor posts under the revolutionary governments and served in the Ministe`re de l’Inte´rieur under the Empire. The Restoration brought him greater honors: He was named to the Conseil d’E´tat and the Le´gion d’Honneur and was elected to the Chamber from Maine-et-Loire. He became part of the coterie of Royalists touched by Romanticism who gathered around Franc¸ois Reneˆ Chateaubriand and Mme Anne-Sophie Swetchine. When Pierre Benoist retired in 1828, Charles X made him a hereditary count. Dictionnaire de biographie franc¸aise (Paris: Letouzy et Ane, 1949), vol. 5, cols. 1429–30. 21. The Orleanist son-in-law showed a notable independence from the political views of his Legitimist father-in-law; for example, see Augustin Cochin to vicomte Benoist d’Azy, December 6, 1848, Lettres, I, 59. 22. This was their first link with the Cochins. 23. I have not included the marriages of the current generation. All but one seem to have married into non-Parisian families. No doubt the railroad and automobile had much to do with this. One son, Jacques (d. 1915), married Marthe Firmin-Didot. 24. Certificate of apprenticeship for Pierre Nau, July 2, 1766, AC, Ca1.

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25. Jules Bour, in Les Noˆtres . . . Voici par qui nous sommes (Paris: Paul Dupont, 1945), 117, claims they owned this house on rue St.-Jacques since 1621. 26. This was sold at the end of 1785 to two men, one from St.-Benoıˆt and another from St.-Jacques du Haut-pas. 27. Changes of address of Jacques Denis Cochin are found in AC, A1. Addresses of Marie Rosalie Nau and her husband are in the division of goods of Gabirel Guichou, 11 frimaire II (December 1, 1793) in AC, Da2. This same document records the address of the aunt, Claude Marie Anne Cochin. 28. “pour assurer a` mes Enfants une tre`s belle proprie´te´ patrimoniale point entache´e d’aucune me´lange de nationalite´.” Account book, August 4, 1813, AC, Da2. 29. Details of La Roche after 1857 are given briefly in Lettres, I, 45–46. 30. Notes from 1816–1818 show that Jacques Denis shared 247 with his two siblings. This property was run as a business, too. His sister—Mme Durand—and likely Jacques Denis, paid rent but also received one-third of the profits. She lived in an apartment with both a servant and a maid; a total of nine people lived in 247 in 1818. These papers imply they also owned 214 rue St.-Jacques. Notes from Mme Durand, AC, Dc. 31. Lettres, II, 163. The house at 25 rue St.-Guillaume was demolished to make way for the E´cole des Sciences Politiques. 32. Denis was painting at the “hoˆtel Cochin” in the fall of 1896, and the entries in his journal show he visited Denys Cochin and his family thereafter regularly. They visited Rome together at least twice, in 1904 and 1907, visiting rooms by Raphael and Michelangelo. He was touched by “cette si honorable, si me´ritoire famille Cochin” (Journal, III, 229–30), with whom he felt close long after Denys’s death in 1922. He visited them during the Occupation. In November 1943 Denis was struck by an automobile during the blackout and taken to Cochin Hospital, where he died. See his Journal, 3 vols. (Paris: E´ditions de la Colomier, 1957–1958). 33. See, for example, Philippe Arie`s’s treatment of the death of children in medieval times (Centuries of Childhood, 38), and its revision: Linda Pollock, Forgotten Children: Parent–Child Relations from 1500 to 1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). 34. “Je remercie dans toute la Since´rite´ de mon couer [sic] Celui qui veut bien me combler de ses faveurs en be´nissant mes traveaux. Et qui pour les adoucir et les partager m’a donne´ dans sa complaisance une aimable et Interrissant Compagne [sic] dans la socie´te´ delaquelle je gouˆt depuis seize ans sans alte´ration la mesure de bonheur qu’il est permis a` l’homme honneˆte de gouˆter ici bas, et de bons Enfants qui m’en promettent la dure´e.” Account book papers, AC, Da2. 35. Jean Denis Marie Cochin to Augustine Cochin, July 10, 1826, AC, Ea28. 36. Jean Denis Marie Cochin to Mme Nau de Beauregard, September 6, 1827, AC, Ea28. 37. “Cette influence morale sur les pauvres adultes et chefs de famille, nous devons l’e´tendre aussi et avec bien plus de fruit, aux enfans des pauvres pendant toute la dure´e du premier aˆge, et c’est sous ce rapport que nous conside´rons les Salles d’E´coles et d’Asiles comme l’accessoire indisponible des Maisons de secours.” Report of the mayors-presidents and commissaires of the Bureaux of Charity to the General Council under the presidency of the prefect of the department of the Seine, June 25, 1828. 38. The day after young Augustin returned to live with his father on rue St.-Jacques, Jean Denis fell ill. The second son nursed him, called the priest, and wrote to the family

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informing them of his father’s death on August 18th. A.C. to cousin E´mile Nau de Beauregard, Lettres, I, 49. 39. Note by son Henry, Lettres, I, 46. 40. See correspondence from Augustin Cochin to Mme Augustin Cochin, September 1868, and Augustin Cochin to son Denys Cochin, August 1870 to January 1871, Lettres, II, 187–91, 286–316. 41. “Les me`res de famille ont de grands, d’importants fonctions a` remplir a` l’e´gard de leurs enfants: elles en sont les premie`res institutrices.” Manuscript of talk given on April 13, 1810 to a charitable assembly—perhaps of St.-Jacques du Haut-pas—in AC, Da6. 42. See Raymond Deniel, Une image de la famille et la socie´te´ sous la Restoration (1815–1830): E´tude de la presse catholique (Paris: E´ditions Ouvrie`res, 1965), and JeanBaptiste Duroselle, Les De´buts de catholicisme social en France, 2 vols. (Paris: Presses Universitailes de France, 1951). 43. “Si dans la maison paternelle ils n’entendent jamais l’acte de pie´te´[.] En vain vos respectables institutrices diront a` vos enfants: craignez dieu, observez des commandemens. En vain nous dirons Dieu est charite´, on n’aime pas dieu lorsqu’on n’aime pas le prochain, si dans la compagnie de leurs parents les enfants n’entendent que critiques, me´disance.” Talk of April 13, 1810, AC, Da6. 44. “Le triomphe de la bonne de´mocratie, que j’espe`re, et auquel nous devons tous travailler, messieurs, de quoi de´pend-il? Il ne faut pas eˆtre grand prophe`te pour affirmer qu’il de´pend toujours des conditions e´ternelles de la civilisation humaine dans l’histoire, a` savoir de la quantite´ de lumie`re et de vertu, d’instruction et de morale, d’esprit de famille et d’esprit de liberte´, qui entrera dans le coeur des hommes destine´s a` nous succe´der sur la terre. Or, il n’y a pas de morale, de famille, de patrie sans Dieu, et le vrai Dieu est le Dieu des che´tiens; telle est la lec¸on de la raison, de l’histoire et de la conscience.” Meditation on the state of France, prob. spring 1870, Lettres, II, 266. 45. “d’esprit cultive´, aimant les lettres et les arts, la nature et des sciences naturelles, il e´tait en relation avec les savants gens . . . des sculpteurs . . . des graveurs, comme ses parents les Charles Nicolas Cochin.” Henry Cochin, “Mission franc¸aise de la Terre Sainte aux XVIIe et XVIIe sie`cles (Claude Denis Cochin),” Etudes franciscaines (Sept.– Oct. 1923) pp. 451–59. 46. The cahiers scholaires of Jacques Denis are in AC, Da1. 47. “pour satisfaire ses passions, l’on de´pense Mal[sic] a` propos son argent.” 48. The age of majority under the Old Re´gime was twenty-five. 49. Charles Constantine Despeignes (1718–?) married Marie Jean Cochin, Jacques Denis’s aunt, at St.-Benoıˆt in 1743. Despeignes is described as “e´cuyer, marchand, bourgeois de Paris,” and was also “garde en charge du corps des marchands en cette ville, Conseiller du Roy, Tre´sorier Ge´ne´ral payeur des rentes de l’hoˆtel de ville de Paris.” Despeignes was also godfather to Jacques Denis’s younger brother, Constantin Denis (1761–1814). 50. Compte de´finitif, March 4, 1773, AC, Ca1. 51. “l’E´ternelle providence qui n’abandonne pas ses cre´atures qui par leur activite´ et leur ordre remplissent le but de la Cre´ation.” AC, Da2. Entry August 5, 1800. 52. AC, Da2. Entry August 1, 1801. 53. “Tout ce qui exce`de vos besoins, tout ce qui est inutile a` la de´cence de l’e´tat; voila` le fond appartenant a` la divine providence, fond ne´cessaire pour re´parer l’injustice

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apparente des distributions.” Speech “Besoin des pauvres” by Jacques Denis Cochin, undated (1805–1810?), AC, Da6. The text taken was Mark 8:2. 54. “l’ine´galite´ des fortunes seroit un de´sordre dont dieu[sic] lui-meˆme seroit coupable.” The manuscript of this talk, “Besoin des pauvres” is in AC, Da6. It was likely given between July 1806 and April 1810. 55. “un parfait honneˆte homme qui rit deux fois par an dans les bonnes anne´es, et ne parle gue`re davantage.” Auguste Laveille, Un Lamennais inconnu: Lettres ine´dites de Lamennais a` Benoist d’Azy (Paris: Librairie acade´mique Perrin, 1898), 115–16. 56. One flattering contemporary observer noted: “On ne conc¸oit pas comment il se peut faire que ce membre de la Chambre, avec toutes les qualite´s qui le distingue, soit demeure´ si obscur. M. Cochin me´rite sa re´putation d’honneˆte homme et de de´pute´ consciencieux.” Pierre Franc¸ois Marie Massey de Tyronne, Biographie des de´pute´s de la Chambre septenniale de 1824 a` 1830 (Paris: J. G. Dentu, 1826), 153. 57. “l’influence du temps avait refroidi sa foi.” Notes in the script of Mme Augustin Cochin in AC, Fa1. 58. “Ce n’est pas pour ton pe`re que tu a[s] e´te´ mis au monde[,] c’est pour te rendre digne de toi-meˆme[,] d’eˆtre pe`re, mari, citoyen, et de continuer la vie honorable dont ta famille et ta patrie t’auront donne´ le mode`le—ton pe`re est le grain qui t’a fait naıˆtre[,] il est ta racine[,] tu est sa tige[,] tes enfants seront le fruit, nous composerons un seul arbre.” Jean Denis Marie Cochin to Augustin Cochin, December 14, 1836, AC, Ea28. 59. “tu le sens de´ja` quoique bien jeune encore, et tu suivra toujour[s] la bonne voie qui est celle du devoir en ge´ne´rale a` la teˆte desquelles je mis celles des devoirs de la religion. . . . Ton Fre`re sera charge´ du 4ie`me volume de l’histoire des Cochin. C’est a` lui de choisir la voie et d’y marcher d’un pas ferme et assure´.” Mme Matigny Cochin to grandson Augustin, May 17, 1838, AC, Db1. 60. “dans l’effroyable sacrifice de cette anne´e, notre famille doit donner l’exemple comme toujours, et rester en teˆte. Ce n’est pas moi, c’est grand-pe`re et vous qui avez mis son honneur si haut. Je fais bien peu pour soutenir cet honneur, rien a` coˆte´ de ce vous avez fait—mais bien plus que je n’aurais espe´re´. Que Dieu vous aide et vous garde longtemps pour le bien de notre cher et malheureux pays.” Augustin Cochin to Denys Cochin, July 16, 1915. 61. Jean Denis Marie Cochin to Augustin Cochin in AC, Ea28. 62. “moitie´ de ce de´sire vient d’en haut, moitie´ d’en bas; nous avons des ailes et des pattes, un front haut et un bas-ventre, des pense´es sublimes et des sens grossiers. Il faut de plus en plus mettre l’aˆme en liberte´ et le corps en servitude; donc servitude: celle du travail et de la purete´.” Augustin Cochin to Denys Cochin, September 5, 1871, Lettres, II, 365. 63. Jean Denis Marie Cochin, Manuel, 2d ed. (Paris: Hachette, 1834), 212. 64. “Je me souviens tre`s bien que lorsque j’e´tais enfant, ce sentiment de honte dont je parle m’e´tait si naturel et si spontane´ que j’en souffrais sans me l’avouer.” Sevenpage manuscript by Henry Cochin dated September 1899, AC, “Famille.” 65. “[Il nous] avait e´le´ve´s dans la pense´e de la vie publique comme dans celle d’un devoir et d’un beaute´ morale. Nous ne pouvions pas e´carter le devoir s’il s’offrait a` nous. Nous avions e´te´ nourris trop comple`tement de ces ide´es pour pouvoir y renoncer.” Ibid., dated 1914. 66. Sentence, May 17, 1786, AC, Ca1. 67. “Je prie M. Cochin payeur des rentes mon fre`re, de se charger [de] l’exe´cution de mon pre´sent testament avec le sentiment de charite´ et d’amour des pauvres que je

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luy connais, il est bien capable en assurant l’exe´cution de mes derniers Volunte´s.” From “Me´moire pour l’hospice des pauvres malades de St. Jacques du haut pas a` l’effet de l’obtention des lettres patentes pour l’affirmissement de ce pieux et utile e´tablissement,” a short, undated history of the hospice by Claude Denis fils in AC, Cd3. The cure´’s will was dated July 3, 1782, with codicils on May 1 and 3, 1783. 68. Amount paid by Claude Denis in his accounts on November 1, 1790, in AC, Cd5. 69. Undated draft for mayors and officers of the Commune, probably fall 1792; “Me´moire pour l’hospice de St. Jacques du haut pas remise au bureau des impositions . . .” AC, Cd3; letter Claude Denis Cochin fils to the clerk of the Bureau des Hoˆpitaux, 29 Brumaire II (November 19, 1793). 70. Changes in domicile of Jacques Denis Cochin and his son and family are in AC, AC1 and Da2. 71. Testament of Pierre Simon Cochin, April 16, 1814, in AC, Da6. 72. For example, papers concerning charges brought against the family Bellanger, 1828–1833, AC, Da5, and the matters of the family Villemouble(?), December 13, 1806, AC, Da1. 73. “Je sais que la qualite´ de chef de famille entraˆine avec elle des charges qu’il ne de´savouera jamais[;] je ne fais que justice en lui confe´rant cet avantage, et je le remercie de toutes les garunties[sic] que sa conduit m’a donne´s [sic] jusqu’a` ce jour, puisqu’elles me font emporter l’espe´rance qu’il vivra toujours digne du nom qu’il porte.” Testament, Jacques Denis Cochin, “9bre 1827,” AC, Da1. 74. “Les pe`res et les me`res Comme vous me l’avez judicieusement observe´, se doivent a` leur famille. C’est apre`s une aussi juste pense´e que je me suis consulte´ avec le mienne.” “Je de´sire de tout mon coeur que tout que s’y ope´rera entre nous nous re´unisse s’il est possible par les noeuds encore plus serre´s les liens d’amite´ que nous nous sommes mutuellement noue´.” Claude Denis to Jean Leve´ June 24, 1786, and contract December 30, 1774, in AC, Ca4. 75. Contract of April 30, 1787, in AC, Ca4. 76. In the e´tat civil, rue du Temple; there is no record of Adolph being born in Paris. 77. “pour e´viter un proce`s scandaleux.” Papers on the case are in AC, filed in Denys Cochin’s papers, dated April 11, 1889. 78. Fair copy of a history of his family written by Aime´-Cyr Desforges de Vassens (1787–1875), cousin of Augustin Cochin, in AC, Db1. 79. In the E´tat Civil, Quai Henry IV, “Cochin.” 80. Mme. Augustin Cochin, Me´ditations de Mme Augustin Cochin (1830–1892), 2ie`me e´d. (Paris: Librairie de l’Art catholique, no date); first published, 1920. 81. Malte-Brun, 101. 82. Contract, April 25, 1640, in AC, A1. 83. AC, A1. 84. Marriage contract between “Claude Denis Cochin marchand bourgeois de Paris et Dlle Marie Anne Henry,” AC, A1. 85. “E´cuyer, doyen des anciens e´chevins et des anciens juges et consuls de Paris, doyen des compagnies des quarante porteurs de la caisse de Ste Genevie`ve, des Messagers jure´s de l’universite´, des commissaires des pauvres de cette ville et des marguilliers de la psse de St. Benoˆit, et ancien receveur charitable de l’hoˆpital ge´ne´ral.” Details of Claude Denis’s life are in AC, A1, and B1, and in Henry Cochin, “Mission Franc¸aise. . . .” 86. Augustin Cochin, preface to Jean Denis Marie Cochin, Manuel des fondateurs et

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des directeurs des premie`res e´coles de l’enfance, connue sous le nom de salles d’asiles, 4th ed. (Paris: Hachette, 1853). 87. Dictionnaire de biographie franc¸aise, vol. 9 (Paris: Letouzey et Ane´, 1961). 88. Pierre Cochin and his wife had at least eight children baptized at St.-Benoıˆt in the late 1680s: Pierre Bertin in 1683, Jean Pierre in 1684, Robert Lambert in 1685, Pierre Jean in 1687, Jean Franc¸ois in 1690, Marie Genevie`ve in 1691, Louise Genevie`ve in 1692, and another Pierre Bertin in 1694. E´tat Civil, Quai Henry IV, “Cochin.” Charles Nicholas Cochin, graveur and his wife Magdelaine Louis Hertemels had their daughter Magdelaine Genevie`ve baptized at St.-Benoıˆt in 1722. Ibid. 89. Claude Denis Cochin fils occasionally sent copies of the cure´’s devotional works to donors or potential donors to the hospice. The late cure´’s published works were so popular that by November 1790 their sale by the bookseller Mequignon l’aıˆne´ on rue de Cordeliers netted the hospice 3,000 livres. 90. Jean Denis Cochin, Entretiens sur les feˆtes, les jeuˆnes, usages et principales ce´re´monies de l’E´glise (Paris: G. Desprez, 1778); Exercises de la retraite pour l’intervalle de l’Ascension a` la Pentecoˆte, avec les paraphrases sur les psaulmes (Paris: Mequignon l’aıˆne´, 1786; orig. pub. 1778); Instructions on the Prayers and Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, translated from the French of M. Cochin and arranged for each Sunday throughout the year by W. Joseph Walter . . . (London: Keating, Brown and Keating, 1814); also published in Baltimore, 1820[?], and Dublin, 1843; Oeuvres sprituelles de feu . . . JeanDenis Cochin . . . (publie´ par M. Cochin son fre`re) (Paris: G. Desprez, 1784); Paraphrases de la prose DIES IRAE ou sentiments du preˆcheur qui de´sire travailler since`rement a` sa conversion (Paris: G. Desprez, 1782); Proˆnes, ou instructions familie`res sur les E´pıˆtres & E´vangiles de toute l’anne´e & sur les principales Feˆtes que l’E´glise ce´le`bre, 4 vols. (Paris: Chez Mequignon, 1786, 1787, 1791, 1804, 1830, 1831); Proˆnes, ou instructions sur les grandeurs de Je´sus-Christ dans les prophe´ties qui l’ont annonce´, dans les exemples de sa vie mortelle, dans ses miracles, et dans ses myste`res, 2 vols. (Paris: Chez Mequignon, 1806); Proˆnes sur toutes les parties du saint Sacrifice de la Messe (vol. 4 of Proˆnes, 1787) (Paris: Chez Mequignon, 1787, 1831, 1851, 1865). 91. Oeuvres d’Henri Cochin, 8 vols. (Paris: Fantin, 1821–1822). 92. Manuel, 4ie`me e´d., revue par Augustin Cochin (Paris: Librairie de L. Hachette, 1853); 5ie`me e´d., revue par Augustin Cochin et approve´ par Mgr. le Cardinal Arche´veˆque de Paris, pre´sident du Comite´ central de patronage des salles d’asiles (Paris: Libraire de L. Hachette, 1857). See “Notice sur la vie de M. Cochin et sur la fondation des salles d’asiles en France,” in Annales de charite´, no. 8 (1852), pp. 740–52. He and his brother were also responsible for putting a plaque in St.-Jacques du Haut-pas commemorating the life of the cure´ (l’abbe´ J. Grente, Une paroisse de Paris sous l’ancien re´gime; Saint Jacques du Hant Pas 1566–1792 [Paris-Auteuil: Imprimerie des Orphelins Apprentis-D. Fontaine, 1897], 188). See also Augustin’s article on his father in Les Bienfaiteurs de l’humanite´ (Paris: Librairie Paul Ducroq, 1878), 275–307. 93. Augustin Cochin 1823–1872; Ses lettres et sa vie. Avec une introduction et des notes par Henry Cochin, 2 vols. (Paris: Bloud & Gay, 1926); l’Hoˆpital Cochin: la laı¨cization, 1780–1885, ed. H.D.B.M. Cochin (Paris: n.p., 1890); Les Espe´rances chre´tiennes, publie´ avec une Pre´face et des notes par Henry Cochin (Paris: E. Plon, Nourrit, 1883). 94. Augustin Cochin, Les Socie´te´s de pense´e et la de´mocratie. E´tudes d’histoire re´volutionnaire (Paris: Plon, Nourrit, 1921); Augustin Cochin, Abstractions re´volutionnaires et re´alisme catholique (Paris: Descle´e de Brouwer, 1935); Augustin Cochin, Les

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Socie´te´s de pense´e et la Re´volution en Bretagne (1788–1789), 2 vols. (Paris: Libraire Honore´ Champion: Libraire de la socie´te´ d’histoire de France, 1925); Augustin Cochin and Charles Charpentier, Les Actes du gouvernement re´volutionnaire (23 aouˆt 1793–27 juillet 1794), 3 vols. (Paris: Librairie Ancienne Honore´ Champion, 1935). In March 1919 Denys Cochin agreed to pay Charles Charpentier, Augustin’s collaborator, 8,000 francs per year to prepare his son’s works for publication (AC, Ga89). 95. Roland Mousnier, The Institutions of France under the Absolute Monarchy 1598– 1789, 2 vols.; vol. 1, Society and the State, translated by Brian Pearce (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 120–24, 584–90; Marcel Marion, Dictionnaire des Institutions de la France aux XVIIe et XVIIIe sie`cles (Paris: Picard, 1923, 1979), pp. 195, 417–22. 96. “cette Mention a` laquelle s’opposent quelques de´cisions de la Commission du Sceau.” Undated letter, De Bray de Valfresne to Jean Denis Cochin. The letters concerning registering the title begin February 26, 1820, and end December 1821 and are in AC, Da1. Jacques Denis’s testament, dated 9bre 1827, includes a clause that authorizes the son to obtain the letters. A letter by baron Denys Cochin (b. 1913) of January 9, 1963, mentions that the son Jean Denis looked into obtaining the letters patent early in the July Monarchy (20 de´cembre 1830), when he was “de´pute´ de Paris et Maire du 12e Arrondissement.” AC, Da1. 97. It was still rightly theirs, however. Denys Cochin (1851–1922) inherited the title in 1887 at the death of his uncle. 98. “De´vouement civique, religion, travail, charite´, nobles sentiments, traditions ve´ne´rables perpe´tue´es de sie`cle en sie`cle, dans d’honorables vies, voila` les ve´ritables titres d’anoblissement de la famille Cochin.” Augustin Cochin, Introduction to Jean Denis Cochin, Manuel, 4ie`me e´d. (Paris: Hachette, 1853). 99. Roland Mousnier, The Institutions of France under the Absolute Monarchy, 1598– 1789, 2 vols. (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1979, 1984), 1:121; Mousnier notes that service to the state and the king were the predominant grounds for justifying nobility by the late eighteenth century.

Chapter 3

Wealth and Income

The perpetuation of the Cochin family and its ability to engage in public life depended on a substantial material foundation. Every family and individual depends upon the balance between absolute possession and complete expenditure. The focus of this balance is, in this chapter, the family. In this case, the Cochins’ notions of themselves was closely identified with the “wise” or prudent handling of money and property. Money made by the men of the family (or brought to the marriage by their wives) was put to the use of the family. In their circle, the issues of individual character, the familial and social supersede a purely material approach to possession and consumption. For the notables of nineteenth-century France, Andre´-Jean Tudesq has elaborated the various kinds of social wealth, or power, and Ade´line Daumard, the amount of material wealth, possessed by the Parisian bourgeoisie of the nineteenth century. Tudesq delineated the extent of their wealth in its broadest form; it included “their social power . . . their religious and familial associations . . . their economic activities.”1 Their education, the “conside´ration sociale” they enjoyed, their friendships, their offices, their way of speaking, their comportment, their confidence, their “social psychology,” as Tudesq elaborately put it, were all possessions of the notables, supports for their power, and hence part of their “social capital.” The wealth of inherited land, of industrial gain, of mercantile or professional accumulation were the bases, but not the sole source of power. We also know that some types of wealth reflected, or were preferred by, one or another social group.2 What is most important is that social capital and material capital were thought properly to go together. French public life after the Revolution recognized this as a principle. The reconstitution of French society and political life after the Revolution was thought to depend upon the fitness of those who possessed wealth. Political capability under the e´tat censitaire depended upon tax-

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able wealth. And everywhere in France, through most of the nineteenth century, the government sought out “notables,” men of wealth and social standing to represent and serve the government. Most theorists of bourgeois wealth have focused on the issue of accumulation and retention of money. In the case of the bourgeoisie, as for every other class, the issue of wealth has been important to historians. The most dynamic, the ascendant, the most “modern”—meaning, presumably, the least attached to the Old Re´gime—of all social groups, the bourgeoisie has been the object of scrutiny by historians, social critics, and economists: Karl Marx, Thorstein Veblen, Max Weber, and as we have mentioned, Bernhard Groethuysen, and countless others. The bourgeoisie’s production, handling, investment, and retention of wealth were at the heart of these scholars’ analysis of bourgeois social structure, behavior, and values. From Marx to the present day, studies of the bourgeoisie have linked wealth to consciousness, to culture, to the formation of personality more conspicuously than with any other class or social group. The laboring classes were as concerned, or possibly more concerned, with wealth, but their actions were habitually seen as under the sway of necessity or the discipline of work. The nobility, on the other hand, was so often concerned with modes of behavior, dominance, and deference, that wealth seemed only part of a constellation of concerns. The different layers of the bourgeoisie, old and new, traditional and dynamic, have relied on their wealth—their getting and spending of it—for their place in the historiography of the modern West. Many have thought that their very consciousness, their culture, their value system, their inner life, their most intimate relations with God, the universe, and other people were a result of this relationship to their purse, their capital, and their activities in gaining or maintaining wealth. There is another way of posing this problem of the relation of wealth and consciousness: identity. Part of the task of this chapter is to describe this relationship of wealth and identity in as accurate a way as possible, to see how this very crucial issue played out in the lives of the Cochins. The point is not how important wealth was to them, but what role it played and how the Cochins were conscious of relating to their wealth. Putting aside all of the generalizations of social theorists, what were the realities of their lives? We have been without mediating levels of knowledge of the bourgeoisie, offered only global generalizations or the real, but mute, records of possession and inheritance.3 Finally, since no social identity is formed permanently or in a vacuum, did the Cochins’ relations to wealth change in changing circumstances from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries? In the nineteenth century the French bourgeoisie attempted to found an entire political culture on the basis of property and wealth, as Pierre Rosanvallon has shown.4 Not wealth, but its ownership, was important. The possession of wealth was thought to have singular effects on, or to be the result of, special and particular personalities. This factor might not have had the prominence it did were it not for the political crisis that resulted from the Revolution: the need

Wealth and Income

51

for stability through promotion of a new elite that included the bourgeoisie to run the country. The political order had to be reconstructed after the Revolution, and this was interrupted at least six times in the nineteenth century—under Napoleon Bonaparte, the Bourbons, the Orleans monarchy, the Second Republic, the second Empire, and the Third Republic. Stability was a problem, and wealth was afraid of instability. Wealth played a prominent role in helping, each time, to constitute a conservative order of nobles and commoners capable of withstanding revolutionary assaults. This included the bourgeoisie; this was their entre´e into politics and social life after the Revolution. Yet this public life depended heavily on the family. Wealth passed through the family. Family values, along with individual decision, and, naturally, opportunity and accident helped determine the choices of professions and the use of the wealth individuals produced. In turn, wealth and economic activity affected family life (as well as social standing), both providing and removing opportunities. But these general statements about wealth and bourgeois life cover a very large field of contingency and choice, as we shall see in the examples of the Cochins. SHIFTING SOURCES OF THE FAMILY’S MATERIAL BASIS For as long as they appear in the historical record, the Cochins possessed wealth. Although they might have been only moderately wealthy as merchants in the early days in Montlhe´ry, they seemed to have planned and worked toward the expansion of their business in an energetic way—a path that eventually brought them to Paris. Claude Cochin (1598–?) and Jehan Saunier were merchants from Montlhe´ry when visiting rue St.-Jacques in the 1640s; the document that identifies them was a contract for a piece of land near Montlhe´ry that they were renting for two years.5 This contract describes them as both living “en la maison de la galerie” on rue St.-Jacques; Bour’s history of a collateral branch of the family claims the Cochins had owned the house since 1621.6 Jacques Hillairet’s historical directory of Paris provides no indication which house this was. Bour’s description puts it next to or near the Ursuline convent at no. 255, across from the seminary of St. Magloire. Most likely it was what is 247 rue St.-Jacques today. This contract and the fact that there was a branch of the Cochins headed by Pierre Cochin, “marchand e´picier de Paris,” in the 1680s, indicates that by the time Claude Cochin had settled in Paris in the 1680s, Cochins of his branch and others had been on rue St.-Jacques, likely for business reasons, for as many as two generations. Our current notion that business in the early modern period was supported in a family setting could find no better illustration. In the seventeenth century, the Cochins of Montlhe´ry may have been merciers even then, though Claude is the first identified in any records as “marchand mercier.” Were the Cochins selling Parisian cloth or luxury goods to the inhabitants of Montlhe´ry, or were they selling in Paris goods brought from their

52

Family Dynasty, Revolutionary Society

town? We do not know. Likely when Claude arrived in the 1680s, the family was wealthy enough to own property on rue St.-Jacques; they later owned 107 and 214 rue St.-Jacques in the early nineteenth century and rented the apartments out.7 When Claude joined the mercer’s guild of Paris in February 21, 1688, he lived in the house of the gallery on rue St.-Jacques. He was a responsible vestryman of St. Benoıˆt in 1694, 1700, and 1727,8 and married a Parisian merchant’s daughter, Marie Claude Paris (d. 1750). Few colonization were gentler. From this arrival until 1768, three generations of Cochins, Claude, Claude Denis, and his son Claude Denis, earned their living as merchants, perhaps each one with a Leve´ father, son, or grandson on rue St.-Jacques. We hear no more of any traveling, and evidently the mercer’s guild remained important to this family; Claude Denis pe`re joined in 1745 and was appointed its overseer in 1746, the year before his son Claude Denis signed the rolls. The last of the Cochins to join was the generation of Jacques Denis, who appeared on the roll in 1772.9 The business certainly paid, as we can generally sketch out through the financial records that remain. In November 1748, Claude Denis married Marie Anne Henry. Their marriage contract is the earliest detailed description of a part of the Cochin’s wealth. First were listed the witnesses present—in this case an impressive number—thirty-three names were given among the family. Then came mention of the goods. M. Henry, “marchand bourgeois” living on rue St.-Denis, provided his daughter with a dowry of 40,000 livres, but apparently added to this notes on the “compagnie des Indes” and the royal lottery. The groom came with 30,000 livres, given by his parents to him on December 6, 1746, on the “socie´te´ commerciale” his parents had with Madame and M. Leve´. They promised more than this, however; December 26 following, they handed over one-half, not one-quarter, interest in the company. Further, the groom, Claude Denis, paid a 1,000 livre income to his bride—representing a likely capital of 20,000 livres. She was allowed in addition the purchase of 6,000 livres of goods for the household. In consideration of this, Claude Denis promised to invest the 40,000 livre dowry in the business. The Cochins here seem to have greatly benefited from the marriage, for both the family’s base of support, its mercery business, and its human capital were augmented by this marriage.10 Where in relative terms did a new household of this worth stand relative to all others in 1748? Put differently, how well had sixty years in the mercery business on rue St.-Jacques paid? Fortunately we have a way to know this. Daumard’s and Furet’s study of 2,597 marriage contracts in 1749 gives an approximate picture of the Cochin’s prosperity in this, the second generation born in Paris.11 The sum of the new household wealth in this Cochin-Henry marriage places it at the exceptionally high end of nonnoble wealth. Among the category “maıˆtres-marchands,” no household is recorded as starting with more than 50,000 livres; among “ne´gociants,” in only five of eighteen cases was the household wealth more than 50,000 livres; (four between 50,000 and 100,000, and one even reached 300,000

Wealth and Income

53

livres). Of all types of possessors of such a level of wealth between 50,000 and 100,000 livres, over half are “officiers civils roturiers” and “noblesse.” The nobility had almost a complete monopoly on levels of wealth exceeding 100,000 livres.12 The Cochins’ was a considerable fortune by almost any accounting for a nonnoble. Yet even this level of wealth did not include all Claude Denis’s inheritance from his father. The division of goods between Claude Denis Cochin with his children in 1764 gives a clear notion of how this scion of the family got his start in life. At his marriage, Claude Denis invested half the 40,000 livre dowry in the Cochin-Leve´ business, and the couple and their children thereupon renounced claims on the family of Mme. Cochin, the Henrys. Half the dowry was put into a community of goods to which Claude Denis also contributed 20,000 livres (the Henry family later added 20,000 for the children). Between the end of 1748 and the end of 1764—sixteen years—Cochin’s initial 30,000 livres invested in the Cochin-Leve´ business had grown to 36,702 livres, a solid, but hardly spectacular, growth in wealth. Claude Denis took over his father’s part of the business in “Marchandises de Draperie et Mercerie” in several stages. In 1748 young Claude Denis was given 30,000 livres; this share of the business was actually a gift, and he was initially indebted to his parents for 13,471.10 livres because half the Cochins’ half of the business which he received (i.e., onequarter of the total) was worth 43,471 livres. One half the Cochin-Leve´ business in 1748 was worth 86,943, and Claude Denis’s profits for a quarter of the business in 1748–1764 amounted to 6,702. But Claude Denis fils had to pay interest of 1,347.3 to his parents for the 26,000 he by then owed his father; in 1754 his parents had turned over their other quarter of the business. In March 1754 Claude Denis pe`re ceded to Claude Denis the remainder of the Cochin half of the Cochin-Leve´ business: This quarter had in the interim grown to 108,026.92, so Claude Denis’s total ownership for these two quarters amounted to 189,824.19.6 (its value as of December 26, 1753). This increase from 86,943 in 1748 to 108,026.92 in 1753 for the valuations of each quarter implies only a modest rise in value, if the two figures are comparable—which they may not be; the contracts are not clear enough to be confident of the comparison. A 22,000 livre increase in value over five years represented a low rate of return. At this point he was indebted to his father for 108,625.9.2.13 This example makes crystal clear how the family was the conduit for wealth, and that the grandfather Claude and the father Claude Denis had run their business successfully. Claude Denis was also a good steward of the family’s resources. Due to the early death of his wife, Marie Anne Henry (1727–1763), we have an inventory of his worth before dividing his estate among his children. In October 1764 Claude Denis’s estate was worth 215,000 livres.14 The earlier generation had used wealth in its own way. Claude Denis pe`re had prospered and took on the almost classic signs of success—overseer of the Franciscans’ foreign funds, processionary of the relics of Ste. Genevie`ve, charitable collector for the Hoˆpital Ge´ne´ral, and alderman.15 He bought a country

54

Family Dynasty, Revolutionary Society

house with gardens in Chaˆtillon, Seine to retire from the city (this was sold in 1785). Beginning in 1771, old Claude Denis was living in a small house with gardens on rue St.-Jacques next to the seminary of St. Magloire, likely in retirement. The long accumulation of capital brought not just wealth and comfort, but also honors, to Claude Denis; he had fulfilled an ambition that naturally came with success in business for one “tre`s attache´ aux privile`ges de l’ancienne marchandise de Paris,” as characterized by his great-great-great-grandson. He was an important figure not just in the neighborhood, but in the entire city of Paris. After his death in the summer of 1786, his estate was divided into three parts, one to his only surviving daughter, Mme. Marie Jeanne Despeignes, and one each to his sons Jacques Denis and Claude Denis. Deductions were made for doctors and a payment of 22,000 livres to Despeignes, the estranged husband of Marie Rosalie, his other daughter. He left money to his servants, as was customary, and to the poor of the hospice of St.-Jacques du Haut-pas.16 He left the hospice an income of 700 livres per year, which at 5 percent amounted to 14,000 in capital, and arrearages from a royal pension amounting to 2,500 livres. Substantial incomes were also given for four low masses for him, his wife, and descendants in perpetuity at St.-Jacques du Haut-pas and four at St.-Jacques and St.-Philippe at Chaˆtillon. But all these expenses (46,000 livres) agreed to by the inheritors were small compared to the total estate. At his death Claude Denis Cochin pe`re was worth 328,000 livres. After expenses, 282,375 livres, 17 sous, 6 deniers was left to be divided three ways among his children, providing each with 94,125 livres. In his will Claude Denis claimed he received only 67 livres, 6 sous, 8 deniers from his father, old Claude Cochin, at the end of 1750, when he inherited one-third of his parents’ estate.17 If so, it was Claude Denis, not his father, who made the family fortune; was he helped by the family into the Cochin-Leve´ business? Whatever happened, it is clear that Claude Denis pe`re had accumulated a great deal—far more, as we have seen, than many bourgeois or merchants. Comfort, possessions, and material goods it certainly brought. If it all were invested at 5 percent interest, the standard, it would have produced 16,400 livres in income per year. This was a great deal of money, but not at the top of Parisian income. At the apex of the parliamentary world in Paris the wealthiest members were earning 50–80,000 livres in income on their investments, and a number of them mentioned by Bluche, such as Samuel Bernard Lepeletier de Saint-Fargeau, had significantly greater worth and much higher incomes. Bluche characterized as “me´diocrite´ relative” parliamentary fortunes from 150,000 to 400,000 livres, since he estimated that 8,000 or even 15,000 a year was not enough to live appropriately in Paris.18 The Cochin’s was, then, a “bourgeois” level of wealth and must have been even more so under Louis XVI. Claude Denis, covered with honors, had brought significant wealth, certainly freedom from want, but his money did not place him in the stratospheric levels along with the nobles and parliamentarians—the great public men. Bourgeois in origin, his wealth was bourgeois in scale. The great wealth of the important public men of his day was usually the product of several generations of accu-

Wealth and Income

55

mulation. Claude Denis’s fortune appears to have been his own, and, hence smaller. At the end of his life old Claude Denis’s wealth was overwhelmingly invested in rentes—incomes from the Crown or the city of Paris.19 The bourgeois who succeeded so well in the ordered, protected world of eighteenth-century Paris in his retirement relied on the state to turn his wealth into regular, reliable income, almost universally at 5 percent (le dernier vingt). The state was one of the few providers of incomes, for commerical banking did not exist until the end of the eighteenth century. Yet this arrangement of his wealth tells us very little. His investments are those of a merchant almost eighty-eight, long retired from life. It does not tell us how he used his capital as an active young man. The duties on inheritance between living relatives were no heavier than those inherited at death.20 There is, for example, no mention of real estate on rue St.-Jacques, but it is clear that Claude Denis pe`re had given the house, and perhaps other real estate, to his children. We are left to presume that in his productive years— from the 1720s to the 1760s—almost all his wealth was in the Cochin-Leve´ business. CLAUDE DENIS FILS AS DISBURSAR As his merchant father reached the age of retirement from his lucrative trade, his son Claude Denis, himself doing respectably, left the mercery business and turned to public office. He and Jean Denis Leve´ were partners in this enterprise, the second (or perhaps the third) generation of the partnership. The story of their leaving the business and acquiring the office is a complicated one. In December 1768 Claude Denis paid 200,000 livres for one of twenty new offices of disbursar for the city hall (payeur de rentes de l’hoˆtel de ville). An edict of June 1768 raised the number of such offices from 64 to 74.21 Leve´ brought half the office (as “alternatif”) and may have put up more money. Leve´ apparently bought Cochin out for one-third the cost of the office, though Claude Denis remained the titular holder.22 They bought the office from a fellow parishioner at St.-Benoıˆt who also lived on rue St.-Jacques, Pierre Antoine Desplasses (perhaps a relative of the abbe´ Desplasses who later helped Claude Denis have the letters patent for the hospice approved). Claude Denis came into possession of a public office where prestige value was effectively as important as its financial value. For the latter twenty years of his life, Claude Denis was “conseiller au Roy, Tre´sorier Receveur ge´ne´ral et payeur ancien triennial de rentes de l’Hoˆtel de ville de Paris.” Instead of being a merchant, he was the proud owner of a royal office of the city. The boilerplate hyperbole of his appointment characterized him as “notre bien aime´ Claude Denis Cochin. Et de ses sures[?] loyaute´ prudhomme . . . capacite´, experience fidelite´ et affections de notre service.”23 Along with the status there were the important functions of the office. Disbursars were important functionaries. Created in the late sixteenth century, these offices existed because of the Crown’s and cities’ inability to

56

Family Dynasty, Revolutionary Society

raise sufficient funds and the absence of commercial banks that reliably paid interest on capital. Disbursars were accounting officers who sold government bonds earning 5 percent to the holder of the bond; the disbursar also earned 5 percent. The office called for honesty and careful recordkeeping, at which the two men were without doubt very good. It was a different way of making a living from that of the merchant: making money from the investments of others in the state; Claude Denis’s papers contain no explicit reason for the change. Perhaps it was a surer long-term investment, and it meant an advance in status. There was no decline of energy or ability from the father to the son—no search for an easy option on the part of a wealthier son. Then a widower for five years, Claude Denis may have been looking for a change. MEANING OF THE CHANGE TO OFFICE Yet even this investment, though hereditary, was not secure. Disbursars, like many other offices, were subject to the Crown’s practice of abolishing offices only to reestablish them at higher prices.24 Their office—and many others—was discontinued in July 1772. Claude Denis and Jean Denis Leve´ were paid 425,000 livres reimbursement, each receiving 212,500. The two had to turn over the parchments of the office but could keep the title. They were evidently not discouraged. By September 1774 they purchased another office of the same kind. This one came on the market when it reverted to the descendants of Martin Le Dauler. The current holder was unable to come up with the additional money when the Crown raised the price of the office from 425,000 to 600,000 livres. Cochin and Leve´ did. The office offered a substantial and safe investment, producing high returns in good years. Claude Denis’s account books show that in the 1770s it earned each of its holders a yearly return of about 20,000.25 Thus the office actually paid a bit better (6.6 percent) than the standard 5 percent available elsewhere. This did not approach the spectacular growth in the wealth of Claude Denis pe`re, the great merchant of the family. The office was, instead, a prestigious, transmissible property.26 Yet, however well Claude Denis and Leve´ maintained their office, they could not control the larger finances of the kingdom. By the late 1780s, the crisis in public power and royal finances had become acute. The public structures that provided the Cochins with stability and prosperity, that gave them distinctions with which to measure their successes, that provided order and security for a momentous decade, began to falter. In the Cochins’ experience, the changes on public life brought about by the Revolution did not occur overnight. The disbursars were not immediately abolished by the National Assembly and proved themselves to be very useful administrators. Claude Denis, through his office, was a civil servant (fonctionnaire) under the new re´gime as he was under the old. The National Assembly, through the National Treasury, demanded periodic reports from all the disbursars. And as a disbursar he dutifully carried out the task of liquidating the rentes du Clerge´ in October 1790, following the adoption

Wealth and Income

57

of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy that summer. While it was flattering to receive the praise he did when assigned the rentes du Clerge´, it was also a great deal of unremunerated work; a M. Gurbeu [?], probably of the de´cimes, charged him with the extra work in the most flattering terms: “I plan, Sir, to send to you the rentes du Clerge´; they consist of 12,232 accounts. . . . it’s a substantial amount of extra work, but it is also for me one more reason to give you such an important task, with all the confidence that it will be done well.”27 Claude Denis’s assignment required innumerable visits with officials concerned with the incomes that were to be paid from an institution that no longer existed, and whose debts were assumed by a state not prone to clarity. All claims on the 12,000 contracts had to be verified, and starting in January 1791 Claude Denis’s work had to be approved by M. de Quinson, former receveur of the clergy working in the office of Deschapelles at the Treasury. Payments had to be made in careful stages due to the precariousness of the state’s finances. He was sometimes given bad directions. For example, Claude Denis was instructed in October 1792 that payments to the “Esprit St. Louis,” which had been authorized, were now canceled. Should bond payments continue to be paid to foreigners? The Ministry of Finances wasn’t sure about the details of its new responsibility. A commission was being set up to decide in November 1790. The ministry agreed with Claude Denis that the public had to be notified that these bonds were going to be paid, and how. Claude Denis was authorized to put up posters; perhaps, he was told, he could place notices in the public newspapers, or put up signs at his office.28 And beginning in 1790, successive laws required that all the disbursars meet new requirements. They had to bring two and a half years of payments up to date in eight months; provide proofs of revolutionary contributions and residency for all recipients of bonds; disband 20,000 accounts made out to the religious congregations; and help the Treasury draw up an account of public debt. The disbursars were given plenty to do. Since a great many offices were being redefined or discontinued by the National Assembly, the disbursars attempted to publicize their usefulness with the aim of prolonging their existence. Evidently the new impositions did not discourage them from keeping the office. They geared up in late 1790. Printed pamphlets emphasized the public benefits of their office and asked for a delay in their suppression. “Discussion dans un club particulier au sujet du payment des Rentes et des arre´arages de la Dette Public,” probably published late 1790, likely had little effect. The offices were formally suppressed on August 21, 1793; but the holders of the offices continued their labors and the state remained obligated to the owners for the value of the office. Disbursars remained under suspicion, for in messidor and prairial II (May–July 1794) laws were passed that any change in the state of the governments’ bonds payments had to be reported; Deputy Cambon met with officials at the Treasury and War departments and was only then dissuaded by Deschapelles and others from seizing all registers of the disbursars to look for forgeries.29 But by this time it was the son, Jacques Denis, and not Claude Denis, who

58

Family Dynasty, Revolutionary Society

was receiving the letters from the Treasury. In September 1793 he had received power of attorney and the office from his father.30 Claude Denis apparently had suffered a stroke and could not use his right hand. A year later his three children provided him an income on which to live.31 In 1795 Jacques Denis was empowered to be treasurer of the hospice and curator for his uncle and namesake in place of his father. These papers were now addressed to “Cochin pe`re et fils.” Then living at 107 rue St.-Jacques, Jacques Denis spent part of his time visiting his stricken father at 214 rue St.-Jacques. Yet even at this late date, 1793, his father’s office still paid interest to its owner, 15,000 per year on 300,000. Jacques Denis filled out an income report for the “section de l’Observatoire,” probably for taxes, for 1792 for his father. Claude Denis’s total income was 19,420.7; 15,000 from the disbursar office, the remainder included 1,824 from the rental of part of the house and gardens at 107 rue St.-Jacques.32 The 5 percent income from the office was to cease at the end of 1794 according to the law of August 24, 1793. But as late as 1796, printed petitions were sent to the Council of 500 from the “heretofore” disbursars asking that they be given more time—and some financial return—for closing their accounts. The petitions complained that the disbursars reluctantly supported all the weight of the Revolution and had lost a great part their fortune but continued to give service to the public and government.33 A second pamphlet the following year including Cochin’s name demanded “justice” for their labors in the form of a new “profitable replacement” for their office that would be useful to the Republic.34 In 1795 Claude Denis’s incapacitated brother (Jacques Denis) died in a sanitarium at Villejuif, and Claude Denis’s four children received half Jacques’s estate—over 88,000 F.35 Claude Denis died on 16 frimaire V (December 6, 1796) at his home, 214 rue St.-Jacques, and his son Jacques Denis continued liquidating his father’s office. It was a substantial task: 169 accounts, or e´tats, worth over 4.5 million francs.36 Yet by then Jacques Denis had experience in this kind of work; in August 1796 he had been appointed head of a new bureau established to discharge the “heretofore” disbursars of their accounts.37 In this family of careful accounting, there is no record of reimbursement for Claude Denis’s office. The Republic and the Empire were not inclined to create “suitable replacements” for the disbursar offices, and it was not the first time the Cochins complained that the new economic times hurt them, as we shall see. Claude Denis fils left a modest estate: only 90,000 F. according to the divisions of goods of 22 brumaire XII (November 14, 1803). The estate that, as it turned out, was gambled on the disbursar office was what had remained after he had already fulfilled his obligations to his children: four daughters and two sons had received a total of 215,000 F. in October 1764 after their mother died. In 1803 four inheritors received 22,508 each of the 90,032 left.38 This accounting valued Claude Denis’s house and garden—214 rue St.-Jacques—at 24,374 F. Most of his other wealth was in government bonds—one large one, dated 8 flore´al III (April 27, 1795), was worth 41,060 F.

Wealth and Income

59

JACQUES DENIS COCHIN, LANDOWNER However large this sum that the eldest son Jacques Denis received at the settlement from his father’s estate in 1803, it was small in comparison to what Jacques Denis was worth in his own right by that time—by his own accounting, about 345,000 F.39 Moreover, by this time Claude Denis’s son had put his wealth in a chaˆteau with farms, and he bought a second chaˆteau in 1812. Likely spurred by what happened to his father’s office, Jacques Denis turned away from government bonds by the beginning of the nineteenth century (the mercery guild no longer existed as corporate body). He put his money into land—the traditional haven for wealth in times of political and social upheaval. Jacques Denis survived the political storms he so detested, and, in a time of rapid change that ended the stable, structured world of his father, grandfather, and greatgrandfather, he made a great deal of money. He was every inch a product of his world. He was baptized by his uncle. In February and March 1773 he was given an account of his inheritance and put under the tutelage of his paternal uncle by marriage, Charles Constantine Despeignes.40 The documents show the father giving the son 30,000 livres.41 This was an excellent way for a merchant’s son to learn about money. In October 1764, when his mother died, he had already claim to one-quarter of the 73,157 livres, 3 sous, 3 deniers left to the children from his parents’ estate.42 Yet Jacques Denis never earned his living as a merchant. He went immediately to the University of Paris to study literature for two years and then studied another year under a Dr. Clement, “Avocat au Parlement et Professeur Royal de Droit Franc¸ois,” and passed his examination in July 1776. The next month “Jacobus Dionysius Cochin Parisinus,” aged nineteen, was accepted as a lawyer in Paris by the parlement.43 Jacques Denis may have earned substantial income as a lawyer, and he had several prominent families as clients. But twelve years after his reception as a lawyer in Paris—at his marriage (the next we hear of him)— Jacques Denis was not making his money as a lawyer but was dealing in banker’s notes payable at Caisse d’Escompte and on the Royal Treasury. In other words, Jacques Denis was a private banker, not unusual in nineteenthcentury Paris before the advent of commercial banks. His wealth consisted of income capital on the Estates of Burgundy and public loans. What was most notable about Jacques Denis was his attitude toward money and his gift for making it. He left behind the most detailed account books of the Cochins. We are doubly fortunate, for they cover the crucial years from the Revolution through the Restoration, giving us a clear picture of how he made the transition and how he felt about the events he was witnessing. His accounting in August 1788 showed total assets of 297,899 livres, 19 sous and liabilities of 200,423 livres, 13 sous, 7 deniers, giving him a worth of 97,476 livres, 6 sous, 5 deniers. Over 206,000 livres of his wealth was in banker’s notes, most due from the Caisse d’Escompte.44 Jacques Denis confirmed and continued his father’s departure from merchant wealth. Claude Denis and

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Family Dynasty, Revolutionary Society

Jacques Denis were not the only members of the family to have done so. Jacques Denis’s mentor, Charles Despeignes (Claude Denis’s brother-in-law), was a disbursar by 1773 and may have been one long before Claude Denis and Leve´ first bought their office in 1768. Thus, though Jacques Denis could not carry on in the milieu of his father, after the Revolution he found a very similar occupation. Jacques Denis increased his wealth substantially during the Revolution and Empire. The following table shows the growth in assets and income from 1789 to 1819; only the interval 1792–1797 and a few years during the later Empire and the Restoration are missing. Figures are recorded in livres to 1792; thereafter in francs. Year

Net Worth

Income

aouˆt 1789

245,066

14,165.2.1

"

1790

271,077

15,723.2.1

"

1792

302,974.9.9

11,702.13.4

"

1797

424,139

16,479.15

(1798: bought La Roche) "

1799

224,746

12,830

"

1800

261,273

13,025.1

"

1801

306,419

15,755.1

"

1802

331,559

19,130

"

1803

344,703

21,022

"

1804

368,989

21,421.4

"

1805

389,557

23,635

"

1806

422,671.14

21,892

"

1807

454,914

21,247

"

1808

470,609

21,760

"

1810

483,831

21,343

"

1811

514,568

25,815

"

1812

535,073

23,986.98

(1812: bought Montceaux) "

1813

501,158

17,849

"

1819

487,548

17,38445

This very impressive accumulation of wealth during some of the most tumultuous years of French history hides important changes in investment. Jacques Denis invested in the state but was subject to losses at its hands. In March 1792 he bought a government bond payable to his son and wife.46 Once during the Revolution he calculated his losses, including his five years of service in closing his father’s office and the accounts of the other disbursars, at 137,500 F. He estimated his total loss due to the Revolution and the Empire, if depreciation of

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assignats was included, at 358,199 F. In November 1799 he drew up an account of the state’s indebtedness to him after the final closing of his father’s office (he was dividing the estate between the four inheritors). The total owed amounted only to 33,537.11.8.47 Included in this were nine “contributions patriotiques” totaling 5,921 livres, 5 sous, 11 deniers. Elsewhere he noted that these losses did not include “revolutionary sacrifices made to conserve my life.”48 Special times called for special expenditures. In 1810 he paid 5,000 to hire a replacement for his son Jean Denis, then aged 21, when he was conscripted.49 He was clearly unhappy with these new pressures, but he paid up. In essence then, these various differing accounts show that the collapse and reorganization of the state resulted in losses, though these losses did not produce a significant setback in the family’s fortunes. But what did this mean to a man such as Jacques Denis? Jacques Denis’s attitude toward these losses—and, it must be said, toward the Revolution—was inseparable from his ethic of accumulation. After his account drawn up on August 4, 1799, showing his assets at 224,746 F. with an income of 12,830 F., he penned his reflections on the past year: While this sum appears modest, I am well content to have saved in the conditions under which we live, to have met all my engagements, to have carried all my burdens which are Heavy. Thanks be to divine Providence who has never abandoned me and whom I adore with all my heart. This August 4, 1799.50

Jacques Denis depicted himself as a hard worker, an honest businessman, steering the best course he could in an evil and mismanaged world. Even when his assets grew, as in the next year, restraint was in order.51 These efforts in changing circumstances were not wholly in his control. Those who strove were blessed and protected by God, in his view. He closed the year writing one of the strongest paeans to the efforts of the honest businessman: “Thanks be given to Eternal Providence who does not abandon his creatures who by their work and order fulfill the purpose of creation. This August 5, 1800.”52 At the end of accounts for one year he emphasized a classic moral reconciling of wealth and luxury: Filled with the deepest gratitude I see and made fruitful the sweat of my brow, wealth it has given me, to not increase it on to my children, if it so wills, a family

that Providence has blessed my works I ask for the Grace never to abuse the or keep it by illicit means, and to pass property. This August 1, 1801.53

In 1805 he noted that the older he became the more he recognized “les effets de le divine Providence.”54 Business conditions were the center of attention in these pages, with politics appearing only as it affected the business climate. Jacques Denis’s notebooks always joined business and “honest” and moral behavior. His entry for August

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1800 fretted over unearned gains because the government raised the interest rates; that for August 1810 deplored the poor business conditions for the honest man, and in so doing, he made one of this few references to the world-shattering events around him: 1. debts . . . brought about by the three causes below, 2. the halt of business because of the political state of France, and the worst of outcomes for those who do business honestly, 3. . . . the bad faith and rampant immorality given free rein by the lamentable French Revolution.55

Whenever the obstacles to honest business appear, Jacques Denis’s notebooks do not distinguish between the Revolution and the Empire. Redolent with complaints, the accounts also show steady gains. He was earning from 21,000 to 25,000 F. per year from 1806 to 1812. But the end of the Empire showed up in Jacques Denis’s accounts as problem years. In 1813, earning only 17,849 F., he noted “la stagnation comple`te des affaires.” Political change brought business disruptions, and Jacques Denis expanded on his complaints about 1813: “In 1813 and in the year following the end of the last government, and the birth of the present one absorbed part of my resources because of the two invasions that took place that affected my properties; [and] in accepting unpaid public office.”56 He noted that his income between 1813 and 1819 was reduced by two-thirds. Part of the reason for this was the bad economic times, and part his serving in the office of mayor of the 12th arrondissement of Paris, which took time away from his business. Nevertheless, he took pride in supporting his family and those who lived on the farms and properties he owned.57 These fears of disorder produced another expression of Jacques Denis’s discontent with the political and economic climate. He wrote a signed memoir, intended for the government; it is undated but was evidently written around 1815. Jacques Denis was clearly upset at the extraordinary taxes imposed as a result of the invasions and payments to the allies. He complained in the memoir how the recent occupations affected three classes of businessmen differently. Property owners (“les proprie´taires”) lost a great deal; merchants, or tradesmen (“les commerc¸ants”) experienced losses but still had reason to expect they would recover; but the capitalists (“les Capitalistes”) sought advantages wherever they could find them. According to Jacques Denis, these last were the self-centered in a world of misery, showing “the greatest indifference to the evils around them.”58 Jacques Denis condemned them as “egotists” in a hurting world.59 Property owners and merchants were oppressed by the occupation of foreign troops, the interruption of trade, military conscription, and the “organizing” of workers.60 Jacques Denis was clearly shocked at the instability of the economic and political climate during the Empire and the beginning of the Restoration. His complaints were from someone who felt himself a victim and who remained concerned about the future. Moreover, he did not conceal his disdain for the new men appearing in public life. Among capitalists he included

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former officers of Napoleon’s army, “engorged with riches (“gorge´e de richesse”) taken from the nations of Europe whose armies now occupied France— and Jacques Denis’s estates. The acts of these men rebounded on their fellow countrymen. His memoir closed with a plea for a 5 percent tax on those incomes. To this long and impassioned proposal Jacques Denis received no reply.61 He apparently wrote earlier to the Chamber of Deputies after passage of a June 13, 1814, law for “contributions extraordinaires,” complaining out his losses and demanding justice for property owners.62 Evidently he received no reply to this either, nor to similar pleas addressed to the prefect of the Seine and the minister of finance. It is clear that Jacques Denis’s strong sense of order—financial and moral— rarely touched the political spectrum. His complaints imply that he would welcome the Bourbons with relief, as a sign of order, and order was valued above all. He also displayed a sense of duty in accepting the offer of public office under the Restoration.63 But his sense of duty should be put in context. The shift of merchant or professional wealth into property is a staple of most discussions of French economic stagnation and the formation of notables before and after the Revolution.64 In purchasing land, he joined the slower rhythms of agricultural life. Now a landowner, Jacques Denis Cochin was vulnerable as never before to invading armies and just as vulnerable to domestic politics. He had, ironically, invested in farms and chaˆteaux as a refuge from the disorder of the Revolution and the Empire. Of course, the Cochins had purchased property before Jacques Denis invested most of his wealth in land. In the early nineteenth century Jacques Denis still owned buildings on rue St.-Jacques that may have been in the family for a long time: one home on rue St.-Jacques yielded 3,600 livres in rent per year and the one on rue Canivet brought in 2,650 livres.65 But Jacques Denis was the first Cochin to invest the substantial part of his wealth in land. In 1798 Jacques Denis bought a chaˆteau with farms, named La Roche, situated on the Paris-Fontainebleau road. It was near the village of PlessisChenet, commune of Coundray, near Corbeil, in Seine-et-Oise. It was thirty-six kilometers from Paris, six from Corbeil, and twenty kilometers southeast of the Cochin’s town of origin, Montlhe´ry. It had belonged to M. Alexandre Cle´an de Francastel, “huissier, commissaire presuno [sic] veterans au chaˆtelet,” who had purchased it in 1772; thus it had already served as a refuge for an important Parisian gentleman. When he died, his heirs, the Bre´ant family, sold it to Jacques Denis in April 1798.66 The chaˆteau consisted of a “belle maison” with a large paved courtyard, orangeries, and two gardens. The whole was surrounded by six hectares of woods, lawns, more gardens, and an ornamental lake on grounds landscaped down to the Seine. La Roche was surrounded by iron grillwork with the main entrance on the road to Fontainebleau. Jacques Denis added woods and gardens; by 1820 he had spent 30,000 F. on landscaping and plantings.67 The surviving evidence suggests Jacques Denis paid 180,000 F. for La Roche.68 This was not the end of his purchases. By one accounting Jacques Denis bought, between 1798 and 1812, nine more farms totaling 99 hectares and 15 acres of

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woods in the area.69 By 1820, these holdings alone brought in almost 4,000 F. per year. Near the turn of the century, Jacques Denis bought a farm facing a chaˆteau in the tiny village of Montceaux, about 1.5 kilometers south of PlessisChenet. At 6 P.M. on Wednesday, November 25, 1812, the bidding for a chaˆteau and lands at Montceaux—over 130 hectares—opened at the chambers of the notary Chambrette, 7, place des Victoires. The notary Sebastien Prosper Tarbe´ gave the highest bid of 298,000 F. and Jacques Denis stepped forward, identifying himself as the buyer. The following month the contract was signed. In March 1813 Jacques Denis paid M. de la Porte Lalame, rector of the University of Bern, half the principal and paid the balance, including interest, in installments until April 1818.70 Thus, a second chaˆteau and farms, “plante´ a` la franc¸aise” following the designs of Le Noˆtre, were added to the family holdings. The chaˆteau was already rented to a Count Merlini, and Jacques Denis and his son Jean Denis agreed to make repairs. The income from these farms was impressive. In 1828 Jacques Denis calculated his net income at 30,369.65 F. But his gross income was 49,695.65 F., most from the following sources: home rue Carnet

3,600

home rue St.-Jacques

2,650

house Bourgaret

1,500

farm Montceaux

8,400

farm LaRoche

5,100

farm L’Ecu annual income in:

9,092 wood grapes

30 shares Banque de France

2,000 300 2,400

5% perpetual Rentes state

10,230

5% perpetual Rentes state

738

Total (with other incomes)

49,695.6571

Jacques Denis was paying for these purchases into 1817 and 1818, and by then he had successfully shifted almost all his assets into land, either purchasing or renting rural properties.72 It was a good time to invest in land. During the first two decades after the purchase of La Roche, and while purchasing Montceaux, land rents went up steadily and impressively. Rural prosperity was widespread from 1798 to 1820, and no one profited more than the large landowner letting out his lands. Prices for all goods increased 18 percent in this period.73 But wheat prices, for example, increased 25 percent and rural rents rose approximately 50 percent.74 For most of his lifetime, Jacques Denis’s investment in land paid very well. After 1820, stagnation in agricultural income set in that did not lift until the next century. But clearly the political and social upheaval he experienced (Jacques Denis

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witnessed the Revolution in his thirties) played into this decision. These farms and chaˆteaux were a refuge. He wrote in 1813, soon after purchasing Montceaux: I made this effort to assure my children a very beautiful family estate in no way stained with nationality. . . . I ask God for the grace of enough time and health to finish my work in paying with the result of my labor and savings the cost of this important acquisition so they may receive it free and clear.75

Typical sentiments of a wealthy bourgeois looking to make himself a local grandee by investing in land? Perhaps, but the emphasis here is on the ability of land to provide for his children and have no “nationalite´”—no stain of confiscation by the Revolutionary state—are striking. It is noteworthy that, from his point of view, when France had proved incapable of restraining avarice and immorality, Jacques Denis invested in land; he eventually derived three-fourths of his income from land and had taken up the life of the local chaˆtelain. He was disgusted with Revolutionary contributions, war, nationalized Church land, pillage, military occupation, taxes, and, likely, urban revolutionary politics. The chaˆteaux were a haven for his family and his painstakingly accumulated wealth. This does not mean that Jacques Denis and his family abandoned rue St.-Jacques or public life. Quite the contrary. Throughout the Revolution and Empire, Jacques Denis remained an unflinching supporter of the hospital and passed a great deal of time at 247 rue St.-Jacques. He dutifully served in public office there and provided handsomely for his son’s public career. Yet there were indications of his distaste for change at the time he bought these properties. In November 1827 he penned the first version of his will in which he wrote that he hoped the estate that he had acquired “par mon travail et mon e´conomie,” be kept in his family intact forever.76 He linked the pureness of the name of the family to the unity of the estate. If wealth was the result of virtuous labor, its signs were evidence of that virtue. Jacques Denis hoped to insulate his family from the outer world: “I believed it proper to join us to a landed estate to keep you as long as possible from the curse of the too great mobility of fortunes.”77 Jacques Denis divided his growing wealth between his two children—his son, Jean Denis, and his daughter, Marie Rosalie Cochin, wife of Ange Marie Simone Carron.78 At his marriage in 1820, Jean Denis received 100,000 F. from his parents. The money was given to meet the eligibility requirements for voting and holding elected office, and more broadly to enter fully into public life.79 In October 1837, Jacques Denis died at rue Canivet and an inventory of goods was made up by his son and the notary Pe´an de St. Gilles.80 The inventory of goods for the houses on rue St.-Jacques, rue Canivet, and the chaˆteaux and farms at La Roche and Montceaux amounted to 413 pages.81 By 1838 the value of the major pieces of country property was estimated as follows: 1. Chaˆteau at La Roche 2. Farm at La Roche

45,000 145,519.50

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Family Dynasty, Revolutionary Society 3. Farm at L’Ecu in Plessis-Chenet

224,033.50

4. Chaˆteau and park at Montceaux

108,000

5. Farm at Montceaux

232,144

6. Farm at St. Joanne

3,615

7. Woods and vineyards Total real estate

88,721 847,03382

With the furnishings and government bonds, the estate was worth 1,132,937.40 F., producing 34,865.47 F. in income.83 Rosalie and her brother Jean Denis agreed that Jean Denis would have the house at 247 rue St.-Jacques84; lots were drawn by a child in the notary’s office and Jean Denis received Montceaux and his sister La Roche.85 Each inherited goods and property worth 556,468.70 F., producing 17,432.731⁄2 F. per year. Jacques Denis had mentioned in his 1827 will that he had grown much richer since “his daughter Rosine” married in 1816. In fact, he had doubled his wealth since the Restoration, as he had almost doubled it in the period 1789–1816. Though the Restoration could not be compared in its economic growth to later periods, it was still a time of relative prosperity.86 In the short term, there were several cycles. There were from food crises in 1817, which led to a rebirth of economic activity until 1825 when the British economy declined and slowed business in France. Agricultural income declined in 1828 and a depression lasted through 1836.87 Jacques Denis’s accumulation of so large a fortune in economic conditions marked by relatively modest periods of growth is, then, remarkable. Jacques Denis’ level of wealth, moreover, was impressive. Worth 487,548 F. in 1819, Jacques Denis was essentially in the “aristocratie de la richesse” when compared to contemporaries, and belonged to an elite constituting only 0.3 percent of the population.88 THE USES OF WEALTH IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY The records for the Cochins’ wealth for the nineteenth century and into the twentieth are less complete and less detailed than those pertaining to Jacques Denis, the most expansive and important phase in the economic growth of the family. Though we learn little of the growth of the wealth of the family—and there was impressive growth—the sources are explicit about the more novel uses of their wealth. Having been provided by Jacques Denis with sufficient wealth not to have to work for the rest of the century, the important members of the family used their wealth to give form and substance to their social position and public careers. Social reformers, public figures, authors, politicians, the Cochin men proved to be more than successful merchants who were interested in Catholic charity. The pattern of their acquisition of wealth from the eighteenth century to the twentieth century made possible the shift from Old Re´gime bourgeois to notable after the Revolution. As far as we know, neither the land Jacques Denis bought nor the money he made were directly a result of Revo-

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lutionary changes. Clearly their acts of social reform and their intervention in public policy in the nineteenth century were possible because of this platform of wealth. Their public activities in the nineteenth century at once reflected the family’s eighteenth-century assumptions and the adoption of new ideas and methods.89 But this is the subject of the next chapter, in which these activities will be discussed in greater detail. For the nineteenth century, the trajectory of the family fortune is steadily upward, though the details are sketchy. At the death of Jacques Denis’s wife, Ange´lique de Montour (1760–1839), her remaining estate of 390,961.54 F. was divided three ways between her son by her first marriage, Montour, and Jean Denis and his sister from her second. This comprised 130,000 F. to each, though it is not clear of what her estate consisted.90 This settlement was contested with an inconclusive outcome. The next we hear of the Cochin family fortune is at the death of Jean Denis, who left his two teen-aged sons without mother or father in 1841. The surviving evidence gives no record of what was left to the two sons, Denis Guillaume and Augustin, by either their father or their mother. But in August 1842, the final settlement for the boys from their paternal grandmother provides a glimpse of the family wealth. In this inheritance the two Cochin sons received 242,933.101⁄2 F.; their aunt was awarded 227,933.10 F., and Montour 157,661.07 F.91 No evidence remains of how much the Benoists, their mother’s family, may have contributed through her estate (it is very likely they had more money than the Cochins). Augustin worked as a lawyer when a young man but did not depend on the practice of law for his livelihood. Augustin was an active reformer and public figure of independent means; his brother lived a retired life on his income and never married. We have no other information on the wealth of this generation. Augustin’s son Denys drew up a sketch of his fortune in July and August 1914 before his sons went off to war. He had married He´le`ne Pe´an de St.-Gilles in 1876, an only child who brought to the marriage the impressive chaˆteau at Beauvoir, not far from Melun. Denys received 900,000 F. from his parents when he married. If each of the three sons of Augustin Cochin inherited equally, this meant there was an impressive growth in the family fortune in the generation of his father, Augustin. Denys married an heiress richer than himself. He´le`ne brought to their marriage about twice his wealth—probably 2,000,000 F.92 The impression that the Cochins married into even greater wealth than theirs is reinforced by a notation by Denys in these papers that the children of his two brothers would have even more money than his own. Perhaps here we see social power attracting material wealth. In an addendum “Note pour mes enfants,” dated May 15, 1921, Denys added that he inherited another 4,000,000 F. from his mother and his aunt above what he had at his marriage. He counted his total wealth at 8,660,000 F. and had given each of his six children (before the war) 800,000 F.—an impressive sum.93 Much of this growth of the Cochin fortune in the later nineteenth century was apparently due to real estate, and likely much of this growth was due to rising

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prices and shrewd buying and selling on Denys’s part. He bought farms near his chaˆteaux and later sold them for more than twice what he paid for them (perhaps they were being put to other uses). The records show he sold buildings on the Place de la Concorde: the present Hoˆtel Crillon and the French Automobile Club, #8 Place de la Concorde, inherited through the Pe´an de St.-Gilles family. Denys estimated that by 1914 he had added about 1,000,000 F. to his fortune above what he had inherited. Further, in 1911, the family sold La Roche due to its high upkeep and the increasing traffic in the area. From his in-laws he added a considerable amount of Parisian real estate, 51 and 53 rue de Babylone, and the buildings contiguous to them through the street behind, rue Oudinot. With some of his money, Denys built up an impressive art collection.94 Since two of his three sons died in the war, and not all three daughters had children, Denys and He´le`ne had few grandchildren to inherit the family fortune. There was a concentration of wealth by the first third of the twentieth century. In the nineteenth century, as in the eighteenth, the Cochins supported charitable and reform projects. When Jean Denis Cochin built his infant school on rue St.-Hippolyte in 1828, he spent 69,091.31 F. for the land and building and made up the shortfall between the 139,462.73 F. cost of the school and the money raised.95 He guaranteed his two partners’ expenses and recognized that his own money made his initiative possible given the skepticism of city officials.96 His son Augustin did the same, and the Cochins supported Catholic charities as well throughout this period. The pattern of investment of their wealth shifted in the nineteenth century in significant ways. For example, both Jean Denis and then his son Augustin were associated with the Orlea´ns railroad. Its station was built in what was then the 12th arrondissement, and Jean Denis was appointed vice president of the conseil d’administration when the line opened to the public.97 Denys Benoist d’Azy was one of the founders of the Paris–Orle´ans and the Paris–Lyons–a` la Me´diterrane´e railroads.98 In 1853 Augustin was asked to be an administrator of the railroad at the earliest possible moment—the minimum age was thirty. He immediately threw himself into improving the conditions of the railroad workers and helped to set up cooperatives, a pension system, and Sunday rest for them. Denys Benoist d’Azy also owned an ironworks—the Compagnie des forges d’Alais—that was the largest producer of iron rails.99 Evidently both Jean Denis and his son were also shareholders in the dramatically new transportation enterprise, though no records remain about the investment. Railroads encouraged investment in France and Britain especially, and it is hard to believe the Cochins and the Benoist d’Azys did not profit handsomely from them. Moreover, for Augustin the railroad was symbolic of the times. He wrote his mother-in-law about being present in Brittany as new railroad engines were blessed by clergy at the foot of a temporary altar, and he mused on the meaning of the material and moral progress of the nineteenth century.100 Similarly, Augustin was also elected to the administrative council of St. Gobains, the glass and ceramic works founded by Louis XIV. He visited the factory at Chauny, read books on chem-

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69

istry, and wrote a history of the enterprise. In addition, Augustin was probably a stockholder in the Liberal Catholic journal Le Correspondant beginning in 1855 and in the newspaper Le Franc¸ais. Likely these “investments” did not show a profit. They were made with the aim of publicizing their views—along with those of their collaborators, other notables much wealthier than they were; here their money gave them a public voice. Denys too, kept up with the times in his investments. In 1908 he and his brothers and mother-in-law were among the founding stockholders in the “Socie´te´ l’Urane” set up for the commercial use of radium and radium salts. The Portuguese radium mines that constituted the investment absorbed 230,000 F., and perhaps more; it is not clear that the family made money on this investment, which was bought out by ASR (“Applications Scientifique du Radium”) in 1920.101 The record shows, then, an uneven but unbroken increase in wealth from what we know of the Cochin family’s accumulation from the eighteenth century to the war of 1914. Their wealth and their milieu in this example were symbiotic; of old merchant bourgeoisie, they were also shaped by their wealth through the opportunities and the habits it created. Fortunate in their business, most of the early generations used these successes to further the family’s distinguished name and saw Providence at work in its affairs. As we shall see in the next chapter, the Cochins of the nineteenth century used their material and spiritual wealth to help shape what might be described as the moral world of France before and after the Revolution. From merchants to officeholders to “proprie´taires,” they proved shrewd stewards of their material possessions, possessions that at once empowered them and distinguished them. NOTES 1. “leur puissance sociale . . . leurs appartenances spirituelles et familiales . . . leurs activite´s e´conomiques.” Andre´ Jean Tudesq, Les Grands notables en France (1840– 1849), 2 vols. (Paris: Presses Universitaires de Paris, 1964), 1:13. 2. Ibid., 9–10. 3. See, for example, Elinore G. Barber, The Bourgeoisie of Eighteenth-Century France (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955); Re´gine Pernoud, Histoire de la bourgeoisie en France, vol. 2, Les Temps modernes (Paris: E´ditions du Seuil, 1962, 1981). 4. Pierre Rosanvallon, Le Moment Guizot (Paris: Gallimard, 1985). 5. Rental of a parcel of land “en la pairie de Villiers sur org,” near Montlhe´ry April 25, 1640, in AC, A1. 6. Jules Bour, Les Noˆtres . . . voici par qui nous sommes (Paris: Dupont, 1945), 117. 7. Contracts, 1816 and 1818, AC, Dc. 8. Jean Brute´, Chronologie historique (Paris: Desprez, 1752), 89–98. 9. “Extrait registre,” “Corps des marchands merciers grossiers et joailliers de la Ville de Paris,” AC, A1. 10. Marriage contract, November 10, 1748, AC, Ca1.

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11. See Annale: Economies, Socie´te´s, Civı´lisations 14 (1959), 676–93 for 1750 and 1787 figures. 12. A. Daumard and F. Furet, Structures et relations sociales a` Paris au XVIIIe sie`cle (Paris: Colin, 1961), 18–19. 13. Record of these transactions of December 10, 1748; December 28, 1749; April 25, 1754; March 31, 1754; in “Acte du 27 Octobre 1764 de Partage entre mes enfants et moi,” AC, Ca 1. 14. Testament and division of estate of Claude Denis Cochin fils, October 27, 1764, in AC, Ca1. When his daughter Marie Rosalie married, her dowry was 28,348 livres, 11 sous, 11 deniers as given in the final accounting between Claude Denis and Marie Rosalie Cochin, September 15, 1772, AC, Ca1. 15. Nobility was ordered as early as 1577 for pre´voˆt des marchands and the four e´chevins of Paris. Ronald Mousnier, The Institutions of France under the Absolute Monarchy, 2 vols., trans. by Bryan Pearce (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 1:130, 584. 16. Due to the “affection particulie`re que led. feu S. Cochin a toujours porte´ a` l’hospice de la paroisse de St. Jacques au haut-pas, pieux e´tablissement de feu M. Cochin son fils cure´ de lad. paroisse.” From the divisions of possessions of Claude Denis Cochin, February 27, 1787, in AC, Ca2. 17. Testament, Claude Denis Cochin pe`re, February 25, 1787. 18. “huit mille ou meˆme quinze mille livres de rente ne permettent pas sous Louis XV, de mener grande vie a` Paris.” Franc¸ois Bluche, Les Magistrats du Parlement de Paris au XVIIIe sie`cle (Paris: Economica, 1986), 109. 19. Testament, Claude Denis Cochin pe`re, February 25, 1787. 20. Bluche, 111. 21. “E´tat des Subroge´s sur les dites privile`ges,” nd (summer 1772), AC, Ca4. 22. Contract, July 29,1769, in AC, Ca4. 23. Notarized title to the office, December 6, 1768, in AC, Ca4. 24. Marcel Marion, Dictionnaire des institutions de la France (Paris: Picard, 1979), 435–36. In October 1770 Claude Denis fils paid 125,000 livres more for his first office, as per edict of augmentation February 1770 (AC, Ca4). In September 1774 he had to pay an 87,500 livre “supple´ment de finance” for the office he wanted to purchase. Ibid. 25. Papers on the office are in AC, Ca4. 26. Claude Denis was again the titular holder and the papers of the final acquisition specifically noted that he would “Continuer de posseder les deux offices de chacune desd. parties se´parament ou conjointement, sans incompatibilite´, l’un sous le titre, d’ancien triennial, et l’autre sous celui d’Alte´rnatif quadrenniel . . . demeurer maintenu et confirme´ l’un et ses successeurs ve´terans et sa veuve dans tous les droits, fonctions, dispenses, faculte´s, honneurs, exemptions, privile`ges, e´moluments, pre´rogatives et pre´e´minences . . .” In this second office Leve´ was the “alte´rnatif quadrenniel” and also handled all the money (“tenant de la caıˆsse”). Contract of ownership, September 27, 1774, AC, Ca4. 27. “J’ai Monsieur, l’ intention de vous distribuer les rentes du Clerge´; elles composent 12,232 parties. . . . c’est une augmentation de travail conside´rable, mais en meˆme temps c’ est un motif de plus pour moi de vous charger d’une ope´ration aussi importante par la certitude que j’ai qu’elle sera bien fait.” Gurbeu to Claude Denis Cochin, October 15, 1790, AC, Ca4. 28. Deschapelles to Claude Denis Cochin, November 5, 1790, AC, Ca4.

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29. Letters from Deschapelles to Jacques Denis Cochin, messidor and prairial II (May–July 1794) in AC, Ca4. 30. “conside´rant . . . la Maladie dont il est attaque´.” Procuration (power of attorney), September 7, 1793, in AC, Ca4. 31. “conside´rant que ledit Claude Denis Cochin leur pe`re [e´prouve?] par la perte de son e´tat et autres circonstances une re´duction conside´rable dans son revenue dans une moment ou son aˆge et ses infirmite´s le lui rendent plus que jamais ne´cessaire.” Contract “21 Fructidor An deux” (September 7, 1794), in AC, Ca2. 32. Unsigned, undated report “Revenues de Claude Denis Cochin payeur des rentes” in AC, Ca1. It reports on income for the year 1792. 33. Petition of 8 messidor IV, (June 26, 1796), 14 prairial IV (June 2, 1796), AC, Ca3. 34. A long printed pamphlet “Petitions en Indemnite´ . . .” by a group of disbursars dated “an IV, 1797 Vieux style” in AC, Ca3. 35. “Partage entre les quatres[sic] Enfants Cochin de la succession de leur Pe`re,” 22 brumaire XII (November 4, 1803). AC, Ca2. 36. “Notice” from the commissaires de la Compatibilite´ Nationale, 5 prairial V (May 24, 1797), in AC, Ca4. Also in a notarized procuration giving Jacques Denis the control of the office of his father, September 7, 1793, AC, Ca4. The office was suppressed on August 21, 1793. Claude Denis’s income was then 19,420 F. 37. Jean Denis’s appointment is dated 29 thermidor IV (August 16, 1796), in AC, Da1. 38. “Partage . . .” 22 brumaire XII, AC, Ca2. 39. Account book, AC, Da2. The tuteur of his brother, Constantin Denis, was his paternal uncle, Alexandre Pierre Henry, “e´cuyer, avocat en parlement.” The final compte tutelle between Claude and Jacques Denis shows Jacques Denis receiving at his majority 38,771 F., 17 sous, 1 deniers. The account dated June 28, 1785, showed Jacques Denis was the “avocat en parlement” living at rue de l’arbre sec with his younger brother Constantin Denis. AC, Ca1. 40. Despeignes married Marie Jeanne Cochin, Jacques Denis’s aunt, at St. Benoıˆt in 1743. Despeignes was “garde en charge du corps des marchands de cette ville, conseiller du Roy Tresorier ge´ne´ral payeur des rentes de l’hoˆtel de ville de Paris.” 41. Compte de´finitif, March 4, 1773, total 37,768 livres, 7 sous, 3 deniers minus expenses of 8,538 livres, 5 sous, 9 deniers, yielding 29,230 livres, 16 sous, 6 deniers in AC, Ca1. 42. Testament and division of estate of Claude Denis Cochin fils, October 27, 1764, in AC, Ca1. 43. Certificate of study and Jacques Denis’s diploma, dating from August 1775 to August 1776, AC, Ca1. 44. Contrat de mariage, August 3, 1788, in AC, Da1. 45. From account books of Jacques Denis Cochin, AC, Da2. The livre and the franc were roughly equivalent (1 franc ⫽ 1 livre, 0 sous, 3 deniers.; or 1 livre ⫽ .9877 F.). The franc was introduced by the law of 18 germinal III (April 7, 1795). Under the Old Re´gime the livre had—very roughly—4 times the purchasing power of the franc of 1900 (Marcel Marion, Dictionnaire des institutions de la France aux XVIIe et XVIIIe sie`cles [Paris: A & J Picard, 1979], 384). 46. Income of 2,640, at 5 percent on 52,800 livres, as he agreed to do in marriage contract of July 27, 1788. Notation of March 24, 1792, AC Da2.

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47. Folder on office and report of Jacques Denis Cochin dated 28 brumaire VIII (November 19, 1799), AC, Ca4. 48. “les sacrifices re´volutionnaires faites pour conserver ma vie.” Folder “Renseignements sur la Fortune de M Cochin,” various dates, AC, Da2. 49. “Renseignements sur la Fortune de M. Cochin,” entry “4 aoust 1810,” AC, Da2. 50. “Quoique cette somme soit modique, je m’estime tre`s heureux d’avoir e´conomise´ dans des circonstances aussi pe´nibles que celles dans laquelles nous vivons, d’avoir fait honneur a` tous mes engagements, d’avoir supporte´ toutes mes charges qui sont Lourdes, Graces en soient rendues a` la divine providence qui ne m’a jamais abandonne´ et que j’adore de tous[sic] mon coeur. Ce 4 aoust 1799.” Account book, Jacques Denis Cochin, AC, Da2. 51. “Quoique cet Exce´dent [?] paraisse conside´rable on cesse d’en eˆtre surpris quand on conside`re que les Capitaux de rentes sur l’E´tat ayant gagne´s depuis l’anne´e dernie`re au point de valeur de 35% au lieu de 10%. Cela donne lieu a` une augmentation d’ Environ 17000 l. effecte´s sur les rentes tant de mon chef que du chef de ma femme employe´es dans l’E´tat cidissus ce que reduit[sic] mes e´conomies sur mon travail mon industrie. Et mes revenues de l’anne´e a` 22,000 l. Environ ce qui est encore bien conside´rable.” Account book, Jacques Denis Cochin, AC, Da2. 52. “Graˆces en soient rendus a` l’Eternelle providence qui n’abandonne pas ses cre´atures qui par leur activite´ et leur ordre remplissent le but de la cre´ation. Ce 5 aoust 1800.” Account Book, August 5, 1800, AC, Da2. 53. “Pene´tre´ de la plus vive reconnaissance je vois que la Providence Be´ni mes traveaux et fait fructifier mes sueurs, je lui demande la Graˆce jamais abuser de l’aisance qu’elle me procure[,] de ne pas augmenter ni entretenir par les voies illicites et de transmettre a` mes enfants, si elle me les conserve, un patrimonie. Ce 1 aoust 1801.” Account Book, August 1, 1801, AC, Da2. 54. Account Book, August 4, 1805, AC, Da2. 55. “1 les dettes . . . occasionne´ [sic] par les trois causes cidessous, 20 La arrete´[?] des affaires, a` cause de l’E´tat politique de la france, et le pire de re´sultats qu’elles offrent aux personnes qui les font honneˆtements, 30 . . . la mauvaise foi et de l’immoralite´ sans frein aux quelles la pe´nible re´volution franc¸aise a ouvert un libre cours.” Account Book, August 4, 1810, AC, Da2. 56. “En 1813 et l’anne´es suivantes la fin du dernier gouvernement, et la naissance de celui actuel ont absorbe´ une partie de mes resources par les 2 invasions qui ont eu Lieu et qui ont pese´ sur mes proprie´te´s; en acceptant des fonctions publiques et gratuites.” Account Book, August 4, 1819, AC, Da2. 57. “Je dois m’estimer heureux de pouvoir avec beaucoup d’ordre et d’e´conomie Soutenir honorablement ma famille, et donner l’Existence a` bien du monde dans mes proprie´te´s. Paris ce 4 aoust 1819.” Account Book, August 4, 1819, AC, Da2. 58. “la plus grande indiffe´rence aux maux qui les entourent.” From an undated document, “varie´te´s des moyens de faire peser la plus e´galement possible sur tous les franc¸ais charges publiques de 1815” in Jacques Denis’s hand, AC, Da1. 59. “une classe d’egoistes . . . au milieu de tant d’affreux malheurs.” Ibid. 60. “L’enroˆlement ou la fe´de´ration des ouvriers,” AC, Da1. 61. During the first Restoration, Jacques Denis and other landowners asked the prefect of the Seine for exemption from the “contributions extraordinaires” for 1814 because the movements of foreign troops and the month-long stationing of French troops

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from mid-March to mid-April 1814 had destroyed his lands at Montceaux. The prefect refused these exemptions. Untitled, undated me´moir, AC, Da1. 62. “les proprie´taires, qui ont depuis trois ans supporte´ le poids de requisitions les plus conside´rables.” Undated memoir, probably summer 1814, in AC, Da1. 63. “J’ai cru devoir [illegible] mon pays et a` la famille des Bourbons une preuve de mon attachement j’ai duˆ sacrifier mon tems et mes inte´reˆts personnels a` la cause publique, heureux si j’ai pu faire quelque bien.” Account Book, August 4, 1819, AC, D2. 64. See, for example, Tudesq, p. 336. 65. Account book “anne´e 1828,” AC, Da2. 66. “Domaine de la Roche,” apparently drawn up at the time of Jacques Denis’s purchase in AC, Da3. 67. The most detailed description of La Roche is the “e´tat estimatif” drawn up for the majorat for their title, August 23, 1820, AC, Da1. 68. Quittances, February 26, 1817, AC, Da3. 69. A listing of the farms and woods is in AC, Da3, dated August 22 1820. 70. An account of the bidding and contracts are dated November 25, 1812, December 9, 1812, March 23, 1813, and April 9, 1818, in AC, Da3. 71. Account Book, “Anne´e 1828,” in AC, Da2. 72. His passport of August 10, 1811, described him as “proprie´taire.” Passport, Jacques Denis Cochin, August 10, 1811, AC, Da1. 73. Alexandre Chabert, Essai sur les mouvements des prix et des revenues en France de 1798 a` 1820, 2 vols. (Paris: Libraire de Me´dicis, 1945–1949), I:231. 74. Ibid., 66, 79–80. Both purchases were made, incidentally, in times of stagnation (ibid., p. 422). 75. “J’ai fait cet effort pour assurer a` mes Enfants une tre`s belle proprie´te´ patrimoniale point entaˆche´e d’aucune me´lange de nationalite´ . . . Je demande a` Dieu La Graˆce de m’accorder assez de tems et de sante´ pour achever mon oeuvre en payant avec le fruit de mon travail et de mes e´conomies le prix de cette importante acquisition, a` fin que mes Enfants la recueillent franche et libre de toute hypothe`que.” Account Book, August 4, 1813, AC, Da2. 76. Testament, Jacques Denis Cochin, “9bre 1827,” AC, Da1. 77. “J’ai cru convenable d’attacher a` nous a` une proprie´te´ immobilaire pour e´loigner de Vous aussi longtemps que possible les fle´aux qui fouettent[?] de la trop grande mobilite´ des fortunes.” Ibid. As we have noted, the property subsequently served another purpose. Jacques Denis and his son Jean Denis later had a portion of these lands listed in a majorat for the registration of their title of baron in 1820 worth 5,000 per year. This of course reinforced the identification of land with the family name. In the end they refused the registering of their title. 78. Testament, Jacques Denis Cochin, January 28, 1830, AC, Da1. 79. “de faciliter aud. S. Cochin fils, qui est entre´ dans sa quarantie`me [trentie`me] anne´e les moyens de se pre´valoir du cause[?] d’e´ligibilite´, et de lui donner les droits inhe´rents a` cette position social et politique.” Contract, August 27, 1828, in AC, Da 2. 80. “Liquidation et Partage de la succession de M Cochin,” March 16, 1839, AC, Da5. 81. Liquidation of real estate in estate of Jacques Denis Cochin, July 31, 1838, AC, Da5. 82. Ibid.

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83. “Liquidation et Partage de la Succession de M. Cochin,” March 16, 1839, AC, Da5. 84. Other documents suggest that Jean Denis received 247 rue St.-Jacques because his sister did not want to pay for repairs and additions being made on the home. See the documents of April 1838–December 19, 1838, in AC, Db1. 85. Ibid. When their mother died in 1837, she left them each an additional 390,961. 54 F. Liquidation of estate of Mme Cochin, veuve de Montour, November 18, 1840– May 14, 1841, AC, Db2. 86. “Les contemporaines, eux qui avaient connu successivement les entraves de l’ancien re´gime, les de´sordes de la Re´volution, les ruines de la guerre et de l’invasion pouvait conside´rer avec raison qu’ils n’avait jamais be´ne´ficie´ des conditions plus favorables.” G. Bertier de Sauvigny, La Restauration (Paris: Flammarion, 1995), 315. 87. Bertier de Sauvigny, 313–14. 88. Daumard, La Bourgeosie parisienne de 1815 a` 1848 (Paris: SEVPEN, 1967), 64. The Cochins were thus in a category that was made up of fortunes above 500,000 F. in 1820. 89. Here I agree with Jean Baptiste Duroselle, Les De´buts du catholicisme social en France (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1951). 90. Papers on liquidations of the estate of Mme. Cochin, veuve de Montour, November 18, 1840–May 14, 1841 in AC, Db2. 91. Rectification of liquidations and successions of Mme Veuve Cochin, August 17, 18, 19, 20, 1842, in AC, Db2. 92. Assorted papers on his fortune by Denys Cochin dated 1911, 1914–1921, in AC, Ga2. 93. Ibid. 94. “Fortune.” papers, 1911, 1914–1921, in AC, Ga2. 95. Account books for the “maison comple`te pour l’instruction primaire,” to January 1832, in AC, Ea19. 96. “je dois dire que ce succe`s fut procure´ par une circonstance dominante. C’est savoir que subvenant a` toutes les de´penses de mon propre fonds, il me fut possible d’e´viter toutes les entraves administratives de cette e´poque.” Jean Denis Cochin, Manuel, 87. 97. Alfred Falloux, Augustin Cochin, 3d ed. (Paris: Didier, 1877), 15. 98. For Denys Benoist d’Azy’s unparallelled career, see Robert R. Locke, French Legitimists and the Politics of Moral Order in the Early Third Republic (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1974), 106–12. 99. On the ironworks, see Locke, 109, n. 18. Yet these corporate boards, with men of overlapping interests, were productive not only in generating—and losing—wealth and new industrial co-operation. Robert Locke noted that the comte de Vogue¨, like the comte Jaubert, had also developed metallurgical companies, and that Vogue¨ “sat on the board of directors of the Cie. Paris–Orle´ans for which Benoist d’Azy and comte Jaubert sat. These business acquaintances developed into family relationships, for Benoist d’Azy’s grandson’s marriage with Vogue¨’s granddaughter and his (Benoist d’Azy’s) son Paul’s marriage with the daughter of comte Jaubert happened after these three men joined the railroad company.” Locke, 113. 100. Falloux, 206. Letter of Augustin Cochin to Mme. Benoist d’Azy, December 22, 1864, Lettres, II, 53–55. 101. See “Affaire Radium” papers, AC, Ga2.

Chapter 4

Charity and Social Reform

Engagement with the family was the most perennial, least escapable, relation. It arose from biological and material immediacy. But participation in the family led naturally to—indeed, demanded—a relation to public life. Service gave meaning to their collective lives and gave them a sense of place. Yet the careers of the Cochins show they were not always on good terms with the institutions through which they interacted with their fellows. This chapter will explore the Cochins’ relation to institutions aimed at charity and social reform; the chapter following with the Church; and, finally, the next two chapters will explore their relation to the Revolution and its political institutions. To the Cochins, there were significant shortcomings to all these institutions, and a significant feature of their public careers was their attempts to change or redirect them. For almost two centuries, discussion of social reform has relied on a global approach to explain the relation between institutions, individuals, and social classes. These strategies of explanation relied on periodization. Periodization presumed that segments of historical time produced institutions appropriate to the characteristics of that time.1 The appearance of “modern” values alongside, or within, traditional institutions, however, fomented conflict and produced change in societies. The Old Re´gime was destroyed in this way, and these new ideals predominated despite attempts at restoration.2 These forms of modernizing thought—Marxist, conservative, or liberal—focused on change from the Old Re´gime to the twentieth century. In general, they called for conflict within modern societies, conflict generated by long-term forces at work, over which no one had control. Explanatory theories of great power, they encompassed the relation between historical periods and their institutions and how institutions related to each other. Yet theories of social conflict concerning industrial society are not clearly

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supported by what we know were the day-to-day realities of life in the nineteenth century in the West. Katherine A. Lynch’s recent work on bourgeois social theory and social action among working-class families in France presented a very different picture. Lynch emphasized the common values of all bourgeois reformers—Catholic or secular—as well as the workers whose lives they sought to put in order: At the highest level of abstraction, industrial workers of the Restoration and July Monarchy would have found little reason to dissent from the family values that underlay moral economist or Social Catholic policy. . . . In fact, although many bourgeois commentators identified these values with their own social class, they were probably more correct at the point at which they came to articulate latent similarities between industrial workers and bourgeois on this and other valuative issues.3

Moreover, the bourgeoisie showed no united front over the best policy to bring about a more humane, more fraternal, society in an industrializing France. As Lynch put it, the reality “nuances any portrait of a triumphant and unified bourgeoisie. . . . [D]ifferent world views among makers of opinions and policy placed obvious limitations on the state’s power to translate policy theory into social action, in a smooth or unmitigated fashion.”4 In other words, reformers’ debates about the working-class family and the poor undermine global descriptions of bourgeois views in the post-Revolutionary world. Certainly the behavior of the bourgeoisie toward the Church and State in the nineteenth century betrayed marked divisions. One might little expect to find any social classes or groups that were not divided by contending views about public life. Distinctions between those who favored order and those who favored progress, for example, overlooked conservative arguments for change or liberal arguments for inertia in public life. Nor could groups who shared the same goal always cooperate. Public reform in France in the nineteenth century was at once contentious, complex, and flexible; and antithetic views could coexist without much effect on politics or public life.5 It is striking how, in the end, the ideals they served were so much alike. THE COCHINS IN PUBLIC LIFE The pattern of involvement of the Cochins in the life of institutions shows a remarkable constancy. We know of Denis Cochin because he was a royal provost (pre´voˆt du roi), a minor judicial officer of the king, at Montlhe´ry from 1482 to 1488 and from 1490 to 1493. Soon the pattern was set: There is not a generation of Cochins descended from Claude Cochin of Paris (1656–1728) who did not play a role—and often a burdensome role—in public life. Their public lives plot the course of their collective attempt to act out their beliefs in concrete ways and show how in a post-Revolutionary century they adapted to new op-

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portunities and unexpected closures of opportunities. In the Cochins’ case, decade by decade and year by year, opportunities appeared and receded from the end of the seventeenth century to the Great War, and the Cochins showed an extended willingness to take these up, from the Old Re´gime to the postRevolutionary world. The first question the Cochins’ careers pose is: Was there a change toward a “modern,” liberal involvement in society and politics? Second, did the Cochins’ involvement in public life show its own pattern, or evolution? This could be due to several factors, such as changes in material wealth, past offices or accomplishments, family interest, or the like. In other words, is it reasonable to speak of them as having their own trajectory, among the broader movements of public life? The answer to the second question is easier. It is difficult to separate the course of people’s lives from their own times. Involvement, after all, presents itself through limited choices. And involvement came at a moment of family history just as it did at a moment of personal history. At a different point of evolution, some sorts of roles became more likely than others. The Cochins’ involvement in public life can then be said to have had a trajectory of its own. As well-to-do merchants they were, from their arrival on rue St.-Jacques, of the quality to serve as vestrymen at St.-Benoıˆt. For example, Claude Cochin served in 1700, and, likely, again in 1727.6 Vestrymen had to be of sufficient qualite´: honest, capable, literate. In practice and in theory this meant they were “le corps des Notables de la Paroisse.”7 In large urban churches there was often a marguillier d’honneur who provided parishes with important contacts and, perhaps, money. From this significant beginning, then, the descendants of Claude Cochin built their public careers: the e´chevinage and the disbursar office before the Revolution were the most important. Lesser offices filled the interstices: charitable receiver of the General Hospital, one of the forty carriers of the relic of Ste.Genevie`ve, commissioner for the poor in the city (commissaire des pauvres en cette ville), and overseer of the Franciscans’ foreign funds (Claude Denis Cochin pe`re); doctor in the Sorbonne, cure´ of St.-Jacques du Haut-pas, abbe´, and founder of the hospice St.-Jacques—later Cochin Hospital (Jean Denis Cochin); elected representative to the first and second assemblies of the Commune of Paris, and member of the Provisioning Committee (Comite´ des Subsistances). And even here the Revolution seemed at first an interregnum, not significant to the character of the offices the Cochins would hold before or after it. While it changed the name and nature of offices in France from top to bottom, offices were nonetheless available, and the Cochins placed themselves into these. On December 11, 1803, five citizens met as an administrative council (Conseil d’Administration) of St.-Jacques du Haut-pas; the following Sunday the son of Claude Denis’s old friend Collette handed the account books of the previous “administration” of the newly opened parish to Jacques Denis Cochin. On September 27, 1815, a month after the election of the ultraroyalist “Chambre Introuvable,” Jacques Denis was named mayor of the 12th arrondissement. He

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was reappointed in April 1821 and was succeeded by his son, Jean Denis, in February 1825; the latter served until the Revolution of 1830.8 The office of mayor was a legacy of the Empire. The Crown appointed wealthy nobles and nonnobles to these and other new offices, seeking to gain the support and harness the standing and the talents of notables of the city. Jacques Denis was very active as mayor. His office (mairie) was at 133 rue du faubourg St.-Jacques, so Jacques Denis had only to walk down the street to work. With his two vice mayors (adjoints) he kept his hours there: eleven to two every day except Sunday and holidays. One of his first acts was the unveiling of a bust of the king in April 1816; during his tenure, several religious houses were established, and eight schools for boys and girls opened (all run by religious orders); churches were repaired and reopened (including the E´glise Ste.-Genevie`ve), and new boards of charity (bureaux de charite´) were set up in this, one of poorest areas of Paris.9 One of the most affecting changes of the Revolution was the change in official vocabulary and the administrative changes they implied. Maurice Agulhon noted in his study of the Var that it was plausible to think that the new, more functional descriptions of individuals by profession had an effect beyond the administrative world into the administered one. He believed that the changes implied professionalism had replaced family and official status.10 The Cochins serving as mayor in this view was certainly a case of old wine in new bottles, of notables fitting into new offices that did not exist under the old society. If in the long term time might alter the wine, in the short term the Revolution gave the Cochins a widened sphere of action. Jacques Denis, his son Jean Denis, and Jean Denis’s son Augustin found serving in these offices to be a happy experience. Conservative, active, and full of local pride, they were well suited to the work. Augustin served as vice mayor and then mayor of the nearby 10th arrondissement under the Second Empire from June 1850 to January 1860. Augustin accepted the offer from the prefect of the Seine out of a sense of duty (“le devoir avant tout,” he wrote his wife) and family tradition, despite his opposition to the plebiscite of Louis Napoleon approving the coup d’e´tat.11 A month after his appointment as mayor he wrote his cousin, Augustin Benoist d’Azy, mentioning his fears about the upcoming election of 1852; he added an explanation why he had accepted the post: “The single lesson to take from all this uncertainty, at our age, is that in ten years, whatever the government, there will still and in any case be a need for men of honor, educated, . . . good administrators, and especially good Christians and good Frenchmen. Ergo, we must become that.”12 When the Revolution of 1830 broke out, which overthrew the Bourbons and placed the house of Orle´ans on the throne, Jean Denis remained at his post as mayor to ensure order was maintained. Likewise, Augustin as vice mayor felt an obligation to his office. On the morning of December 2, 1851, he invited the remainder of the National Assembly to the mairie of the 10th, where it held its last session, with his father-inlaw Denys Benoist d’Azy as president. When they were all arrested by General

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Elie Forey’s men, Augustin escorted the prisoners to the door, was himself arrested, and spent part of the night in jail. The next day he had his father-inlaw freed. Ironically, he then had to draw up the electoral lists and watch the urns for the plebiscite on December 20th that overwhelmingly approved of the coup d’e´tat. He stayed on as vice mayor and then as mayor until he resigned over the Empire’s Italian policy. The appointed office of mayor of Montceaux held by Jean Denis from 1816 to 1824 functioned in a different way. For Jean Denis, appointed at age twentyseven, it was a training ground for government service. The assistant prefect of Corbeil wrote the father that he wanted appointed as mayors only “the worthiest and most capable men . . . and at the same time the most influential by their political existence and their wealth.”13 He added that he understood that the young man did not live in the country year round, but that the job could be done easily with a good vice mayor. Here, then, a rural mayor’s office helped the state and the Cochin family. It recognized their standing as notables and squires in the countryside. In 1827, two years after Jean Denis took his father’s place as mayor of the 12th, his father succeeded him at Montceaux.14 Three generations were mayors, in Paris, then, for fifty years. Through these offices, produced by the Revolution, the Cochins maintained a continuity with their neighborhood, their sense of locale, and their “civic devotion,” as Augustin expressed it, that were clear from the Old Re´gime. Putting the Cochins into these offices was “translation” from one era to the next. It was the same with the other offices to which they were appointed: the Municipal Council of Paris, the General Council of Hospitals, and the General Council of the Seine. Until the Third Republic these were appointed offices, largely administrative, operating under the prefect of the Seine or the government. Typically they focused on the health and welfare of Paris—traffic, water, prisons, transport, renovations. These had been among the Cochins’ concerns since the eighteenth century. As members of a family that founded a hospital, they were naturally interested in the functioning of hospitals in Paris (the hospice was renamed Hoˆpital Cochin in 1788 and was absorbed into the hospital system during the Revolution). Jean Denis attached himself to the General Council of Hospices (Conseil Ge´ne´ral des Hospices Civiles de Paris). On October 4, 1815, the council approved a “Motion naming M. Cochin the younger lawyer at the Cour de Cassation and the Conseil d’E´tat to handle the affairs of the administration of public hospitals and hospices of Paris (grand nephew of the venerable founder of Cochin Hospital).”15 Young Jean Denis’s responsibilities grew, so that in 1819 he was made a member of the consulting committee, and in 1829 he was appointed by the king to the council, taking the place of a member of the Pe´an de St.-Gilles family.16 He served on the council for the remainder of his life. Thus the hospice on rue St.Jacques provided a common thread connecting the careers of the family under the Old Re´gime and under the new. Jacques Denis had been a regular figure at the hospital from 1826 to 1831, keeping its accounts and receiving reports about it. Jean Denis expanded upon this interest, concerning himself with the hospital

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system of the whole city centralized by the Revolution.17 Jean Denis’s son Augustin served on the replacement of the General Council of Hospices, a body known as the Conseil de Surveillance d’Assistance Publique, for 1853, 1856– 1861 and 1869–1870.18 The Cochins were able to continue their activities in public life across the divide of the Revolution because the post-Revolutionary world provided new offices for just their sort of people. Public life for most of the nineteenth century sought out and welcomed these important local notables. Yet there were other areas of public life in which there were drastic changes for Parisian bourgeois. There were new realms of public life unlike the old, into which the Cochins tried to fit themselves. They hoped they could play a role in public life at a citywide and even on a national scale in congruence with their ideals. In their involvement with the Church, they hoped to shape its policy toward public life, to perpetuate the influence of Catholicism in the nineteenth century by adjusting it to the realities of the modern world. In politics they had a different aim. They sought not just influence, or a public role, but election to public power. They saw their candidacies as a presentation of their ideals. The Cochins’ careers in electoral politics showed all the troubles of the liberal notables venturing into the electoral politics of the Second Empire and the Third Republic—regimes that proved hostile to this participation of the notables. The offices available to the Cochins that we have already mentioned—in the Parisian hospital system and the appointments as mayors—were eventually taken over by republicans under the Third Republic. What had once been a center of the Cochins’ identity and a focus of their energy then ran on different terms. The public sphere was altered beyond the point where they could find a place for themselves. Finally there is charity and the social question. This theme, too, was woven into the fabric of each generation. Concern for others constituted the core of the family’s reputation and its image of itself. THE COCHINS AND CHARITY UNDER THE OLD RE´GIME The condition of the working class and the political, social, and economic consequences of its unrest—which became the nineteenth century’s social question—the Cochins had firsthand experience of and preparation for through traditional Catholic charity. At the end of the seventeenth century, Claude Cochin settled in a part of the city that was poorer than most. The number of people whose lives were economically precarious in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Paris was unusually large by our standards. Ade´line Daumard’s study of Paris under the Restoration and July Monarchy put those who did not live in want at only 15 to 25 percent of the population. The proportion of poor or near poor— those liable to fall into poverty—could be as high as 65 or 75 percent.19 Moreover, the neighborhood around rue St.-Jacques was worse off than other parts of Paris. The 12th arrondissement (before this part of it was renamed the 5th

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under the Second Empire) showed the smallest percentage of eligible taxpaying electors in Daumard’s study of bourgeois wealth in 1842, and the 12th was at or near the bottom of almost all her measures of wealth out of all the sections of Paris.20 A charity report dating from the July Monarchy showed the 12th arrondissement with only ten per thousand on the electoral roles (the average was twenty-three), and it reported the highest rate of indigence, one per 5.88 persons, up to three times greater than any other arrondissement.21 In Balzac’s novels the streets east of rue St.-Jacques formed the most disreputable part of the city, and after 1832 executions were moved to the southern end of rue St.Jacques at the beginning of the faubourg.22 The Cochins were well-to-do merchants and mayors in a poor part of town. The needs of the poor in the neighborhood were met by Christian charity, more specifically, by urban Catholic parishes with limited resources. Almost from the moment of his arrival on rue St.-Jacques, then, Claude Cochin, as a vestryman at St.-Benoıˆt, knew a great deal about the duties and limits of charity work. Vestrymen were the custodians of the material goods of the parish and in this capacity oversaw the endowments of gifts of “charite´” and parish schools. Public-minded men and women of means were always needed to make this charity system run—it was a position where business skills, social prominence, dedication to the welfare of the unfortunate, and religious faith worked to the public good. The example of Claude Cochin on rue St.-Jacques remained with the Cochins. Claude Denis and sons, Claude Denis and Jean Denis, were profoundly influenced by his father’s example. Claude Denis pe`re served as vestryman at St.Benoıˆt and expanded the impulse to charity work. He was appointed one of the commissioners of the poor (commissaire des pauvres) of Paris, and was also a charitable collector (receveur charitable) of the Hoˆpital Ge´ne´ral.23 His son Claude Denis served as commissioner of the poor (commissaire des pauvres) at St.-Benoıˆt and later served as fund-raiser and administrator of the hospice his brother founded. The cure´ Jean Denis’s life was a virtual whirlwind of activity to help the poor of his parish. St.-Jacques du Haut-pas already had a great many charitable activities when the young Jean Denis took it over in 1756. In the previous century the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul, the Soeurs Grises, kept a school for poor girls in the parish (this may have closed, since one of Jean Denis’s predecessors, cure´ Jean Desmoulins, brought three Sisters of St. Lazarus into the parish for the same purpose). Desmoulins also ran an apprentice school from 1716 to 1719.24 While Jean Denis was cure´, the parish distributed through its various organizations 14,000 pounds of bread per year as well as clothing, food, and wood. Beginning in 1758 a legacy permitted the parish to teach young women a trade.25 In March 1769 Jean Denis started a boys’ school.26 Yet the resources to help the poor were still inadequate. In 1757 Jean Denis took a hard look at the parish finances. The ten-year average income for the cure´ was 3,051 livres, 7 deniers. All charges assessed on him were 2,253 livres, leaving 798 livres, 7

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deniers for the cure´, from which he was also supposed to pay half the children’s choir and the organist. An August 12, 1756, account showed all endowments (e´tablissements) of the parish yielding 8,333 livres to pay 8,518 livres of expenses. Jean Denis sent a series of letters to Archbishop Christophe de Beaumont and the deputies of the Ecclesiastical Chamber complaining of their “exorbitant imposition of the de´cime.” The parish regularly underpaid its assessment of this tax; at the same time Jean Denis presided over an impressive growth in the parish budget: 1755

8,200 livres

1768

17,700 livres

1772

19,755 livres27

Soon after he arrived, Jean Denis had a resolution passed, presumably by the Assemble´e ge´ne´ral de charite´ of the parish, giving him direct control over all funds for the poor: 1,671 livres, 09 sous, 04 deniers per year,28 fully 20 percent of the parish budget. Jean Denis claimed the parish comprised 8,000 to 10,000 inhabitants, “of which more than half are usually assisted by charity,” or forced by disease or lack of work to ask for help. The parish had few wealthy inhabitants, he claimed, and the charity on which so many depended was possible only because of the spirit of Christian generosity possessed by those with means. The cure´ Jean Denis raised still more money, for the need of the parish was great. It was said that instead of asking any particular individual for a specific donation, Jean Denis hinted where help might be most useful. Money given the cure´ stipulating he was to distribute it was under his control without any accounting. If the terms made no mention of successors, the money in his hands returned to the general fund for the poor at his departure.29 THE FOUNDING OF THE HOSPICE COCHIN The proportion of poor in the neighborhood, the need for still greater efforts of charity in the parish, prompted Jean Denis’s proposal for building a hospice. Word came, probably in late 1779 or early 1780, that the Capuchins were moving out of their monastery on rue St.-Jacques just a few blocks south of the church.30 A hospice for the poor sick was desperately needed because care at home meant the loss of two incomes; illness often pushed marginal households into destitution and homelessness. Jean Denis started raising money for the project. The cornerstone was laid by two of the poor of St.-Jacques, and the frontispiece of the new hospice read “A cry goes up from the poor man, and Yahweh hears, and helps him in all his troubles” (Psalms 34:6). The large classical twowinged building housing 100 patients was finished in April 1782 at a cost for the grounds, building, and furnishings of 180,481 livres, 07 sous.31 It was an enormously expensive undertaking, to which the Cochin family contributed

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84,000 livres. When the cure´ died in June 1783, the project was unfinished, for the hospice had no letters patent giving it a legal existence. Nor had any capital been raised to provide an income to pay for treating the poor sick (estimated at about 200,000 livres more), forcing the hospice, when it opened in 1782, to take paying patients.32 The Cochin family contributed more than just money. The Hospice Board (Bureau de l’Hospice) reflected the means by which the cure´ Cochin succeeded in getting the hospice built. It consisted of the cure´; his brother Claude Denis; Sister Marie Madeleine Dugourd; the superior of the Sisters of Charity who helped staff the hospice; a M. Desplasses, a relative of the Cochins and also a disbursar; Mlle de Thienne, the treasurer of the poor; M. Collette, an official of the salt monopoly (greffier du grenier du sel) who helped the parish and the hospice during the Revolution (another Collette became vestryman of the parish in 1814); and an honorary vestryman of St.-Jacques du Haut-pas, Gilbert de Voisins, president of the Parlement of Paris, who proved instrumental in obtaining the letters patent for the hospice. The cure´ initiated, and his brother continued, the practice of interesting the rich and powerful in the hospice project. The cure´ printed at least two prospectuses describing the project and reporting on its progress and anticipated needs; his brother did the same. The Cochins thus drew other notables of the city from outside the parish into this important work on rue St.-Jacques. In his seven-year-long effort to obtain the letters patent for the hospice, Claude Denis did not hesitate to turn for help to the lieutenant de police, Jean Charles Pierre Lenoir and his successor, Louis Thiroux de Crosne; the maıˆtre des requeˆtes et intendant des domaines, de Laboulaye; the controˆleur ge´ne´ral, Pierre Charles Laurent de Villeneuve; the controˆleur ge´ne´ral de finance, Jacques Necker and his wife Suzanne; the procureur ge´ne´ral, Armand Guillaume Marie Joly de Fleury; and the Archbishop of Paris. The letters patent were approved by the Conseil d’E´tat, signed by Louis XVI in May 1790, and, true to his word, Gilbert de Voisins rushed them through Parlement in August. Certainly these individuals were well disposed to the project, believing in the importance of charitable activities. What is striking is how unhesitatingly the Cochins turned to these grandees outside the parish and got them, sometimes repeatedly, to help the hospice. The project also fueled resentment. Claude Denis had to work hard in getting the letters patent in part because of the obstacles raised by the new cure´ and part of the parish. Jean Denis Cochin’s successor, Charles Nicolas Antheaume (b. 1720), doctor of the Sorbonne, former vicaire at St.-Louis-en-l’Isle, was hostile to the hospice from the start. He objected to some of the clauses in the proposed letters patent. He did not want the girls’ school housed in the hospice, claimed that it was too far for him to inspect, did not want any parish revenues to go to the poor in the hospice, and did not forward to the hospice all the money due it. The amount owed the hospice grew. But the lay hospice board would have none of these clerical obstructions. At a meeting with Antheaume they pointed out that schools used up money for the poor as well, that the sisters

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had been moved to the hospice and could operate their school there under the supervision of the resident chaplain of the hospice if the cure´ found the tenminute walk too fatiguing. The cure´ would still have 13,000–14,000 livres to spend on charity, they calculated, and he was frostily told that the hospice was located where it was because that was where the poor were. There were several more meetings between the hospice board and the parish charity administrators; Antheaume refused to show up after the first few.33 Meanwhile the hospice was being starved for money, and by 1785 Claude Denis became so exasperated that he warned Antheaume: “The policy of moderation I have set for myself has kept me, up to now, from resorting to the courts.”34 In his history of St.-Jacques du Haut-pas, Abbe´ Grente complained that Claude Denis Cochin acted with too much independence vis-a`-vis the new cure´. This charge likely had some foundation. Antheaume may have had an expansive idea of his rights. He evidently disliked these lay notables—led by the Cochins—having so much say in this project of his predecessor. Moreover, the vestry backed the Cochin family and the hospice project and approved a draft of the letters patent on May 22, 1785. At this meeting, evidence to Grente of a powerful “esprit de parlementarisme,” the vestry rejected Antheaume’s attempt to stall the vote by demanding the archbishop’s opinion. The minutes read that M. Graffin of the vestry said “that despite the great respect it has for M. the archbishop, he could not help but observe to the assembly that M. the archbishop may not have any effective voice in the present affair, nor on the government of the vestry, which recognizes no superior but M. the procurer general, the official guardian of the vestries of this capital.”35 Graffin was correct. Cure´ Antheaume walked out of the meeting agreeing to sign the minutes only to that point. This didn’t faze the vestry. They continued the meeting and unanimously approved the draft letters patent.36 Though these confrontations were won by the Cochins and their supporters, the situation was in fact very bad. In conformity with the cure´ Cochin’s will and the intentions of the hospice founders, the letters patent assigned parish income previously designated for the poor sick to the new hospice that now served them; therefore the letters required the signature of Antheaume. The further the project went without his consent, the less likely it was he would approve it, and, therefore, the less likely the hospice would ever receive letters patent. Claude Denis neither gave up his efforts on behalf of the hospice nor turned his back on his brother’s successor. Indeed, by June 1787 Claude Denis Cochin was listed as a member of St.-Jacques du Haut-pas, the first Cochin besides his brother the cure´ to leave St.-Benoıˆt. By the end of 1788, Claude Denis was traveling to Versailles to meet with officials handling the hospice’s papers.37 There were further problems. Since the proposed articles submitted to Versailles differed slightly from those approved by the vestry, the vestry and the cure´ had to approve them in their new form. It seems that between 1785 and 1788, despite Claude Denis’s joining the parish, Antheaume had gained more adherents among

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the parishioners, and perhaps among the new vestry. Gilbert de Voisins wrote the procureur ge´ne´ral Joly de Fleury (1746–1823) that it would be better to remove offending clauses about parish money and property, for “the vestry is made up of only the dregs of the common people, and the majority has been won over by the cure´”38[emphasis Gilbert’s]. Gilbert’s disdain was no help, but it was an indication of his frustration and rage. Faced with another impasse, Claude Denis again took up his strategy of appealing to the powerful outside the parish. He wrote several copies of a long memoir clearly intended for the archbishop and sent one through a member of the Chapıˆtre de Paris, the abbe´ Desplasses. The abbe´ had been in favor of the hospice and may have been a relative of Antoine Pierre Desplasses of St.-Benoıˆt, paternal cousin of Claude Denis, and the avocat en Parlement from whom he and Jean Leve´ bought their first disbursar’s office in 1768. The memoir was a powerful indictment of Antheaume: “It is truly distressing to have to fight for an object of charity against the cure´ of St.-Jacques, who should be its first defender. His prejudices have so blinded him, that he has, for almost six years, quietly raised one obstacle after another.”39 This strategy succeeded, evidently because it reached the archbishop’s office. An agreement notarized in the presence of the abbe´ Desplasses ordered that all monies and contracts for the hospice in the hands of the cure´ should be turned over to the treasurer of the hospice. Doubtless this was accompanied by stern warnings against further obstruction. On November 10, 1789, Claude Denis read his report to the vestry of St.-Jacques du Haut-pas outlining the small concessions made to Antheaume. He thanked the gentlemen for their support, read the revised letters patent, and, contrary to Gilbert de Voisins’s prediction, they approved and signed the draft and the minutes. Antheaume apparently conceded. By August 1790 the hospice begun by the cure´ Jean Denis Cochin, and brought into permanent legal existence by seven years of work by his brother, Claude Denis, seemed out of danger. But its legal establishment as an institution of private charity by no means removed it from the concern and involvement of the Cochin family. The new hospice stood not far from them on rue St.Jacques. On September 20, 1789, a special mass for the dead was said and the heart of the cure´ Cochin was placed in the burial vault of the chapel of the hospice. The letters patent gave the Cochin family perpetual right to designate anyone it chose for one bed in the room for men and one in the room for women. The eldest male member of the Cochins was to be a member of the hospice board, and in October 1790 Claude Denis was authorized to receive income for the hospice. For succeeding generations of Cochins the hospice was a focal point of family pride and identity. Claude Denis’s son Jacques Denis kept the hospice open during the Consulate and the Directory and had a voice in the hospice’s, and then the hospital’s, administration from 1806 to 1831. So close did Jacques Denis Cochin feel to his uncle, that his testament of January 28, 1830, included a request that he be buried in the hospice, and he urged the family to continue to support it.40 He passed on the cure´’s skull, evidently given to him when the

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cure´’s coffin was opened during the Revolution.41 His son Jean Denis served on the Conseil des hospices et des hoˆpitaux de Paris from 1831 to his death in 1841, and his son Augustin served on its successor, the Conseil des Hoˆpitaux in 1853, 1856–1861, and 1869–1870.42 Jacques Denis and Augustin regularly attended award ceremonies at the hospice. Augustin Cochin left at his death 20,000 francs for a sepulcher for his family at the Cochin Hospital. He and subsequent members of the family were buried not in the family plot at Montparnasse, but in a special chapel of the hospital.43 The Cochins succeeded in maintaining their ties to this institution of charity from the Old Re´gime far into the Third Republic, despite formidable obstacles.44 Up to the Revolution, the Cochin family’s involvement as charitable, Catholic Parisian bourgeois was wholehearted and local, but it was not strikingly original in its conception of the problem it confronted. Drawn into charity work through St.-Benoıˆt and St.-Jacques du Haut-pas, the Cochins’ charitable careers under the Old Re´gime reached beyond parish charity work at St.-Jacques du Haut-pas, yet they kept this local tie with the neighborhood. Money went to the poor not only in wills (Claude Denis gave the hospice an income of 700 livres per year when he died in 1786—an endowment of 14,000 livres at 5 percent45), but also during their lifetimes. More significantly, charity was taken to heart in the use of their time and energy. Honor there certainly was for these efforts, but what is also striking is their use of business skills, contacts outside the parish, and their wealth to bring their charitable efforts to fruition. This helped justify profit earned from these skills, proved there could be good from their honorable exercise. It was not just a rhetorical gesture when in July 1783 Claude Denis summarized to the Charitable Assembly (Assemble´e de Charite´) at St.-Jacques du Haut-pas the feelings that had moved his brother, the cure´: “Like me, it [the assembly] saw from close up that the shepherd, greatly touched by the concerns his flock caused him, set his heart to especially imitate his divine example, to care for the most disabled, those who necessarily have the greatest need for his help.”46 This faith, determination, and skill helped the hospice—and its patients— survive the Revolution and the imperial wars in better condition than they would have without the Cochins’s efforts. The Revolution brought disaster to the hospital system and the old system of charity of church and city. On November 2, 1790, the National Assembly nationalized Church property. Its Committee on the Poor (Comite´ de Mendicite´) was allowed to administer part of the ecclesiastical wealth for the poor. Responsibility for administering and funding shifted from the National Assembly to municipalities, to the departments, to the Ministry of the Interior, and so on. The law of 23 Messidor, II (July 11, 1794), for example, declared that all hospitals, as national property, could be administered or sold according to the laws on the National Domains. The Revolution destroyed what it considered to be a degrading system of charity under the Old Re´gime, but it put nothing in its place. The old institutions were all that remained to help the poor, but they were soon in a state of spoliation, disorga-

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nization, crowding, and shortages. In Paris some sections set up committees to fill the gap between the legislative ideal and the overwhelming human reality. Claude Denis’s reaction to the removal of local control bordered on belligerence. In January 1792 he sent repeated demands for money for the hospice long overdue from the municipality. He also rebuffed their demands that the hospice pay taxes; it had no money, and, he claimed, it was an “establishment of aid and charity about which the National Assembly has said nothing.”47 Claude Denis received forms and letters from the Tax Office (Bureau des Impositions); he repeated that the hospice had no money to pay, and he brushed aside demands to fill out twice-monthly census forms.48 Claude Denis was fighting to receive the revenues due the hospice, but he was also fighting for local— and some degree of personal—control. While the Cochins were virtually silent during the Revolution, they were outspoken in protecting what they saw as part of their identity: charity. JACQUES DENIS AND THE RESTORATION OF SOCIAL ORDER Claude Denis died in 1797, and with his death ended an era of Catholic charity for the Cochin family. His son Jacques Denis set the tone for the Cochins’ views of social reform and charity after the Revolution. In these years Jacques Denis spoke publicly about Christian charity and public order. Along with the musings in his account books on the meaning of wealth, these manuscript speeches are the only record of his thoughts about the world around him. They convey his wholly conventional hopes for a society restored after the storms of the Revolution and war. It was natural that he expected social order to return with the Bourbons. Order was returning to the routine life around the Cochins. By the late Empire the deliberations of the General Council of Civil Hospitals of Paris (Conseil Ge´ne´ral des Hospices Civils de Paris) show that Cochin Hospital was being repainted and rebuilt. In 1813 and 1814, the Council was spending public money for a chalice, paten, ciborium, and clothing for the sisters serving in the hospital.49 The Ursulines were given space for their convent, classes were started for children in the St.-Jacques neighborhood, and another school was planned. As the head of the family, Jacques Denis continued to nominate an occupant to one bed in the hospital in the room for men and one for women.50 The old Capuchin buildings next to the hospital were turned into a venereal hospital. In 1810 the council was still receiving reports from Mme. Ange´lique Galland, the agent de surveillance for the past fifteen years.51 Jacques Denis’s remarks concerning the restored social order were forceful, sincere, and clear. He framed most of his remarks in the language of the family, and his thinking was redolent of the paternalism so common under the Empire and the Restoration.52 These speeches on public order, which probably date from the summer of 1806 through the early Restoration, were evidently given at school and church functions, in his role as notable and mayor. For example, on

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April 13, 1810, Jacques Denis spoke at the Charitable Assembly at St.-Jacques du Haut-pas. He took as his text for this address on the education of girls Daniel 13:3: “Because her parents were worthy people and had instructed her in the law of Moses.” The talk showed that Jacques Denis’s ideas were rooted in the Old Re´gime but that he understood that the Revolution swept away the old institutions. For Jacques Denis the problems of the family were traceable to “nos temples ferme´s, les cate´chismes interdits, les e´coles sans religion.”53 Never had so many children and families lived outside the Church. This was a threat to social order—for Jacques Denis the family was nearly the sole effective source of religious training: If in the household they never encounter an act of devotion[,] In vain will your respectable teachers say to your children: fear God, observe the Commandments. In vain will we say God is love, one does not love God when one doesn’t love one’s neighbor, if in the company of their parents children hear only criticism and scandal.54

Society’s dependence on religion and the family seemed not merely an analogy, but a hard-earned truth for Jacques Denis (as it was for many conservatives and moderates), and he took up the theme that maternal influence was the foundation of pedagogy and civilization itself after the Revolution.55 The regeneration of State and Church—even their future survival—depended on the proper education of children. This was best done by mothers. Thus the education of girls— future mothers—was the most important reform: Am I wrong or right to speak to you of the great influence that a woman exercises in society and in the church of God? Am I wrong or right to tell you that upon the education of girls hangs the happiness of one and the glory of the other, that moral and religious virtues are, after the fortunate effects of grace, the necessary fruits of the good education of girls. . . . The principle of evil is in the bad education of girls or in the lack of it.56

His talked ended with an exhortation to the women to dedicate themselves to the education of girls. When, he claimed, poverty, overwork, or ignorance worked against the girls’ receiving the proper education, their social betters must step in. Christianity and society were sustained by the “moralization” of families throughout society. They would be building the future. Despite a recognition that after the Revolution conditions had changed—that poverty and charity were affected by the profound changes in politics—Jacques Denis retained his moralistic sense about wealth and virtue. At about the same time he wrote on the education of girls, he composed a talk entitled “The Needs of the Poor.”57 Speaking to a charitable group, perhaps at St.-Jacques du Hautpas, Jacques Denis reminded his audience that “there are many people in the world[;] there is little surplus [wealth] because there is much vice and little

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virtue in the world.”58 The well-to-do and virtuous must make up for unequal distribution of wealth. For Jacques Denis the problem of poverty extended beyond the poor and beyond mere material conditions: “The inequality of wealth would be a source of social unrest for which God himself would be responsible. It is thus to you Christians . . . despite the modesty of your wealth . . . that the Lord has given the honor of his care, it is to you to absolve Providence with your alms.”59 Jacques Denis told the Christian gentlemen that everything they owned above necessity belonged to “divine providence to repair the obvious injustice in the distribution of wealth.” The charitable rich were the means by which God alleviated suffering. The old links between wealth and poverty, virtue and vice, were held firmly in place. These lessons might have been copied from his childhood Montpellier catechism and repeated in his account books. In the paternalistic vision, charity took place in a hierarchical social order. As a new mayor, Jacques Denis delivered an address at a children’s school in which he instructed the sons and daughters of tradesmen and laborers that the institutions of society were there to provide them with good examples (e´mulation). School made children good mothers and fathers and good citizens through obedience to the powers above them: “Be essentially obedient to your superiors. . . . Such is the purpose and intention of the schoolmasters and mistresses who teach you . . . you are watched over every day by your teachers, but you are inspected from higher still by Judges.”60 From the great events he had lived through, Jacques Denis absorbed more or less a single lesson. He sought peace, order, and the return of religion. Human community was unthinkable without these in a world of sin and social unrest. He was enthusiastic for the early Restoration, though his closing elegy of Louis XVIII made the king sound more like a Cochin; the most Christian king was concerned with easing the pains of the common people.61 The evidence we have of Jacques Denis’s views of the social question points to social views easily understandable from the vantage point of the Old Re´gime. His legacy was nourishment, schools, churches, moral exhortation, and the obligation on the wealthy to practice charity. JEAN DENIS’S INFANT SCHOOL AND MAISON: RESPONSES TO THE NEW INDUSTRIAL ORDER Jacques Denis’s son Jean Denis represented a different emphasis in the matter of social reform. Without great daring in terms of new thought about the social question, without losing the moralistic tone aimed at improving the lower classes, Jean Denis represented a departure in thinking about what was needed to deal with begging and the new social problems—unprecedented social problems—that the nineteenth century presented. When his wife died in 1827, he undertook an extensive study of the issues of education and the care of children. He read the reformers, unlike his father: Richard Edgeworth, James Hamilton, Andrew Bell, Joachim Campe, Johann Pestalozzi, and Joseph Le Gerando, just to name a few.62 He traveled to England to study infant schools (salles d’asile),

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taking with him a copy of James Buchanan.63 He also recognized the unprecedented conditions of the nineteenth century and their effect on the family: In effect, the more a country becomes rich and populated, the more the interests and duties of individuals are subdivided and multiply. Women are not exempt for the influence of this complication of duties. Destined as they are by nature to educating the youngest children, they also find themselves called upon to share in the industrial labor of their husbands. If . . . they are forced into daily labor to support their families, their children become open to all the dangers of vagrancy or loneliness.64

This passage reflected the difference between Jean Denis’s view of the social problem and his father’s. There was no relief upon the recovery of order after years of turmoil. Instead, it looked more anxiously toward the new social problems of the nineteenth century generated by the new industrial economy. He rolled up his sleeves and went to work. In 1827 Jean Denis contacted the marquise de Pastoret’s (1765–1843) committee that had set up cre`ches on the rue de Me´romesnil as far back as 1801. He apparently interested Fre´de´ric Millet and his wife to visit England to study the infant school movement there. The committee then set up a trial infant school on the rue des Martyrs to see how this English institution would work in France.65 Jean Denis immediately understood the need for this new institution. He helped draft the report of the twelve local charity boards (bureaux de charite´) to the General Council of Hospitals calling for the establishment of a similar infant school. The report of May 1827 defended their value for “the children of the crowded districts before the age when they may attend school, to keep them for the danger of neglect while their parents are working and the even greater danger to which they are exposed in regard to morals.”66 Officialdom was reluctant to tackle this huge problem, but in less than a year, Jean Denis used his own funds in partnership with the owners of a plot of land on rue St.-Hippolyte in the 12th arrondissement to build a model infant school on a larger scale than ever before.67 The infant school for three- to seven-year-olds must have been enormous: more than 400 were enrolled the first day, and soon 1,000 children and 200 adults attended classes, days and evenings. It cost one sou per day for all the children of a family; for those who could not pay, it was free.68 Charitable donations provided the bulk of the operating expenses. Jean Denis had a circular printed to raise funds for the project in the manner of the cure´. The prefect of the Seine, Chabrol, gave 100 F., as did the prefect of police, Louis Debelleyme, (1787–1862), though he was skeptical of the project. The Benoist d’Azy family, the Pe´an de St.-Gilles family, and Jacques Denis all contributed. In all, 138 subscribers donated 12,255 F.69 As noted before, Jean Denis considered private funding essential for this work of charity and “moralization.” Beginning in November 1828, the model infant school operated fifteen months, lasting through

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the Restoration and into the July Monarchy, when it was purchased by the city.70 Jean Denis refused reimbursement for the 69,000 F. he invested in the project.71 In the typical Cochin manner, Jean Denis tirelessly promoted the concept of the infant school. His model school truly served as a model. By 1833 Jean Denis had written his Manuel des fondateurs et des directeurs des premie`res e´coles de l’enfance connue sous le nom salle d’asile. The Manuel is dense with proposals, figures, and arguments for starting an infant school. It included a floor plan of the building on rue St.-Hippolyte, showed the interior and furnishings, and included songs that some of the women on the committee had adapted for use in the school. The interested reader was even able to obtain a box of scalemodel furniture designed for Jean Denis’s infant school.72 It appears from its guest book that the school was on the itinerary of many visitors to Paris—Scots, Englishmen, Italians, Germans, and Americans came to rue St.-Hippolyte to see Jean Denis’s experiment in social reform. Mme. de Stae¨l came, E´mile Ollivier visited, and comte Herve´ de Tocqueville, as well as “Robert Owen, New Lenark, Founder of the first Infant school in the first Institution for the formation of character.”73 They saw a mixture of progressive and conservative approaches to the social problem. The infant schools attempted less to teach reading and writing than the rudiments of letters and drawing. The most important ideal of the school was to “nurture the moral and social component of primary education.”74 Through example, cultivation of good habits, and tenderness, by exciting the emulation naturally found in children, the moral and social side of the child was supposed to be developed. The day consisted of two identical sessions of classes divided by a two-hour break for a meal and play in the courtyard of the school. Each class was begun with a prayer followed by very basic lessons in reading, drawing, writing, and numbers; it was then closed with another prayer. Lessons were carefully tailored to the needs and interests of two- to seven-year-olds. Jean Denis was attempting to give a beginning to education for these children, but the emphasis in the school was moral and social. Children were to have a safe and uplifting environment at an age when imprinting moral behavior was most effective. The idea was that the properly guided child became the respectful and honest adult. Jean Denis’s private initiative fit the conservative intention of the social reformers of his time, worried that the classes below them were without sufficient guidance, worried, perhaps, that the modern organization of labor created a less moral or less obedient populace. Education for the poorer classes strengthened the moral and religious sense, “on which,” Jean Denis warned in his Manuel, “depends the security of the social order.”75 Though his project lacked the utopian hopes of some reformers, Jean Denis’s private initiative included new impulses that surpassed the traditional ones of his father and granduncle. The infant school contained liberal features. For example, Jean Denis favored the Lancastrian method, teaching by mutual instruction.76 Catholics and conservatives mistrusted mutual teaching, which they felt threatened the authority and

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distinct role of teachers (read “clergy”). Further, the infant school was filled with children from all classes. Working parents were free to work and save, to create a new future for their children.77 But children of wealthy parents were also supposed to benefit from mixing with other children, where they would not be spoiled or corrupted by the servants. The infant school operated on a middle ground between class abolishment and class division, where children of different classes met and learned to cooperate under general moral training.78 Jean Denis was best known as a founder and expert on infant schools; he served on several education committees and helped publish L’Ami de l’enfance with Battelle from 1835 to 1840.79 The model infant school was named Maison Cochin in his honor. But the model infant school was not his only initiative in social reform in Paris. His other great undertaking was a reform house to eliminate begging in Paris. Though its aim was different from the infant school, there are striking similarities in the way in which Jean Denis set up the projects. Cochin was appointed to a blue-ribbon panel chosen by the prefect of the Seine at the urging of the prefect of police, Louis Debelleyme. Jean Denis, mayor of the 12th arrondissement, was joined by prominent notables, politicians, and city officials: the Dupin brothers, Jacques Vassal, comte Alexandre Laborde, the baron Ternaux from the Chamber of Deputies, the marquis LarochefoucaultLiancourt (probably the reformer Fre´de´ric Gaetan), the duc de Pasquier, the duc de Choiseul, and the baron Armand de Seguier, the barons Lecordier and Chodron, doyens of the mayors and notaries representing the city, as well as Louis Breton of the General Council of the Seine.80 Jean Denis was a central figure on the committee; he served on all three of its subcommittees and was the author of their report, De l’extinction de la mendicite´. Rapport lu en se´ance du 27 mars 1829, par le Conseil provisoire charge´ avec des travaux pre´paratoires de destine´e a` procurer l’extinction de mendicite´ dans Paris.81 This was an ambitious undertaking. The best efforts of officials in Paris over centuries had had no effect on begging in the city. The committee’s report concluded with a recommendation to build a “maison de refuge et de travail” for those arrested for begging. It was hoped this new institution would permanently end begging in Paris. Contributions came in from the wealthy notables in Paris, from the king and the dauphin, cabinet ministers, local banks, and insurance companies; in all, 20,687 subscribers gave over 789,832.01 F.82 Located in the rebuilt convent of the Cordeliers on rue de l’Oursine, the house opened in October 1829. But from the beginning it encountered difficulties. The previous August the prefect of police, Debelleyme, was replaced, and his successor, Claude Mangin (1786–1835), was hostile to the project. The committee and the new prefect drew the newspapers into their battle. Le Constitutionnel sided with the committee on humanitarian grounds, advocating new measures other than the failed policy of police repression: “We cannot treat as a criminal or slave everyone who is forced by necessity to express in the streets the distress that has befallen him.”83 Jean Denis’s and the committee’s modest proposal to retain beggars to work became embroiled in the struggles between the govern-

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ment and its critics. Le Messager des chambres reported that on December 13, 1829, a large number of lawyers at the Palais de Justice demanded Debelleyme be appointed Minister of the Interior and Jean Denis Cochin prefect of police. The liberal Le Courrier franc¸ais warned Mangin not to kill the project, one of Debelleyme’s best accomplishments as prefect, it claimed; the paper’s director later lost a libel suit brought by Mangin. A paper supporting Mangin called the committee a group of “philosophes, atheists, deists, Jansenists, and Freemasons.”84 Jean Denis’s and Debelleyme’s meetings with Mangin and the Minister of the Interior fed the public outcry, but they were ineffective against Mangin, who allowed the house to open only after it had received a royal ordinance. It never had its full complement of occupants; in February 1830 it had only eightyseven men, though designed for almost two hundred; thirty-five were forty-one to sixty years old, and twenty-two were sixty-one to seventy. The change of re´gime gave it a brief extension, for one of the members of its administrative council, Alexandre Vivien (1799–1854), was briefly prefect of police in 1831. In 1833 the Conseil du De´partement de la Seine voted to acquire the building, by which time Jean Denis was a member. But its use as a house of work seems to have ended soon after. Mangin had objected to the compulsory nature of the house. The committee wanted to end begging in Paris, and its report showed that it hoped that the police would force beggars into the house as a preferable alternative to prison. Without this threat, the house could not cure the beggar. Jean Denis believed that a professional begging class existed in the city, and that they would never give up their activities without being forced to; as mayor of the poorest part of the city, he believed they were “a class apart.”85 The house was a sharp break with the system of parish charity, and Jean Denis put this in as clear terms as possible. The parish system, he and the committee claimed, made the poor “rentiers de l’E´tat,” and this involved the state in domestic issues—which the report declared it was unsuited to handle. In addition, the so-called “professional” beggars refused to register for assistance at the charity boards of their arrondissements—the system widespread in Paris by the nineteenth century.86 Yet however laudable Jean Denis’s and the committee’s motives, Mangin’s objections to forcing the police to place beggars in the house had some foundation. The house was a private institution, set up by notables who had no authority to run such an institution, nor to demand the police deliver those arrested for begging. Mangin raised the sensitive issue of the place of private initiatives in social reform. The semi-official status of the committee, its notable personnel, its private funding, its good intentions, its “modern” attempt to socially engineer away the ageold problem of begging in the city, gave it a substantial, but not a sufficient, standing in law and in the life of the city. The report of the committee criticized the law of 24 vende´miaire II (October 15, 1793) that placed the responsibility for caring for the poor and beggars under the centralized state. But Mangin’s argument, that the house and those who ran it had no sufficient standing to require attendance in the house instead of jail, was that these good intentions

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could not circumvent the law. The house required official support to be effectively compulsory; unlike the infant school, it was not filled with individuals who voluntarily enrolled themselves. In this case, the issue of compulsion showed the limits of this kind of well-meaning conservative civic action. In the end Mangin’s objections outweighed the dauphin’s and the king’s support, and Mangin was able to close the committee’s house. The story of the house of refuge and work highlights Jean Denis’s interest in the power of institutions to alter undesirable behavior. The report of the committee was based on the familiar pattern of describing the old and intractable problem of begging and recounting the solutions tried that were insufficient to meet the ballooning problem. The Minister of the Interior appointed the committee after another mayor, Hutteau d’Origny, complained about charity in the city to the General Council of Hospices, the body then in charge of poor relief; only seven workhouses had been added to the twenty-three set up in 1816 (there were supposed to be forty-eight); there were more poor than ever, and costs had skyrocketed, from 978,384 F. in 1802 to 1,561,841 F. by 1826; and the luxury tax on entertainment (spectacles) that used to pay for poor relief in Paris had become insufficient. The house was for habitual, professional beggars, not the poor.87 At the house (which was based on one already in operation in Bordeaux), the beggar was exposed to “a regime of regeneration,” of assistance and work, which would cure the “vice” afflicting him. The house would furnish the means to change him, to regenerate him, to return him to good habits.88 This required a strict regimen. The subjects were to be brought to the house by the police, interrogated, and given a physical examination. They were given a uniform and sent to work in a setting with no smoking, talking, sharing of goods, games, cards, or leave without permission. The “workers” were given simple work, and they were paid one-quarter of their earnings; half went for the upkeep of the house, and the other quarter was placed in a bank; anyone who saved 30 F. in this way was considered to have received all the help available. Women were admitted and were kept separate from the men. Anyone who refused to work was given only bread and water and put in the discipline room. Thus, the “workers” were forcibly imprinted with the habits they needed to escape from their persistent habit of begging. Jean Denis Cochin tried in these two instances to set up, through private initiative, new institutions that would meet the unprecedented needs of the “industrial” times. He expected they would more or less solve the problems of the new age. His efforts in this were, as has been said, at once conservative and liberal: the creation of new individuals, capable of meeting the demands of modern life; fostering social peace and cooperation through the laudable actions of notables; enriching of the life of the city by creating new or better character through the moral imprinting of habits usually provided by the family. As administrator, critic, politician, and reformer, Jean Denis proved a cautious progressive.

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AUGUSTIN COCHIN AND CATHOLIC SOCIAL REFORM His son Augustin’s reaction to the social problem of the nineteenth century was more religious and more heartfelt. As a schoolboy at Colle`ge Rollin, Jean Denis Cochin’s son was influenced by the chaplain, the abbe´ Augustin Se´nac (1800–?). Se´nac was putting down his thoughts as Christianisme et civilisation (first published 1837). He introduced young Augustin to the eccentric JeanBaptiste Bordas-Demoulin (1798–1859). This setting revived in young Augustin the Catholic influence still at the root of the family’s charitable activities in the later two generations. The Catholicism he learned from Se´nac, which he took up in his life’s work, was oriented toward Catholic social reform. Se´nac believed that the social order was crumbling, and that only Christianity could save it. God’s plan was visible in all that was new and unprecedented in the nineteenth century. For Se´nac, evidence for the progress of the century was the response of Christians—their starting new institutions, such as the St. Francis Xavier Society, to help the growing number of poor in modern society. Se´nac’s influence gave a different tone to Augustin’s involvement in the social question. It was not a matter of repudiating his father. As a young man, Augustin wrote his father: “You are the model I keep before my eyes, dear father, and every day I see in you fresh acts worthy of emulation.”89 He continued the family association with his father’s infant school, the Maison Cochin, and wrote a short biography of Jean Denis for the fourth edition of the Manuel.90 His public offices were much the same as his father’s. A small sample: He served on the Administrative Oversight Council of Public Assistance (Conseil de Surveillance de l’Administration Ge´ne´rale de l’Assistance Publique de Paris), was a consultant to the Ministry of the Interior on prisons, was on the General Council of Public Works (Conseil Ge´ne´ral des Ponts et Chausse´es), served on the General Commission on Retirement Pensions (Commission supe´rieure de la caıˆsse des retraite´s pour la veillesse), and served on the Administrative Council to Aid the Disabled Poor (Conseil d’Administration d’Assistance aux Mutile´s-pauvres).91 In 1853 he was appointed to the Hospital Council of Paris (Conseil des Hoˆpitaux). His early writing reflects interests very similar to his father’s. Augustin’s “Notice sur Mettray” (1846) in Annales de la charite´ praised this famous agricultural colony (near Tours) for the reform of young criminals, orphans, foundlings, and poor children by “giving them social skills and training them in their social duties.”92 His subsequent essay on Johann Pestalozzi, dedicated to his parents, on a topic offered by the Acade´mie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, was a paean on the improvement of human society (despite Original Sin) and the central importance of education.93 His father Jean Denis would have agreed to all of this, including his endorsement of the mutual system. But Augustin’s interests in education—his service on the Falloux Commission in 1849–1850—was only one example of how social reform and Catholic teaching intermixed in his life. Bordas and Se´nac gave Augustin deeper motives,

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political and religious motives, for following his father’s example and then surpassing it. Charity and social reform were necessary for a liberal society and a re-Christianized society. For Augustin, times had changed: “Today charity is a political necessity; liberty requires charity.”94 Augustin began his new departures, typically, at the local level—on rue St.Jacques. His uncle Denys Benoist encouraged young Augustin to join Antoine Fre´de´ric Ozanam’s (1813–1853) Socie´te´ de Saint-Vincent-de-Paul in 1840.95 The first chapters were set up at St.-E´tienne-du-Mont on rue St.-Jacques, and by 1843 Augustin was a member of the General Council of the society. He also worked at the foyer set up for young apprentices (Patronage des Jeunes Apprentis) established by Armand de Melun (1807–1877) in 1839–1840. With Georges de Larochefoucault-Liancourt and other friends, including Maurice Maignen, he became an associate (confre`re) in Maurice Maignen’s houses for young apprentices on rue du Regard and later at number 102 Boulevard de Montparnasse following Melun’s model.96 In 1845 Augustin was president of the mutual aid society for workers at St.-Jacques du Haut-pas. The cure´, Martin de Noirlieu, encouraged young Augustin’s participation.97 These new religious associations were to play an important role in modern French society in Augustin’s mind. “Too young,” he wrote, to not love my century, too Christian to not believe in progress, I like to think . . . that if now people don’t gather in the devout but narrow circle of the family, of the nuclear family, it is that an eminently Christian idea, a broad, fruitful idea, an idea that holds the future . . . gathers strength daily . . . the spirit of fellowship, I should add, of religious fellowship.98

These organizations were to regenerate society through social action on the part of dedicated Catholic reformers. In his memoirs, Falloux characterized this new interest in social work and charity on the part of Legitimists as a reaction to their exclusion from the July Monarchy, and as a critique of industrialism and its middle-class sympathizers.99 But Augustin Cochin endorsed neither side of this struggle. Though his family was not without standing under the July Monarchy, Augustin considered dynastic allegiances of small importance. (Later this independence would set back his public career.) Similarly, though he was a believer in industrial progress, Augustin could be a severe critic of its cruelty, its greed, and especially the indifference of its managerial and owning classes. Augustin’s hard work and ceaseless activity widened his horizons. Augustin’s career in social reform encompassed the city and all of France.100 The complexity of Augustin’s view of modern social reform is best illustrated by his involvement with Melun and Fre´de´ric LePlay. In 1845 Augustin helped establish Annales de la charite´, whose moving spirit was Melun. In so doing he associated with a heterogeneous group of activists, many of them Legitimists, and some Orleanist Liberals. All agreed that social improvement was a duty imposed upon them by the Gospel, and this seemed sometimes about all they

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had in common. The group included Charles Dupin; the baron d’Eckstein; the abbe´ de Bouillerie, vicar general of Paris; comte Charles de Montalembert; the young Louis Veuillot; Alban de Veuilleuve-Bargemont; Euge`ne Marbeau, the founder of municipal nurseries in Paris; the cure´ Martin de Noirlieu; and Augustin’s cousin Denys Benoist d’Azy. Augustin produced a steady stream of articles for Annales, from his report on Mettray to reports on English and German poor relief. Yet Augustin also blended in his father Jean Denis’s interest in social reform as a scientific and quantitative matter, and for this he turned to Fre´de´ric LePlay. He first met LePlay in 1848, probably through his uncle Benoist d’Azy. A few months after February 1848 LePlay had Augustin gathering observations on family life in other regions of France; science was to come to the aid of the torn French social fabric. Through the years Augustin produced several works for LePlay, most notably three articles in LePlay’s Les Ouvriers europe´ens, published with the imperial imprimatur in 1855.101 LePlay gave Augustin a part in the Universal Exhibition of 1855, in which Cochin organized the exhibit of inventions that improved the life of the working class. At the exhibition, Augustin introduced Melun to LePlay. But these two men Augustin so admired, the saintly Melun and the spectacled, intellectual LePlay, did not get along. Further, Augustin stuck to his political liberalism in spite of the implications of LePlay’s conservative thought.102 Yet LePlay still remained a model for Augustin, who refused to choose between empirical social science and Christian moral action. Augustin would later describe what was wrong with industrial capitalism in fierce tones. In 1862 this son of a family which knew firsthand the suffering of the Parisian working classes reviewed a collection of books on workers and discussed the issue of class difference. Were workers, “those people,” a different species? “Those people are squeezed from the same lemon as we are,” 103 he noted, with his own emphasis. And what of owners? “Who is the boss? He is rarely in his factory when he owns it. More often it is owned by a company. The master is a being invented by the law, he has no face, he is never seen.”104 The patronage associations of which Augustin was a member kept an eye on the moral life of their charges; their visits to the workshop could prove embarrassing for abusive employers.105 His strengthened Catholicism kept Augustin’s views anchored in a moralistic sphere. For Augustin the nineteenth-century social reformer, material wealth had at least as many pitfalls as it did for his grandfather, Jacques Denis, author of the moralistic account books at the beginning of the century. Virtue made men and women what they were, and material goods might corrupt as surely as their absence might. As Augustin wrote in 1862: “Huge salaries make savings possible, but also vice; it is virtue that makes the difference.”106 And this meant that reform must come from the moral upper classes, those unspoiled by either want or wealth—a familiar Cochin theme. For Augustin the issue in the nineteenth century was the greed and venality of the superior classes.107 While Augustin’s later career focused on matters of politics and the Church, he never let

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go of his activities for social reform. Mutual associations, for example, remained an interest throughout his life. After he was appointed one of the administrators of the Orle´ans railroad, Augustin produced a steady stream of proposals to improve the lives of the workers. By late 1864 the previous benefit system for workers was abandoned and a “Socie´te´ de secours mutuels des ouvriers et employe´s de la compagnie du chemin de fer d’Orle´ans,” similar to the St. Francis Xavier Society, was set up. So was a subsidized company store aided by private charities, and a system of medical care for the workers. Then the president of the Socie´te´ de Secours Mutuels—Augustin himself—wrote to the French bishops to pressure the railroads for at least a partial ban on Sunday work. Company stores were begun in 1855. Similar measures were suggested during his term as administrator at the famous St. Gobains glass and porcelain works, beginning in 1864. These efforts were important to Augustin, for he was convinced that the future of France lay in industrial production.108 The possibilities for future social peace depended, in his eyes, on the employers’ efforts to improve the condition of the working classes. They must practice “pre´voyance” and set up insurance groups. At the same time, this service to the poor and working classes elicited from Augustin, as it did from his fathers, a personal, religious devotion. All through his busy life his office was open Fridays to the beggars and poor. They sometimes filled the waiting room of his apartment on rue St.-Guillaume seeking his advice and help. It was an exhausting service to humanity but a permanent fixture of his personality. He made this interaction part of his day for his entire adult life. Thus Augustin was able to fold what he believed were the broad and torturous changes of the nineteenth century—the movement toward a better, modern society—into his daily life; he was able to feel he was helping to bring a Christian future to France. He was able to sustain this belief throughout his life; but the great testing time was the invasion and the Commune, which frustrated and discouraged him. It turned out that his efforts for the working classes were repaid at a dramatic moment in his life. He had established many friendships in this work, and when, on March 18th, 1871, a secret warrant was drawn up for his arrest in Paris, a worker whom Augustin had once helped find employment warned him about it (twice, in fact), reminding Augustin that the Commune would enroll his sons. Augustin and his family made a dramatic escape by train through the Prussian lines the next day to the safety of La Roche.109 Augustin could never forget that there was a complicated and unruly politics inseparable from the social question. In July 1850 he wrote a letter to his cousin and brother-in-law, Augustin Benoist d’Azy, which gave a concise account of how he dealt for the rest of his life with a restless and uncertain political future and the ever-present danger of disorder and revolution. He hoped the government of the Second Republic would give France order and stability, he wrote, yet he was not sanguine about the prospects for a quiet political future. The way to social peace was to work to solve the great divisions within French society.

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The social had erupted into the political with disastrous results, he felt, but this would not cease until social problems were at least addressed. Public men must do “everything that must be done to gradually change all that is, finally, the standing cause of revolutions: want, irreligion, ignorance, ambition, downward mobility, abuse of freedom, etc., etc. But let us be satisfied with calm, from which will come progress.”110 France required a moral order to support its public life, its politics, and its social organizations, and Augustin wanted to weave himself into its fabric to bring about these desperately needed changes. For him France would always need good administrators, good Christians, honorable men; that is what he decided to be.111 Yet administration required an apprenticeship. This Augustin could not find under the Second Empire, which treated him as a useful outsider. One example was Baron Georges Euge`ne Haussmann’s rebuilding of Paris. Augustin followed the transformation of Paris, defending many of the changes to his beloved city; he was understandably unhappy, however, with this exercise of central power. It is possible that some of this feeling was due to his exclusion from the undertaking. This centralization of power was, in his eyes, one of the shortcomings of the Empire.112 So strong was his idea of the moral basis for politics and public life that he believed it held true even when it clashed with his hope for progress. Political disasters uncovered, for Augustin, the moral failings of public life, whether from above or below. In one of his bitterest moments, during the siege of Paris in September 1870, Augustin wrote poignantly of the failure of the Second Empire. As did many of his contemporaries, he saw the war and the siege as just retribution for its moral rot: “We did not know what poison we swallowed,” he noted bitterly.113 He noted that across from the Grand Hoˆtel, where the wounded were lying, stood nude statues in front of the Ope´ra, an apt symbol, he thought, for the licentiousness of the Empire. His Germanophobia fed the hope that the curse of Empire was now taken up by the Prussians. In this Augustin, too, hardly differed from his contemporaries. But the significance of these events was much more profound for the Cochin family. These bitter events forced upon Augustin the realization that the hopes and activities of the Cochin family—and thus the family’s sense of itself—had no effect on the public world around them. In retrospect, these last years of Augustin’s career in charity and social reform were unexpectedly crucial to the story of the family. From the Cochins’ vantage point, the forces shaping public life in France had changed. It would soon be clear the forces were of a wholly different nature from what they expected. Eventually their right to affect public life at all was contested by the overriding power of the state. Augustin’s career in social reform was based on an inextinguishable hope that paternalistic action would alter the social and political future of France. His optimism rested on his Catholic triumphalism. Unlike other Catholic social reformers of his generation, he welcomed the new sciences of society, expecting that they would benefit the laboring classes and the poor. He searched for innovations to help the working classes in order to achieve a gradualist end of

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social peace and prosperity. His own family presented—or virtually forced upon him—opportunities for social action at an early age, and he took them up. Like his father, he expected the future to be built substantially from the reform of human character, or, at least, the “moralization” of fallen human nature. His faith helped him through moments of discouragement—and there were many, for the course of public life during his lifetime could barely support his optimism. At his death in the spring of 1872, social peace, social improvement, seemed farther away than it was twenty years earlier. Charity and social reform seemed to have been overwhelmed by the nineteenth century, but not as a motive within the Cochin family. The question at the end of Augustin’s life was, How could the Cochins continue to practice this faith? DENYS AND AUGUSTIN: THE THIRD REPUBLIC The significance of social reform and charitable activities changes in the last two generations of Cochins, who reached maturity between the Commune and the Great War. The impulse is there, the family tradition is there, but it was overwhelmed by a defensive reaction against the growing power of the Third Republic. Denys and his son Augustin felt nothing but hostility in a field of action in which their fathers had found a sense of worth and accomplishment. They were crowded out of this part of public life; there were fewer of the traditional independent initiatives of the kind that the Cochins had taken long before the days of the cure´ Jean Denis. In Denys’s lifetime the Cochin family felt very bitter about the newer, more hostile atmosphere generated by the Third Republic around anything undertaken by prominent Catholics. After his father’s death in 1872, twenty-year-old Denys stayed busy as a notable in the country. He began at Montceaux, where he served as mayor at Coudray-Montceaux in 1878. He joined the Socie´te´ pour l’Encouragement d’Instruction Primaire et E´ducation Moral et Religieuse at Corbeil. In May 1877 he ran and lost a race for the seat from Corbeil in the election that determined the balance of power between the Assembly and the president for the rest of the Third Republic, the election of May 16th. This was Denys’s first taste of not only political defeat, but a more general feeling that political and social perquisites would be contested. Politics became the medium of the Republic’s hostility toward the public power of the Cochins and their kind. Denys noted that in this early race he had only his principles and his good intentions to offer. They were not enough. He soon saw from his term on the Paris City Council how Republican politics reached, from his view, beyond politics and into matters of social restructuring. He served on the Paris City Council from 1881 to 1885 and wrote a collection of essays about the experience (1885)114 in which he, as one of the few conservatives, held up republican politics to ridicule. One episode concerned republican attempts to secularize street names. He wrote to a republican newspaper editor: “Do you know what it means to secularize a street? . . . ‘It’s to erase the

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names of saints . . . still too prevalent in our nomenclature.’ I live on rue de Varenne, that’s a secular street. You live on rue St. Joseph: that’s a street that needs to be secularized.”115 But secularization by the City Council could go farther than that. Perhaps because Denys was a scoffer, he became a target. At the City Council session of July 22, 1885, the director of Public Assistance was asked why the Sisters of St. Mary had not been removed from Cochin Hospital. The director, Louis Ernest Peyron, answered that it was because one of the Council’s own members, Denys Cochin, had threatened a lawsuit over it. The arguments over the hospital, subsequently published by the aggrieved Cochin family as L’Hoˆpital Cochin (1890), dragged on from the summer of 1885 to the end of 1888. The issue was never the competence of the sisters, who were universally, if grudgingly, praised. The argument centered on the notion that secularization would be “in the general interests of the sick,” an argument ridiculed as unlikely to be a concern of the ill and dying. Officials conceded that they intended to impose secularization, though it was more expensive; they had admitted “as their purpose to replace the religious congregations, sworn enemies of the Republic, with lay persons who will defend civil Society and thus the Republic.”116 On Christmas Day, 1885, Denys, his brother Henry, and his mother paid a tearful farewell to the sisters, and they stopped in the chapel where Augustin Cochin lay buried and the heart of the cure´ Cochin was kept. They lost their subsequent appeal, the Tribunal Civil de la Seine ruling that the director of Public Assistance was not in violation of the cure´ Cochin’s will by denying the family a seat on the administrative council of the hospital or in secularizing it.117 Thus the Cochins’ proud contribution to public life in the eighteenth century was definitively taken out of their hands by the Third Republic, intent on removing these tokens of private Catholic charity. This was symptomatic of the family’s involvement in the social question. In the Third Republic there remained, of course, the opportunities and privileges of the wealthy and titled; Denys and his family enjoyed the weekends in the country, the shooting, the fox hunting, the dinners, balls, and receptions, and the lively intellectual life of the Third Republic, the traveling, the vie de chaˆteau that enriched their lives. But Denys faced, and intensely disliked, his powerlessness in this politico-social arena, which he knew to be a powerful and permanent force in his life. The Republic attacked not just the practice of charity, but the very cultural roots of this family’s charitable action and identity. His initiatives at new organizations centered on not the improvement of the lives of the working class, but the defense of Catholic interests in education, the congregations, and parish life. This defensive operation was a reflection of his own powerlessness, as he knew. It was also a measure of the changes the Third Republic had successfully brought about, especially acute after the “New Spirit” of cooperation between the Church and Emile Combes came to an end with the Dreyfus Affair. The first blow hit the regular clergy, but it soon also fell on the whole of the Church and Catholic culture.

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If the school he runs and in which he teaches had been run previously by the brothers, the secularized brother will take pains . . . to remove everything that . . . will recall the earlier religious control, paintings, images, objects pertaining to the Order, he will at least rearrange the furniture, add . . . some new furniture, etc., so he cannot be accused of maintaining the old religious school.118

This passage, taken from a brochure to aid the reestablishment of religious teachers under secular guise, was published from Denys Cochin’s home, the offices of the Ligue de la Libe´rte´ d’Enseignement. The Ligue was formed in response to the Law of July 1901. Pierre Marie Rene´ Waldeck-Rousseau’s government had presented the law which declared religious congregations illicit because their vows violated the individual rights of the citizen under the law. Only congregations officially recognized by the government were allowed to exist.119 Before the law was passed there were 1,511 communities of women and 153 of men in France; after it there were 905 of women and only 5 of men. Denys denounced the law in the Chamber of Deputies and helped form the Ligue, which offered legal advice and counseling and served as a clearinghouse for information for Catholics hoping to keep their religious schools open under the law.120 Denys served as one of the Ligue’s secretary-generals and donated rooms at 53 rue de Babylone for its headquarters. He was joined by a constellation of Catholic notables—for example, Ferdinand Brunetie`re, Anato´le LeroyBeaulieu, Georges Picot, Louis Cailletet, and Edmond Rousse, all of the Institut. To maintain the Ligue’s broad-based appeal, he invited prominent Jews and Protestants; Calmann-Le´vy, his publisher, joined, and Franc¸ois Witt-Guizot was the vice secretary general. A comparison of the Ligue’s brochure with that of Denys’s grandfather, Jean Denis, for his infant schools highlights the change in the Cochins’ fortune in affecting the society about them. Jean Denis was an active member of groups of notables trying to repair or reform the social fabric through their good works and, in part, the expertise and wealth their social classes represented. The attempt was to inspire or prompt government to pay attention to pressing social problems; and in both of Jean Denis’s projects, this meant inculcating some of the moral and/or religious values of the concerned notable classes into the poor or the working class. In 1901 this private group was on the defensive, trying to maintain the Church’s interest in education against a powerful Republic determined to shape and monopolize public life, and especially education. Members of teaching orders were on the run, pretending, under the eyes of a watchful government, that they were not what they continued to be. For the Cochins, the days of private initiatives to improve the social order were over. The Cochins lost control of Cochin Hospital; four years after the law on congregations, Denys was battling the government’s proposed Separation law. Denys’s reaction was anger, and his powerlessness and political isolation frustrated him. In August 1902 he wrote to his son Jean about the reasons for starting the Ligue, words that applied through the Separation Crisis (and in which the

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Ligue would continue to operate). He was now a Catholic in a predominantly nonbelieving world and knew he could not ask for special treatment as a Catholic; but he could not understand the determination of the government to divide France by closing Catholic schools: Despite the sorrow I have to see people not believe what I believe the true, the good, the dignity, and the consolation of life—it would never occur to me to commit crimes against them. . . . I would not threaten them with bayonets and soldiers’ bullets (blood is probably shed today [August 1902] in Brittany)—parents want to raise their children according to their own lights—be they Jews or Freemasons—It’s an extraordinary rage.121

There was a reason for these changes in public life that led Denys to believe that he lived in a flatter and more hostile world. He watched as the Republic implemented social policies that supported its political power. Denys saw this new use of politics firsthand in the Chamber of Deputies. The Republic’s demand for control where notables previously had an open field marked a loss for the Cochins. Politics became the only means of influence, of fighting back, of sounding the alarm, when the Republic’s opponents or victims felt it had gone too far. Placards, electioneering, propaganda, political networks, Ligues, these were the new and—to them—dangerous tools Denys Cochin faced in public life. This was how opinion was swayed and laws made. The old, private and semiprivate realm of charity and social reform was closed off. The despair over these policies and how they were implemented was shared by Denys and his son Augustin. Augustin was the first prominent Cochin whose adult career did not include service in “public life” as his family understood it. Witness all his life to the frustrations of his politician father, Augustin had only contempt for the Republic. Though he received training at the prestigious E´cole des Chartes, he had no intention of serving the state as an archivist. He instead spent his career as a historian uncovering the secrets, the hypocrisies, of the Third Republic in his historical work on the French Revolution. To Augustin the social policy, the politics, of the Third Republic were symptomatic of democratic Jacobinism, bent on control of society and individuals. And like his father, Augustin developed a horror of the endless sloganeering whipped up by each new political wind; as he wrote to his sister haughtily in 1906: There is something worse than being beaten, and that’s to win through abandoning one’s principles; and it is to abandon them to “demonstrate,” make an uproar in the papers and the streets, pretend an elation one doesn’t really have, with an eye to the “effect” on others; all that, it’s the way of democrats, which is to say not of Christians.122

Instead of a comfortable realm of action among the poor and working classes of the Third Republic, Augustin more often noted its strangeness. Versed in

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E´mile Durkheim, and feeling very much the outsider, he was drawn to seeing the culture of the Republic as a curiosity. In an undated letter to his friend, Antoine de Meaux, Augustin described the people he encountered at Troyes, over whom reign the bloody schoolteachers, horribly tattooed with “philosophy.” What makes the melancholy charm of this beautiful place is that it was very civilized in an earlier age: the huts of the current inhabitants stand among the ruins of great and flourishing villages—around enchanting churches, whose cavedin roofs still shelter windows and statues of great worth—happily ignored by the natives who are busy with their humanitarian amulets; it’s curious and impressive.123

Yet he was often well treated by the Troyens, and he found great pleasure in the local churches; they were often subjects of his sketches. Catholicism was a powerful impulse in Augustin’s life. His religious sensibility was more Romantic and medieval than that of any of the Cochins—a reaction of many in the Church to republican positivism. But this Catholicism was united to actions characteristically Cochin. Like his grandfather and namesake, Augustin deliberately hid his charitable works, and like his grandfather he taught apprentices in the faubourgs. After his death, a card file was found with the names and type of aid given to the needy he knew in the already-Red suburbs.124 His perpetuation of the traditional Cochin behavior was especially impressive. His grandfather had done the same for reasons of Christian integrity. Grandfather Augustin was a man open to and at peace with his time, confident of the future. Denys Cochin’s son was an implacable enemy of the “socializing” Republic, with no better future to look forward to; yet his actions are evidence of perhaps an even greater sense of duty to help the less fortunate. Where social reform was no longer possible, the habit of traditional charity remained. The pattern of the Cochin family involvement in charity and social reform shows a constant impulse with widely varying opportunities. The Old Re´gime, the Restoration, and the July Monarchy were fertile fields of action for this impulse. There was a surprising continuity. The Second Empire was also accommodating, though there were more barriers to political involvement. The aftermath of the Revolution, then, set up new opportunities, broader participation for notables in private and public social action. It should be noted that the Cochins’ impulse was never an attempt to create institutions of absolute control. Social reform was by and large the alteration of behavior for cautiously liberal and, in their eyes, eventually democratic, ends. Their public efforts reflected sincerely held private values and an attachment to order. Serious students of the social problem in the nineteenth century, the Cochins enjoyed a sense of place and purpose from their involvement in social reform—as they had in Catholic charity—until the rebuffs of the Third Republic. Their other great relation— with the Church—is the subject of the next chapter.

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NOTES 1. As, for example, the early Karl Marx: “Through the emancipation of private property from the community, the State has become a separate entity, beside and outside civil society; but it is nothing more than the form of organization which the bourgeois necessarily adopt both for internal and external purposes for the mutual guarantee of their property and interests.” “The German Ideology,” The Marx-Engels Reader, 2d ed., ed. Robert Tucker (New York: Norton, 1978), 187. 2. “Demand arose for representation of persons, not of status, and for an entirely new constitution for France. The idea of the people as a constitutional power, able to make or unmake all political institutions, and to issue grants of authority, was applied to France as nowhere else except in America. . . . The sovereignty claimed for the people meant that no one else, neither hereditary magistrate nor manorial seigneur, nor even the King, could hold public authority by virtue of his own right or status. . . . There should be no self-recruiting public powers. The law should know no classes or orders.” R. R. Palmer, The Age of the Democratic Revolutions, vol. 1, The Challenge (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959), 488. 3. Katherine A. Lynch, Family, Class and Ideology in Early Industrial France: Social Policy and the Working-Class Family, 1825–1848 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1988), 234. 4. Ibid., 232. 5. See Zeldin, France 1848–1945, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973, 1977). 6. Jean Brute´, Chronique historique de Messieurs les cure´s de Saint Benoıˆt . . . (Paris: Guillaume Desprez, 1752). 7. Daniel Jousse, Traite´ du gouvernement spirituel et temporel des paroisses (Paris: Debure Pe`re, 1769), 6–7, 122–24, 134–36. 8. Date of original appointment and renewal by the Prefecture of the Seine, April 25, 1821, AC, Da7. 9. These were called for by the Ordinance of July 1816. One bureau in the 12th was opened in February 1817. See “Releve´ des principaux actes de l’administration de M. Cochin pe`re,” AC, Da7; see also Fe´lix Ponteil, Histoire de l’Enseignement en France (n.p.) 100–101. 10. “les administrations post-re´volutionnaires, par de´finition ne devraient plus connaıˆtre les classes, entendons choses au sens de l’Ancien Re´gime, ces distinctions d’e´tats (nobles, bourgeois, ne´gociants, me´nagers, travailleurs . . . ), ces diffe´rences de richesses, d’honneurs et de fonctions, e´le´ments d’une socie´te´ officiellement hie´rarchise´e. . . . c’est sa profession qu’elle demande, et sa position juridique, non sa qualite´ familiale he´re´ditaire.” Maurice Agulhon, La Vie sociale en Provence inte´rieure au lendemain de la Re´volution (Paris: Socie´te´ des E´tudes Robespierristes, 1970), 248. 11. He also thought it would give him power to carry out charitable and educational works. Augustin Cochin to Mme Augustin Cochin, June 27, 1850, and notes by Henry Cochin, Lettres, I, 72. He hesitated because he knew how much work it would be. Some of the projects he carried out for the city while vice mayor and mayor were a statistical survey of families in his arrondissement, aiding the Petites Soeurs des Pauvres to found a house for the care of the elderly, projects to rebuild market and streets in the 10th, presumably part of the Haussmann rebuilding, and a committee for overseeing the bureaux de charite´ in the 10th. Augustin sat on several committees and study commissions

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for Paris: one study of the bread situation with Fre´de´ric LePlay in 1859, a commission on religious buildings, a committee for provident societies for workers, one on prisons and prison reform, another for elementary education, one for home care for the elderly, as well as the oversight committee for Paris’s Administration d’Assistance Publique; he served on the Conseil ge´ne´ral des Hoˆpitaux de Paris and the city’s Conseil Ge´ne´ral des Ponts et Chausse´es. He was appointed to the Conseil Ge´ne´ral de la Seine and to the (also then-appointive) City Council (conseil municipal). He resigned from them in 1860 in protest of the government’s Italian policy. 12. “La seule re`gle a` tirer de toute cette incertitude, a` notre aˆge, c’est que dans dix ans, quel que soit le gouvernement, on aura toujours et en tout cas besoin d’hommes d’honneur, instruits, . . . bons administrateurs, et surtout bons chre´tiens et bons franc¸ais. Ergo, il faut le devenir.” Augustin Cochin to Augustin Benoist d’Azy, July 13, 1850, Lettres, I, 74. 13. “les hommes les plus dignes, les plus capables . . . et en meˆme temps les plus influents par leur existence politique et leur fortune.” Sous-pre´fet at Corbeil to Jacques Denis Cochin, April 13, 1816, AC, Da7. 14. Note from the sous-pre´fet of Seine-et Oise, November 24, 1827, AC, Da7. 15. “Arrt. nommant M. Cochin fils avocat a` la cour de cassation et au Conseil d’E´tat pour s’occuper en cette qualite´ des affaires de l’administration des hoˆpitaux et des hospices civils (petit neveu du ve´ne´rable fondateur de l’hoˆpital Cochin).” Conseil ge´ne´ral des hospices civils de Paris. Inventaire analytique des de´libe´rations, 60 vols., 9 ventoˆse IX–15 July 15, 1840, no. 17875, fol. 24, records of October 4, 1815). 16. Conseil ge´ne´ral. Inventaire analytique, no. 51965, fol. 388, records of August 5, 1829. 17. Le´on Parturier, L’Assistance a` Paris sous l’ancien re´gime et pendant la Re´volution (Geneva: Megariotis Reprints, 1978) (originally pub. 1897); Shelby T. McCloy, Government Assistance in Eighteenth-Century France (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1946); Alan I. Forrest, The French Revolution and the Poor (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1981); Jean Imbert, Le Droit hospitalier de la Re´volution et de l’Empire (Paris: Recueil Sirey, 1954); Olwen Hufton, The Poor of Eighteenth-Century France, 1750– 1789 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975). On November 20, 1790, the National Assembly nationalized church property. Its Comite´ de mendicite´, created earlier, was then allowed to use part of the wealth of the ecclesiastical lands for the benefit of the poor. The law of November 5, 1790, declared all the goods of establishments, communities, and corporations of any kind to be the property of the state and liable to sale. Although this law exempted hospitals, charitable institutions, and organizations for the poor and allowed them the use of their goods, the Constitution of 1791 made the state the owner; the law of 23 messidor, II (July 11, 1794) declared all hospitals national property and subject to sale. This was part of a series of changes in the treatment of the poor and sick and the institutions that treated them that had the effect of not only destroying the old methods of charity but nearly destroying the poor and the hospitals themselves. Responsibility for administering and funding the new system shifted several times: from the Assembly to the municipalities, or their sections, to the departments, to the Ministry of the Interior, and so forth. These attempts at administrative order only aggravated the chaos. The shortage of funds, always a problem, became acute during the exigencies of war. 18. Henry Cochin, L’Hoˆpital Cochin (Dunkerque: Baudelet, 1890), 103–4. 19. Ade´line Daumard, La Bourgeoisie parisienne de 1815 a` 1848 (Paris: SEVPEN, 1963), 12, 30. For the effects of poverty and the social ills it generated, see Louis

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Chevalier, Classes laborieuses et classes dangereuses a` Paris pendant la premie`re moitie´ du XIXe sie`cle (Paris: Plon, 1958). 20. Daumard, La Bourgeoisie parisienne, 190–91. 21. “Rapport fait a` la Socie´te´ des E´tablissemens charitables,” par M. Ve´e, n.d. (1834?), AC, Ea13. 22. See for example, Ian Littlefield, Paris: A Literary Companion (New York: Harper & Row, 1988), 122–24. 23. As well as of Enfants-trouve´s, with his brother-in-law, Alexandre Pierre Henry. L. Brie`le, Inventaire sommaire des archives hospitaliers, 3: 179–84. 24. l’Abbe´ J. Grente, Une Paroisse de Paris sous l’Ancien Re´gime: Saint Jacques du Haut Pas 1566–1792 (Paris–Auteuil: Imprimerie des Orphelins Apprentis–D. Fontane, 1897), 82–85. 25. Ibid., 164–67. 26. AN, LL794. 27. All financial information is in Grente, 79, 173–81. Many of his figures are from the cure´ Cochin’s history, AN, LL794. 28. AN, LL794, p. 482. 29. Jousse, 212–17. 30. The proposal probably dates from February 1780. For a brief history of the Capuchins on rue St.-Jacques, see Grente, 115–17; see also E´mile Wiriot, Paris de la Seine a` la cite´ universitaire (Paris: Tolra, 1930), 266. 31. AC, Cd5, statement of June 3, 1783, at the decease of the cure´. These and other details of the founding of the hospice are recorded in short histories, one found in AC, Cd5 (“Estat de Situation de l’hospice de St. Jacques du haut pas au dece`s de M. Jean Denis Cochin cure´ de la dite paroisse arrive´ le 3 juin 1783,” dated July 18, 1783) and three in Claude Denis Cochin’s script, in AC, Cd3 (“Me´moire pour l’hospice des pauvres malades de St. Jacques du haut pas a` l’effet de l’obtention des lettres patentes pour l’affirmissement de ce pieux et utile e´tablissment,” and two others, untitled). Though these last three are undated, two of them probably date from the late 1780s and were meant to be included in the application for the letters patent for the hospice—granted May 1790. The third dates from about mid-1791, as it was addressed to the municipality, which had been withholding funds. Included in this narrative are two pieces from AC, Cd4, “Superficie du Terrain de l’Ancien Clos de Capiciens [sic] accorde´ pars Messieurs les commissaires du Roi en octobre 1782,” and a map showing property bought from Mlle. Bikeron. 32. AC, Cd5. Brief account of the hospice, February 24, 1790. 33. “Me´moire pour l’hospice . . . ,” AC, Cd3. 34. “La mode´ration que je me suis prescrit m’a jusqu’a` pre´sent retenue d’employer des moyens judiciaries.” Letter of Claude Denis Cochin to Antheaume, April 2, 1785, AC, Cd2. 35. “que nonobstant tout le respect qu’il porte a` M. arche´veˆque, il ne peut s’empeˆcher d’observer a` la Compagnie que Mgr. Arche´veˆque n’a et ne peut avoir aucune voix coactive sur la pre´sente affaire ni sur le Gouvernement de la Fabrique, la fabrique ne devant connaıˆtre d’autre supe´rieur que Monseigneur le Procurateur Ge´ne´ral e´tant le protecteur-ne´ des Fabriques de cette capitale.” Text and account from Grente, 193–94, and “Extrait du registre de la paroisse de St. Jacques du haut pas,” AC, Cd3. 36. “Le Bureau en te´moignant ses regrets de la retraite de M. le Cure´ a cru devoir

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continuer sa de´libe´ration,” “Extrait du registre de la paroisse de St. Jacques du haut pas,” AC, Cd3. 37. As late as March 3, 1789, Mme. Suzanne Necker was writing Claude Denis fils about the progress of the letters patent. AC, Ca2. 38. “La Fabrique n’est compose´ que de gens de la lie du peuple, et le plus grand nombre est gagne´ par le cure´.” Grente, 194–95. 39. “Il est ve´ritablement afflige´ant d’avoir a` combattre pour un object de charite´ contre M. le Cure´ de St. Jacques, qui devoit en eˆtre le premier de´ffenseur [sic]. Des pre´ventions sans doute, l’ont tellement avegle´ [sic], qu’il ne cesse depuis pre`s de six anne´es, de lever sourdement des obstacles qui ne se de´couvrent en successivement.” Opening of two undated fairhand copies entitled “Me´moire pour l’hospice des pauvres malades de la paroisse de St. Jacques du haut pas, e´tabli par M. Cochin, Cure´ de ladite Paroisse,” AC, Cd3. 40. “Je recommande a` mes enfants la surveillance de ce pieux e´tablissement, et si la providence les met en possession des biens de la fortune, je les invite a` y verser de pre´fe´rence leur superflu.” Testament of Jacques Denis Cochin, January 28, 1830, AC, Da1. 41. “J’aime a` croire que mes enfants anime´s des meˆmes sentiments que moi le conserveront comme la relique d’un saint dont ils [les?] imiteront ont les vertus.” Testament of Jacques Denis Cochin, January 28, 1830, AC, Da1. 42. Cochin, Hoˆpital Cochin, 103–4, 112. 43. Notes by Cochin, Lettres, II, 379; Marescot de Thilleul, L’Assistance publique a` Paris. Ses bienfaiteurs, vol. I, Hoˆpitaux et hospices (Paris: Berger-Levrault, 1904), 90– 91. Louis Adolphe Thiers approved the request, letter of the minister of the interior to Thiers, June 15, 1872, printed in Cochin, Hoˆpital Cochin, 189–90. 44. Claude Denis settled accounts with the government for the centie`me and the droit d’indemnite´ for the land on which the hospice was built. (The centie`me was a levy of 1 percent due the Crown for any change of ownership of real property except by direct inheritance or marriage contract.) In all, the Cochin family contributed about 87,000 livres to the project (which cost over 400,000 livres). See “Me´moire” sent to M. de La Boulaye by Claude Denis Cochin, January 17, 1785; letter from Lavallery to Claude Denis Cochin, April 14, 1785; notes from M. Mornet to Claude Denis Cochin May and June, 1790; all in AC, Cd2. An account in AC, Cd5, states the family gave 84,000 livres outright, not counting expenses over tax matters. 45. Division of possessions of Claude Denis Cochin, February 27, 1787, AC, Ca2. 46. “Comme moy, elle [the assembly] a vue de plus prest que le pasteur vivement touche´ des sollicitudes que luy causoit ses Bre´bis avoit eu a` coeur pour imiter plus particulie`rement son divin model, de soulager les plus infirmes, celles par consequence qui avoient plus besoin de son secour.” Claude Denis Cochin, compte rendu to the Assemble´e de charite´ of St.-Jacques du Haut-pas, August 7, 1783, AC, Cd5. 47. “E´tablissement des secours et de charite´ sur lesquels l’Assemble´e Nationale n’a rien prononce´.” Undated draft for the mayor and officers of the Commune, probably fall 1792. Claude Denis started this argument in January 1792. 48. “Me´moire de l’hospice de St. Jacques du haut pas au bureau des impositions . . .” AC, Cd3; letter Claude Denis Cochin to secre´taire greffier of the Bureau des hoˆpitaux, 29 Brumaire II (November 19, 1793). 49. Conseil ge´ne´ral des hospices de Paris. Inventaire analytique des de´libe´rations.

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Inventory of 7 ventoˆse an IX (February 26, 1801)–15 juillet 1840 (Paris: Bibliothe`que de l’assistance publique, n. d.), various entries. 50. Ibid., no. 3633, fol. 757–58. The certified letter of Jacques Denis Cochin of May 21, 1806, concerned Marie-Julienne Picot, widow Coupart, of 285 rue St.-Jacques. In March 1807 Marie Rosalie Cochin, the widow Nau, requested that one Philippe Poisson be admitted to the Hoˆpital des Incurables. Ibid., no. 4787, fol. 495. We do not know whether her request was granted. 51. Ibid., no. 3732, fol. 922; no. 786, fol. 118; no. 9317, fol. 80; no. 8979, fol. 247 (report of February 7, 1810). 52. Raymond Deniel, Une Image de la famille et de la socie´te´ sous la Restauration (1815–1830): E´tude de la presse catholique (Paris: Les E´ditions Ouvrie`res, 1965); see also Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, Les De´buts de catholicisme social en France, 2 vols. (Paris: Press Universitaires de France, 1951), 53. Manuscript of the talk given April 13, 1810, AC, Da6. 54. “Si dans la maison paternelle ils n’entendent jamais l’acte de pie´te´[.] En vain vos respectables institutrices diront a` vos enfants: craignez dieu, observez des commandemens. En vain dirons Dieu est charite´, on n’aime pas dieu lorsqu’on n’aime pas le prochain, si dans la compagnie de leurs parents les enfants n’entendent que critiques, me´disances.” Ibid. 55. “les me`res de famille ont de grands, d’importantes fonctions a` remplir a` l’e´gard de leurs enfants: elles en sont les premie`res institutrices.” Ibid. 56. “ai-je tort ou ai-je raison de vous parler de la grande influence qu’une femme exerce dans la socie´te´ et dans l’e´glise de dieu? Ai-je tort ou raison de vous dire que sur l’e´ducation des filles de´pend le bonheur de l’une et la gloire de l’autre, que les vertus morales et religieuses sont apre`s les heureux effets de la Graˆce, les fruits ne´cessaires de la bonne e´ducation des filles. . . . Le principe du mal est dans la mauvaise e´ducation des femmes ou dans la de´faut de l’e´ducation.” Ibid. 57. He took as his theme Mark 8:2 (on the second miracle of the loaves): “I feel sorry for all these people; they have been with me three days now and have nothing to eat.” “Besoin des pauvres,” AC, Da6. It must have been given between July 1806 and April 1810. 58. “Il y a dans le monde beaucoup de personnes, il y a peu de superflu parce qu’il y a beaucoup de vices et peu de vertu dans le monde.” Ibid. 59. “l’ine´galite´ des fortunes seroit un de´sordre dont dieu lui-meˆme seroit coupable. C’est donc a` vous Chre´tiens . . . malgre´ la me´diocrite´ de votre fortune . . . que le Seigneur a confie´ l’honneur de sa providence, c’est a` vous de la disculper par vos aumoˆnes.” Ibid. The 1816 report to the hospital system shows that the 12th arrondissement was still the most needy in the capital; in 1804 it had 17,018 of the 86,936 indigents counted in all Paris; 9,053 were children living with parents. The occupancy figures for Cochin show that in the years 1804–1813 the hospital treated more women than men (Rapport fait au Conseil ge´ne´ral des hospices . . . depuis le 1er janvier 1804 jusqu’au 1er janvier 1814 [Paris: Huzard, 1816]). 60. “Soyez essentiellement obe´issants a` vos supe´rieurs. . . . Quel est le but et quelle est l’intention des maıˆtres et maıˆtresses qui vous instruisent . . . vous eˆtes surveille´s tous les jours par vos instituteurs, mais vous eˆtes encore inspecte´ de plus haut par des Magistrats.” Address, undated, prob. 1814–1815, AC, Da1. 61. “Be´nissons-Le, mes chers enfants, remercions Le de ce qu’il nous a rendu un

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Monarch tre`s chre´tien dont la plus vif de´sire est de soulager le peuple de sa mise`re, et de prote´ger l’e´lan de tous les sentiments ge´ne´reux. . . . Gloire a` Dieu! Vive le Roi!” Ibid. 62. His papers include a “Catalogue des oeuvres anglais sur les secours publics” containing over one hundred titles. AC, Ea13. 63. Maurice Gontard, Les E´coles primaires de la France bourgeoise (1830–1875), 2d ed. (Toulouse: Institut national de recherche et documentation pe´dagogiques, 1976), 16. 64. “En effet, plus un pays devient riche et peuple´, plus aussi les inte´reˆts et les devoirs des particuliers se subdivisent et multiplient. Les femmes ne sont pas exemptes de l’influence de cette complication des devoirs. Destine´es qu’elles e´taient par la nature a` l’e´ducation des plus jeunes enfans, elles se trouvent appelle´es a` partager les traveaux industriels de leurs maris. Si . . . elles sont force´es a` un travail de tous les jours pour soutenir l’existence de leur famille, leurs enfants restent abandonne´s a` tous les hasards du vagabondage ou de l’isolement.” Jean Denis Cochin, Manuel, 2d ed. (Paris: Hachette, 1834), 25. 65. Euge`ne Marbeau, “Denys Cochin, fondateur des salles d’asile,” Revue de la Socie´te´ des e´tudes historiques. 3 (4th ser.) (1885), 4–31. For background, see E´mile Gossot, Essai critique sur l’enseignement primaire en France de 1800 a` 1900 (Paris: Ancienne maison Charles Duniol, 1901). 66. “les enfants des quartiers populeux avant l’aˆge ou` ils peuvent fre´quenter les e´coles, afin de les pre´server du danger de l’abandon ou` laissent leurs parents pendant leurs travaux et du danger encore plus grand auquels ils sont expose´s sous rapport de moeurs.” Report of May 1, 1827. Draft in AC, Ea13. 67. Manuel, 2d ed., 85–87. Building began in February 1828 and ended after 31⁄2 months, requiring 125,000 F. This was half the estimate of the municipal architect. Each partner—Marclos, Salleron, and Cochin—contributed one-third to building costs; Jean Denis guaranteed his partners’ expenses. 68. Journal de Paris, August 13, 1829, p. 4. A working mother earned 15–20 sous per day. 69. Subscriber books for the “Maison comple`te pour l’instruction primaire,” probably dating from 1829, AC, Ea19. 70. In 1837 the Conseil Ge´ne´ral de la Seine bought the house next door to expand the school; AC, Ea19. Agreed to by the Conseil on November 3, 1830, and March 22, 1831, and the king agreed. Total value was 141,253.77 F. It was decided then to name it Maison Cochin (copies of the sessions of the Conseil are in AC, Ea19). 71. Account of January 1, 1832, AC, Ea19. 72. Cochin, Manuel, 96, n. 1. 73. Guest book of the infant school is in AC, Ea19. 74. “faire prospe´rer l’e´le´ment moral et social de l’instruction primaire.” Cochin, Manuel, 13–14. 75. “sur lequel repose la se´curite´ sociale.” Cochin, Manuel, 75. 76. “La Salle d’Asile est l’enseignement mutuel pousse´e a` sa dernie`re limite.” Cochin, Manuel, 63. 77. Cochin, Manuel, 43, 59. 78. The infant school movement had a checkered career. In September 1830 there were only six infant schools in Paris. Franc¸ois Guizot’s Education Law of 1833—to which Jean Denis claimed his Manuel was a commentary—made no mention of infant schools. But spread they did; by 1836 there were 200; 800 by 1838, when there were

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33,000 primary schools. Infant schools were given official recognition under the law in 1838 according to Fe´lix Ponteil, Les Institutions de la France de 1814 a` 1870 (Paris: PUF, 1966), 259. The Church opposed the mutual teaching system. Jean Denis drafted the law presented that year and submitted by Narcisse Salvandy, minister of education and nephew of Mme. Jules Mallet. In 1848 the salles d’asile were renamed e´coles maternelles, and in April a normal school was established for schoolmistresses. Under the Second Empire e´coles maternelles were considered charitable institutions, taken from the university and placed in the hands of prominent ladies of Paris, the archbishop, and Empress Euge´nie, though they were often housed in school buildings. In the late nineteenth century there was a movement to return them to their original mission providing hospitality for the young child and very basic school lessons. They enjoyed a revival around 1900 when one child in four was attending an e´cole maternelle. Attendance declined after that. The mutual system, on the other hand, never had such success. In 1830, despite its supporters, only about one-third of French children were taught by the mutual system; by 1840 it had virtually disappeared in France, a victim of the expansion of public primary education. See Fe´lix Ponteil, Histoire de l’enseignement en France (n.p.: Sirey, 1964); Antoine Prost, Histoire de l’enseignement en France 1800–1870 (Paris: Colin, 1968); R. D. Anderson, Education in France 1848–1870 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975); Raymond Tronchot, L’Enseignement mutuel en France de 1815 a` 1833, 3 vols. (Lille: Universite´ de Lille, Service de reproduction des the`ses, 1973). 79. In a later series it reappeared in 1846–1847, 1854–1869, 1869–1870, and 1881– 1896. 80. Le Moniteur universel, February 17, 1829, p. 214. 81. The pamphlet was printed and sold for the profit of Jean Denis’s infant school and the workhouse, both built in Cochin’s 12th arrondissement. 82. Report, AC, Ea14. 83. “On ne peut pas traiter en criminel et en esclave toute personne qui se trouve contrainte par la necessite´ a` exprimer dans les rues la de´tresse dont elle est frappe´.” Le Constitutionnel, February 3, 1830. 84. Messager des chambres, December 13, 1829; Le Courrier franc¸ais, September 16, 1829. Other articles are in Le Journal de commerce, November 27, 1829, and December 12, 1829; and Le Journal des de´bats, December 15, 1829. 85. “depuis cinq ans, bientoˆt, que j’administre le quartier le plus pauvre de la capitale, je n’ai jamais vu un mendiant de profession venir me demander une assistance quelconque; les mendians composent une classe a` part, ils de´daignent le faible secours de la charite´ municipale.” Cochin, “Extinction,” 21. 86. Jean Denis Cochin, Report of “Messieurs les Maires-Pre´sidents et Commissaires des Bureaux de Charite´,” June 25, 1828 (four printed copies, and one in Jean Denis’s script, AC, Ea13). 87. “La socie´te´ qui ne donne pas de travail au valide de secours a` l’infirme n’est pas en droit de lui interdire de demander du pain” [emphasis in the original]. Report of the charity boards to the Conseil Ge´ne´ral de la Seine, p. 21, written by Hutteau d’Origny, mayor of the 10th arrondissement, in AC, Ea13. 88. “Extinction,” 14–15, 26, 29, and 34. Jean Denis Cochin was also interested in the foundation of Mettray. 89. Quoted in Alfred de Falloux, Augustin Cochin, trans. Augustus Craven (London: Chapman and Hall, 1877), 23–24. 90. “Notice sur la vie de J-D-M Cochin ancien maire, de´pute´, conseiller municipal,

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de Paris, fondateur de la premie`re salle d’asile mode`le et sur l’origine et les progre`s des salles d’asile” in the front of the fourth edition (Paris: Hachette, 1853), and separately in Annales de la Charite´, 1852, vol. 8, 740–52. 91. Papers, AC, Fa25. 92. “leur donne les habitudes sociales et les forme aux devoirs sociaux.” Augustin Cochin “Mettray,” 7. 93. Augustin Cochin, Pestalozzi: Essai sur la vie, les me´thodes d’instruction et des e´tablissements d’Henry Pestalozzi auquel l’Acade´mie des Sciences morales et politiques a de´cerne´ une mention honorable (Paris: Bailly, Divry, 1848). 94. “La charite´ est aujourd’hui un besoin politique; la liberte´ exige la charite´.” Cochin, Pestalozzi, 84. 95. By 1845 Denys Benoist d’Azy was very active in the new Catholic circles of social action. In that year he was both a member of Armand de Melun’s Socie´te´ d’E´conomie Charitable and a founder of Annales de la charite´. In the Chamber of Deputies he distinguished himself as one of the few Legitimist deputies to support reform of the labor laws in 1847. Duroselle, 222, 235–35. 96. Charles Maignen, Maurice Maignen, Directeur au cercle Montparnasse et les origines du mouvement social catholique en France, 1822–1890, 2 vols. (Luc¸on: S. Pacteau, 1927), 1: 162, 290–91. The former opened in 1845; the latter in 1848. 97. Duroselle, 222–23. According to Grente, 235–36, Martin de Noirlieu was cure´ from 1840 to 1848. One of his vicars was Guillaume Meignan, later the liberal Bishop of Chalons, Arras and the Cardinal Archbishop of Tours. 98. “Trop jeune de ne pas aimer mon sie`cle, trop chre´tien pour ne pas croire au progre`s, je veut penser . . . que si maintenant on se renferme moins dans le cercle pieux, mais e´troit, de la parente´, de la famille particulie`re, c’est qu’une ide´e e´minemment chre´tienne, une ide´e large, fe´conde, une ide´e que l’avenir appartient . . . se fortifie de jour en jour . . . [l’]esprit d’association; j’ajoute l’association religieuse.” “L’Oeuvre du Patronage des Apprentis et des E´coliers,” December 15, 1843 in AC, Fa25. 99. Falloux, Me´moires d’un Royaliste, 2 vols. (Paris: Perrin; 1888), 158–59. Quoted in Duroselle, 204. 100. For example, in 1863 Augustin first ran in elections to the Chamber of Deputies. In 1863 and 1864 he was an important contact for Henry Dunant in setting up the French Red Cross. 101. “Charbonneries des Alpes de la Carinthie,” cowritten with de MM. P. Benoist d’Azy and A. Saglio; “Tisserand de la Fabrique Demi-rural Collective du Rhine,” by MM. de Saint-Leger and A. Cochin; and “Chiffoniers de Paris,” by MM. A. Cochin and Landsberg. 102. For a discussion of the debate about Cochin’s report on LePlay’s La Re´forme sociale at the meeting of the Socie´te´ d’E´conomie Charitable in 1865, see Duroselle, 683. 103. “Ces gens-la` sont pe´tris du meˆme limon que nous.” Cochin, “De la condition des ouvriers franc¸ais d’apre`s les derniers travaux,” Le Correspondant, n.s. 20 (July 1862), p. 464. 104. “Qui est le patron? Il habite rarement son usine, quand il la posse`de. Plus souvent elle est en socie´te´. Le maıˆtre est un eˆtre invente´ par la loi, il n’a pas de visage, on ne le voit jamais.” Ibid., 460. 105. Ame´de´e Andigne´, Armand de Melun, un apoˆtre de la charite´, 1807–1877 (Paris: Nouvelles Editions Latimes, 1961), 171–74.

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106. “Les grosses salaires rendent l’e´pargne possible, mais aussi la de´bauche; c’est la vertu qui fait choisir.” Augustin Cochin, “De la condition des ouvriers,” p. 464. 107. “La vraie manie`re d’ame´liorer le sort des classes infe´rieures, c’est de re´former l’esprit des classes supe´rieures.” Augustin Cochin, “De la condition des ouvriers,” p. 453. 108. Augustin Cochin to Mme. Augustin Cochin, March 13, 1864, Lettres, II, 18–21. 109. See Augustin Cochin to Benoist d’Azy, March 30, 1871, Lettres, II, 341. 110. “tout ce qu’il faudra faire pour transformer lentement tout ce qui est, au fond, la cause permanente, des re´volutions: mise`re, irreligion, ignorance, ambition, de´classement, abus de liberte´, etc. etc. Mais contentons-nous de calme, apre`s viendra le progre`s.” Lettres, I, 74. 111. “On aura toujours et en tout cas besoin d’hommes d’honneur, instruits . . . bons administrateurs, et surtout bons chre´tiens et bons franc¸ais. Ergo, il faut le devenir.” Lettres, I, 74. 112. Augustin Cochin, “Paris, sa population, son industrie,” Le Correspondant (July 25, 1864); A.C., “La Ville de Paris et le Corps le´gislatif,” Le Correspondant 77 (41, n.s.) (February 10, 1869), pp. 485–527. Augustin here advocated the idea that the Empire in 1869 establish an elected city council rather than the proposed control by the Corps Le´gislatif. 113. “J’ai e´te´, pour ma part, du nombre de ceux qui, tre`s since`rement et sans aucun inte´reˆt personnel, ont cru, en 1869 et 1870, qu’il e´tait encore possible de re´concilier sans re´volution la paix et la libe´rte´ sous l’Empire . . . mais plus j’ai e´te´ since`re, plus je me sens blesse´. Entre l’Empire et des honneˆtes gens, il ne peut plus y avoir rien, absoluement rien de commun. Pourquoi? Avouons-le! Nous ne savions pas a` quel point les administrations, la magistrature, l’arme´e, le clerge´ meˆme, les villes, la jeunesse, les ouvriers, et presque toutes les familles, e´taient envahis par la corruption. Nous ne savions pas quel poison nous avons avale´.” Augustin Cochin, “Paris devant l’ennemi,” Le Franc¸ais, September 20, 1870. Cochin wrote this series from August 28, 1870, to February 15, 1871. Augustin was a member of the Comite´ de la Socie´te´ de Secours aux Blesse´s Militaires, which set up field hospitals during the siege. AC, Fa25. His feelings about the Empire were hardly unique; see the speech of Jules Simon and General Faidherbe in Ande´ Bellessort, Les Intellectuels et l’ave`nement de la Troisie`me Re´publique (Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1931), 69–70. 114. Denys Cochin, Quatre anne´es au conseil municipal (Paris: Calmann Le´vy, 1885). 115. “Savez-vous ce que c’est que laiciser une rue? . . . ‘c’est effacer les noms de saints . . . encore trop nombreux dans notre nomenclature.’ Je demeure rue de Varenne, c’est une rue laı¨que. Vous demeurez rue St. Joseph: c’est une rue qui a besoin d’eˆtre laicise´e.” Denys Cochin to M. Herve´, director of Le Soleil, May 3, 1885, in AC, Ga73. 116. “pour objet de remplacer les congre´ganistes, ennemis irre´conciliables de la Re´publique, par des laı¨ques inte´resse´s a` la de´fense de la Socie´te´ civile et par conse´quent de la Re´publique.” Hoˆpital Cochin, p. 32. The Sisters of Charity (known as the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul) had been replaced in 1807 by the Sisters of St. Martha. They were replaced in 1843 by the Sisters of St. Mary, who had split off from the parent order. Cochin, Hoˆpital Cochin, 74–76. 117. Wiriot, 268. The original buildings were torn down and a group of pavilions were built in 1913. 118. “Si l’e´cole qu’il dirige et dans laquelle il enseigne e´tait tenue ante´rieurement par des Congre´ganistes, le religieux se´cularise´ aura soin . . . de faire disparaıˆtre tout ce qui . . . rappellerait l’ancienne direction congre´ganiste, tableaux, images, objets parti-

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culiers a` la Congre´gation, il changera au moins la disposition des meubles, introduira . . . quelques meubles nouveaux, etc., afin qu’on ne puisse pas l’accuser de continuer l’ancienne e´cole congre´ganiste. . . .” La Se´cularisation (Paris: Ligue de l’enseignement libre, n.d., [1902]), 11. 119. E´mile Simond, Historie de la Troisie`me Re´publique, 4 vols. (Paris: Lavauzelle, 1913–1922), 4: 173–97. See also Malcom O. Partin, Waldeck-Rousseau, Combes, and the Church: The Politics of Anti-Clericalism, 1899–1905 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1969). 120. Letter Denys Cochin to unknown, “1902,” AC, Ga89. Denys wrote humorously that Jean Jaure`s scolded him “que j’e´tais trop agressif et ne comprenais pas le Panthe´isme ide´aliste.” 121. “malgre´ le chagrin qu j’ai de voir des gens ne pas croire ce qu [je] crois eˆtre le vrai, le bien, la dignite´ et la consolation de la vie—l’ide´e ne me viendrait jamais de commettre contre eux des crimes. . . . je ne menacerai pas des baı¨onnettes et des balles de troupe (le sang coule probablement aujourd’hui en Bretagne)—des parents veulent e´lever leurs enfants a` leurs guise—fussent-ils juifs et franc-mac¸ons—C’est une rage extraordinaire.” Denys Cochin to Jean Cochin, August 1902, AC, Ga91. 122. “il y a quelque chose de pis d’eˆtre battu, c’est d’eˆtre vainqueur en abandonnant ses principes; et c’est les abandonner que de “manifester”, chahuter dans les journaux et dans la rue, jouer une exaltation qu’on n’a pas vraiment, en vue de l’“effet produit”; tout cela, ce sont des proce´de´s des de´mocrates, c’est a` dire pas de chre´tiens.” Augustin Cochin to Franc¸oise Cochin, March, 1906, AC, Ha6. 123. “sur lesquels re`gnent des instituteurs sanguinaires, horriblement tatoue´ de ‘philosophie.’ Ce qui fait la charme me´lancolique de ce beau pays, c’est qu’il a e´te´ tre`s civilise´ a` une e´poche ancienne: les cases des habitants actuels s’e´le`vent au milieu des ruines de grands et de florissants villages—autour d’e´glises ravissantes, dont les toits de´fonce´s abritent encore . . . des vitraux et des statues de grand valeur—ignore´es heureusement des indige`nes qui sont tout au culte de leur grigri humanitaire; c’est curieux et impressionant.” Augustin Cochin to Antoine de Meaux, undated, AC, Ha6. 124. Antoine de Meaux, Augustin Cochin et la Gene`se de la Revolution (Paris: Plon, 1928), 144.

Claude Denis Cochin (1698–1786), merchant, founder of the dynasty, in his aldermanic robes.

The cure´ Jean Denis Cochin (1726–1783) with his Hospice St.-Jacques visible through the window.

Jean Denis Cochin (1789–1841), reformer and administrator.

Augustin Cochin (1823–1872), social reformer, Catholic liberal.

Denys Cochin (1851–1922), writer, politician, minister of state, Academician.

Augustin Cochin (1876–1916), historian of the French Revolution, at work in his study.

Chapter 5

Religion and the Church

One of the great constants in the lives of the Cochins was the Church. Yet ironically, from the eighteenth century to the twentieth, the Catholic Church in France underwent drastic, epochal changes; at no other time did it face so many unprecedented stresses, and perhaps at no other time did it change so rapidly. Certainly the Cochins did not see it as an unmoving anchor in their lives, an object of uncritical devotion. Again, the truth is quite different, for the series of public careers of the Cochins examined here shows that there were more than a few—and larger than minor—disputes with the Church. The Cochins were independent, intelligent, and educated Catholic laity who at times disagreed vigorously with the leadership of the Church in France and in Rome. They did not hesitate to make public their respectful dissents on very sensitive issues in Church policy and Catholic life. Unintimidated by the hierarchy, the Cochins carried on that other dimension to their role as notables—that of critic of other elites, the leaders of the Church, just as they criticized the idle rich. They could disagree with the Church because the Cochins distinguished between their faith and matters of the Church as an institution. While over six or seven generations many other families drifted out of belief, and therefore out of serious personal involvement with Church matters, this was not at all the case with the Cochins. They were at once believing, involved, liberal, and critical. The reason for this is not social standing alone, though their social standing had much to do with their relations with the Church. Soon after his arrival on rue St.-Jacques, Claude Cochin was elected vestryman of St.-Benoıˆt in 1700 and 1727; later his son Claude Denis served as vestryman too. Vestrymen interacted with the clergy, discussed parish affairs, and had a hand—and a vote—in decisions about parish activities. Young Jean Denis Cochin, later cure´ of St.Jacques du Haut-pas, first saw parish affairs from the viewpoint of a son and

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grandson of vestrymen at St.-Benoıˆt. He was dissuaded from becoming a Carthusian when he decided to take up the religious life, and, indeed, spent his entire career on rue St.-Jacques exclusively—at St.-Magloire, the Sorbonne, St.E´tienne-du-Mont, and St.-Jacques du Haut-pas. In a personal, and very local way, the Cochins were early on involved in the work that membership in a parish implied. The influence of Jansenism on rue St.-Jacques is part of the long history of the Cochins’ relation to the Church. Into the eighteenth and even into the nineteenth century, the spirit, if not the doctrines, of Jansenism echoed as a faint but constant leitmotif. Jansenist tensions were still present on rue St. Jacques at the opening of the eighteenth century.1 Claude Denis pe`re was in middle age when St.-Jacques du Haut-pas experienced the protest at cure´ Iassac Courcault’s reading of Archbishop Vintimille’s edict (mandement), when the sympathizers of the late cure´ Jean Desmoulins (1650–1732) showed how little they cared for the anti-Jansenist program imposed upon them. What were Claude Denis’s views? We are fortunate in having a surviving family tale that expresses some of what Claude Denis thought of the religious tensions on rue St.-Jacques. In 1918 Denys recounted a story told by his father Augustin: My father told me that, when quite young, he was summoned by the Chancellor Pasquier, then almost a hundred years old. The old man said: “I wanted to meet you; we are both from old Parisian families. My father was a close friend of your great-great grandfather. They kept company with their cure´. They worshipped their bishop. They had no use for the monks and all the rest. This great-great grandfather was the father of the cure´ of St.-Jacques du Hautpas, founder of the hospital that carries his name. Jansenism left its mark on that generation of Parisians.

Thus, here, a Jansenist, Richerist note is hinted at in the life of Claude Denis. We know that the honorary vestryman, Pierre Gilbert de Voisins, was a staunch anti-Jesuit.3 Certainly Jean Denis Cochin, picked by Archbishop de Beaumont to be cure´ of St.-Jacques du Haut-pas twenty-four years after the scene over the edict, was no Jansenist. Yet he managed to more than satisfy an outspoken Jansenist faction in the parish. The anti-Jansenist historian of St.-Jacques du Haut-pas, Grente, accounted for it by his manner: There seems to be nothing in his writings that shows any indulgence toward the errors shared by so many of his parishioners. His selection by Bishop Beaumont seems besides to counter any suspicions about his doctrine. The satisfaction of the Jansenists when they saw him succeed M. Courcault can be explained simply by the spirit of conciliation for which he was known, and of which he gave proof in being present himself in the last moments of many of the old exiles that M. Desmoulins [Jean Denis’s Jansenist predecessor] had welcomed into his church and his community.4

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Certainly part of Jean Denis’s appeal must have been an attention to local pride and an appeal for an intensive charitable outreach. These were a hallmark of his curacy. But he was also of the right tendency for St.-Jacques du Haut-pas; he had attended seminary next door at St.-Magloire, a Jansenist intellectual center. His Catholicism, while adhering to the bull Unigenitus, emphasized the unadorned and the reasonable, the importance of the conscience and inner purity, Jansenist themes that transcended and survived Grente’s narrow emphasis on errors of doctrine. As the cure´ Cochin wrote in one of his devotional manuals on the Mass: “We ought to pray for that purity of manners, that innocence of heart, that uprightness of mind and of conscience, which alone can render us irreproachable before the tribunal of the just judge, and can give us a sure claim to that kingdom, where nothing defiled can enter.”5 The opening pages of the cure´’s Instructions cautioned the reader away from a mystical and rococo Catholicism: “I shall in particular be cautious to avoid that mysticity, which, while it has prompted some men of more piety than learning, to find a mystery in every thing, affords nothing but false or ambiguous interpretation. As faith is simple in its principles, so it is always clear in the precepts it lays down for general practice.”6 In other words, Jean Denis Cochin, cure´ of St.-Jacques du Haut-pas, dispensed a rigorous Catholicism, one that could appeal to those who had strayed into the Jansenist camp, for Jean Denis stood for a demanding, personal, intelligent Catholicism. The historian Ralph Gibson recently argued that the impulse behind the two antipodes of seventeenth-century Catholicism, Jesuit and Jansenist, came from urban Catholics who sought a more personal and rigorous religious involvement, who alike felt the post-Tridentine Church in need of new life.7 Likely, at this late date in the story of Jansenism on rue St.-Jacques, the cure´ Cochin was able to satisfy this tendency, bridging many of the doctrinal differences that remained. Once he was made cure´ of St.-Jacques du Haut-pas, Jean Denis certainly showed a notable independence of his own. He refused to pay the full assessment of the parish de´cime, which he described as “exorbitant” in a letter to the archbishop and the deputies of the Ecclesiastical Chamber. He soon had in his hands all the unrestricted monies for the poor of the parish (this amounted to 1,671.09.04 livres per year), and he pushed the Assembly of Charity to new efforts on behalf of the many poor in the parish. The parish budget grew at a dizzying rate, and in 1779 or 1780, the restless cure´ began the great project of the hospice for the poor sick in a parish comprising 8,000 to 10,000 souls, of whom more than half were usually supported by charity of one kind or another. His brother Claude Denis, not the cure´, finished the hospice project. Long and contentious procedures—the arguing with officials over taxes, the disagreements with the new cure´ Antheaume, the endless revision of the drafts of the letters patent and negotiations with officials at Versailles—seven years of patient labor were required to finish the project, and the cure´ Antheaume’s consent was obtained only when Claude Denis appealed to the archbishop’s office. In these years Claude Denis joined the parish and then found himself, along with the

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other notables loyal to the parish, opposed by many at St.-Jacques du Haut-pas who no longer wanted, or never wanted, the hospice. It may well be that Claude Denis reacted to this opposition in the parish with disdain and hauteur, but he and his son exhibited a remarkable loyalty to the hospice and the parish through the Revolution. It was Jacques Denis who helped reopen St.-Jacques du Hautpas after the Concordat, and as mayor he helped reopen other parishes in the 12th arrondissement during the Restoration. Jacques Denis was one of the five administrators appointed by the archbishop of Paris and the prefect of the Seine to sit on the first administrative council of St. Jacques du Haut-pas under the new Concordat at the end of 1803.8 He also served as parish treasurer under the new cure´, Vincent Duval. A man of business, pious and conventional, cool and unemotional, Jacques Denis was hard to know, and the little we know of Jacques Denis—and his father—leads us to believe they were faithful institutional Catholics, whose contacts with the Church were as custodians and guardians of a Church under siege and finally reestablished to restore social peace and moral order after the lapse of the Revolution. It was clear that he saw his business success as evidence of God’s favor, and his testament contains a plea for forgiveness of his sins.9 The son Jean Denis showed no more warmth toward the Church; indeed less. While he was apparently a member of the parish of St.-Jacques du Haut-pas, there is among his papers no mention at all of the Church. Jean Denis’s references to religion appear alongside those of morality in his Manuel. Prayer there should be in the infant schools, and lessons in morality, and Jean Denis believed that children of different faiths could pray together. Representatives of religious groups were to be a part of the supervisory committee (comite´ de surveillance) of the local infant school. Jean Denis was an administrator, a man of the law, and it appears that his emotional life was focused on his labors as a reformer and custodian of the lives of others. His was more a philanthropic character, attuned to the procedures for shaping others through altering their environment; but he was not a man to turn to religion. One story of him was that he was admonished by Queen Marie Ame´lie during a royal audience: “M. Cochin, la politique n’est pas le pays de bonnes actions.” But for Jean Denis it was, in a secular way. Years after his death, his daughter-in-law, Mme. Augustin Cochin, wrote of Jean Denis that the times had cooled his religious faith.10 Family tradition had it that he was “un peu janse´niste,” which may only mean that he had a contained and undemonstrative character. If Ade´line Cochin was right, that the times in which he lived had an influence on Jean Denis’s distance from the Church, he differed little from his contemporaries. The Church under the July Monarchy was generally less popular, though it was undergoing a profound renewal within.11 These critical years produced the personnel and laid the foundation for the most significant reforms in the Church in the nineteenth century. At least one example of this renewal of Catholic life was near at hand for Jean Denis. His own brother-in-law, Denis Benoist, moved from a conventional Catholic sensibility to a more active faith under the influence of Fe´licite´ Lamennais.12

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AUGUSTIN’S LIBERAL CATHOLICISM Augustin’s relation to the Church, to religion, was quite different, more lively, much more profound, and unavoidably contentious. Young Augustin’s exposure to the new currents of Catholic thought began at Colle`ge Rollin, where he first heard the abbe´ Augustin Se´nac, and continued through Benoist d’Azy and the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, the periodical Annales de la charite´, and the examples of Fre´de´ric Ozanam (1813–1853) and Armand de Melun (1807–1877). These influences had a powerful effect on young Augustin, broadening his thinking about the relation between Catholicism and the nineteenth century. His lonely childhood may have moved Augustin to develop a rich and active Catholic faith. He made it part of his everyday life and was unconcerned that his public Catholicism, as it were, limited his political career. He willingly took on these burdens of public Catholicism and private devotion, judging them more than worthwhile. He followed the charitable ideal expressed by Se´nac as “good makes no noise and noise does no good”: it fit his temperament and his family practice, anyway. He kept secret his charitable works and his personal sacrifices of time, money, and energy. Augustin served as vestryman of the parish of St.Thomas-d’Acquin while he lived on rue St.-Guillaume.13 His faith remained at once secure and informed. He is said to have remarked that it evolved from his childhood: “I always believed in God. I needed more time to believe in Christ, and even more to believe in Heaven.”14 His review of Ernest Renan’s Life of Jesus for Le Correspondant centered on the impossibility of a mortal Jesus—a Jesus, he noted, not offered by any of the eyewitnesses—with the worldchanging effect of his ministry; Augustin reacted with sadness, not consternation or doubt, at Renan’s representation of German biblical scholarship.15 He believed modernity and Catholicism needed each other. His speech at the Malines Catholic Conference in 1863 was suitably entitled “The Progress of the Sciences and Industry from the Christian Point of View.”16 He had so absorbed the new Bordas-Se´nacian interpretation—not alien to the Cochins’ sentiments in the Old Re´gime or in the new one, but certainly new as a formal statement—that it was inseparable from his Christian thought. “I want to prove to you . . . or rather remind you of this,” he declared, “all the sciences prove the existence of God, all progress serves God [emphasis his].”17 His Catholicism was meliorist, liberal, reformist, optimistic—powerfully resistant to the discouragement it encountered in his lifetime. He understood, too, the challenge of rationalism and materialism to the faith and the hope that he harbored. They posed the most important challenge to Catholic sensibilities in the nineteenth century. Yet without a belief in what Augustin called “the invisible world” (“le monde invisible”), the century, he was sure, would founder in indirection. There was no progress without Christianity: “It is thanks to Christianity that we have less and less patience with imperfection in men, in things, in laws, in government, in the arts . . . patience with our physical ills and pains we owe to our faith, that’s virtue! impatience with moral ills and injustices, that’s progress!”18

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But Augustin’s involvement with the new possibilities for French Catholicism did not stop there. The Christian future was being shaped by important and dedicated men in public life. Augustin is best known for being one of the prominent French Liberal Catholics in the nineteenth century. He traveled to Henri Lacordaire’s Dominican monastery at Chalais in the summer of 1847, and there met the (then) abbe´ Felix Dupanloup and Charles de Montalembert.19 Melun introduced him to Alfred de Falloux, and Falloux appointed Augustin to the Commission on Free Education (Commission de l’Enseignement Libre) in 1849, whose report was responsible for giving the Church an active role in education. These members of the second and third generation of the Liberal Catholic movement in France had a profoundly stimulating effect on Augustin, and he in turn devoted his impressive gifts to the Liberal Catholic cause. He collaborated with them on the great issues facing Liberal Catholics from the middle of the century to the Vatican Council in 1870, he helped write and revise some of Dupanloup’s and Montalembert’s most important pamphlets and speeches, and he oversaw the delicate and unremitting work of editing their house organ (under a new series), Le Correspondant, starting in October 1855. They were an odd and disparate group of collaborators.20 Albert de Broglie was one of the moving spirits of the cause, penning their opening manifesto, “Some Features of the Present Religious Polemic”21 against the reactionary polemicist Louis Veuillot. They hoped for a Catholic renaissance, possible only, they believed, if the Church were freed from the control and influence of the state. De Broglie had written a history of the Church in its first four centuries to show that it flourished in the days before Imperial establishment.22 A generation older than Cochin, de Broglie, the grandson of Mme. Anne Louise Necker de Stae¨l, was impressed with young Augustin: The fervor of his faith, his active and beneficent charity, his disinterested pursuit of the good, I never came near to approaching. Another way he surpassed me by far was his capacity for work and especially for speaking. I never, in my entire life, saw anything equal to the unexpected charm or the natural ease of his eloquence.23

But Broglie shrewdly summed up the price paid by Augustin in public life for taking so strongly Catholic an identity: “His faith was thus from personal conviction, and was not the result of an inherited tradition. It still cost him all the same, and I think it cost him a little all his life, to have given up, by declaring himself openly Catholic, the popularity one doesn’t acquire in France without a bit of free-thinking.”24 Charles Montalembert was the moving force behind Le Correspondant, and he was the public leader of French Liberal Catholicism. Like Henri-Dominique Lacordaire, he had been a follower of Fe´licite´ Lamennais. Impetuous, aristocratic, and theatrical, Montalembert was an older, cosmopolitan collaborator to

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Augustin. Soon after they began working together, Augustin wrote to him, sketching out their relationship: I imagine that one day Mlle. Elisabeth [Montalembert’s daughter] in sorting through your papers will find me labeled, like a poor insect pinned to a piece of cork with this definition: good boy, good at carrying out things, quite poor at starting them up, wax that melts, contains too much honey, good at scraping, melts quickly near fire! etc., etc.25

It was indeed Augustin who usually counseled restraint against the grandiose plans and sometimes intemperate language of Montalembert. Augustin was also a counterweight to Montalembert’s darker side, his mistrust of “antisocial” tendencies among the poor and working classes, a result of his disillusionment with 1848.26 Augustin the Parisian and social reformer had a clearer and more realistic idea of le peuple than Montalembert. The Montalemberts were old sword nobility, and Charles had a unique upbringing that did not include Augustin’s immediate experience of, and meditation about, the poor and working classes. Augustin was unafraid of the democracy that he felt was in store for France in the long term. Montalembert panicked at 1848 and the idea of democracy and felt at bottom that he, certainly, had few equals. Augustin might have had one of Montalembert’s impromptu speeches on this subject ringing in his ears when he wrote to The´ophile Foisset: “Once again I cannot resolve to always call revolution all that I don’t like, and principles, everything I do like, and to say to myself endlessly ‘as you weaken principles, you unleash revolution.’ ”27 At times Augustin encountered great difficulty reconciling the members of the editorial group; there were hurt feelings and sometimes refusals to contribute. It was often Augustin, along with Foisset, who put together the issues, especially in the spring and summer when de Broglie and Montalembert stayed in the country and Dupanloup was in Orle´ans. Augustin’s tact, honestly, and good sense were a factor in the survival and success of Le Correspondant through many setbacks and squabbles. Yet Augustin was no moderate at heart. Liberal Catholicism was essentially a refusal to the Empire’s use of the Church as a means of legitimation, and a dissent from the Church’s reliance on the protection of the State in a period of upheaval and revolution. The constraints and deformities imposed on the Church, and sometimes welcomed by its leadership, revolted Augustin.28 Augustin and the other Liberal Catholics ran into trouble from their criticism of Imperial policy. It came over Italian policy, not surprisingly. Entangled in Count Camillo Benso di Cavour’s attempt to unify Italy, Napoleon III had counseled Pius IX to abandon parts of the papal states then in revolt. This horrified the Liberal Catholics, who believed that the integrity of the temporal power of the Pope was a guarantee of the independence of the Church. In October 1859 Le Correspondant received its first warning, and in January 1860 its second, at its offices at 29 rue de Tournon, for an article by Broglie, and one by Augustin,

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“The Italian Question and Catholic Opinion in France.”29 The Minister of the Interior decided that the articles calumniated French policy. The same day Augustin resigned from his seats on the City Council of Paris and the General Council of the Seine, writing “I thought the extreme liberty given to the attack accorded the defense the same latitude.”30 Of course it did not. Veuillot’s l’Univers published a papal encyclical against the French government and was closed (it did not resume publication until 1867).31 Augustin and his coalition of Liberal Catholics kept the integrity of the Liberal Catholic cause intact in this instance. They remained unrepentant in the face of government disapproval; after all, the Liberal Catholic movement had called for the Church’s independence from the State and had criticized the hierarchy of the French Church for being too friendly toward the Empire. But the price the Liberal Catholics paid for their independence was exclusion from power. The Liberal Catholics found no welcome in the Church either. They were critical of the hierarchy in France—slow to move, timorous, too willing to do the bidding of the Empire, too afraid of losing the enormous subventions from the State, too dull to imagine a different relationship for the Church. Rome, which loomed so large in the life of Liberal Catholics, was just as disappointing. Rome was the great issue from the start, as it was for Lamennais. Liberal Catholics, even in this generation, were Ultramontane, but they well knew that the papacy generally disapproved of their emphasis on the benefits of disestablishment; from Rome disestablishment seemed a threat to the existence of the Church in so many countries and a threat to its diplomacy. After the Revolution of 1848, Pius could not trust that the advance of liberal institutions in the nineteenth century worked in favor of the Catholic message. In April 1862, Augustin, his wife Ade´line, and his eldest son, Denys, left on a trip to Rome. “I came to strengthen my faith, not to disturb it,” he wrote to Montalembert.32 Nevertheless, there were clouds on the horizon. He went to Rome to discuss the reasons for the condemnation of the abbe´ Nicolas Godard (1825–1863), whose book Augustin had praised in Le Correspondant (Augustin was able to get a revised edition approved);33 also, word got out that a pronouncement or encyclical was being prepared that would strike against liberalism, and Augustin wanted to use his private interviews to dissuade Pius IX from this mistake. Augustin first saw Pius from a distance at Porto d’Anzio and reflected on the “imperishable Pontiff, the object of my respect, of my confidence, and of my zeal. God is there, hidden, as at the altar, hidden, but certain.”34 But Augustin knew he would disagree with Pius. On April 28 he had his first private interview. Pius knew a good deal about the group around Le Correspondant and claimed that he loved liberty and that it was hard to reconcile to religion. Later in the conversation he said: “I prepared a little work. . . . In my position, I cannot play politics. But there are modern errors that I cannot allow to develop.”35 Augustin asked that it not strike at the liberty that the Liberal Catholics needed in order to serve him. Pius assured him it wouldn’t. Augustin and his family left Rome in the middle of June, after meeting with Count Alfieri,

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the nephew of Cavour. He left convinced all of Italy would be united in spite of the Pope. He also left convinced that Rome was not capable of meeting the needs of the times, because it could not understand the modern world; indeed, it could not even see it. In fact, he found there: Much breadth, gravity, and knowledge, with a complete ignorance of the present day, great superstition about everything that is old, from clothes to opinions, from manners to theology; perfect stance for what doesn’t have to change, dreadful for what changes and progresses.36

Dupanloup returned from an assembly of bishops at Rome that month, where he had carefully observed the antiliberal forces—“le parti extreˆme,” he called them. That October the two met at Augustin’s father-in-law’s chaˆteau, and they compared notes on what they saw. Augustin recorded Dupanloup’s imperious critique of the little people in charge at Rome. Gallicanism, Protestantism, and Anglicanism were all brought into existence, Dupanloup claimed, by an authoritarianism favored by extremists within the Church, extremists perpetually led by mediocre people acting out their resentments against their social superiors. Dupanloup believed this pattern explained the current campaign against the Liberal Catholics.37 The Liberal Catholics labored on with all their misgivings and doubts of their own success, and Augustin produced some of his best work as a ghostwriter and collaborator in this period; he read and reorganized Montalembert’s famous speech at the 1863 Malines conference (Augustin’s was on Christian progress, as we have noted). In March 1864 a letter of censure for Montalembert’s speech was sent under the name of the papal minister, Cardinal Giacorno Antonelli, and the Liberal Catholics knew an antiliberal encyclical was due soon.38 Augustin prepared Dupanloup’s speech for Malines for 1864 and did not hear of the publication of the papal bull Quanta Cura and the Syllabus of Errors until he returned from Brittany and Anjou on December 23. He went to Orle´ans to implore Dupanloup to speak out on the condemnation and stayed to help Dupanloup write the Liberal Catholic response, La Convention du 15 septembre et l’encyclique du 8 de´cembre (1864). Augustin’s son Henry believed his father wrote one particularly memorable passage of Dupanloup’s brochure, in which he quoted from Montalembert’s famous letter to Cavour explaining that what he meant by “A free Church in a free state” did not include those parts of progress, liberalism, and modern civilization that weakened the Church, and that this was in agreement with a papal allocution, Jamdudum Cernimus of 1861.39 Thus Augustin cited a letter he had ghostwritten for Montalembert in a brochure he had a large part in drafting and editing and claimed it was in agreement with an earlier papal pronouncement that made the papacy look more liberal than it was. But the directors of Le Correspondant were discouraged and met in January near Dijon to decide whether they should even continue.40 The next issue of Le Correspondant contained a restrained submission and referred the reader to Du-

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panloup’s brochure, published January 24. Augustin’s private feelings were more militant, as he wrote to Falloux while working with Dupanloup. This was the same Augustin who exactly five years earlier had resigned from his appointed posts under the Empire to retain his freedom to speak about Catholic matters. He prized frankness and his own peace of mind above pleasing the leadership of the Church: Albert de Broglie is very determined to quit; I must say I have the greatest desire to follow him. It’s not at all, for me especially, about finding a new public and exchanging the holy water sprinkler for the pen box, by courting some repugnant group. I know very well that I would be pretty much in the street, and in an empty street, after two resignations at forty years of age, but there is something that overrides all this, and that is the need to be at peace with myself . . . the need to no longer stick to a language that is constrained, suspect, half sincere, that displeases Rome, Paris, and especially, myself.41

Quanta Cura and the Syllabus of errors were of course not the end of the Liberal Catholics’ problems with the Church. Even greater attacks and embarrassments were coming, to the point that Augustin and the other Liberal Catholic leaders were never to feel welcomed by the leadership of the Church. Too educated, too independent, perhaps too optimistic about the prospects for Catholicism, and not only unintimidated by the Church leadership, but unimpressed by it, the Liberal Catholics had no place in the defensive, clerical Church of Louis Veuillot and Pius IX, with so many clergy and Catholic laypersons satisfied with a simple and obedient faith. When the news of the calling of the Vatican Council reached him, Augustin was hopeful that it would not be aimed at liberals; he hoped this great and imposing event would be in the hands of Providence, and that a corner would be turned. Yet by early 1869 it became clear that antiliberal and infallibilist forces were at work to manage the outcome. Univers and Civita cattolica published a manifesto calling for a short council without discussion.42 The liberal minority of bishops was led by Dupanloup, who kept his prayerful friends abreast of events in Rome. And again the news was about as bad as it could be. By the close of the council and the approval of the declaration on papal infallibility, Augustin was busy at Paris with the war and the problems of the Prussian invasion. He thought that the bishops of “Malines, Poitiers, Westminster and several Jesuits are the principal perpetrators of this evil.”43 Two years earlier, perhaps fearing what was to come, Augustin explained his liberalism in Church matters, his distinction between conscience and Church teaching, and in so doing, he made clear his indictment of the Church. This letter his son Henry did not publish in his father’s collection of letters: My personal opinion is altogether radical, as you know, about these questions. I never understood it to be said, I never imagined, the Church had anything to do with the institutions of any country; I don’t need to account to anyone for my participation in these institutions, except when I serve for the wrong reasons. . . .

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[While] I submit as a child to the creed, to the catechism, I refuse obedience to everything beyond these, quite openly and with a clear conscience. When the Church tells me that some liberty that I think is good is bad, I look more closely and thank it for the warning, I don’t take it as dogma, especially at a time when Pius IX, squeezed between bankruptcy and a revolt supposedly caused by some liberty, doesn’t discriminate, gets carried away, defends himself, and lashes out at both the appearance and the reality.44

These “radical” notions Augustin poured out to Montalembert were the last frank statements he made on his relation to the Church. After the Vatican Council (to which the Liberal Catholics submitted), the invasion, and the Commune, Augustin was appointed prefect of Versailles, and his time and attention were taken up with administrative matters. In April 1870 Montalembert died, and never again, in the little time left to him, did Augustin return to Liberal Catholic matters. Within two years he was dying. His great friend Fe´lix Dupanloup celebrated Mass at his deathbed, and a telegram from the Vatican arrived before the end. Augustin died in the Church, a firm and sincere believer, but his faith remained despite so many of the Church’s shortcomings. DENYS COCHIN: RELIGION AND THE CHURCH UNDER THE REPUBLIC Denys Cochin spent much of his political life defending the Church in the political area. On the City Council of Paris, in the Chamber of Deputies, Denys the independent conservative became known as a Catholic spokesman, and from 1915 to 1917 he was the Catholic representative in the wartime government. But just as he was independent politically, so he found himself in exasperated disagreement with the Church on crucial issues, sometimes one of the rare voices of common sense within the Catholic camp. Like his father Augustin, Denys— with almost as little success—sought ways to reconcile the Church to French public life, and he found the Church less responsive to facing the inevitable than he expected. His own Catholic faith seemed serene, as he noted to many of his friends throughout his life. As a young man and amateur scientist, Denys wrote E´volution et la vie (1886) to face the challenge Darwinism and evolution posed to the Catholic scientist. Indirectly, Denys was taking on the problem of his father, the problem of materialism, in the next generation. The book struck a responsive chord with the reading public, going through three editions in five years. Denys denied the impact of science as a force for disbelief: “Science deserves neither the enthusiastic hopes nor the ridiculous and even guilty fears it has sometimes inspired.”45 No mother should blame science, he claimed, for her son’s loss of faith. Nor, according to Denys, could Charles Darwin’s character be faulted. Unlike his caricatures, Darwin was neither a dogmatic German materialist nor a revolutionary French atheist.46 Instead, concerning the natural world, Darwin

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was an optimist, Denys thought, expecting much of biological life. He offered a world in which there was continual biological progress. The Creator created a seed and commanded once and for all the laws of life and the development of the species and individuals; creationism for Denys was a form of anthropomorphism. “Thus summarized and thus understood, the theory of evolution excludes neither the principal of final causes nor the idea of a Creator.”47 E´volution et la vie was an early Catholic acceptance of positivism and science in general. This soon became a leading intellectual trend. By the 1890s positivism had passed and religious belief and metaphysics had little to fear from materialism.48 Almost thirty years later Denys grappled with the problem of epistemology in his Descartes (1913). This book, like its predecessor, gave a glimpse of how Denys met challenges to his Catholic belief. Descartes was a critique of modern philosophy as practiced in France at the beginning of the century. One of its most obvious traits was its anti-Kantianism and its anti-Germanism; this was not unusual. By this time the Right was protesting the use of Immanuel Kant in the Third Republic’s schools. The sense of individual responsibility and universal moral imperatives that Republicans found so attractive (whose absence was responsible, they thought, for the Prussian victory over the decadent, clerical Empire), conservatives saw as a Protestant-inspired leveling and a simplification of social and philosophical reality. They feared that the new ethic would replace a belief in God. But by the end of the nineteenth century, as the historian Claude Digeon has pointed out, the role of Kantianism in the Third Republic was transformed.49 At first relied upon as the foundation of scientific thought and the basis for developing the responsible individual, Kantianism was soon considered a source of weakness in France, a foreign importation. In 1888 The´ophile FunckBrentano had attacked it as a German “sophism”;50 thus by 1913 Denys’s antiKantianism was not new. But Denys’s attack on Kant arose from his opposition to the tendency, rooted in the Realist-Nominalist debates and passed through David Hume, of complicating the direct relation between subject and object. The direct connection was epitomized in Reneˆ Descartes’s Meditations. Denys preferred Descartes’s God-as-Being for the foundation of philosophy. It affirmed a direct reality, however weak and contingent our knowledge of it. Moreover, it was very important to Denys that this knowledge was attainable through the mind, and not from sentiment, pragmatic action, or social consensus. Denys’s enemies here were obviously Henri Bergson, William James, and Emile Durkheim. Men relied, Denys wrote, on transcendent help and social help to find truth; but “only the former ensures the independence of the individual, and allows his reason to catch sight of a truth surpassing the appearances of this world, a science that offers more than utility; and a justice that reigns long before the laws of men.”51 Denys, then, saw the trap in conceding that religious belief was so deeply embedded in the apparent social reality that it could not be separated from it. Frenchman and Catholic, his solution was to turn to the seventeenth century to preserve the foundation of an independent Catholic individual—defending on philosophical terrain his own endangered, idealized self.

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Denys defended and prodded the Church during the Third Republic. In 1885 he ridiculed the campaign to secularize street names in Paris, and until 1888 the family battled the secularization of Cochin Hospital. In both cases, Denys defended the historical legacy of the Church in French society. His experience showed him that the Republic was hostile even to these shreds of Christianity in public life. He worked on several fronts to preserve its effective presence in French society. He sought to maintain Catholic education and find a compromise over the parish system during the Separation Crisis. For Denys, the Third Republic’s religious policy was not just hostile, but above all, incomprehensible. He had seen the Republic change its tune about the Church. Denys arrived in the Chamber of Deputies in the fall of 1893, the beginning of the “new spirit” of cooperation between the Church and the State. The watershed elections of 1893 that brought him to the Chamber of Deputies produced a small conservative wing of seventy-six deputies, and the governing Republicans sought conservative support in view of the large Radical (143 seats) and socialist (50) contingent. The publication of Pope Leo XIII Rerum Novarum in May 1891 also helped. When Republican institutions were attacked because of an injustice allegedly done to Colonel Alfred Dreyfus, Denys defended the institutions of the Republic against the revisionists. Though he gradually realized that Dreyfus was innocent, he did not speak in the Chamber of Deputies about Dreyfus until July 1906; Denys had abstained on a vote to exonerate Dreyfus. But then his heart sank as he saw the Radicals maneuvering to blame the injustice against Dreyfus on the Church, which was certainly not blameless. Denys finally spoke and said he thought it best for all who were listening “to examine their consciences together.”52 He reminded everyone that none of the ministers or principles involved in the Dreyfus case was Catholic; “they were yours”—Republicans—he reminded them.53 Yet the Church, not the army or the Republicans, would be blamed for the affair; as Denys had feared when he first read of Dreyfus, the matter of the Jewish officer did divide the country, but Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau and the revitalized Radicals worked hard to place the fault where they wanted it. Thus, cooperation with the Republic had become a trap. Denys never got over it. In 1911 Denys responded to a letter from a Dreyfusard who argued that Catholic anti-Semitism had played an important role in the case. First, Denys wrote, he had been hurt more than the writer by Edouard Drumont and Paul de Cassagnac; second, Dreyfus was not persecuted by religious bigots.54 Denys reminded the writer that Catholics were not the only antiSemites, and that Republicans were quite capable of their own anti-Semitism: “Add that your hero [Dreyfus] who has found so many defenders has no friends. Clemenceau said to me last year ‘He is innocent, but that shyster will never, I assure you, set foot in my house. He’s a dirty Jew!’ Yes, Clemenceau.”55 The effect of the Dreyfus Affair was the further removal of the Church from French public life. The anti-Catholic floodgates had been opened. Denys reacted to the law against the teaching congregations by helping form the Private Education

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League (Ligue de l’Enseignement Libre), which he helped to lead and whose offices were located at 53 rue de Babylone, the house he owned next to his own. As part of a small group of conservatives in the Chamber of Deputies, Denys held to the liberalism of his father, a liberalism that demanded a secure but not special place for the Church in French society. The government should guard the frontiers, sweep the streets, build roads, and maintain order. But belief? “That’s the business of people who gather together as they wish, whether in churches or discussion societies. Progress is the freedom to pray or think as one wants.”56 And this included, in the Liberal Catholic tradition, the right of the Church to speak out about issues of public moment, at a level of equality with other public entities: “I have a horror of state socialism, even the Christian one advocated by Albert de Mun. I believe however that the Church and its priests have the right to speak about the social question—not to preach systems, but to remind people of their obligations.”57 This new intransigence, this new spirit of persecution of the Church by the Third Republic, he could not understand, Denys confessed to his son Jean in 1903: I don’t think I’m a “fanatic” and while everything I’ve read in philosophy has not turned me away, far from that, from my Christian ideas, I understand that some people don’t have them, and first of all one must be sincere. But what I don’t understand is that the people who look elsewhere for a moral rule and an explanation for our existence, turn against works of charity, and Christian education, and persecute them.58

Denys felt victimized by this attempt to sweep out the vestiges of the Church in French public life. His complaints in his letters and in the Chamber of Deputies leave the impression that his own personality felt under attack, and that defending the Church had become a habitual public stance. This must have been a heavy burden to bear. But these matters of conscience that were so important to him he only imperfectly understood from the viewpoint of the rest of French society. The vision behind the free, compulsory, state education escaped him because behind it stood an anti-Catholic objective. Denys thought Catholics could not condemn the entire idea of state education, but he defended state education on the ground that it would be unfair to keep the servant’s child from attending one. There were, after all, some good ones.59 Denys could afford to send his sons to the Marianists, but his feel for the needs and the desires of the people from the ordinary walks of life was simply clumsy. The Republic had dismantled some of the comfortable avenues of contact with the poor and working classes his father had enjoyed; Denys, a man of science, politics, and letters, lived a more circumscribed life, and at times this showed. Denys was a highly visible figure in the debates about the momentous Separation Law. Denys was in the Chamber of Deputies to witness the maneuvers of the government, and he knew the ministers personally. He was, then, a key person for the Catholics, especially because the government never bothered to

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communicate with the Vatican. When the Combes government broke off relations with the Holy See in July 1904, Denys attempted to act as mediator. The papal nuncio, Mgr. Carlo Montagnini, asked Denys to request that the government denounce the Concordat to the Vatican (following diplomatic protocol); Denys went to his colleagues with the request—which was, not unexpectedly, refused by Aristide Briand and Georges Clemenceau.60 Denys fought the Separation bill in the Chamber of Deputies and sought modifications during the debate from March to July 1905.61 Acutely aware of the asperity of some of the radicals in pushing for this bill, and mindful that it could not be stopped, Denys understood that it also presented the Church with opportunities. To the discomfort of many Catholics, Denys never gave up preaching the necessity for accepting the “cultuelles,” parish associations created by the law. He joined the other lay notables dubbed the “green cardinals” because so many were in the Acade´mie Franc¸aise, who advocated accepting the associations (cultuelles) offered as a way of setting up the parishes again under the Separation Law. They were not immediately successful, and it is not hard to see why: the cultuelles provided a basis for a free Church in France recognized by law—the old Liberal Catholic ideal.62 The enforcement of the Separation Law had a direct effect on the Cochin family. The prefect of the Seine ordered the Archbishop of Paris to leave his residence by December 12, 1906, one year after the passage of the law. Denys apparently offered his house at 51 on rue de Babylone to the archbishop and his staff earlier. Cardinal Franc¸ois Richard—an intransigent on the Separation— and his entourage didn’t move until December 17, and then stayed at 51 rue de Babylone. Crowds in the street greeted the archbishop when he moved in, and the Cochins had to live in the country until a new residence for the archbishop could be found.63 Denys saw the bitterness behind the law and saw it as part of a continuum with the earlier anti-Catholic measures.64 Nevertheless, Denys did not believe that all the deputies who voted for the law were implacably hostile to the Church in 1905 (he mentioned Jean Jaure`s and Briand), and he thought the law as finally passed was a “liberal and acceptable” one. The battle then moved to within the Church, and its acceptance had to be pushed over the objections of a shortsighted and inflamed majority. The good in the law was detected only by the liberals, led by the “green cardinals.”65 The law remained a matter of fierce debate within the Church from the time of its passage to World War I. The bishops of France in three assemblies first recommended accepting the law, and then after the war opposed it; the papacy at first condemned the law and later favored it. When the issue was taken up again in 1920, Denys worked with the government and the Holy See to make the law work, against the objections of the French episcopate.66 The years after the Separation Law showed a lessening of recriminations between Church and State. Their divorce gave them different assignments. However, the outbreak of the war complicated this mood somewhat. Denys was the

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visible symbol of wartime cooperation in the coalition government, the Union Sacre´e, from his appointment on October 29, 1915, to his resignation on July 27, 1917. He was named minister of state in the Briand government and was assigned the wartime blockade because of his scientific background.67 On March 23, 1917, he was named head of the Comite´ de Restriction, and on December 12 was appointed undersecretary of state in charge of all matters pertaining to the blockade at the Foreign Ministry. Although this latter appointment was in effect a demotion, it gave him more power over the blockade, and he wrote to his son Jean that he stayed on for three reasons: “1. Self-respect and personal interest. . . . 2. Belief that the blockade is our best weapon; the belief that I have contributed a great deal to this. . . . 3. Maintain a link—however tenuous—with the Catholics and the Church.”68 This last point remained very important to Denys. As the Catholic in the government, Denys hoped to show how helpful the Vatican could be, building a case for the reestablishment of diplomatic relations. It also cooperated in reining in clergy to preserve the Union Sacre´e. He also sought to show that Catholics, now on equal footing with all other religious groups, were as patriotic and as much behind the war effort as anyone. To a degree, Denys was successful. The Vatican did not condemn outright having priests serve in the army, and it continued to recognize the French protectorate in the Middle East. Rome was also a channel for information about French prisoners. But the war in fact was a cause of great stress between Denys and the Church. The Vatican was concerned to remain neutral and act as arbiter between the belligerents. Denys exploded at the Vatican’s equanimity in demanding equal consideration for German prisoners captured in the invasion and spoliation of his country. Rome remained silent about the wartime atrocities committed by the German army against the French populations under its control. Denys penned many bitter letters to the Cardinal Secretary of State, Gasparri, about Vatican neutrality. He held nothing back; one written in April 1917, at the American entry into the war, is typical: The nullity, the dullness of the Vatican at this horrible time is an awful disappointment for Catholics. . . . The greatest crimes, the highest moral authority: and a timid silence! The entire world is up in arms: President Wilson publishes an admirable Encyclical and the Pope says nothing! When he sees us rebuild our churches, he will no doubt speak. Will anyone be listening? the voice that found nothing to say when the churches were desecrated?69

Part of the reason for Denys’s bitterness was his deep Catholic triumphalism. The German question would not be solved by any change in leadership in Germany—contrary to the assumptions behind the Pope’s disarmament initiative in the summer of 1917. The “idolatry of the State,” made possible by Martin Luther’s heresy, Denys thought, was triumphant in Germany, and only the regeneration of a Catholic Germany might provide an effective counterweight.70

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Thus, during the war his Catholicism reinforced Germanophobia. The breakup of Germany along religious lines was only one step toward the peaceful triumph of Catholicism all over Europe in Denys’s mind: the freeing of Poland, the breaking off of Austria and its aligning with Italy, and, even after the Bolshevik Revolution, the return of the schismatic Russians to the Catholic fold. In the midst of the Great War, then, amid the political decisions in which Denys was a participant, his vision of the future remained rooted in the past. He consciously hearkened back to the Liberal Catholic hopes of his father’s generation and before. His ideas seemed even more out of place in this setting than they were in the nineteenth century. In 1918 Denys wrote to Stephen Pichon, foreign minister under Clemenceau, of the possibility of Polish leadership of the Slavs, invoking the names of the French champions of the Polish cause, both Catholic and Republican: “It was the cause of Montalembert and Blanqui, of Michelet and Father Gratry, of Quinet and of Dupanloup. ‘Since the partition of Poland,’ Father Gratry used to say, ‘Europe is in a state of mortal sin.’ ”71 This was certainly not a diplomacy that had any chance of being adopted by the Foreign Office. But not only was the Vatican not up to this sort of role in the diplomatic world—as Denys knew firsthand while in the government—but the French government was not interested in Denys bringing too many Catholic matters to the government. By the summer of 1917 he felt the blockade was established and that the Americans would be the overwhelming force in the war. In June 1917 the Cabinet refused Denys permission to read a letter from Gasparri on French interests in the Orient on the grounds that the Cabinet was not bound to hear correspondence having only a “private character.” Denys felt the Union Sacre´e was truly dead and resigned on July 27. Thus, Denys’s relations with the Church were never free from troubles. Denys Cochin and the Church maintained an uneasy cooperation, kept alive by an untouchable faith and loyalty, but filled with criticism and disappointment on Denys’s side. While he was forced to witness the powerful counterthrusts by the Third Republic against the Church in France, he was also doomed, all through his career, to witness the fumbling and weaknesses of the personalities in the Vatican and the nearly disastrous results of their policies. He was constantly trying to interpret French politics and public issues to the Church and giving advice on the wisest course to follow. But, as was clear from his father’s career, other concerns were directing the Church. The French bishops in power in Denys’s day were the product of Pius IX’s careful pruning of most of the liberal buds. To Denys’s eyes, they limited the Church’s effectiveness, and, to an outsider, made his Catholicism appear all the more remarkable and original.72 AUGUSTIN’S IDEAL RELIGION Denys’s son’s relation to the Church is much more obscure. There is little to say about it and we can only infer Augustin’s religious life from the few traces of it we have; he was secretive about this aspect of his life. A Romantic, me-

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dieval in his religious preferences, Augustin’s Catholicism was both more florid as well as more hidden than his father’s. In other words, the scope of his religious expression contracted to the private and devotional, the opposite of the very public Liberal Catholicism of his father and grandfather. We have noted that he carried on his own charitable works and that he found the broken pieces of the past in churches more attractive than the living revolution going on around him. His family and his Marianist education supported his religious faith. His religion became a useful support and bulwark against the drift and rapacity of the present. His Catholicism was reactionary, like that of many Catholics of his generation; his Catholicism was a neo-Thomist refuge from all the illusions of the present, both religious and political. He delighted in finding his religion in shards, in odd corners of daily life, and he believed it demanded he be on the other side of the movement of the times, that it demanded a greater integrity than the present allowed or expected. In one letter to his mother, Augustin reveled in his disgust for the modern world: But Bergson, there is the enemy against whom papa has so many things to say— the head of all the bad tendencies of our generation, modernism, socialism, empiricism—rigidity in politics, inconsistency in science and religion, exactly the opposite of the truth; the man who launched the formula for pragmatism: homo faber instead of homo sapiens—work instead of ideas, the machine instead of art, the automobile instead of horses, everything you hate first by instinct, then through reason, all the bad currents flowing our way from Germany. For that is their source.73

The direction of the Church in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century had little appeal for him. He “detested” the Christian democratic movement Le Sillon and was glad it was condemned, though he also criticized the tone of the papal letter condemning it.74 He generally approved of his father’s Liberal Catholic stands, yet he was uncomfortable with notions of reviving Catholicism. The new methods of publicity, demonstrations, and pressure groups, placed the Catholic activists in the same role as the leaders of political parties and pressure groups, which he detested and which he saw on the road to philosophical error. He twice refused to support the Church in early 1914 as it tried to agitate to draw attention to the “martyrs of Cambrai,” by celebrating the canonization of forty-seven priests killed by the Jacobins.75 Though he, too, hated the Third Republic, Augustin’s Catholicism had few points of connection with the public issues of the Church; under the Third Republic it, too, was a victim and participant in the new society and its democratic methods. Nor did the Church seem to have the power to revive itself (“the ecclesiastical fox is very ill,” he once wrote).76 His religion, then, was confined to his private notion of the medieval ideal, which preserved truth in an unchanging way. Augustin knew little of the medieval period, and his idealization of it is telling. In a different manner from his father and grandfather, Augustin placed his faith farther still outside his disap-

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pointing times—in the past, not the future. He fashioned it as a transcendent faith free from politics and trends. It turned its back on Vatican follies as well. Augustin lived in an epoch when religion was being dissected, when anthropology and sociology were striving to explain it in other terms, in a counterattack to the rejection of positivism and to the Catholic revival then underway. In turn, as we will see, Augustin attacked some of the most important figures in this effort in his work on the French Revolution. Yet this attack on the Church’s enemies in the Third Republic were never made under the illusion that it would help the Church’s position in any meaningful way. For Augustin true belief, and the real Church, could not exist in the present. Daily habits, new instincts, new sensibilities, new taboos, and new prohibitions blocked it. For him the Revolution succeeded in taking over society and shaping it to its needs, making, then, a skeptical world, because that is what it needed for its survival. His interpretation of the Revolution meant that true religious faith could be recovered only outside this process. Since the Revolution, since the middle of the eighteenth century when the revolutionary process began, the Church, too, was contaminated. As it strove to fulfill the task of fitting itself to the modern world, the Church was bound to fail, and, likely, be destroyed. For Augustin, ideas of reconciliation were part of the revolutionary illusion. This was his verdict on Catholic Liberalism. By extension, the Church created medieval society as a society in which its values would best flourish. Its values were best understood by the habits, instinct, assumptions, and practices of that period. In a revolutionary France, this was the only way to the true Church—an impossible journey, in other words. Augustin, then, went about his charitable work as he lived out his Catholic faith, almost in private in the center of his family. The last of these generations of Cochins kept the religion of his fathers after he had let go, on principle, the religious example set by them in public life. Augustin’s death on the battlefield at the foot of a rural Calvary strengthened the identification of Augustin and Catholicism. His faith was the least complicated and most enduring part of his character. We are left wishing more from this fervent yet reticent Catholic. His ideals and his anathemas on the present had their roots in his religious faith— they were the obverse side of the coin. It was the nature of the hour that this was kept private and personal. Religion still defined what it meant to be a Cochin, finally in the isolation of the Third Republic. NOTES 1. See l’abbe´ Michel Pierre Joseph Picot, Memoires pour servir a` l’histoire eccle´siastique pendant le dix-huitie`me sie`cle (Paris: Le Clere, 1815–1816), 2d ed., 4 vols., 2: 199–201. 2. “Mon pe`re m’a raconte´ que tout jeune, il fut appele´ par le Chancelier Pasquier, aˆge´ de pre`s de cent ans. Le vieillard lui dit: ‘J’ai voulu vous connaıˆtre; nous sommes tous deux de vieille souche parisienne. Mon pe`re e´tait ami intime de votre trisaieul. Ils fre´quentaient leur cure´. Ils ve´ne´raient leur e´veˆque. Les moines et tout le reste ne leur e´taient de rien.’

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“Ce trisaı¨eul e´tait le pe`re du cure´ de Saint Jacques-du-Haut-Pas, fondateur de l’hoˆpital qui porte notre nom. Le Janse´nisme avait exerce´ une influence sur les Parisiens d’alors.” Denys Cochin, Louis Philippe d’apre`s les documents ine´dits (Paris: Hachette, 1918), n. 1, p. 205, n. 1. 3. Dale Van Kley, The Jansenists and the Expulsion of the Jesuits from France (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975), 165. 4. “Rien dans ses e´crites ne paraıˆt re´ve´ler de complaisance pour les erreurs partage´es par un trop grand nombre de ses paroissiens. Le choix de M. de Beaumont semble d’ailleurs e´carter tout soupc¸on sur sa doctrine. La satisfaction des Janse´nistes lorsqu’ils le virent succe´der a` M. Courcault, peut s’expliquer simplement par l’esprit de conciliation qu’ils lui connaissent, et dont il fit preuve en se chargeant lui-meˆme d’assister a` leurs derniers moments plusiers des vieillards exile´s que M. Desmoulins avait autrefois accueillis dans son e´glise et sa communaute´.” l’ abbe´ J. Grente, Une Paroisse de Paris sous l’ancien re´gime: Saint Jacques du Haut Pas 1566–1792 (Paris-Auteuil: Imprimerie des Orphelins-Apprentis-D. Fontaine, 1897), 169. 5. Joseph Walter, Instructions on the prayers and ceremonies of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, translated from the French of M. Cochin, and arranged for each Sunday throughout the year by W. Jos. Walters, late of St. Edmund’s college and translator of the martyrs of Chateaubriand, two volumes in one (Dublin: William Warren, 1843), 56. This work first appeared posthumously, at Paris in 1787; it was republished in 1831, 1851, and 1865; in English in London, in two volumes, in 1814 (from which the Dublin edition is a reprint), and in Baltimore in 1820. 6. Ibid., 3. 7. Ralph Gibson, A Social History of French Catholicism, 1789–1914 (London: Routledge, 1989). On Jansenism, see Philippe Gontard, La Querelle du refus des sacraments (Paris: F. Loviton, 1937), as well as Dale Van Kley, The Jansenists and the Expulsion of the Jesuits from France, 1757–1764 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975), and B. Robert Kreiser, Miracles, Convulsions, and Ecclesiastical Politics in Early Eighteenth-Century Paris (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978). 8. Grente, 225–26. 9. Jacques Denis Cochin, Testament, January 28, 1830, AC, Da1. 10. “l’influence du temps avait refroidi sa foi.” Notes in the script of Mme. Ade´line Cochin, AC, Fal. 11. Brugerette, Le preˆtre franc¸ais et la socie´te´ contemporaine, 3, vols. (Paris: Lethielleux, 1933–35), 63–122. 12. Auguste Laveille, Un Lamennais inconnu: Lettres ine´dites de Lamennais a` Benoist d’Azy (Paris: Perrin, 1898), iv–vii. 13. Lettres, I, iii, n.1. 14. “J’ai toujours cru en Dieu. Il m’a fallu plus de temps pour croire au Christ, plus encore pour croire au Ciel.” Jean desCognets, “Augustin Cochin et les Espe´rances chre´tiennes,” Le Correspondant 293 (n.s. 257) (November 25, 1923), p. 606. 15. And the style, he noted, was “un peu affecte´”; “Sur la Vie de Je´sus par M. Renan,” Le Correspondant, n.s. 23 (July 25, 1863), pp. 504–27. 16. Augustin Cochin, “Le Proge`s des sciences et de l’industrie au point de vue chre´tien. Discours prononce´e devant l’Assemble´e Ge´ne´ral de Catholiques a` Malines,” Le Correspondant, n.s. 24 (September 25, 1863), pp. 35–55. 17. “Je veux vous prouver . . . ou plutoˆt vous rappeler ceci, toutes les sciences prouvent Dieu, tous les progre`s servent Dieu” [emphasis in the original]. Ibid., p. 39.

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18. “C’est graˆce au Christianisme qu’on supporte de moins en moins l’imperfection dans les hommes, dans les choses, dans les lois, dans le gouvernement, dans les arts. . . . nous devons a` notre foi la patience des maux physiques et des douleurs, c’est la vertu! l’impatience des maux moraux et des iniquite´s, c’est le progre`s!” Augustin Cochin, “Le Monde invisible, re´futation du mate´rialisme,” Le Correspondant, n.s. 26 (May 25, 1864), p. 8. One of the themes of his posthumously published Les Espe´rances chre´tiennes (1883) developed this worship, or religion, of progress by uniting an Augustinian sense of sin in the world with the improvement—moral and material—of nineteenth-century culture. The old link between capital and moral restraint, present in his grandfather’s account books, was still there (pp. 269–70). 19. Lettres, I, 52, n.1. The literature on Liberal Catholicism is large. Among the important works, see Jean Baptiste Duroselle, Les De´buts de catholicisme sociale en France (Paris: P.U.F., 1951); J. Brugerette, Le Preˆtre franc¸ais et la socie´te´ contemporaine; Les Catholiques libe´raux au XIXe sie`cle, with an introduction by J. Gadille (Grenoble: Presses Universitaires de Grenoble, 1974); Georges Weill, L’Histoire du catholicisme libe´ral en France (1828–1908) (Paris: F. Alcan, 1909); E´douard Lecanuet, Montalembert, 3 vols. (Paris: Poussielque, 1902–1903); Marcel Pre´lot and F. Galloue´dec Genuys, Le Libe´ralisme catholique (Paris: Armand Colin, 1969); Adrien Dansette, Histoire religieuse de la France contemporaine (Paris: Flammarion, 1965). 20. For a good summary of the central personnel of the Correspondant group, see Jean-Re´my Palanque, Catholiques libe´raux et gallicans en France face au Concile du Vatican 1867–1870 (Aix-en-Provence: Annales de la Faculte´ des lettres, 1962). 21. “Des caracte`res de la pole´mique religieuse actuelle,” Le Correspondant, n.s. 1 (January 1856), pp. 481–515, signed by Albert de Broglie. 22. Albert de Broglie, L’E´glise et l’empire romain au IVe sie`cle (Paris: Didier, 1866). 23. “. . . la ferveur de sa foi, son active et bienfaisante charite´, son ardeur de´sinte´resse´e pour le bien, je n’avais pas meˆme la pre´tention d’en approcher. Ce qui me de´passait aussi de cent coude´es, c’e´tait sa facilite´ de travail et surtout de parole. Je n’ai, dans ma vie, rien vu de pareil au charme impre´vu et a` l’aisance naturelle de son e´loquence.” Albert de Broglie, Me´moires du duc de Broglie, vol. 1 (Paris: Calmann-Levy, 1938), 1: 271. 24. “Sa foi e´tait donc l’oeuvre de sa conviction personnelle, et ne provenait pas d’un tradition he´re´ditaire. Il lui en avait meˆme assez couˆte´, et je crois qu’il lui en couta un peu toute sa vie, d’avoir renonce´ pour se dire ouvertement catholique, a` la popularite´ qu’on n’acque´rait jamais en France sans une pointe de libre-pense´e.” Broglie, Me´moires, 1: 271. 25. “je me figure qu’un jour Mlle Elisabeth [Montalembert’s daughter] en rangeant vos papiers me trouvera e´tiquette´, comme un pauvre insect attache´ par une e´pingle sur un morceau de lie`ge avec cette de´finition: bon garc¸on, supportable pour exe´cuter, de´testable pour entreprendre, cire qui se pe´trit, contient trop de miel, peut servir pour frotter, fond vite a` l’approche du feu! etc., etc.” Augustin Cochin to Montalembert, January 14, 1856, Lettres, I, 152. 26. James C. Finlay’s The Liberal Who Failed (Washington: Corpus Books, 1968), is an indictment of Montalembert’s social conservatism after the Revolution of 1848. 27. “Encore ne puis-je me re´soudre a` appeler toujours re´volution tout ce qu’on n’aime pas, et principes, tout ce qu’on aime, et a` m’e´crier sans cesse: ‘vous amoindrissez les principes, vous de´chaıˆnez la re´volution.’ ” Augustin Cochin to Foisset, August 7, 1859, Lettres, I, 206.

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28. In 1858, while vacationing in the Pyrenees, he read of Napoleon’s triumphal procession through Brittany and was outraged: “Mais ce qui me confonde c’est l’hyperbole de l’e´loge, la courtesannerie de l’alphabet lui-meˆme, consacrant ses majescules a` Leurs Augustes Existences, le clerge´ parlant de saint Louis, et l’Univers enche´rissant sur le tout, s’e´criant que sainte Anne est la vraie forteresse, plus puissant que Cherbourg, que l’Empe´reur est le fonde´ de pouvoir de la Nation, que la France est preˆte a` lui donner plus encore. Quoi! La Me`re de la Sainte Vie`rge, les plus douces de´votions, sont des remparts contre l’Anarchie! Notre-Seigneur n’est venu ici-bas que pour instituer la gendarmerie, contre ces affreux gens du peuple, dont Saint Pierre e´tait l’un, et des plus grossiers!” Augustin Cochin to Mme. Adeline Cochin, August 26, 1858, Lettres, I, 185. 29. The notice, dated January 30, 1860, is in AC, Fa15, for “La Question italienne et opinion catholique en France,” Le Correspondant, (January 25, 1860). See also Jean Maurain, La Politique eccle´siastique du Second Empire de 1852 a` 1869 (Paris: Alcan, 1930); Adrien Dansette, Histoire religieuse de la France contemporaine, corr. and rev. ed. (Paris: Flammarion, 1965); and E.E.Y. Hales, Pio Nono (Garden City, NY: Image, 1954). 30. “J’ai cru que l’extreˆme liberte´ accorde´ aux attaques laissait a` la de´fense la meˆme latitude.” Letter of resignation, January 30, 1860, AC, Fa15. 31. Dansette, 307. 32. “Je suis venu pour augmenter ma foi, non pour la troubler.” Augustin Cochin to Montalembert, May 3, 1862, Lettres, I, 274. 33. “Les Principes de 1789,” by P. Douhaire (Augustin Cochin’s pseudonym), Le Correspondant, n.s. 20 (August 1862). Godard died in early 1863 after making changes to the book that resulted in Rome’s removing the second edition from the Index of Forbidden Books. Augustin Cochin reviewed this edition in “Les Principes de 1789 et la doctrine catholique,” Le Correspondant, n.s. 22 (February 1863), pp. 401–4. 34. “. . . impe´rissable Pontife, l’objet de mon respect, de ma confiance, et de mon ze`le. Dieu est la`, cache´, comme a` l’autel, cache´, mais certain.” Augustin Cochin’s pocket notebook, AC, Fa1. 35. “J’ai pre´pare´ un petit travail. . . . Dans ma position, je ne puis faire de la politique. Mais il y a des erreurs modernes que je ne puis laisser s’e´tablir.” Ibid. 36. “Beaucoup de largeur, de gravite´, de science, avec une ignorance comple`te du temps pre´sent, la superstition de ce qui est vieux en tout, depuis les costumes jusqu’aux opinions, depuis l’etiquette jusqu’a` la the´ologie; admirable disposition pour ce qui ne doit pas changer, de´testable pour ce qui change et progresse.” Augustin Cochin to de Courcelle, May 27, 1862, Lettres, I, 281. 37. “Le Gallicanisme e´tait une re´action, comme le protestantisme, comme l’anglicanisme, contre la domination du parti extreˆme dans l’E´glise, parti mene´ d’ordinaire par des gens me´diocres, envieux de la supe´riorite´ qu’enjambent la renomme´ par la supe´riorite´.” “Conversations avec Mgr d’Orle´ans,” October 2, 1862, AC, Fa1. Augustin felt that the future of Christianity lay in the reunification of Catholics and Protestants (Espe´rances, p. 431). 38. Augustin Cochin to Montalembert, July 14, 1863, Lettres, I, 339–42. Texts of the speeches were printed in Le Correspondant, September 1863. Augustin Cochin to Mme. Adeline Cochin, March 10, 1864, Lettres, II, 17–18. The text of Antonelli’s letter was first printed in E´douard Lecanuet, Montalembert, 2nd. ed., 3 vols. (Paris: Pousielque, 1902) 3: 373–74. 39. Henry Cochin in Lettres, II, 61–62. 40. A description of the meeting is in Lecanuet, vol. 3, p. 386.

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41. “Albert de Broglie est tre`s de´cide´ a` se retirer; j’avoue que j’ai le plus grand de´sire de le suivre. Il ne s’agit pas du tout, pour moi surtout, de retrouver un autre public et de changer le be´nitier contre l’e´critoire, en courtisant quelque parti re´pugnant. Je sais tre`s bien que je serais a` peu pre`s dans la rue, et dans une rue de´serte, entre deux de´missions a` quarante ans, mais il y a quelque chose qui l’emporte sur ce pe´ril probable, c’est le besoin d’eˆtre en paix au fond de l’aˆme . . . c’est le besoin de ne plus tenir un langage geˆne´, suspect, a` moitie´ since`re, qui de´plaıˆt a` Rome, a` Paris et surtout a` moi-meˆme.” Augustin Cochin to Falloux, January 8, 1865, Lettres, II, 59. 42. Augustin Cochin to Montalembert, July 3, 1867, Lettres, II, 149. Augustin Cochin to Dupanloup, July 26, 1867, Lettres, II, 149. See also Lettres, II, 222. 43. “Malines, Poitiers, Westminster et qu’qu Je´suites sont les principaux auteurs de ce mal.” Augustin Cochin, notes on the Vatican Council, July 30, 1870, AC, Fa31. 44. “Mon avis personnel est tout a` fait radical, vous le savez, sur ces questions. Je n’ai jamais entendu dire, je n’ai jamais imagine´, que l’E´glise eut rien a` voir dans les institutions d’aucun pays; je ne dois compte a` personne de ma participation a` ces institutions, excepte´ quand je le sers avec un motif personnel coupable. . . . Je me soumets en enfant au credo, au cate´chisme, je refuse obe´issance a` tout ce qui sort de la`, et en pleine since´rite´ et se´curite´ de conscience. Quand l’E´glise me dit que telle liberte´ que je tienne bonne est funeste, j’y regard de plus pre`s et je la remercie de l’indication, je ne prends pas cela pour un dogme, surtout dans un moment ou` Pie IX, accule´ entre la banqueroute et la re´volte par une pre´tendue liberte´ . . . ne distingue pas, s’emporte, se de´fend, et frappe a` la fois le masque et le visage.” Augustin Cochin to Montalembert, July 24, 1868, AC, Fb13. See Jean Re´my Palanque, Catholiques libe´raux et gallicains en France face au Concile du Vatican 1867–1870 (Aix-en-Provence: Publication des Annales de la Faculte´ des Lettres, 1962). 45. “La science ne me´rite ni les espe´rances enthusiastes ni les craintes ridicules et meˆme coupables qu’elle a quelquefois inspire´.” Denys Cochin, E´volution et la vie, 3d ed., rev. and exp. (Paris: G. Masson, 1888), 81. 46. “Si nous ne faisons erreur, il devrait ressembler fort peu aux portraits de fantasie que beaucoup de personnes se sont faits de lui. Ce n’e´tait pas du toute un pe´dant allemande, professant de nouveau dogme de la matie`re. Ce n’e´tait davantage un esprit fort a` la nouvelle mode franc¸aise, athe´e de partis pris, de´mocrat de profession et porte´ a` conside´rer les the´ories transformistes comme un nouveau principe de 89 a` l’usage des beˆtes.” Ibid., pp. 271–72. 47. “Ainsi re´duit et ainsi comprise, la the´orie de l’e´volution n’exclut ni le principe des causes finales, ni l’ide´e d’un Cre´ateur.” Ibid., 270. 48. Harry W. Paul, The Edge of Contingency: French Catholic Reaction to Scientific Change from Darwin to Duhem (Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1979). 49. Claude Digeon, La Crise allemande de la pense´e franc¸aise 1870–1914 (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1959), 332–37. 50. The´ophile Funck-Brentano, Les Sophistes allemandes et les nihilistes russes (Paris: Plon, 1888). Funck-Brentano’s subsequent Les Sophistes franc¸ais et la re´volution europe´en (Paris: Plon, 1905) argued that French philosophy had lost its way in the eighteenth century, and that the thinkers of the seventeenth century, Rene´ Descartes among them, had been continuously misrepresented and misunderstood. 51. “Le premier seul assure l’inde´pendence de l’individu, et permet a` sa raison d’entrevoir une ve´rite´ qui surpasse les apparences de ce monde, une science qui ne pre´sente pas seulement un caracte`re d’utilite´; et une justice qui re`gne ante´rieurement

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aux lois des hommes.” Denys Cochin, Descartes, (Paris: Fe´lix Alcan, 1913), p. 74. An undated note in his hand shows Denys asking: “Qu’est-ce qu’une religion sans dogmes et sans miracles? C’est tout simplement la religion . . . religion qui ele`ve l’homme vers un ide´al inaccessable: le savant, l’artiste, le preˆtre, le soldat, le medicin. Ajoutez la soeur, le Fre`re.” Denys Cochin to an unnamed correspondent, AC, Ga68. 52. “de faire ensemble leur examen de conscience.” Joseph Reinach, Histoire de l’affaire Dreyfus, vol. 6, La Re´vision (Paris: Charpentier et Fasquelle, 1908), 491. 53. “ils e´taient des voˆtres, des re´publicains e´prouve´s, vos camarades de groupes, vos colle`gues de ministe`re.” Reinach, 6:491. 54. “Le crime! Vous voulez absoluement un crime! On a torture´ expre`s un Juif, parce que juif, par fanatism religieux! C¸a ne se soutient pas un instant. . . . Et qui serait les fanatiques? Mercur, Billot, Krantz, Cavaignac—dont pas un n’e´tait pas religieux.” Denys Cochin to an unknown correspondent, 1911, AC, Ga89. 55. “Ajoutez que votre he´ros qui a trouve´ tant de de´fenseurs n’a pas d’amis. Clemenceau m’a dit l’anne´e dernie`re ‘Il est innocent, mais cette canaille-la` ne mettra pas, je vous l’assure, les pieds chez moi. C’est un sale juif!’ Oui, Clemenceau.” Ibid. 56. “Cela est l’affaire des individus qui se re´unisse comme il leur plaıˆt, en des E´glises ou en des E´coles philosophiques. Le progre`s c’est la liberte´ de prier ou de penser comme on veut.” Denys Cochin to “M. le Pre´sident,” n.d., probably 1902, AC, Ga68. Ironically, his father Augustin was once secretary of the Comite´ de l’Enseignement Libre, set up in 1852 with Liberal Catholic friends by Louis-Mathieu, comte de Mole´, to support enactment of the Falloux Law on Education (papers, AC, Fa23). 57. “J’ai horreur du socialisme d’e´tat, meˆme chre´tien pre´concise´ par Albert de Mun. Je crois cependant que l’E´glise et ses preˆtres ont le droit de parler de la question sociale—non pour proˆner des syste`mes—mais pour rappeler des devoirs.” Denys Cochin to Henri Barboux, April 1, 1892, AC, Ga73. 58. “Je ne crois pas eˆtre ‘fanatique’ et quoique tout ce que j’ai lu de philosophie ne m’avait point de´tourne´, loin de la`, de mes ide´es chre´tiennes, je comprends qu’on ne les ait pas, et il faut d’abord eˆtre since`re. Mais ce que je ne comprends pas, c’est que des gens qui cherchent ailleurs une re`gle morale et une explication de notre obscure destine´e, se retournent contre les oeuvres de charite´, et d’instruction chre´tiennes, et les perse´cutent.” Denys Cochin to son Jean, May 10, 1903, AC, Ga91. 59. “comment empeˆcher les enfants de votre jardinier et de votre cocher d’aller a` l’e´cole communale quand il n’y en a pas d’autres?” Denys Cochin to Armand Lods, November 1909, AC, Ga91. 60. Papers in AC, Ga67. 61. Denys played a significant role in shaping Article 4 of the law, which permitted the Catholic hierarchy to be organized according to its own general rules. Jean-Marie Meyeur, Un Preˆtre de´mocrat: Abbe´ Lemire 1853–1928 (n.p.: Casterman, 1968), 310. 62. The letter of Denys Cochin and other liberal Catholics was published March 20, 1906, in Le Figaro. 63. Details of the archbishop’s stay are in AC, Ga68, and Robert de Courcel, Les Re´sidences des Archeveˆques de Paris (Paris: Imprimerie des Orphelins-Apprentis d’Auteuil, 1951). It is said the family became impatient that Richard was slow to look for a new residence. Denys Cochin apparently took the train from La Roche every day to attend the Assembly, a significant inconvenience. His Eminence finally left in the middle of March. 64. “En 1905, la Se´paration survint a` la fin d’une pe´riode d’attaques violentes et de

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mesures arbitraires et iniques dirige´es par la Majorite´ de la Chambre et le Gouvernement contre l’E´glise.” Draft of article in AC, Ga67. 65. “Les catholiques clairvoyants, occupe´s du bien de l’E´glise plutoˆt que d’habilite´s politiques, reconnurent et signale`rent de bonne foi ce fait inattendu.” Draft of article in AC, Ga67. 66. In the fall of 1920, Denys was in regular contact with Henri Chapon, bishop of Nice, who was spearheading the papal initiative of Benedict XV to find a way to live under the law. Denys also heard from Father Pierre Tiberghien in Rome and made use of his contacts with the Secretary of State, Pietro Gasparri. Chapon was a disciple of Dupanloup and a friend of Augustin Cochin. The correspondence between Denys and Chapon could easily be confused with that of Augustin and Dupanloup. See Denys Cochin to Chapon, October 19, 1920, AC, Ga73, and letters and articles on the Separation of Church and State, beginning June 1920 in AC, Ga67. 67. A detailed account of Denys’s activities building a blockade against Germany is in Marjorie Milbank Farrar, Conflict and Compromise: The Strategy, Politics and Diplomacy of the French Blockade, 1914–1918 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974). 68. “1. Amour propre et inte´reˆt personnel. . . . 2. Conviction que le blocus est notre meilleur arme; sentiment d’y avoir contribue´ beaucoup. . . . 3. Garder un lien—si faible soit le fil—avec les Catholiques et l’E´glise.” Denys Cochin to son Jean, December, 1916, AC, Ga90. 69. “La nullite´, la platitude du Vatican en ce temps effroyable est pour les Catholiques une de´ception affreuse. . . . Les plus grands crimes, la plus haute autorite´ morale: et un silence timide! Le monde entier s’e´meute: le President Wilson publie une admirable Encyclique et le Pape se tait! Quand il nous voir relever nos e´glises, il parlera sans doute. Sa voix sera-t-elle entendue? cette voix qui n’a rien trouve´ a` dire quand on les profanait?” Denys Cochin to Gasparri, April 17, 1917, AC, Ga91. 70. From Denys Cochin’s reply to the papal initiative published in the Journal des de´bats, September 4, 1917. 71. “Ce fut la cause de Montalembert et de Blanqui, de Michelet et du Pe`re Gratry, de Quinet et de Dupanloup. ‘Depuis le partage de Pologne, disait le Pe`re Gratry, l’Europe est en e´tat de pe´che´ mortel.’ ” Denys Cochin to Stephen Pinchon, June 26, 1918, AC, Ga67. 72. A letter from Denys’s chef de cabinet, Victor Bucaille, in Rome, to Bernard de Lasterie (also on his staff) must have made Denys smile; he saved a copy of it, perhaps because it sounded a note about Rome so close to his father’s: “Le conflit en devrait bouleverse´ toutes leurs conceptions. Ils sont helas! de petits gens avec de petites ide´es. Dans les petites choses ils sont parfaites, ils ne comprennent pas les grands. Ils manquent de vues d’ensemble et d’ide´es ge´ne´rales. Ils sont trop sceptiques et trop re´alistes pour avoir du ge´nie. Quand je pense que Gasparri se vantait devant moi de n’avoir jamais lu Dante, de ne prendre aucun inte´reˆt a` aucun poe¨te. Les paragraphes arides du droit canon le passionent plus qu’un beau vers ou un beau motet. Non! croyez-vous vraiment que le droit canon suffise aujourd’hui pour diriger les hommes et l’E´glise!” Victor Bucaille to Charles de Lasterie, May 9, 1917, AC, Ga67. 73. “. . . mais Bergson, voila` l’ennemi contre qui papa a tant de choses a` dire—le patron de tous les mauvais penchants de notre ge´ne´ration, modernisme, socialisme, empiricisme—raideur en politique, inconsistance en science et religion, tout a` inverse de la ve´rite´; l’homme qui a lance´ la formule de pragmatisme: homo faber au lieu de homo sapiens—l’industrie au lieu de l’ide´e, la machine au lieu de l’art, l’auto au lieu des

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chevaux, tout ce qu’on de´teste d’instinct d’abord, et apre`s de raison, tous les mauvais courants qui nous viennent de l’Allemagne. Car c’est la` leur source.” Augustin Cochin to Mme. Denys Cochin, undated, AC, Ha6. 74. Augustin Cochin to Mme. Denys Cochin [1910], AC, Ha6. 75. For a detailed account of Augustin’s refusal, see Fred E. Schrader, Augustin Cochin et la re´publique franc¸aise (Paris: E´ditions du Seuil, 1992), 62–63. 76. “le renard eccle´siastic [est] bien mal,” Augustin Cochin to A. Boutillier du Re´tail, October 16, 1909, AC, Ha6.

Chapter 6

Politics and the Revolution I

The Cochins participated in many institutions of public life, but after 1789 they were unavoidably influenced by the great event that loomed above all institutions: the Revolution. Their involvement with the Revolution was complex. It is too simple to say that while they often reviled it, they benefited from the changes it brought. Instead, it is more accurate to say that the Cochins were in partial or complete agreement with many changes in public life (and private life) in the nineteenth century, and they fully appreciated that these changes were a legacy of the Revolution. The Cochins were more often gradualists, citing the Revolution less as a cause than a symbol of broader political and social changes that continued into the twentieth century. This was the way other progressively minded French conservatives could continue to support progress and condemn revolutionary excesses. “Seventeen eighty-nineism,” acceptance of the first year of the Revolution, with its comparatively peaceful reforms, was the formula naturally at hand. The Cochins experienced the Revolution at several levels. At one level, it was the immediate historical experience of two generations, that of Claude Denis and Jacques Denis. In certain ways the Cochins’ direct experience of the Revolution was less agonized than later confrontations. Initially involved with the new city government, the Parisian City Assembly (Assemble´e de la Ville de Paris) at the outset of the Revolution, Claude Denis apparently imagined his participation as a duty of a Parisian notable to help quell public fears over food shortages. We have no words from him concerning this crisis of public tranquillity beginning in the summer of 1789. But he quickly withdrew from further participation in the crisis. Thereafter, the reaction of these Cochins, evident only from short asides from Jacques Denis, was that the Revolution was above all a time of failing, of laxity and licentiousness. It allowed the dishonest to prosper

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and the churches to be abused. Jacques Denis saw Paris under the Revolution as a Sodom, a great tear in the fabric of normal life, and he was grateful for the Bourbons, whose return marked for him the restoration of order, Christianity, and morality. The Empire remained associated with the Revolution. This remained with surprising consistency the collective family attitude toward the events of the Revolution. Where it was not the whole of their view, this Augustinian tone always persisted. For example, Jean Denis’s career benefited from the Revolution of 1830, but Jean Denis certainly had no taste for the disorder in the streets. His son Augustin understood better than anyone how social and economic forces created revolutionary conditions in nineteenthcentury Paris. He witnessed both 1848 and 1871. He sympathized with the opponents of the Empire and tried to foster liberal tendencies in the Church. But impressions of the violence and destructiveness and injustice of these revolutionary outbursts remained vivid. As a conservative, Augustin could not find liberal ideals in the violence and death, hostility and blindness that revolutionary action trailed in its wake. His son Denys could see the Third Republic only as the offspring of the Revolution, as a lumbering giant, bent on the senseless destruction of France’s precious cultural, political, and religious heritage. Like his father, he contrasted parliamentarism, which would safeguard liberal values and was the beau ideal of liberal Orleanists, with the politics of the Republicans, of radicals who represented the continuing work of the Revolution. Persistent Republican hostility to the Church and to other centers of power in French society irritated Denys. But he was essentially powerless against it. His son Augustin, who was born, lived, and died under the Third Republic, was less attached to parliamentary liberalism than his father. Powerful, invasive, insistent, and permanent, the revolutionary impulse, for Augustin, permeated all aspects of French society. By his generation it had in fact remade them. It had reshaped the relations between people in ways they were not aware of. Though the Cochins thought the Revolution was annulled, or at least repaired, by the return of the monarchy, the Revolution returned, infecting politics under the Second Empire as well as under the Third Republic. From there it dominated the Cochins’ lives by taking away the bulwarks of those lives. This put at risk a stable social order, in their view. The Cochins relied on and thrived in their preferred social order; it included the Church as well as a realm for their public careers— an extension of their private values. Without these structures, their values had no significant place and no significant effect in the public realm. This applied especially to electoral politics. Democratic elections were for them an unsettled and unsettling ocean. The participation of local notables was a privilege, and also a benefit to the body politic as long as the Cochins lived in Montlhe´ry and Paris. They first assumed office within the structure of the Old Re´gime and kept on filling them through to the twentieth century. City councils, parishes, mayoral offices in Paris, hospitals, and charitable and reform committees provided them with spheres of action without break through volunteering or appointment or re-

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stricted election. Even during the Second Empire, as a figure of the opposition, Augustin was appointed to offices and remained a hopeful though disappointed electoral candidate. The Cochins’ earliest elections under the Old Re´gime were restricted, and the outcome was rarely in doubt. As vestrymen of St.-Benoıˆt, they were elected only by the prominent people of the parish. In the seventeenth century the elaborate election of aldermen of Paris (each year two of four aldermen and every other year the provost of merchants) that took place each August 16 ratified a choice that had been made long before.1 For the first half of the nineteenth century the Cochins’ participation in elections was not very different. Jacques Denis’s election to the Chamber of Deputies in 1824 was likely signaled by his appointment as president of the Seventh Electoral College of the Seine.2 His son Jean Denis’s election eleven years later, in November 1837, and reelection in March 1839, also took place under relatively restricted suffrage. The Cochins won these elections under the re´gime censitaire. But after the July Monarchy, not being official candidates (Cochins ran as conservative liberals and Catholics), only Denys succeeded in electoral politics after finding a safe, conservative constituency in the 8th arrondissement of Paris after several failed attempts elsewhere and opposition from both Right and Left. In sum, then, in the restricted elections, the Cochins won easily, while in the open, relatively democratic ones they were much less successful. A popular following, the ability to win open, universal male elections, was within their power only in limited circumstances. This inability was not due to a close identification with dynastic politics. Following traditional practice, Claude Denis swore allegiance to the king with one hand on a crucifix at Louis XV’s knees as one of the two aldermen ceremonially elected that year, and his grandson Jacques Denis was relieved at the return of the Bourbons, calling Louis XVIII “a king so long desired.”3 But Jacques Denis sat on the constitutional opposition benches by the time of his election to the Chamber of Deputies, and his son Jean Denis sided with the forces for change in 1830. Jean Denis’s career blossomed under the July Monarchy. Certainly these were rewards for his decision to support the July Monarchy, but there was a cooling off with the Bourbon monarchy in the late 1820s, evident in the workhouse issue. During these years the Cochins were happier as liberal Orleanists, for parliamentary monarchy was the political stance most congenial to both their liberal hopes and their conservative dispositions. Their liberal Orleanism left them unsympathetic to right-wing movements during Denys Cochin’s career under the Third Republic, and his historian son, Augustin, saw his father defeated in the election of 1888 by Boulangists, and at odds with the Right as well as the Left throughout his parliamentary career. Later in his life Denys wrote a substantial book, Louis Philippe,4 celebrating this Orleanist tradition; its author saw both extremes as “radicals,” and his historian son found equally effective ways of dismissing what to him were these disturbing (and foreign) tendencies in French political life. The Cochins thus made their way along the narrow conservatively liberal edge of democratic politics, with

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few political allies, and without other sources of electoral support. The slow advent of democracy, the collapse of limited suffrage, the electoral ineffectiveness of Orleanism and Legitimism, the prolonged introduction of modern democratic politics and methods into both the Left and the Right parties, left the Cochins outside of the centers of political power. The Cochins grew angry about the politics of the Third Republic. This was not an unusual reaction for wealthy Orleanists, as Daniel Hale´vy noted.5 But the most important element about the great shift the Third Republic brought to French political life is how and for what reasons these families refused (or in some cases acquiesced to) the new form of politics. The Cochins were angry because of their ejection from politics, and they were eloquent about what they thought was wrong with Republican politics. Much of their critique was interesting and incisive; some was woven into theory by Augustin the historian. The Cochins’ reaction to politics under the Third Republic, then, includes the story of the alienation of these older bourgeoisie and the incompatibility of their ideals, identities, and sensibilities with France’s first permanent democratic re´gime. The Republic’s hostility to their public and private ideals sparked the Cochins’ hostility. Denys Cochin, and his brother Henry and Henry’s son Claude, who were also elected to the Chamber of Deputies, continued their involvement in politics under the Third Republic despite their unhappiness with its direction. Denys’s career showed how in several instances the Third Republic found new ways to anger him despite his attempts at peacemaking. It was a case of mutual antagonism. EARLY ELECTIONS AND THEIR POLITICS Perhaps the most important election won by a Cochin was that of Claude Denis to the e´chevinage in Paris in 1751. Following the order of procedure that produced the long and elaborate ceremony held each August 16 at the Hoˆtel de Ville, thirty-two sworn electors (mande´s), themselves judges, lawyers, notaries, former aldermen, officers of the king, merchants, wholesalers, and bourgeois,6 gathered with the electors with the quartiniers, the provost of merchants, and the four serving aldermen—making a total of seventy-nine votes possible (though usually fewer were cast since there was often an overlap in offices). Each came forward when called and placed his ballot in the bag or hat, swearing fidelity, hand on crucifix. By the eighteenth century this election was a formality. The ballots had the names written on them ahead of time. The Crown had long before the eighteenth century kept a hand in the affairs of Paris, which was the most important city of the kingdom and a ville pre´voˆtale, under the direct jurisdiction of the Crown. After their election, the new aldermen and the provost of merchants, if one was elected this time, swore on the crucifix on the king’s lap to serve the king and fulfill the duties of the office.7 This controlled and predetermined election was the procedure by which a closed and hierarchical society of ambitious families and individuals climbed to

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the top rung of the offices Paris offered. It was rare that such an exalted office as that of alderman of Paris could be attained by an individual through a single lifetime of effort. The “election,” was actually the celebration of a series of lives well led. It was a public recognition of civic virtues, of character, honesty, charity, and service to the city’s many institutions. Paris needed these exemplary lives in order to represent the dignity and virtues of the city. And only a very small part of the population possessed even the material means to assume civic office. Election connoted moral worth, wealth, and responsibility. The next election of a Cochin to broad public responsibility occurred twentyseven years later. Claude Denis fils was elected along with a local lawyer as representative to the Commune of Paris’s First and Second Assembly. Claude Denis served from the thirty-ninth district, starting July 25, 1789. The assembly was the new representative body of the city, meeting twice a day at the Hoˆtel de Ville.8 On August 18, 1789, Claude Denis was appointed to the Provisioning Committee (Comite´ des Subsistances) of the assembly to deal with the problem of providing Paris with bread.9 Here he served in what must have seemed like a traditional role for a distinguished bourgeois of Paris: maintaining public order in a crisis of shortages—or reputed shortages. On September 9 “Commissioner” Cochin was made one of the vice presidents of a second committee of the assembly to assure bread. This committee put into place a system of licenses for buyers of grain in the city, giving them priority in markets in surrounding towns. But the problem was rumor, not reality, according to the committee. The committee claimed that there was plenty of bread but stressed the danger from “evil persons” who spread trouble and terror in the markets, crying out that there were shortages. “Seditious persons” claimed that the very small amounts of rotted grain that did appear in the Paris markets were for consumption, when in fact this was returned by bakers after being reported to the committee. Likely Claude Denis traveled to outlying markets to inspect the conditions there. He would have had firsthand experience of popular agitation over bread. Claude Denis was reelected to the assembly on September 18, 1789, but then, without explanation, his seat was declared vacant on September 29. There is no hint in the papers of the Cochin family why he so abruptly left the assembly, successor to the old city government in which his father served (which government ended violently and abruptly: Jacques de Flesselles, the last provost of merchants, died at the hands of an angry mob on July 14, 1789). Claude Denis may have resigned because he knew that the next day the assembly would take up—and pass—a resolution confirming that all representatives had served without pay. A year later (September 30, 1790) Cochin’s name appeared on a list protesting the measure and declining to affirm that any of its signatories had so served.10 The issue was surely not one of payment; probably it was this level of distrust that angered Claude Denis and he quit in disgust. The revolutionary demonstrations in October 1789 must have confirmed his suspicions that the wrong elements had gained the upper hand. Yet the Revolution went on changing his life. As an administrator of the

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Hoˆpital Ge´ne´ral, Claude Denis signed a protest against new taxes on hospital supplies and subsequently resigned from its administrative board to protest new policies regarding hospitals in 1790.11 Still a disbursar, Claude Denis in early October 1790 received instructions for changing the payments of government bonds (rentes) backed by the clergy of France. That was the month he received the 12,222 accounts to sort and settle. As a disbursar, he also had to keep abreast of changes in the laws regarding payments and reports to the treasurer. The Revolution entered his life in other ways, too. In early December 1790 he was summoned to the vestry room at St.-Jacques du Haut-pas in his role as administrator of the parish hospice, where he was joined by the vestry, the cure´, and an administrator of charity from the municipality. The hospice was to be put under public control. Claude Denis gave a report to the Assembly of Charity in which he roundly criticized the municipality and expressed his fear for the future of the hospice under its care. Private charity had built the hospice, but recent events made running the hospice more difficult, as he noted: “contributions are down because the assembly is not meeting anymore, and by the loss of property of those favorably disposed to this institution.”12 He excoriated the city for not paying income owed for 1790 and for its never deciding whether hospices for the poor were subject to the laws concerning care of the poor (and therefore at this time, under the treasurer of the city). He ended his report with the hope that the municipality would cooperate with the parish and would honor the wishes of its founders. Claude Denis asked that his friend Josephe Madeleine Collette be named treasurer of the hospice, and he may have served in this position himself for a while. When the hospice and the hospitals were subsequently turned over to the Charity Committees (Comite´s de Bienfaisance) of the sections, Claude Denis reappeared as an administrator; local preference seemed to reign. The Revolution was a period of silence for the Cochins, except in matters concerning the hospice. As the income for the hospice declined and conditions worsened, Claude Denis fought the new policies. In the fall of 1792 he rendered a claim to the municipal authorities that the hospice was exempt from all laws concerning hospitals, since it was an “establishment of aid and charity about which the National Assembly has said nothing.”13 He rebuffed a request from tax officials for an assessment of the value of the hospice, flatly stating that it was incapable of paying any taxes at all. Apparently the “Hospice du Sud,” as it was renamed, never paid taxes. Claude Denis also refused to fill out the census forms required twice a month by the procurer general through the Hospital Board.14 Despite the staggering costs and overcrowding, the “Hospice du Sud” stayed open during these years; its budget grew steadily after 1790, and though parishes were closed by the end of 1793, Claude Denis and his son Jacques Denis reported as treasurers of the hospice that alms were being given for the poor sick (despite the fact that all hospitals and charitable institutions were made national property in July 1794).15 Apparently local control and the older tradition of local charity still operated, at least for the hospice. When money from the

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public purse was delayed, the hospice borrowed from its longstanding friend, citizen Collette (who was promptly repaid). The Cochins’ preference for private giving proved necessary even during revolutionary centralization and the promise of a fully public system of charity. In this area, unfortunately, the Revolution’s record was essentially one of mismanagement and failure. This was one way by which the Cochins measured their experience of the Revolution. THE PARISH Not only was their hospice endangered, but the Cochins’ parish was overwhelmed by the Revolution. St.-Jacques du Haut-pas lost its permanent clergy and the elderly replacement for Antheaume, Vincent Duval, was harassed by the hostile police commissioner of the Observatoire section, Chapuis. Chapuis gave part of the church over to the Theophilanthropists, and the church of the cure´ Jean Denis Cochin was dedicated to Philanthropy (bienfaisance). The revolutionary troubles of the parish church did not end until December 1803, when Jacques Denis Cochin met with four other members of the parish at the request of the concordataire archbishop and the prefect of the Seine to form a new administrative council for St.-Jacques du Haut-pas. In other words, during the Revolution part of the local citizenry was concerned that the hospice and parish not be destroyed, if that was in their power, and that Catholicism continue under the recent Concordat. For the Cochins the local in this instance prevailed over the revolutionary. The opening of the coffins from the chancel at St.-Benoıˆt and St.-Jacques du Haut-pas and the cure´’s body being dumped in the street certainly confirmed the Cochins’ opposition to the Revolution that had started or encouraged these outbursts. The only references Jacques Denis left behind about the Revolution are buried in his meditations on his family and his condemnation of fallen human nature freed by the Revolution around him: God allowed that during the disorders of our awful revolution (1793) . . . These vile persons thinking only of the metal in the coffins surrounding the body of our esteemed relative . . . temporarily exhumed him from his resting place under the chancel of St.-Jacques du Haut-pas, to satisfy their greed, and that good Christian overseers of the parish brought me his skull, which I reverently retained, as the home of a virtuous and pure soul.16

Though written forty years after the event, this bitter account probably reflected Jacques Denis’s attitude toward the Revolution at the time. In the same document he noted that his uncle’s hospice had been known as Hoˆpital Cochin “since the revolution of 1793.”17 One wonders whether “1793” refers to the execution of the king, the beginning of the Terror, or the local outrages on rue St.-Jacques. Perhaps for Claude Denis and Jacques Denis (the latter forty-two years old in July 1789), the early years of the Revolution may not have meant a break with

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order, or with the past. Further, Jacques Denis never mentions the Revolution as a government, or a political change, nor even as a time of war (though he did complain of shortages for the hospital); instead he depicted the Revolution in a Jansenist tint, as a time when base human selfishness was unleashed. The entry in his account book for August 4, 1810, lamented how hard it was for the honest businessman in that day: “due to the bad faith and unrestrained immorality which the lamentable [pe´nible] French Revolution gave free rein.”18 The eulogy he gave during the Restoration for his father’s friend, Josephe Madeleine Collette, painted the Revolution in moralistic terms; during “this lamentable [pe´nible] revolution,” he said, Collette worked to “right the innumerable wrongs [maux] it brought in its wake.”19 The Revolution had other effects, especially in the most sensitive test of virtue and morality for the Cochins, business. We have noted that Jacques Denis believed that the new wealthy classes of the Revolution and Empire were selfcentered individuals in a world of misery. “Capitalists” did not suffer from the interruption of trade, the conscription of workers, and the occupation of foreign troops.20 Soldiers were billeted on the Cochin farms, and Jacques Denis received no compensation for damages. Further, Jacques Denis was forced to make revolutionary contributions, likely under threat. He paid nine of these, totaling 6,000 F.21 Thus Jacques Denis’s experience of the Revolution was as a witness to its moral laxity, selfishness, dishonesty, and extortion—a lesson in the cupidity of a nation, let loose in 1793, and lasting through the Empire. He described the Empire as a time when the armies of Napoleon inflicted “violence” and “injustice” on the nations of Europe.22 For Jacques Denis the Restoration was the return of order and religion after a long night of disorder and greed.23 For Jacques Denis the Revolution was the enemy of the institutions his family had founded and nurtured, a desecration of restraint and morality. LIBERAL CONSTITUTIONALISM The Cochins could be said to have entered politics in a conscious way under the Restoration as constitutional monarchists. Liberal constitutionalism was their first expression of political choice. At the return of the Bourbons, Jacques Denis was happy to serve as mayor of the 12th arrondissement of Paris, happy to preach the benefits of a return of religion and social order, but he sat with the Constitutional Monarchists when elected to the Chamber of Deputies in early 1824.24 Since the fall of Descazes ministry this faction had been losing influence to the Ultraroyalists. The Chamber of Deputies of this session was known for the rout of the Liberals and was known as the Royalist “Chambre Retrouve´.” By the time new elections were called, in 1827, the Royalists were hopelessly divided and the Liberals were gaining ground. Jacques Denis left few traces in the Chamber of Deputies during his four years there. One observer characterized him as a self-effacing “honneˆte homme.”25 Under the Restoration Jacques Denis was more comfortable as a mayor than as a legislator. The post of mayor

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provided a new field of activity in his arrondissement. Yet his politics in the Chamber of Deputies showed he was not happy with the new laws affecting the press, the indemnification of the Royalist e´migre´s, and public security.26 How he would have voted in the next, more liberal, session of the chamber we cannot know. Charles X appointed seventy-six new peers to reinforce his policy, and Jacques Denis was not a candidate, being over seventy, and likely finding the Chamber of Deputies an uncongenial place. His son Jean Denis was appointed president of the Seventh Electoral College, but he stepped aside in favor of Jean Camet de la Bonardie`re because the electors were divided.27 Running as a liberal, Pierre Paul Royer Collard defeated Camet and went to the Chamber of Deputies that presided over the Revolution of 1830. Jacques Denis’s laconic survival through the Revolution, the Directory, the Consulate, the Empire, and the Restoration is an example of an unusual persistence. Through these regimes, it is clear, this apolitical man, who devoted his waking hours to family, business, and duty, developed—or had, hidden—a liberal constitutionalism. In other words, the man of business was forced to adopt a political tone (if not a political voice), and even a political ideal, at least in his acts. Survival and continuity of old elites through the Revolution and through the nineteenth century has been an important topic in recent historiography. Indeed, as the Revolution is viewed less as the definitive watershed of French history, more and more careers in the nineteenth century appear to have roots in the Old Re´gime. Further, the stabilization of the post-Revolutionary political and social worlds was carried out by new regimes that accepted and even sought the allegiance of old elites. Family history has also stressed the theme of strategies of survival and social ascent across generations. The evidence of professional continuities is impressive. About 40 percent of the military officers under the Old Re´gime found a place in the Empire, though usually not in the military.28 Similarly, by 1800 about 40 percent of the former parlementaires of Paris found a place in the ministries or courts. Their descendants in the nineteenth century showed an impressive persistence, finding positions equivalent to those of their fathers.29 This was precisely the case with the descendants of Pierre Paul Gilbert de Voisins (1748–1793), one of the presidents of the Parlement of Paris, who helped Claude Denis obtain the letters patent for the hospice. Gilbert was guillotined in Paris after returning from emigration in 1793. His son, Pierre Paul Alexandre (1773–1843), remained in exile and returned with the Consulate. Napoleon wooed him with positions in the judiciary and the return of his family money. Though he swore the oath to Louis XVIII in 1814, he sided with Napoleon for the Hundred Days and remained outside official favor until the July Monarchy covered him with decorations.30 The administrative personnel at Finances also showed an impressive continuity from the Old Re´gime to the Consulate.31 In fact, as Joe¨l Fe´lix noted about the former Parisian parlementaires: “For the lawmakers who were not e´migre´s and were not guillotined, the Revolution was most often but a stage in their

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career. As early as the Directory, the willingness of the former parlementaires to find a place in the new institutions met with success. But in order to make it to the top of French society, a lawmaker had to show goodwill, show evidence of flexibility and especially to be willing to make again the climb up the steps to reach the top of French society.”32 Thus Jacques Denis’s survival and his relatively peaceful prospering is not an exception, especially since he was not in a state office. The Parisian bourgeoisie could find a way through—or around—the vicissitudes of politics (in general, tax farmers like his father did less well). Though Claude Denis lost his disbursar office, he was still important to the revolutionary re´gime as a former disbursar and a capable and honest administrator and businessman. Focusing on the hospice and his business activities, the Constitutional Monarchist Jacques Denis grew wealthy during “the most deplorable of times,” though he complained, as we noted, about the unjust profits of “capitalists.” Not seeking imperial office, he concentrated on adding to the family’s security and wealth by investing in land at the turn of the nineteenth century and purchasing chaˆteaux he described as “completely unsullied by any hint of nationality.”33 Jacques Denis may well have intended to establish a baronial estate for a future in which Cochins might claim their title (the acts establishing the requirements for recognition of a title were passed in 1806 and 1808 and were kept, in modified form, through the Restoration). He and his son Jean Denis then dove into public life at the Restoration. Jean Denis began his career as a lawyer at the Conseil d’E´tat and worked at the Supreme Court beginning in 1815.34 Jacques Denis’s views of the restored social order were summed up by his admonition “Be essentially obedient to your superiors.”35 His son’s view of social reform during the Restoration and the July Monarchy could be summed up as “Poverty must be cured as one cures a sick person, and not be maintained as a permanent state by regular and senseless support.”36 Between these two distinct but reconcilable themes about the social order lay a conservative politics suggested to them from external circumstances and urged upon them by their own moral vision and sense of place. The politics of Jacques Denis and Jean Denis in the years from 1815 to 1848 centered on the stability of the re´gime censitaire. The solution to the problem of revolutionary democracy was the thermidorean solution, the adaptation of the physiocratic idea of an e´lite of property that corresponded to an e´lite of merit.37 Both the Empire and the Restoration worked to reconstitute this newer e´lite as a means of social stabilization and political quietude. The Cochins found this congenial, for during the Consulate and the Empire, Jacques Denis continued to buy land around Montceaux and in 1820 requested the registration of the title to which they had claim because old Claude Denis had been an alderman. Jacques Denis followed the prescribed procedure and set aside incomeproducing land for an entailed estate (majorat): rural lands to provide income for the eldest son, son of a family of bourgeois merchants. In 1821 the government went from Liberal to Ultraconservative—the Cochins may have let recognition of the title go from lack of sympathy. But of course the Parisian

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Cochins were given a wider field in public life even before they had begun the effort to register their title. For Jacques Denis and his son Jean Denis, the Restoration must have seemed like a congenial extension of the Old Re´gime; indeed, an improvement on it. The value of wealth, saving, and virtue were intact. There were new opportunities for involvement in public life. The public pillars of public power, religion and the monarchy, were no mere window dressing for Jacques Denis; they represented the survival of moral life as well as the support of moral order.38 The deliberate unifying of State and society that had been envisioned as a post-Revolutionary politics under Thermidor was theoretically the most appropriate government for France, for it grew out of society’s very structure.39 In reality, power was extended to newer e´lites that might have been excluded from political life under the Old Re´gime. Politics, then, meant in these circumstances an enlargement of the participatory sphere of politics for the Cochins. Representing their own private virtues as public men, they in this sense found the best accommodation between public and private in these years. Their social influence and their political role properly coincided according to the politics around them. Politics was harnessed to the social good because it was centered on the proven moral part of society, in this view. Suitably, in political action the Cochins did not stand out as individuals. Both Jacques Denis and Jean Denis seemed to have served quite happily as representatives of their type. The period from Thermidor to 1848 was for them a welcome time of elevated calling, enrichment, and administrative responsibility. Supporters of the restoration of the Charter, and given some role in public life under the Ultras, the Cochins were not swayed by the flattery of office to soften their views. This is certainly the moralistic interpretation of their actions; and they liked to see themselves this way. But there is also another. Jacques Denis Cochin and his son Jean Denis preferred to appear indifferent to sharp distinctions in politics. In this view, being mayor of a Parisian arrondissement was an honor and a responsibility, and one moreover they felt obligated to accept whatever the prevailing politics of the country. Yet they did have their preferences. Jacques Denis boycotted the Empire, and his son Jean Denis wrote that concern for the general good was the natural by-product of “constitutional government.”40 The cancellation of plans to fully implement the house of work by the prefect of police, Jean Mangin, led to a demonstration by lawyers in favor of the prefect, Debelleyme, and Jean Denis Cochin; Jean Denis’s and his associates’ scheme for social reform became part of the liberal dissatisfaction with Charles X’s policies.41 As a liberal who wanted to maintain order and the rule of law, Jean Denis stayed on as mayor during the July Days. He may have hoped a compromise could be found, but when Charles X fled, he resigned and joined the newly reconstituted National Guard.42 What did he think about his action? Jean Denis never said. Likely this was a reluctant choice for him, forced upon him by a reactionary ministry whose policies had brought disorder. This action must have shocked Jean Denis’s Legitimist father-in-law, Pierre Benoist. (Joining the National Guard meant he had shifted allegiances to the liberal op-

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position.) But this crucial political decision was an extension of the Cochins’ views about public life that they had, implicitly, held for a long time. The years after 1830 were rich in activity for Jean Denis. He made unresolved inquiries into the recognition of their title. He was named to the General Council of the Seine in 1832 and served as its secretary for three years. In October 1830 Franc¸ois Guizot, then minister of the Interior, asked him to reorganize the Quinze/Vingt hospital for the blind; his committee worked for months at the Ministry of Commerce, and at one point Pierre Paul Royer-Collard sent him a note agreeing that it might be better to close the hospital. Jean Denis nevertheless drafted the new regulations and served as the hospital’s chief administrator for three years to get it on its feet. Adolphe Thiers, minister of Commerce and Public Works, sent Jean Denis a warm congratulatory letter.43 In 1831 he reported to the Ministry of the Interior on the reorganization of the Parisian Mont de Pie´te´, the loan fund for the poor. When the cholera epidemic broke out in London, Jean Denis, as a member of the Council of Hospitals, visited there and served on a special committee in Paris to contain the disease. When the epidemic nevertheless hit Paris in the spring of 1832, Jean Denis worked with conspicuous energy; he supervised the transformation of the infant school (the Maison Cochin), and the workhouse into shelters for orphans of the epidemic.44 In 1834 he was asked by the General Council of Hospitals to write a report on the Council’s accomplishments since its last report written by Claude Pastoret in 1814. In 1835 he resigned from a term on the City Council and worked as secretary to the Central Committee for Elementary Education. He served in the Ministry of the Interior’s commission on prison reform and began a private society for the patronage of prisoners. On November 4, 1837, he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies from the 12th arrondissement, exactly ten years after his father’s single term ended; he was reelected in March 1839. This public career, most of it appointed, represented a golden age of public participation to the Cochins. Administrative appointment gave this talented and well-to-do young man a public power over the details of the lives of children, the poor, prisoners, and, to a lesser extent, ordinary citizens of Paris. More than any Cochin before him, Jean Denis was a reformer and administrator of the whole city. He was not in the civil service, but he was an expert private citizen who volunteered full-time. His own wealth made possible the infant school, and his standing, abilities, and willingness to write the report for the Committee for the Extinction of Begging (Comite´ de l’Extinction de Mendicite´) made his participation almost indispensable. Subject to the oversight and authority of others, Jean Denis was more than a subject like all others, for he enjoyed a public and private power unlike that of most other Frenchmen. This was the definition of the notable, the new e´lite of old e´lites and new ones of talent and wealth, beneficiaries of the opportunities opened up after the Revolution. The Cochin impulse to public charity and public service fully flowered in the career of Jean Denis. This was possible both through the destruction of the older structure of e´lites and the new restricted franchise (re´gime censitaire) that recognized wealth

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and talent and maintained power in the hands of a small minority. This response to revolutionary politics gave Jacques Denis, and especially Jean Denis, a new, broader field of influence. The age of the notable, so ably analyzed by the historian Andre´-Jean Tudesq, was for the Cochins of Paris a precious opportunity in public life. Yet there were limits to this kind of power. First and most important, in creating the infant school and the workhouse, Jean Denis and his reform-minded friends were carrying out new interventions of private initiative which they hoped the state would follow. Though the Council of Hospitals bought the model infant school in 1831, and though the second major education law of 1837 gave official recognition to the infant schools, the idea did not take hold until the end of the century. The struggle over the workhouse showed the reluctance of public officials and the limits of influence and private initiative under the Restoration and the July Monarchy. Jean Denis and his fellow notables presumed that the project to eradicate begging would succeed because it would find support in officialdom; indeed, they knew it would not succeed from the first without it. But once the house was built and running, officialdom was not interested in forcing all individuals arrested for begging to enter what was after all a private institution not recognized by law. Essentially, Mangin opposed to it the rights of the individual and the letter of the law—a Revolutionary argument (ironically, Mangin’s opposition fed the discontent with the Restoration by the fall of 1829). Yet the idea of a workhouse soon died out; the Council of the Department of the Seine voted in early 1833 to acquire the building, Jean Denis then being a member of the council, but the idea by then faded from Jean Denis’s concerns. The building, the former convent of the Cordeliers on rue de l’Oursine, was subsequently the site of the banquet canceled in mid-February 1848 that sparked the protests against Louis-Philippe. It was ironic that events on the site of this social intervention of notables in the eighteen-thirties helped mobilize so many groups that acted in 1848—a revolution that destroyed this protected world. AUGUSTIN COCHIN: LIBERAL CATHOLIC POLITICS Jean Denis Cochin died in 1841. The Revolution of 1848 was the unleashing of pent-up political forces; it also released a flood of soul-searching and anger about politics and society. The re´gime whose main virtue was stability proved unstable. Jean Denis’s son Augustin was twenty-four when the Revolution broke out, and he and his friends and family shared their anxieties about revolutionary violence and the nature of the Second Republic. Less attracted to the socialhygienist view of politics than his father, Augustin was still preoccupied with reform. Politics gave his father Jean Denis a field of action for his ideals. On its margins he exercised an extraordinary influence on his fellow man and found a role in the public realm. Augustin spent his adult political life after the Revolution of 1848 on the other side of what to him was a great watershed. After 1848 the Cochins never had the same security or monopoly of power and influ-

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ence they and other notables enjoyed before the Revolution. The year 1848 was the beginning of the involvement of the masses in political life; whether active or not, they could overthrow governments. The Second Empire showed this shift in politics through its impressive accommodation to public opinion. A centralized Empire run by its small political e´lite, it was at the same time democratic both in its ideal of itself and in the source of its legitimacy.45 The specter of social and political revolution always haunted its politics, which sought to control and direct public opinion and the democratic-plebiscitary process. In time the Bonapartist political machinery gradually lost control of its outcomes, eventually evolving into the liberal Empire of 1870, endorsed and encouraged by many of its old opponents, among them Augustin Cochin. In the early days of the Bordeaux government Augustin tried three times to gain electoral office, and by his death in March 1872 he had abandoned hope in even a conservative Republic. While he never ceased to be a public figure in the period 1848–1872, and indeed received appointments as an administrator under the Empire, Augustin’s life differed considerably from his father’s and grandfather’s when it came to politics: The Empire he distrusted provided a shelter from the storms of democratic politics, but only in the years 1870–1872 did he come to see this. The passing of the Empire laid bare the end of the re´gime censitaire and all the security that implied for the Cochins. The Republic proved less congenial for his son Denys. Neither Augustin nor his son Denys conducted a political career that could be termed professional. They both kept family ideals and public politics bound together. They campaigned with their own money. They cherished and celebrated their political independence; they had no party behind them, only political alliances. They remained, in short, outside the development of political organizations and were forced to find their political perch only at the edges of public power. As political events developed through the Empire and into the Third Republic, their political independence, their thoroughgoing political “notability,” became more and more an electoral liability. Augustin’s career began in the shadow of the Revolution of 1848 and the Second Republic and he saw the threats and opportunities that democracy opened in French public life very clearly. In June 1848 Augustin Cochin was at the barricades of the faubourg St.-Antoine, a member of the National Guard. He fought on the side of “social order” and “property” against the insurgents. He was not a Royalist, despite his connection to the Benoist d’Azy family and his friendships (or apprenticeships) with Pierre Antoine Berryer and Alfred Falloux. In June 1848 he reported to his family that his hours at the barricades had left him healthy, but he was less sure about the future of his country.46 Yet Augustin realized, as his father’s son, that the great political and social upheaval he had participated in had deep underlying causes—causes he knew about firsthand. As he wrote to his cousin on July 10, 1848: Ah! there is something worse perhaps than the spectacle of civil and social war, it’s the thought of the causes that made it break out, the moral and material

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miseries it implies, the underlying vices of the soul that need to be cured, problems of which gunfire is only the crude expression and not the solution.47

“Vice” was the cause of social revolution, and it was up to the responsible notables to use religion, charity, and work to heal French society. Despite his efforts at improving life for the poor and laboring classes, despite his organization of the Universal Exposition in 1855, for example, showing the new industrial inventions for the improvement of the working class, Augustin saw little after the establishment of the Empire that relieved the underlying social pressures that had erupted in 1848 in a “civil and social war.” He wrote to his wife in March 1864, after returning from a workers’ meeting at St.-Jacques du Hautpas where he saw how unhappy the working class remained: Let us not say that the populace is ungrateful and rebellious. It wants violently to change its position, that’s true; would we be more patient in their place? Let us say again to ourselves only that twelve years of repression, under the pretext of keeping the peace, pandered only to the worst instincts; the populace is just as bad as in 1848, and the ruling classes worse, more corrupt.48

The same themes appeared at the fall of the Empire in 1870. Augustin wrote anxious columns during the siege of Paris in the newspaper Le Franc¸ais calling for peace and urging Parisians of all classes and political views not turn against their country in the face of the Prussian invaders.49 The expressions he used were, of course, code words for revolution. He expressed his hope for social reconciliation so another social and civil war could be avoided.50 The nation’s eyes were glued to the drama of the city facing the Prussian army, and it must not let the nation down, he urged. Augustin attempted to quiet dissent over the form of future governments for France, by substituting a call for loyalty to the provisional government in its attempt to preserve national independence in such an emergency. This may have been special pleading when he knew that the new assembly at Bordeaux was predominantly Royalist and included his father-inlaw Denys Benoist d’Azy. But he first took this line in September 1870, just at the collapse of the Empire and before the elections.51 But three weeks later he warned that Paris could not defend itself if it toyed with repeating the Revolution, its past, “if the grim reminders of 1793 and the absurd demonstrations of 1848 walk the streets.”52 In other words, he hoped for social peace and cooperation as a remedy to division and social war—his lifelong message in social action and charity. In the end, of course, the intrusion of revolutionary politics could not be stopped, and he ultimately saw a repudiation of his life’s work. Some of the coming violence he could foresee. He and his son Henry signed up for the National Guard; instead of the terrifying hours at the barricades on rue St.-Antoine as in 1848, duty in 1870 consisted of numbing weeks guarding the periphery of the city against the Prussians. On October 31, 1870, Henry helped expel Louis Auguste Blanqui from the Hoˆtel de Ville.53 There could not have been a more symbolic scene to dramatize Augustin’s concern for harmony

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among Parisians of all classes. But he could not expel the Revolution. On March 18 a secret warrant for Augustin’s arrest was issued by the Commune and the next day he and his family escaped by rail to La Roche. The Commune almost captured the son-in-law of the president of the new National Assembly.54 He wrote soon after to his father-in-law on the great question left for France after the declaration of the Commune: What sort of government could pick up the pieces? “[And] how to set up a regular government in the midst of an invasion and an uprising! It is nevertheless imperative that the Assembly resolve to offer a clear choice between a Monarchy and a Republic, if we do not want to see the reappearance of the detestable Empire or see the rule of an equally detestable anarchy.”55 In the face of the “odious insurrection” of the Commune, he at first favored a liberal Republic. He was fearful in late April 1871 that the country would fall into a “debased monarchy” (“monarchie corrompue”), unfit to govern, however much it might have served his social interests.56 In what turned out to be the last years of his life, his national pride and civic pride were again disappointed by this irruption of social revolution into the realm of politics. By 1871 it seemed as though his work in social reform was overwhelmed by the social reality he knew only too well. All through his adult life Augustin knew that France lingered at a political crossroads. The Empire held off the forces of revolution and disorder without curing the causes, by Augustin’s lights. The elections of June 1848 showed the drift and restlessness of French political life. No candidate for president in Paris represented a good solution. As he noted then, each of the candidates stood for some form of reaction: Adolphe Thiers stood for that of the bourgeoisie; Pierre Leroux and Charles Lagrange for the grudges raised by demagogues; Louis Napoleon for popular reaction.57 In the midst of fear and reaction, Augustin expected little from a republic in 1848. He backed Euge`ne Cavaignac as a “de´fenseur intre´pide de l’ordre et de la liberte´.”58 The republic’s success was never certain, for it was always threatened by electoral unrest. In December 1848 Augustin wrote a long letter to Denys Benoist d’Azy, an insightful political testament of a young man struggling with liberal ideas writing to an older and more decided monarchist: It seems to me, aside from mentioning ideal theories that never fail to have an influence on my thinking, that the Republic is the natural form of government for a country such as ours. Order is no longer in peoples’ souls, because there is no unity of belief on the conditions of that order; it is only in situations [positions] and in interests, because, every day, there are more families buying small pieces of property, small incomes, little estates who have an interest in order. Since for some time it has been impossible to impart religious, social, political principles to people in order to found order, and that the truest principles are nothing when they are not inscribed in peoples’ hearts [aˆmes], order still has to be built on interests, that is, on the participation of the greatest number possible in property ownership, education, political life, at the same time restoring moral order as much as possible, which, besides, these factors, properly managed, will reinforce. To

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sum up: democracy, universal suffrage, the dividing up of large fortunes, that is, a Republic, with its advantages and its dangers. Now the Republic, that’s General Cavaignac, if he is a moderate, if he takes account of the spirit of the majority, if he is firm.59

His grandfather evidently sent him a letter of rebuke intimating that young Augustin had thrown over “principles” for “interests,” not an unexpected reaction. Augustin’s response was to give legitimacy to government only by universal suffrage, there being little else behind government, little else that justified it in the eyes of a large, complex, and divided nation. He made clear he thought that individuals shared no common unifying principles, religious or political, that could be taken for granted as a basis of political or moral order. The young man stuck to his point of view, his more liberal ideas.60 Yet Augustin as a liberal remained in an awkward position. His homemade political structure, cautiously Catholic, conservatively democratic, remained shaky throughout his lifetime. The Revolution of 1848 had shown him the power and durability of other forces at play—as did the Second Empire—yet he held on to his liberal beliefs despite the demonstration of their weakness and hints of their futility. And he held to this cautious liberalism though it brought no clear success for his public life. He lost his first candidacy to the legislative in 1849. His career of appointments began under the Second Republic, and he accepted them gratefully: in January 1849 the Falloux Commission; in June 1850 vice mayor of the 10th arrondissement. (The prefect of the Seine asked Benoist d’Azy if Augustin would be interested, and Augustin, already busy, accepted— “duty above all,” he wrote to his wife.61) Many more appointments came his way, as described in the previous chapter. He was a pro-Republican conservative to the Comite´ de Faure founded by Parisian conservatives after the fall 1849 elections. Though the Republic under Napoleon had new press, electoral, and education laws that would fortify the party of order, Augustin wrote that this was hardly cause for confidence (with prescience): “We are dreading the election of 1852. The French spirit, so thoughtless, is more and more tired and capable of accepting anything, etc., etc. . . . In this situation, one would try to pass from the E´lyse´e to the Tuileries.”62 Augustin characterized his country as “a country where one loves very much to govern, but especially to be governed.”63 The very beginnings of the Empire showed him that the winds of democratic suffrage would blow around him and sweep him up without his being able to control it. These winds were not controlled by his principles. Here a distinction was clear to Augustin about his public life under the Empire: He would not be disappointed as long as his conscience and his interests allowed him to accept appointed positions (these were never positions of great power), but he would never win electoral office. Official candidates won; Republicans, beginning in small numbers, won; Augustin could not. The coup d’e´tat caught the young vice mayor (and his father-in-law) in its grip. About 10 o’clock on the morning of December 2, 1851, roughly a hundred

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representatives from the Chamber of Deputies met at the home of Comte Daru, 75 rue de Lille. The street was soon filled with soldiers, and the members felt that they must move to another location, farther from the Palais Bourbon; they had heard other members had been arrested. Augustin’s son Henry remembered his father arriving there, looking for Benoist d’Azy, one of the vice presidents of the assembly. Cochin suggested that the members move to his mairie, the 10th arrondissement (at 7 rue de Grenelle-St.-Germain), protected by a loyal colonel of the National Guard and twenty rifles. The assembly processed through the streets of the Left Bank. When they arrived at the mairie, the young vice mayor greeted them at the door (the mayor was absent) and escorted them up to the Grande Salle. Over two hundred members of the assembly, presided over by Benoist d’Azy, voted to remove the president. The army arrived and General Elie Forey arrested everyone present. Augustin escorted the prisoners to the door of the mairie, hat in hand. He, too, was arrested and spent part of the night in jail; the next day he succeeded in having his father-in-law freed. It was a great liberal moment, heady, even, for those who participated in it, for their stand was worth the price of a short incarceration of conscience. Much was made of this dramatic event by liberal intellectuals in France and Britain.64 But the brushing aside of the remainder of the assembly had a more acute and personal meaning for Augustin. Two weeks later Augustin, still vice mayor, had to supervise the voting urns at the mairie for the plebiscite on December 20, 1851. There, in his official capacity, he counted the ballots that overwhelmingly approved the illegal seizure of power that had put him in jail. There was no more poignant proof that his liberal hopes could be easily drowned in the rough waters of universal suffrage. It meant that as a Catholic, a conservative liberal, as a notable somewhere in the political center, as a man outside the machinery of electoral success, he—and his ideas—had little chance of elected office. Certainly Augustin Cochin refused to stop believing that a liberal future was inevitable, even if not near at hand. About a year after the coup d’e´tat, at the beginning of the Empire, Augustin wrote to this father-in-law about how even the Empire might work to the good: There is a great difference between 1830 and 1851; in 1830, revolution followed the monarchy; in 1851, power is rebuilt by a counterrevolutionary current: there is a great difference between the goal France is pursuing and the unpleasant means, but they can change. . . . [I]n 1830, fear of all that was good, monarchy, unity, force, religion, authority; in 1851, fear of that which is bad, revolution, anarchy, irreligion, socialism.65

Early in the Empire he traveled to the Vende´e, where he discussed politics with Falloux and Berryer. His stance was that of a young man with a career ahead of him, unwilling to go into internal exile for the rest of his life, with no parliamentary king for a moderate politics: instead, he counseled, “Let us prove that the empire is impossible, even with our goodwill, as we proved the republic

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was impracticable, even with our cooperation,” and cautioned that no one should look forward to the political and social problems sure to come, like prophets of doom gleeful at disasters foretold.66 Augustin stuck to his resolution to be prepared for office by being the good and moral man ready for service—good Christian, as he had said, good administrator, good citizen. He was heavily involved in the reform communities and their organs, such as the Acade´mie des Sciences Morales et Politiques (elected in February 1865), and the Comite´ Franc¸ais d’E´mancipation, and he corresponded with reform movements in Britain and the United States. His work at the Universal Exposition earned him the title of chevalier of the Legion of Honor.67 Electoral successes eluded him through all the opportunities the Empire offered. He ran in one of the earliest legislative elections in the spring of 1863 in the 6th district of the Seine, comprising the 5th, 6th, and 7th arrondissements, as an independent liberal Catholic candidate opposing Napoleon’s Italian policy—he had resigned his post as mayor in early 1860 over this threat to the Pope’s temporal power, as well as his seat on the City Council he had then held only two years. His campaign emphasized his attachment to Paris. Tradesmen and important notables around Paris endorsed him—Louis Hachette, Ambroise Didot, and Ernest Picard. Augustin ran against another liberal and Orleanist, Pre´vost-Paradol, and lost to Adolphe Gue´rault (1810–1872), the incumbent. He did, however, win a lawsuit against Le Constitutionnel for denying him space to reply to an attack.68 Augustin tried to break into electoral politics six years later. By this time the evolution of imperial politics resulted in significantly less help to official candidates. The election of 1869 was notable for the emergence of the Left, but especially for a loose coalition of government supporters. Again Augustin campaigned as an independent Catholic and liberal; his platform called for increasing ministerial responsibility, freedom of conscience, a larger role for the Corps Le´gislatif, freedom of religion, separation of Church and State through the abrogation of the Concordat, jury trials for press cases, administrative decentralization, and the restitution of “municipal liberties.”69 He claimed his independence was an asset to liberal government, favoring a larger role for the legislative body.70 It was again a typical liberal platform. Yet this election focused on his Catholicism because of the impending Vatican Council and Augustin’s call for the separation of Church and State.71 Again, he ran against Gue´rault. Augustin took the offensive, dubbing his opponent “un bigot d’impie´te´”; Gue´rault lost on the first round, and Augustin faced no less a figure than Jules Ferry, then editor of Le Temps. This forty-day immersion in electoral waters (which included endless meetings, dinners, speeches, and strategy sessions) left Augustin no more successful than the first. He narrowly lost to Ferry in the second round, 13,944 to 15,730. During the campaign Augustin defended himself against charges from the Republican side, in a letter from Jules Michelet to Ferry published in the Gazette de France on May 26, just before the June 7 runoff. It claimed that Augustin had “money and the Church,” and, of all things,

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the State behind him. Augustin’s reply in the same paper after the election summarized his feelings about the election: “the liberal party was beaten by the radical party. That is the truth.”72 Augustin was clearly upset—and emotionally defeated—by the cultivated mistrust of any independent candidate, of anyone not Republican. He could take heart at the election of his allies and friends, Thiers, Daru, and Louis Buffet.73 Generally, this election was not favorable to the liberal Orleanists or Legitimists; other independents and government supporters by and large triumphed, except for a small number of Republicans, including Ferry.74 Augustin complained about politics generally. For him political battles struck at the heart of the country by dividing it. He wrote to Gue´rault after the election about the role of his newspaper in the anti-Catholic attacks that marred the election: L’Opinion nationale seems to have been created at the beginning of the war in Italy to widen and embitter the Roman question. For ten years this newspaper has been the author of this harmful agitation that diverted attention from politics, deeply divided French liberals, and shaken moral standards at the heart of so many villages, and completely surprised men of politics in England and America, used to regarding Christianity as the most precious possession of free peoples.75

Yet six months later Augustin was serving as a power broker helping his boyhood friend E´mile Ollivier form a government for the “liberal Empire.” “The Daru Affair,” as he called it, began when Augustin called on Ollivier on December 10, 1869, to urge him to include the Center Left in his new cabinet.76 On Sunday, January 2, after Augustin had lobbied the Center Left, he met with Ollivier again, and the second cabinet announced that evening included Daru at Foreign Affairs and Buffet at Finances, two Center Left figures. At the same time Augustin was proposed for prefect of the Seine. On January 4, the cabinet voted, but Augustin lost in a close vote, Ollivier and five others supporting the emperor’s candidate, Henri Chevreau. Augustin stated that he wanted to pose no obstacles to the success of the liberal Empire, but he wanted to be a part of the liberal government for which he had hoped for so long. The Prefecture of the Seine was the opportunity for him to have a powerful office in which he could work for his beloved city, an office for which he no doubt felt his life and his background had prepared him. He was disappointed by Chevandrier de Valdrome; he wrote: “in the meeting, he abandons me and fights against me, then he writes me: ‘you gave me my freedom. I used it.’ ”77 Augustin had much goodwill, but no power, and he had no position. A few days later he met the emperor, who said he had been misinformed and had heard Augustin Cochin (of all people) was a socialist. Augustin still hungered for a larger role in French politics, but his liberalism and his Catholicism left him adrift. Louis Veuillot opposed his candidacy subsequently in 1871, and monarchists and defenders of the Church could find candidates more to their liking than Augustin. He was after all a Parisian and had no rural base, as his father-in-law had.

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He had been kept outside the circles of power and even of influence during the Empire, in part because of his distaste for it, and because of his clear and early expression of that distaste. He had shifted his energies in those years to Le Correspondant, though even here he and his collaborators suffered many defeats. With the fall of the Empire in autumn of 1870, the future was again open. Would the new political landscape, still scarcely formed in the spring of 1871, offer better possibilities? This was a difficult moment for monarchists, Legitimist and Orleanist, a moment that would mark the careers of many notables, wrestling in these years for their political lives. The role of the monarchy and the Church were often the overriding factor for these conservatives in their sometimes inexplicable decisions for or against a permanent Republic.78 After the defeat by the Prussians, Augustin was as eager as ever to get into national politics; he turned down an offer of a mairie in Paris under the Government of National Defense, and in January 1871 he ran as a member of the Comite´ Libe´ral du De´partement de la Seine (headed by Jules Dufaure) in the 6th arrondissement.79 He was unsure of the Parisian radicals and also ran in the Aisne, where he believed that his directorship in St.-Gobains would help him. It was a mistake. The vote went to monarchists, except in Paris; he lost in both elections that spring. His father-in-law, Benoist d’Azy, was again a member of the national government, and in March 1871 the unsuccessful Augustin assisted him with the peace negotiations in Paris. Rumors circulated that Augustin was being considered for the Prefecture of the Seine (again), for ambassador to Brussels, for a new municipal organization to run Paris, and even for ambassador to Rome. Despite the Legitimism of his father-in-law and his wife, Augustin remained skeptical of the possibilities for a monarchy in the new and fluid political situation in 1871. At the same time the Commune refreshed his fears about political instability. What political choice appealed to him in the spring of 1871? In May, in the midst of helping his father-in-law, he wrote a confidential letter to his mother-in-law containing his innermost feelings about politics: Events have . . . enlightened me awfully, believe me. Far from being an opponent of a complete constitutional monarchy, it hurts each time I see these good-hearted efforts to reestablish it fail. I simply have a great fear to see them come to nothing, either because of the egotism of one of the royal families, or because of the mood of the greater part of the Chamber or the country. I believe these defeats could bring us the Empire, and I prefer a Republic to that obnoxious government. There it is, and for you, my good mother, my profession of faith.80

Here for Augustin Cochin, as for so many notables, the gulf grew between what he wanted and what would happen. It is striking that Augustin should again, to his Legitimist family, display the same complex emotion about politics—to people for whom, as he put it, in the same letter, he kept up the “dissidences since`res” against their more complete political faith. He was in the difficult

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position of hoping for an Orleanist solution, of constitutional monarchy, and weighing, with an admirable honesty, the factors working against it.81 Augustin’s spirit of detachment did not prevent him from taking action that same week in trying to find a seat in the National Assembly. He and Falloux ran as candidates from Rennes. They failed to obtain the support of either the archbishop of Rennes or of the bishop of St.-Maloˆ. Not only did the archbishop enjoy a veto over the choices of the local electoral committee and the newspapers, but the archbishop wanted Bretons; besides, “Falloux and I, we made him uneasy. . . . You see I am too Catholic for Paris, not enough for Rennes. God grant that I make the grade at the Gates of Paradise if not in the Assembly!”82 Thus another traditional source of support for most notables, the Church and its power in local elections, was lost to Augustin. His liberalism and his Parisian power base worked against finding a seat, even in the provinces. He lost his third race that year. The problems first clear in his candidacy in 1863 were even starker in the new electoral world of 1871. Instead of a seat in the assembly, Augustin had to be content with a prefectorial desk, given by appointment. On June 14, 1871, Thiers appointed Augustin to the Prefecture of Versailles. The minister of the Interior had wanted Augustin for the Seine, but the Left apparently blocked this. Versailles was nonetheless an important post. It was then the seat of the government; Thiers lived in the apartments of the prefecture (Augustin and his family lived at 18 rue St.-Louis in Versailles). The prefect of Versailles not only faced the huge task of rebuilding the ravaged department, but had the added burden of running the swollen prison system for all of France.83 The office offered informal channels to power. Augustin’s prefectorial office became, in effect, a conference room of the assembly; Augustin could play a part in national politics after all. After prayers and breakfast with his reunited family (Denys had returned from the war), Augustin was gone all day. There are few letters from him during this period, but we know he turned down a candidacy in the Aisne in July. Again his talents had found an outlet in an appointed post. He still hoped to return to Paris since even this honor and responsibility did not fulfill his dreams. “I feel myself a bit cramped when I compare my new duties with the greatest things I worked for or dreamt,” he wrote, but he was also happy not to have to steer through the intrigues and bargaining in the divided National Assembly.84 At least initially, for Augustin, the assembly newly born of invasion was a conglomeration of the political forces of all of France. He saw it as the source of national unity, promising a new future—“the alliance of all parties reconciled and working together to save the country.”85 It would bring order, fiscal reform, rearmament, and freedom, he hoped. But during his last illness in March 1872 he turned away from the “Republic supported by all its good citizens.”86 He thought he saw only the Republic of Gambetta, not the conservative republic for which he had hoped for the future of France. His last letter, unfinished, urged Thiers against the approaching solution:

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It would be more manly to found a Republic, because it pacifies popular passions, and we would be able to have a higher profile in Europe under this title than under the Monarchy. But you can’t revive the dead. The Republic was murdered by its children, the odious 1793, and the stupid 1848–1870 buried it. It was killed by Robespierre and Marat, then by all the sloganeers, plots, debts, and stupidities that have, three times, ridden the popular bandwagon.87

These second thoughts of Augustin during the earliest months of the national government would become the political themes of his son Denys and his grandson Augustin. Both their lives would echo the hope for a return of a constitutional monarchy. Both dreaded the return of a populist, authoritarian government, and both decided that the Third Republic became what Augustin detested in the Empire: “an authoritarian and atheist democracy.”88 For both the son and grandson, the lines of political life could be easily drawn from the career of Augustin in May 1872. They did not substantially change for Cochins of the next two generations.

NOTES 1. See Marcel Marion, Dictionnaire des institutions de le France (Paris: A. & J. Picard, 1923, 1979), 417–20, for Barbier’s description of the elaborate ceremonies of electing the pre´voˆt and e´chevins at the Hoˆtel de Ville. 2. Forms from the government, dated September 22, 1815, and December 24, 1823, and Jacques Denis’s note to the pre´fet, November 2, 1829, in AC, Da7. 3. “un roi si longtemps de´sire´.” Jacques Denis Cochin, Eulogy for Josephe Madeleine Colette (undated, c. 1814–1815), AC, Da1. 4. Denys Cochin, Louis Philippe, d’apre`s des documents ine´dites (Paris: Hachette, 1918). 5. Daniel Hale´vy, La Fin des notables, La Re´publiques des ducs (Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1930, 1937). 6. Marion, p. 418. 7. Marion, p. 419. 8. Charles-Louis Chassin, ed., Les Elections et les cahiers de Paris en 1789, 4 vols. (Paris: Jouaust et Sigaux, 1888–1889), 2: 41 (p. 79, no. 8, on elections to the Estates General). 9. A background to the politics and methods of provisioning in the eighteenth century is given in Steven L. Kaplan, Bread, Politics and Political Economy in the Reign of Louis XV, 2 vols. (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1976). 10. Sigismond Lacroix, Les actes de la commune de Paris pendant la Re´volution (Paris: Cerf, Noblet, Socie´te´ franc¸aise d’e´ditions d’art, 1899), vol. 2, pp. 109, 682; vol. 7, pp. 337, 338. 11. Jean Imbert, Le Droit hospitalier de la Re´volution et de l’Empire (Paris: Recueil Sirey, 1954), 30–32. 12. “les moyens sont diminue´es par la cessation de l’assemble´e et par l’amoindrissement des faculte´s de ceux qui estoit favorablement dispose´s pour cet e´ta-

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blissement.” Undated report in Claude Denis’s hand, probably early December 1790. AC, Cd3. 13. “e´tablissement de secours et de charite´ sur lesquels l’Assemble´e Nationale n’a rien prononce´.” An undated draft for the mayor and officers of the Commune, probably fall 1792. Claude Denis began this argument in January 1792. 14. “Me´moire pour l’hospice de St. Jacques du haut pas remis au bureau des impositions,” AC, Cd3; letter Claude Denis to the secre´taire greffier of the Bureau des Hoˆpitaux, 29 brumaire II (November 19, 1793). 15. 23 messidor III (July 11, 1794). 16. “Dieu a permis que dans les de´sordres de notre affreuse re´volution (1793) . . . Ces viles agents avide du me´tal qui enveloppait le corps de ce respectable parent . . . [ont] momentane´ment exhume´ du choeur de la paroisse St. Jacques du haut pas ou` il reposait, pour satisfaire leur cupidite´, et que de pieux fide`les surveillants de la dite paroisse m’apportassent son craˆne, je l’ai conserve´ avec ve´ne´ration, comme le sie`ge d’une aˆme vertueuse et pure.” Testament of Jacques Denis Cochin, January 28, 1830, AC, Da1. 17. “depuis la re´volution de 1793.” Ibid. 18. “a` cause de la mauvaise foi et de l’immoralite´ sans frein aux quelles la pe´nible re´volution franc¸aise a ouvert un libre cours.” Jacques Denis Cochin, account book, August 4, 1810, AC, Da2. 19. “cette pe´nible re´volution . . . reparer les maux innombrables qu’elle traıˆnaient a` sa suite.” Undated eulogy of Collette by Jacques Denis Cochin, AC, Da1. 20. “Varie´te´s des moyens de faire peser la plus e´galement possible sur tous les franc¸ais charges publiques de 1815.” Manuscript in Jacques Denis’s hand, AC, Da1. 21. “les sacrifices re´volutionnaires pour sauver la vie.” “Renseignements sur la fortune de M. Cochin” of various dates are in AC, Da2; accounting, apparently given by state officials to Jacques Denis, 28 brumaire VIII (November 19, 1799), in AC, Ca4. 22. “Varie´te´s de moyens de faire peser la plus e´galement possible sur tous les franc¸ais charges publiques de 1815.” Manuscript in Jacques Denis’s hand, AC, Da1. 23. This included a return to the old patterns of local relations. For example, in March 1816 Jacques Denis’s wife Ange´lique endowed two annual prizes in perpetuity to a boy and a girl of St.-Jacques du Haut-pas who most pleased their parents, tutors, and teachers and who learned their catechism (AC, Da7). The prizes were copies of the cure´’s books. 24. Forms from the government dated September 22, 1815, and December 24, 1823, and Jacques Denis’s note to the prefect of November 2, 1827, in AC, Da7. 25. “On ne conc¸oit pas comment il se peut faire que ce membre de la Chambre, avec toutes les qualite´s qui le distingue, soit demeure´ si obscur. M. Cochin me´rite sa re´putation d’honneˆte homme et de de´pute´ consciencieux.” Pierre Franc¸ois Marie Massey de Tyronne, Biographie de la Chambre septenniale de 1824 a` 1830 (Paris: J. G. Dentu, 1826), 153. 26. A summary of the issues leading to the dissolution of the Chamber of Deputies is found in Sherman Kent, The Election of 1827 in France (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975). 27. Le Moniteur universel 310 (November 6, 1827), p. 1530; Journal des de´bats (November 7, 1827), p. 2. 28. Guy Chaussinand-Nogaret, J. M. Constant, C. Durandin, and A. Jouanna, Histoire des e´lites en France du XVIe au XXe sie`cle: L’Honneur, le me´rite, l’argent (Paris: Tallandier, 1991).

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29. Chaussinand-Nogaret et al., 284–85. Joe¨l Fe´lix, Les Magistrats du parlement de Paris (1770–1790); dictionnaire biographique et ge´ne´alogique (Paris: SEDOPOLS, 1990), 67. 30. Dictionnaire de biographie franc¸aise (Paris: Letouzy et Ane´, 1933–), s.v. Gilbert de Voisins. 31. Michel Brugie`re, Gestionnaires et profiteurs de la Re´volution; l’administration des finances de Louis XVI a` Bonaparte (Paris: Olivier Orban, 1986). When Jacques Denis Cochin was appointed mayor of the 12th arrondissement in 1815, he succeeded his friend and fellow parishoner at St.-Jacques du Haut-pas, Collette de Beaudicour. “Collette jeune” handed over account books for the parish to Jacques Denis when the latter was elected treasurer of the parish in 1803. J. Grente, Une Paroisse de Paris sous l’ancien re´gime (Paris: Imprimerie des Orphelins Apprentis–D. Fontaine, 1897), 226–27. 32. “Pour les magistrats non e´migre´s et qui avaient e´chappe´ a` la guillotine, la re´volution ne fut le plus souvent qu’une e´tape de leur carrie`re. De`s le Directoire, la volunte´ de re´insertion des anciens parlementaires dans les nouvelles institutions fut courone´e de succe`s. Mais pour qu’un magistrat retrouve sa position au sommet de la socie´te´ franc¸aise, il lui fallait manifester de la bonne volunte´, faire preuve de souplesse et surtout accepter de remonter progressivement par e´tapes successives, au sommet de la socie´te´ franc¸aise.” Fe´lix, 76. 33. “point entaˆche´e d’aucune me´lange de nationalite´.” Jacques Denis’s account book, August 4, 1813, AC, Da2. 34. Augustin Cochin, “Notice sur l’abbe´ Jean Denis Cochin,” p. 741. 35. “Soyez essentiellement obe´issants a` vos supe´rieurs.” Address, undated. AC, Da1. 36. “Il faut gue´rir la pauvrete´ comme on gue´rit la maladie, et non pas l’entretenir comme un e´tat permanent par alimentation pe´riodique et imprudemment accorde´e.” Euge`ne Marbeau, “Denys Cochin, fondateur des salles d’asiles,” Revue de la Socie´te´ des e´tudes historiques, 4th ser., v. 3 (1885), 4–31. He is quoting from the 1828 report of the Bureaux de Charite´. 37. Chaussinand-Nogaret et al., 269–79. 38. Address of Jacques Denis Cochin, undated, AC, Da1. 39. Pierre Rosanvallon, Le Moment Guizot (Paris: Gallimard, 1985), 35–63. 40. Jean Denis Marie Cochin, De l’extinction de mendicite´ . . . (Paris: A. Mesnier, 1829), 36. 41. Yet the Cochins’ protest went even farther. In 1829 Jean Denis adhered to the refusal to pay taxes to the Bourbon government. It is symptomatic that on this important political act the Cochins said nothing. The banquet, whose cancellation in mid-February 1848 sparked the protests against Louis-Philippe, was to be held in the old building of the workhouse, the former convent of the Cordeliers on rue de l’Oursine. 42. Details of Jean Denis’s later career can be found in Euge`ne Nus, “Notice ne´crologique sur M. Cochin . . . ,” La Renomme´, November, 1842. 43. Pierre Paul Royer-Collard to Jean Denis, December 26, 1830, in AC, Ea16, and Adolphe Thiers to Jean Denis, December 31, 1833, in AC, Ea17. 44. In gratitude, Paris presented him with a bronze medal, Nus, p. 21. On the tensions between social classes during the epidemic, see Lucas-Dubreton, La Grande Peur de 1832: La Chole´ra et l’e´meute, 6th ed. (Paris: Gallimard, 1932). 45. See Zeldin, The Political System of Napoleon III (New York: Norton, 1972; orig. pub. 1958), 153, 168.

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46. “Les questions restent debout, apre`s que les barricades sont tombe´es, et l’ordre mate´riel ne rassure pas sur le de´sordre moral, social et politique.” Lettres, I, 55. 47. “Ah! il y a quelque chose de plus affreux peut-eˆtre que le spectacle de la guerre civile et sociale, c’est la pense´e des causes qui l’ont fait e´clater, des mise`res morales et mate´rielles qu’elle suppose, des vices profonds des aˆmes qu’il faut gue´rir, des proble`mes dont les coups de fusil ne sont que la brutale expression et non la solution.” Lettres, I, 56. 48. “Ne nous laissons pas dire que le peuple est ingrat et re´volte´. Il veut violemment changer de position, cela est vrai; serions-nous plus patient a` sa place? Redisons-nous seulement que douze ans de compression, sous pre´texte d’assurer la paix, n’ont profite´ qu’aux mauvaises passions; le peuple est aussi mauvais qu’en 1848, et les classes supe´rieures sont plus mauvaises, plus corrompu.” Augustin’s letter incidently reflects that these meetings were not all filled with deference and social peace, but occasionally produced “frank discussions.” Augustin Cochin to Mme. Adeline Cochin, March 7, 1864, Lettres, II, 17. 49. Articles were usually entitled “Paris devant l’ennemi,” appearing in Le Franc¸ais from August 28, 1870, to February 15, 1871. 50. In his first article he wrote that the Prussian invader “ose espe´rer que la guerre civile viendra en aide a` la guerre e´trange`re. Il ne connaıˆt pas Paris et les Parisiens. De toutes les villes de France, Paris est la plus franc¸aise, la plus vaillante. . . . Paris saura se venger noblement et devenir un rempart invincible de l’inde´pendence nationale.” Le Franc¸ais, August 28, 1870. 51. “Peu nous importe la forme du gouvernement qui sauvera l’honneur, conservera le territoire, chassera l’e´tranger. . . . tout bon citoyen ne doit refuser le concours de personne, pour aller aux remparts et relever la France humilie´e.” Le Franc¸ais, September 8, 1870. 52. “si les sombre souvenirs de 1793 et les manifestations absurdes de 1848 se promenaient dans les rues.” Le Franc¸ais, September 26, 1870. 53. On November 4, 1870, Augustin wrote to his son Denys, then in the army, mixing sorrow with outrage: “Nous venons de traverser une nouvelle phase inte´rieure critique. Les ennemis publics, qui profitent de tous nos malheurs pour conque´rir le pouvoir et l’argent, ont voulu abuser de la nouvelle de la capitulation de Metz, de l’accident de Bourget, et de la faiblesse de pouvoir, pour s’installer a` l’Hoˆtel de Ville, le 31 octobre. La garde nationale a de´livre´ le gouvernement fait prisonnier. C’est le 106e et le 17e batallion surtout qui ont eu cette e´nergie. Le 17e batallion est le noˆtre. Je te re´ponds qu’Henry a e´te´ ardent, tenant Blanqui par le col de sa chemise.” Augustin Cochin to Denys Cochin, November 4, 1870, Lettres, II, 311. 54. Lettres, II, 320. 55. “et comment installer un gouvernement re´gulier entre une invasion et un soule`vement! Il faudra pourtant que l’Assemble´e se de´cide a` offrir la Monarchie ou la Re´publique nettement, si l’on ne veut pas voir reparaıˆtre l’odieux Empire, ou s’installer l’odieuse anarchie.” Augustin Cochin to Denys Benoist d’Azy, March 27, 1871, Lettres, II, 339. 56. Augustin Cochin to Mme. Adeline Cochin, April 21, 1871, Lettres, II, 345. 57. “La liste d’e´lections parisiennes est significatif: Thiers, re´action bourgeoise,— Leroux, Lagrange re´action demagogue,—Napole´on re´action populaire; du jour au lendemain, ce grand nom a re´uni 8.400 voix, exclusivement populaires. Et des chances dans trois de´partements. Ne croyez pas d’ailleurs que ce soit le prisonnier de Ham qu’on a

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nomme´, c’est la statue de bronze de la Colonne, c’est Ce´sar de´ce´de´, c’est l’ombre d’un mort plus grand de tous les vivants.” Augustin Cochin to The´obald de Soland, June 10, 1848, Lettres, I, 53–54. 58. Printed circular, 1865, in AC, Fa20. 59. “Il me semble, sans parler des the´ories ide´ales qui ne manquent jamais d’exercer sur mon esprit un certain empire, que la Re´publique est la forme naturelle du gouvernement dans un pays comme le noˆtre. L’ordre n’est plus dans les aˆmes, parce qu’il n’y a pas unite´ de croyances sur les conditions de l’ordre; il n’est plus que dans les positions et dans les inte´reˆts, parce que, tous les jours, il y a un plus grand nombre de familles qui acque´rant de petites proprie´te´s, de petites rentes, de petits he´ritages, sont inte´resse´es a` l’ordre. Puisque de longtemps il est impossible de faire entrer dans les esprits des principes religieux, sociaux, politiques pour fonder l’ordre, et que les principes les plus vrais ne sont rien quand ils ne sont plus dans les aˆmes, il faut bien continuer de fonder sur les inte´reˆts, c’est-a`-dire sur la participation du plus grand nombre possible a` la proprie´te´, a` l’instruction, a` la vie politique, tout en restaurant de son mieux l’ordre moral auquel d’ailleurs ces moyens, bien dirige´s, peuvent parfaitement contribuer. Tout cela conclut a` ces mots: de´mocratie, suffrage universel, division des fortunes, c’est-a`dire Re´publique, avec ses adantages et ses dangers. “Or, re´publique c’est le ge´ne´ral Cavaignac, si’il est mode´re´, s’il comprend l’esprit de la majorite´, s’il est ferme.” Augustin Cochin to Denys Benoist d’Azy, December 6, 1848, Lettres, I, 59. 60. Augustin Cochin to Denys Benoist d’Azy, December 1848, Lettres, I, 61–63. 61. Augustin Cochin to Mme. Adeline Cochin, June 27, 1850, and per notes by Henry Cochin, Lettres, I, 72. 62. “On redoute les e´lections de 1852. L’esprit Franc¸ais, si leger, est de plus en plus fatigue´ et capable d’accepter tout, etc., etc. . . . Dans cette position, on tenterait de passer d’Elyse´e aux Tuileries.” Augustin Cochin to Augustin Benoist d’Azy, July 13, 1850, Lettres, I, 74. 63. “un pays ou` on aime beaucoup a` gouverner, mais surtout a` eˆtre gouverne´.” Augustin Cochin to cousin E´mile Nau de Beauregard, October 1850, Lettres, I, 79. 64. Lettres, I, 90–91. For more detailed and more famous accounts, see Alexis de Tocqueville’s letter to the Times, December 11, 1851, and Victor Hugo’s dramatic account as “Histoire d’un crime,” in Oeuvres comple`tes, vol. 8 (n.p.: Club franc¸ais du livre, 1968). 65. “Grande est la diffe´rence entre 1830 et 1851; en 1830, la re´volution succe´dait a` la monarchie; en 1851, le pouvoir est reconstruit par un courant contre-re´volutionnaire: il faut distinguer entre le but que poursuit la France et les moyens faˆcheux, mais ils peuvent changer. . . . en 1830, peur de tout ce qui e´tait bien, monarchie, unite´, force, religion, autorite´; en 1851, peur de ce qui est mal, la re´volution, l’anarchie, l’impie´te´, le socialisme.” Augustin Cochin to Benoist d’Azy, October 27, 1852. Lettres, I, 97. 66. “Prouvons que l’empire est impossible, meˆme avec notre bonne volunte´, comme nous avons prouve´ que la re´publique e´tait impracticable, meˆme avec notre concours. Ne nous rendons pas impopulaire, en nous se´parent des populations, en tendant des pie`ges a` nos amis, et a` nos ennemis, en semblant spe´culer, commes de tristes prophe`tes, sur la de´tresse a` venir, et rire des malheurs que nous devons un jour re´parer, sans avoir jamais e´te´ complices.” Lettres, I, 98. 67. Papers, AC, Fa1. 68. See the letter by Augustin Cochin in L’Opinion Nationale, May 30, 1863; Le

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Constitutionnel, May 27, 1863; Chronique Judiciaire, June 24, 1863. He lost to Gue´rault 6,668 to 11,100. The other candidate, Edmond Fouche´-Lepelletier, received 9,534 votes. (Results are in AC, Fa16.) 69. His platform was published in Le Franc¸ais on May 2, 1869. Augustin served several months on an advisory commission under Georges Euge`ne Haussmann. He resigned over disagreements with some of Haussmann’s ideas but generally agreed with the sweeping changes brought upon his beloved city by the prefect. 70. Especially intiative and interpellation, a repeal of Article 75 of year VIII, the choice of mayors and schoolteachers by elected councils; and, most important, an independence of the elected legislators that he described the following way: “Je soutiens qu’un candidat doit s’appartenir a` lui-meˆme, n’avoir aucune attachement officielle quand, au contraire, son mandat consiste a` controˆler les actes du gouvernement.” Edouard Dupont, Second tour de scrutin: Appel d’un re´publicain a` tous les libe´raux (Paris: Imprimerie de Victor Groupy, 1869), 12–13. 71. A dying but enthusiastic Montalembert urged him to “prendre re´soluement l’attitude et le responsabilite´ du chef du Catholicisme libe´ral en France et par conse´quence en Europe.” Letter Montalembert to Augustin Cochin, June 9, 1869, AC, Fa 16. 72. “le parti libe´ral a e´te´ battu par le parti radical. Voila` la ve´rite´.” Gazette de France, June 11, 1869. Augustin outpolled Ferry slightly in the first round; Ferry gained more votes from the defeated incumbent, Gue´rault. 73. “pre`s desquels il [A.C.] aurait e´te´ si fier de prendre place.” Journal des de´bats, June 13, 1869. 74. Theodore Zeldin, The Political System of Napoleon III (New York: W. W. Norton, 1971), 140–42. 75. “L’Opinion Nationale semble avoir e´te´ cre´e´e au de´but de la guerre d’Italie pour e´largir et envenimer la question Romaine. Ce journal a e´te´, depuis dix ans, le principal artisan de cette agitation ne´faste qui a de´tourne´ les esprits de la politique, divise´ profondement les libe´raux franc¸ais, e´branle´ la morale au fond de tant de villages, et prodigieusement surpris les hommes politiques d’Angleterre et des E´tats-Unis, habitue´s a` regarder le Christianisme comme le premier bien des peuples libres.” Augustin Cochin to L’Opinion nationale, dated June 19, 1869; printed June 23, 1869. 76. Ollivier admitted that the emperor felt wounded and unappreciated by them; by late the next afternoon Augustin and Ollivier’s closest adviser, Jean Pierre Chevandrier de Valdroˆme, were worried that the Right was concerned only to destroy the liberal ministry. Augustin met the principal figures of the Center Left that afternoon—Napole´on Daru, Louis Buffet, Auguste Talhouet-Roy, and Charles Louvet—to urge their cooperation. Ollivier lived on the same street as Augustin, at 31 rue St.-Guillaume. 77. “En conseil, il m’abandonne et me combat, puis il m’e´crit: ‘vous avez rendu ma liberte´. J’en ai use´!” Augustin’s undated account of these days is entitled “l’Affaire Daru,” which constitutes AC, Fa15. See Ollivier, L’Empire libe´ral, vol. 12 (Paris: Garnier Fre`res, 1895–1918), 198–244, and Zeldin. 78. Jean-Marie Meyeur and Madeleine Rube´rioux, The Third Republic from its Origins to the Great War, 1871–1914, trans. J. R. Foster (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; and Paris: E´ditions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 1973, 1984), 37; Daniel Hale´vy, La Fin des notables, 144–71; Jean Lhomme, La Grande Bourgeoisie au pouvoir (1830–1880): Essai sur l’histoire sociale de la France (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1960), 269–84. 79. Augustin Cochin to Denys Cochin, November 4, 1870, Lettres, II, 311; Le Fran-

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c¸ais, February 1, 1871. Printed handbills of the “Comite´ Libe´ral Re´publicain du De´partement de la Seine,” January 28, 1871, AC, Fa16. In February 1871 Augustin refused to be a candidate for the Comite´ Catholique endorsed by l’Univers—despite Falloux’s claims and the fact that Augustin’s name appeared on their list—Franc¸ois Breslay to Falloux, June 1874, AC, Fa16. 80. “Les e´ve´nements m’ont . . . terriblement e´claire´ croyez-le bien, et bien loin d’eˆtre l’adversaire de la monarchie constitutionelle comple`te, je souffre toutes les fois que je vois e´chouer les ge´ne´reaux efforts engage´s pour son re´tablissement. Il me reste seulement une vive crainte de les voir e´chouer en effet, soit par l’e´goı¨sme d’une des branches royales, soit par les dispositions de la plus grande partie de la Chambre et du pays. Je crois que les e´checs peuvent nous ramener l’Empire, et je pre´fe`re la Re´publique a` cet odieux gouvernement. Voila`, en deux mots, et pour vous, ma bonne me`re, ma profession de foi.” Augustin Cochin to Mme. Benoist d’Azy, May 20, 1871, Lettres, II, 352. 81. “Je n’ai pas, sur la vertu meˆme du principe, et sur la re´sistance qu’il opposerait aux e´pouvantables fardeaux qui pe`seraient sur la monarchie re´tablie, ni sur la facilite´ de ce re´tablissement, le meˆme degre´ de confiance que mon cher et bien aime´ pe`re, et c’est pourquoi j’aurais voulu que l’Assemble´e puˆt d’abord re´former les finances, l’arme´e, et le suffrage universel, avant de changer le gouvernement provisoire.” Ibid. 82. “Falloux et moi, nous l’inquie´tons. . . . Vous voyez que je suis trop catholique a` Paris, pas assez a` Rennes. Dieu veuille que je le sois a` la mesure de la porte du Paradis sinon de l’Assemble´e!” Ibid., 353. 83. Notes by Henry Cochin, Lettres, II, 363. 84. “Me voici lance´ un peu tard, dans une voie nouvelle. Je me sens bien un peu a` l’e´troit quand je compare mes nouveaux devoirs avec les plus grandes choses que j’ai poursuivies ou reˆve´es. Mais puisque les e´ve´nements ont obstrue´ mon chemin, je me sens pourtant soulage´ de l’incertitude et du guignon qui pesait toujours sur ma vie; soulage´ aussi de n’avoir pas a` me de´cider et a` me remuer entre les intrgues qui divisent la chambre actuelle.” Augustin Cochin to Mme. Adeline Cochin, June 15, 1871, Lettres, II, 360. 85. “l’alliance de tous les partis reconcilie´s et travaillant en commun a` sauver le pays.” Undated proclamation by Augustin Cochin as prefect of Seine-et-Oise, AC, Fa15. 86. “Re´publique appuye´e par les bons citoyens.” Augustin Cochin to Wilfrid d’Indy, 23 May, 1871, Lettres, II, 358. 87. “Il serait plus virile de fonder une Re´publique, parce que son nom apaise les passions populaires, et que nous pourrions faire en Europe une plus maˆle figure sous ce nom que sous celui de la Monarchie. Mais vous ne pouvez pas ressusciter une morte. La Re´publique a e´te´ assassine´e par ses enfants, l’odieux 1793, et l’imbe´cile 1848—1870 l’a emporte´e au tombeau. Elle a e´te´ tue´e par Robespierre et Marat, puis par tous les faiseurs de phrases, de complots, de dettes et de sottises, qui sont, a` trois reprises, monte´ sur ce char populaire.” Augustin Cochin to Thiers, undated (1872), Lettres, II, 378. 88. “une de´mocratie authoritaire et athe´e.” Augustin Cochin, Les Espe´rances chre´tiennes (Paris: Plon, Nourrit, 1883), x.

Chapter 7

Politics and the Revolution II: The Third Republic

More than any other Cochin, Denys spent his public career as a politician. He served on the City Council of Paris for nine years, from 1881 to 1890, and in the National Assembly for twenty-six years, from 1893 to 1919. Given his father’s electoral failures, this significant participation would seem a triumph. Yet this was not the case. Unlike any Cochin before him, Denys was forced into an endless dissent against entrenched political forces on his Right and on his Left. To see him as a reactionary is correct: for the Republic was permanently transforming the institutions of France for its own ends, in a direction he believed to be wrong. But the stakes were higher than just his dissatisfaction. By the time of Denys’s career, the Cochins were clearly out of touch with modern France. French society was being transformed by the Republic, as he saw it, and his criticisms of the Third Republic were based on the belief that it would result in the loss of not only a class, but, more important, a type of character represented by that class: Catholic and liberal notables. Moreover, these views were defended on a political ground that was splitting under him, as it had under his father. He was a political maverick on the Right and opposed both Left and Right so often and so vigorously during his career that, in the end, there was nowhere for him to feel comfortable. This chapter will show a few of the most glaring incidents of this kind. His earliest experiences in trying to break into politics were lessons for Denys, showing him the outline of politics under the Third Republic, and later incidents and his reflections on them elaborated on these earlier themes. The most important aspect of his political career, for our purposes, was his learning and reflection about politics itself. From these parts of his career we may learn the most, as he did, about this new politics so inimical to his sense of order and place. What were the conditions that made possible this long and unusual po-

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litical career? His political demesne while in the Chamber of Deputies was the 8th arrondissement, on the Right Bank, which was wealthy and had proportionately few workers. Denys Cochin’s career in the National Assembly, one might say, was possible in an area of Paris swept clean of radicalism after the Commune; it was not unusual that his constituents voted for this Catholic social conservative. He was, moreover, a baron, and an Orleanist. He was Parisian de vieille souche. Denys’s collaborator and friend Victor Bucaille recounted the story Denys told of his first campaign in the 8th; even then being a Cochin was part of his candidacy. At a rowdy election meeting that was getting away from the candidate, a man with a Jewish name asked where the candidate was from. Denys responded “One would have to be from Jerusalem not to know I am Parisian.”1 The room broke into laughter. It was a start, and he was elected. Denys was also an author and amateur scientist, and, after 1912, the electors of the 8th had an Academician as their representative. His constituents voted solidly for him at every election.2 Denys Cochin apparently paid his electoral expenses out of his own pocket. Personal wealth gave him more independence than his less wealthy colleagues. Denys Cochin felt the Republic should permit a pluralism and too often it did not. As Denys saw it, pluralism was the only way to reconcile different parts of French society and reconcile modern France with its past. Denys’s gradualism and moderation, expressed by a parliamentary and Orleanist politics, is what he declared set him apart from both the Republic and the opposition it raised. For Denys Cochin the folly of both Left and Right was their attempt to force an integration of French society. Denys’s political career thus contained an important departure from that of his father and grandfather. At the end of the Empire, Augustin believed France was great according to its ability to create notables willing to improve society in a Catholic and liberal way. The Cochins themselves served as an example. In Denys’s public career, the hope that politics would be moved by a group of reforming notables was lost. The effort at social reform and working-class charity was muted; Denys concerned himself with these issues more as a member of the National Assembly than as a private citizen. The effort to spread the sense of religion, morality, and respect for the family along the familiar lines we have come to expect in the Cochin family’s collective career was, in the Third Republic, becoming more politicized and running into powerful opposition.3 The Republic had effectively won the loyalty of the middle and lower middle classes; the older notables were no longer a guiding force in society as they were—according to the old schema. The Cochins and others like them, who had once focused so much energy on shaping less fortunate classes, were, in this generation, on the defensive themselves, and on the defensive against the State. While the Cochins were never at the centers of political power at any time in the nineteenth century, the career of Denys Cochin showed something new: In this period the traditional notables were pushed permanently out of the center of the political arena, as politics itself was transformed. Denys felt this change with special force. He was reduced to de-

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claring France was great according to how much it protected notables and Catholics from the power of the State. The Third Republic shaped itself during Denys’s young manhood, while he was occupied with other pursuits, such as schooling, marriage, and his interests in science and philosophy. He had a difficult time finding a place for his ideals in the political landscape he found when he first ran as a candidate. Nevertheless, Denys was not isolated from the political life of the early Republic. He had the good fortune to be Augustin Cochin’s son, and Benoist d’Azy’s grandson, and was able to watch the political life of the very early years of the National Government up close. He served on de Broglie’s staff in London when his father fell ill in the spring of 1872. Denys was then almost twenty-one. As a young man favoring the Liberal Right, he enjoyed the opportunity to see firsthand the politics of the National Assembly. After observing his grandfather Benoist d’Azy in the throes of trying to establish a monarchy in May 1871, he knew that the monarchists were not suited to modern politics.4 His early contact with politics and with his grandfather Benoist d’Azy showed Denys the poverty of much of the politics of the Right. “The Right really played a very poor role: stung by the just reproaches of M. Thiers, protesting with dumb cries at every moment, finally voting for him en masse and from true timidity.”5 He added that his grandfather should be forgiven, in part because he was surrounded by friends who were “stunningly prejudiced and of true narrowness.”6 Six years later Denys turned to politics as a candidate. His baptism in electoral politics was, symbolically enough, in the election of May 16, 1877. He ran as an Orleanist and as a supporter of Marshal MacMahon in the electoral district in which great-grandfather Jacques Denis bought the family chaˆteau during the First Empire, at Corbeil. Even then he had made up his mind about the Third Republic. “Radicalism,” as Denys termed it then, was the enemy, and, nine years later, he reminisced with good humor about himself as a young candidate without a prayer of winning. Not even being a local notable (and city councilman in Coudray-Montceaux) could get him elected.7 There were echoes of the candidacies of his father. Denys remarked that as a candidate he had only his principles and good intentions to offer.8 He ran as heir to his father’s “conservative and liberal” ideals—as an independent conservative who was—tellingly— less concerned with political labels than with “social order.”9 His first candidacy placed him between the Left and the Right: His opponents were Prince Alexandre de Wagram, a Bonapartist, and Le´on Renault, a prominent Republican. The latter won, and Republicans received 52 percent of the vote and control of the Chamber of Deputies; Denys finished third. Later in life he reflected on the elections of the early Third Republic, which included de Broglie’s strong-arm tactics helping conservatives during the election of October 1879. He saw it all with a particularly liberal twist. The Liberal Empire and the Franco-Prussian War might have been important turning points, but, according to Denys, the political tactics of the Empire lived on under the Third Republic.10 In 1881 Denys Cochin began his twelve-year career on the City Council of

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Paris, where his father and grandfather had served.11 He threw himself energetically into the work representing the 7th arrondissement (Invalides) on the council as one of the conservative minority. His Paris: Quatre anne´es au conseil municipal (1885) tells of its foibles. The council’s secularization campaign in this period—which included Cochin Hospital—has already been recounted, and it stands well as an example of these years of unruly political life that Denys experienced on the Council. Quatre anne´es showed his frustration with Republican politics on the local level: It recounted squabbles over municipal gas, the Christian religion, and political favors. But his attempts at getting elected to the Chamber of Deputies offered Denys an even more discouraging vision of politics at the national level and the legacy of the Revolution in the Third Republic. BOULANGER Denys tried again to gain a seat in the Chamber of Deputies when he ran as representative in the 7th arrondissement in October 1885. This election was by the new procedure of voting for at-large candidates (scrutin de liste), and he lost on the second ballot.12 On September 15, 1887, the comte de Paris’s manifesto appeared, recommending the reestablishment of the monarchy by plebiscite, a shocking departure from the traditions of the monarchist movement. Denys was clearly not among the inner circle of Orleanists, though he identified himself as one. In a letter dated 1888, probably to a fellow conservative, Denys separated himself from the royalists’ plans, which were leading to a monarchist backing of Georges Boulanger. Apparently having been asked to be a candidate again in the upcoming elections, Denys wrote with evident misgivings: “I remain perfectly willing [to be a candidate] if there is a place—but above all unwilling to create any difficulty. . . . Moreover, allow me to make a confession—I am poorly prepared to run right now, being deeply distressed at what is happening in France.”13 The monarchists were foolish if they thought Boulanger would do them any good: Victory would go to Boulanger, “the thief, whom the royalists foolishly supplied, armed, carried on their shoulders, when he was expecting them to trip him up.”14 The fault, he persisted in believing, lay with the advisers surrounding the comte de Paris.15 Denys ran again as an independent candidate in the 7th arrondissement of the Seine in January 1889. He drafted a proclamation urging monarchists to abstain from voting in this election, for Boulanger was a candidate again. He was clearly divided between his loyalty to Orleanism and his distaste for Boulangism. Boulanger had won in the provinces almost everywhere he was a candidate the previous spring and summer. The choice between a Republican and a Boulangist was, according to Denys, between a candidate of the persecution of consciences and a “traveling candidate”16 looking for new plebiscites; electors, the proclamation continued, should wait to vote for durable institutions and the maintenance of liberties. But Boulanger won again, impressively, in Paris. Denys lost. In February 1889 voting by single-member constituencies (scrutin d’ar-

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rondissement) was reinstated as one of a series of measures against Boulanger. The abandonment of voting by list forced Boulanger to form a Boulangist movement for the election in September and October 1889. In the 7th arrondissement the Boulangist candidate was Dieudonne´ Gabriel Jean Terrail Mermieux, editor of the Boulangist newspaper Le Cocarde. The Republican incumbent was Dr. Charles Fe´lix Fre´bault, and Denys Cochin ran for his third attempt at winning a seat in a year. After the second round of elections of October 6, the Boulangist candidate won, narrowly, in a three-way split.17 Thus Denys Cochin had lost twice under the system of voting by list, once to a Republican and once to a Boulangist; and he lost again by constituency to a Boulangist. Awaiting the election results in the salon of Denys’s mother-in-law, Mme. Pe´an de St.-Gilles, Denys’s mother was reminded of the electoral career of her husband, Augustin— defeat by both Left and Right: “it’s everything I saw in ’69, and after the war before the Commune for my husband. At the last minute L’Univers, in an aggrieved tone, came to say that the glory of God required everyone to vote for M. Mermieux against my son.”18 Yet even Denys’s mother exonerated the comte de Paris.19 The Right and clerical voters were both against Denys. A family friend and fellow politician, the abbe´ Maurice d’Hulst (1841–1896), said to Denys Cochin that evening as the returns came in: “My poor friend, you are beaten by the cure´s.”20 The outlook for a Cochin in national politics in 1889 showed little change from twenty years before. Denys returned to science; his mother consoled him that he had “the great satisfaction to have stood for the right causes and to have represented them for a while with brilliance.”21 With this election Boulangism peaked; it won no seats outside Paris. But Denys’s experience provided him with new insight into the nature of Boulangism and politics in general. Boulangism was manned by rank low-life opportunists.22 The Republic, he thought, had made Boulanger’s successes possible, yet Denys did not turn completely against it. Shortly after the Boulanger election, he noted that even in his defeat he was praised by the opportunists and radicals, and though he believed a monarchy was the best form of government, he could hardly set himself against a Republic that was still governed by liberal, moderate men of integrity.23 The governments of Charles Floquet (April 1888– February 1889) and Pierre-Emmanuel Tirard (December 1887–April 1888; February 1889–March 1890) courted conservatives, especially after Tirard became premier in February 1889 in an effort to weaken Boulanger’s support on the Right. The Republic had fended off the Boulangist threat. Yet Boulangism had made it plain that Orleanism had become unstable and capable of extreme action. The truth was that the comte de Paris had given Boulanger 2.5 million F., and other Royalists had roughly doubled this amount, not including the 3 million given by the duchesse d’Uze`s.24 In November 1889 Denys wrote a series of articles exonerating the comte de Paris, though Denys knew the truth: his own cause had leapt on a dangerous and rickety bandwagon of demagogic politics. After the Boulangist tide subsided, Cochin wrote to a friend about his view of the incident and about his place in political life: he

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remained staunchly attached to Orleanism despite the Boulanger episode, more from sentiment than reason. I am a liberal monarchist. I was severely mistreated by many monarchists in 1889—and my stubbornness in fighting—with you—Boulangism cost me my seat. But role of the politicians who pushed the comte de Paris into error and who abandoned him after his defeat—the roles played by the revisionists of October 1889 who became constitutionalists in January 1890—so displeased me that I decided to do the opposite—to remain true, after showing myself independent.25

Denys Cochin, then, chose to forgive the comte de Paris his involvement, to remain loyal to a cause in which he had little influence and which had little hope of success. This made his attachement more reminiscent of Legitimism than of Orleanism: fidelity above all. In the early twentieth century, before the war, the duc de Vendoˆme gave Denys access to private family papers. Denys worked on these throughout the war to produce Louis Philippe d’apre`s des documents ine´dites, a paean to the Orleanist tradition.26 His Orleanist attachment made the years from 1885 to 1892 (and in effect ever after) a period of political despair for Denys. His loyalty to Orleanism and his defeat at the hands of Boulangism left him nowhere to go. The terms of politics had changed so he still found no place except a seat on the Paris City Council. In 1891 he summed up his political career to the liberal Monsignor (later Cardinal) Adolphe Perraud (1828–1906): Neither liberal monarchism nor the Church was able to play a constructive role in French public life. They had both lost their way, and Denys himself had trouble finding a place.27 The episode of Boulangism, then, found Denys trapped in a political world which fit very awkwardly with his beliefs and his continuation of the family tradition. In the autumn of 1893 Denys Cochin was elected to the Chamber of Deputies from the 8th arrondissement, his safe political haven for the next twenty-six years. In these years a “new spirit” of cooperation between moderates and conservatives reigned. The publication of Rerum Novarum in May 1891 was followed by the premierships of E´mile Loubet, Alexandre Ribot, Charles Dupuy, Jean Casimir-Pe´rier, Le´on Bourgeois, Jules Me´line, and Henri Brisson, 1893 to 1899. These governments were supported by the Center and Right against a growing socialist and anarchist strength on the Left.28 Denys’s refusal to join the conservatives who supported Boulanger seemed to have been vindicated in these years. It appeared that the Republic could provide room for conservative and Catholic opinion after all. But after he broke into national politics, Denys was not happy. By the time of his reelection in 1897, Denys complained to his mentor Duc Albert de Broglie that it was apparent that his conservatism had no place: “I believe that French opinion, fundamentally conservative, has lost its way by the fact of an obstinate desire to found a republic, and that the Boulangist campaign mixed everything up.”29 But, he continued, after Boulanger conservatism would never again be the same. The moment for Denys’s kind of political

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ideals had passed. A conservative movement will return, only it won’t be liberal and open to “legitimate social influences”; any new conservatism will be, he feared, nothing more than a “bourgeois and mediocre reaction.”30 This conservatism was precisely what moderate Republicans wanted in these years in their search for stability. It was conservatism on Republican terms. And Denys responded with a list of complaints typical of a member of the haute bourgeoisie looking at the Third Republic. Social deference, a role for Catholic education, financial order—these were not part of the “new spirit,” and what was offered was not enough. At some time, in these years Denys chose to stay loyal to the Orleanism that by now had betrayed the ideals of his father and removed him from practical political possibilities even in what turned out to be these sympathetic times. He would support the Republic where he could, without illusions. But Denys’s position as an Orleanist Catholic and sometime conservative supporter of the Republic also proved uncomfortable in the next few years. DREYFUS While the Boulangist crisis left Denys a distant and wary supporter of the institutions of the Republic (though still an Orleanist)—an understandable conservative position—the Dreyfus Affair resulted in a Republic openly hostile to his beliefs. The affair produced governments of “Republican defense,” a backlash against moderate Republicanism and the Church, and these attacks culminated in the denunciation of the Concordat, the laws on associations, and ultimately the Separation Law. Denys reacted with disbelief to the criticism of the Dreyfus’s punishment, believing the army and government should be supported, and believing that the judges and ministers were conscientious in their findings. Denys drafted a proclamation from deputies of the Right that reflected this kind of thinking.31 Although his mind seemed definitely made up in this declaration, several letters show the evolution of Denys’s thinking about the affair. The complications in the trials in the Dreyfus Affair seemed to refute the straightforward nature of the case that everyone—Republicans and conservatives—declared that it had. One example was Colonel Georges Picquart, head of the intelligence service, who noted that traffic in illegal messages to the German Embassy continued after Dreyfus’s imprisonment. Picquart fell in disgrace in November 1896; probably soon after, Denys Cochin wrote to a correspondent: “I have a great deal of difficulty, I know, in explaining his conduct, in imagining the state of mind of this officer. I believe he will have troubled his country in attaching himself to this bad cause. For I can’t accept that the judges of the Council of war and five successive ministers of War were all mistaken in the same way, or were all agreed to crush an innocent man and deceive us.”32 Denys’s doubts were genuine and could only grow. But surrounding the problem of belief was the problem of politics. As it became more and more Antidreyfusard, the Right tended, again, to slip into subversion. The trial of nationalists and royalists, including the comte de Paris, in December 1899

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was a reminder of the desuetude of monarchism. Anti-Semitism among French Catholics—Denys’s constituency—led notably by the Assumptionist religious congregation, played to the worst instincts. At the same time, Republicans painted themselves into a corner, first over the trial, then over the rehabilitation of Dreyfus. Neither Me´line nor his replacement Brisson, nor a succession of ministers of war wanted to discuss the case. By digging in so deeply in defense of Republican institutions, moderate Republicans left themselves vulnerable. The campaign to rehabilitate Dreyfus, led by Republicans, threatened to sweep aside many moderates. The Dreyfusard campaign and the resulting division of the nation also preoccupied Denys from the beginning. He had said little in public during the course of the affair. He kept his doubts to himself. Indeed, when it was clear that Dreyfus was innocent, Denys kept quiet. On July 13, 1906, the National Assembly debated the exoneration of Dreyfus and Picquart. Cochin abstained from voting the reinstatement and promotion of Dreyfus.33 Another deputy, Adolphe Messimy (1869–1935), gave an impassioned speech in favor of Picquart, calling those who disagreed with him “the imbeciles, the reckless, the insane or wretched criminals who did everything to muffle the voice of truth.”34 Denys rose to speak. It was a dramatic moment in his career, as described by Joseph Reinach, the Dreyfusard deputy who knew the principals first hand: He passed through the Affair showing neither worry, nor irritation, too intelligent by far to believe Dreyfus guilty or Esterhazy innocent, but still a prisoner of his party and having, when politics was involved, mind in the place of a heart. It was the first time he was speaking of the Affair in the Chamber.35

Instead of exultation by one side or revulsion on the other, Denys said, everyone in the Chamber of Deputies should examine their consciences about what had happened.36 None of the ministers who handled the case were Catholics in favor of a reaction, he noted; “they were yours, proven republicans, your comrades of the group, your colleagues in the ministry.”37 Denys bowed before the decision of judges and believed in justice as much as anyone, he continued. Instead of the faults of the soldiers being excused as a natural part of their esprit de corps,38 a campaign was being led against the army and the country, he complained. Above all Denys feared disorder. From the very start, he said, he had foreseen the awful price of the affair.39 At the end of what Reinach called this “brilliant” and astute speech, Cochin announced that he could not vote to make Colonel Picquart, who had so attacked the army, a general. The mistreatment of Dreyfus and the attempt to quiet the affair was never led by Catholics; they were not in charge.40 But Republican charges that Dreyfus was a martyr solely because of Catholic bigotry took on a life of its own. Denys and other Catholics felt they and the Church paid too high a price and Denys never forgot it. In 1911 he responded to a letter from a Dreyfusard who argued that Catholic anti-Semitism had an important role in the case. First, Denys wrote,

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Catholics and anti-Semites were not always the same thing; second, Denys claimed that what happened to Dreyfus was hardly a persecution by religious— Catholic—bigots.41 Republicans held power and Dreyfus, ambitious and sure of himself, was a logical suspect. Further, the Dreyfus campaign was not against anti-Semitism. Denys was only too happy to make this clear: “Add that your hero who found so many defenders has no friends. Clemenceau said last year ‘He is innocent, but that shyster will never, I assure you, set foot in my house. He’s a dirty Jew.’ Yes, Clemenceau.”42 And, Denys added, a minister in the government said that Dreyfus was sent to Devil’s Island because they were afraid that the Jews were ready to rise up—“I can assure you,” Denys added, “that he is no Catholic.”43 In another letter that same year, Cochin described the key distinction for him in the affair. There was the issue of Dreyfus and there was the Dreyfusard campaign.44 It was the latter that threatened the State and its institutions and had the most enduring effect. In the end it was the Church that paid the price. Dreyfus was innocent, Denys wrote, but it would have been so much the better had there been no Dreyfusard campaign.45 And so the Dreyfus Affair and its aftermath showed the weaknesses of the Right, of the Republicans who had been in power, and, last of all, of Denys Cochin. The Dreyfus Affair became a trap. Catholics, rightly, were blamed for their sometimes vehement support of the mistakes of successive Republican governments, but they shared the blame with no one, quite unfairly. Denys again saw himself as the defender of the Church, a conservative soldier battling an all-powerful radical state. Yet ironically he did this by resisting, even years after Dreyfus’s pardon, defending an individual against the power of the State. PARLIAMENTARY LIFE Once tensions from the Dreyfus Affair brought him to the premiership, Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau attacked the notion of France creating “deux jeunesses,” one the product of secular education, the other of Catholic. The Church and Catholic education became targets of a Republic in the hands of a National Assembly anxious to eject whatever seemed to threaten the secular Republic, and the most important issue was loyalty. The longest part of Denys’s political career took place under these conditions. Denys believed that ultimately these measures were the product of a radical change in the notion of the State. By the outbreak of the war in 1914, the Republic had constructed a different society from one in which he could feel comfortable. The era of indecision about the legacy of the Revolution, stretching through the nineteenth century, was brought to a close. A bill controlling religious associations was passed in July 1901, and in December 1905 the law separating Church and State was approved. In the summer of 1903, in the midst of his activities for “independent” (meaning private and Catholic) education, Denys wrote his son Jean how he could not understand the actions of those on the attack: “despite my sorrow at seeing

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people not believing in what I believe to be the true, the good, the dignity and the comfort of life,” he could not imagine force being used against those who disagreed with him, or those who wanted to raise their children as they saw fit. And as far as he could see, Emile Combes’s actions were criticized even in his own party.46 He understood that these differences were also a personal matter: I don’t think I’m a “fanatic” and while everything I have read in philosophy has not led me from my Christian ideas, far from that, I understand some people don’t have them, and one must first of all be sincere. But what I don’t understand, is that the people who look elsewhere for a moral rule and an explanation for our hidden fate, turn against works of charity and Christian education and persecute them.47

Yet it was clear that in the public realm there was little room for the moral rules or the explanations of human existence that supported Denys. Political attacks on these institutions were also attacks on his ordered sense of right and truth— and sense of himself. Despite his wealth and his enjoyment of high social position, Denys could not help but feel under attack, and hence, more and more out of sympathy with political life. By this generation of Cochins a page had been turned in politics, as in other parts of their public careers. Denys was fighting for causes that now could not prevail. The preface to his earlier Paris: Quatre annee´s aux conseil municipal, describing the inauguration of the Republican prefect of the Seine, Charles Floquet (1828–1896) at the still-unfinished Hoˆtel de Ville, provides one of the best examples of his melancholy sense of being an outsider. On that hot evening, July 14, 1882, President Jules Grevy and his ministers, Denys wrote, accompanying Floquet, solemnly entered the banquet hall, magnificently lit and set for three hundred guests, the Republican Guard band broke into The Marseillaise. . . . In the midst of the smoke and noise, blinded by the electric light, deafened by the noisy conversations, the hurrahs of the crowd filling the square and avenue Victoria . . . we contemplated this coming of democracy, mistress of the unfinished salons of the Hoˆtel de Ville. We contemplated it, but did not welcome it.48

In this setting the new man of politics came to the fore. No doubt thinking of his own origins, Denys measured the change with words redolent of the Commune: This politician was the hero of the celebration, the winner of this unforgettable day. In our day the bourgeois demagogue has supplanted his predecessor, the old liberal bourgeois: the latter was given a sword to defend our institutions and if need be, to overturn them; the former wears a hat that he keeps on before emperors but takes off to the crowd; and, faithful to that capricious and brutal ruler, he declares an undying enthusiasm, whether it decides to open the Hoˆtel de Ville, or takes it into its head to invade it.49

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No doubt he or his father at some moment imagined that they might one day be a prefect of the Seine—perhaps even a president of the Republic. They could have been and nearly were—except for a thousand accidents. But at some point it was too late, and the Cochins were brushed aside, however Parisian, however moral, however capable. This kind of democracy—demagoguery, as he thought of it—was an end of his father’s principles of preparation for public life. The old liberal bourgeois was forever supplanted, it seemed. The Third Republic, in so many ways antithetical to the Cochins and their ideas, run by men so different from them, seemed permanently in place, and its power was growing every day. What was the effect on Denys of the apparent defeat of the Cochin ideals? First, there were moments of disappointment and even anguish. Certainly some examples of this were the secularization of Cochin Hospital, the passing of the education laws against teaching orders, and the enforcement of the Separation Laws. Loyal and Catholic Frenchmen, the Cochins watched with deep regret as the Church was pushed out of public life, giving way to Republican notions of religion, education, the role of the state, and the duties of citizenship. Denys’s conservatism, which did not sit well with the new Right, prodded him to quesiton the wisdom of the Republican campaign. Yet he was reduced to little more than complaint and questioning as these measures won time and again in the National Assembly. For example, in July 1902 he challenged the government’s anticlerical measures in the Chamber of Deputies: Are you all very sure you are doing the right thing, he asked, “in uprooting the Christian idea from this country, whose foundation, history, and tradition are all Christian? Are you all very sure this war you are making on the Christian idea is a good thing?”50 His own call for tolerance and pluralism fell on deaf ears in a Chamber of Deputies determined that these parts of France’s past should never regain the public power they once enjoyed. And, most bitterly of all for the Cochins, the issue was decided by votes. While certainly part of a broader cultural shift, these Republican measures had their immediate source in parliamentary life. Parliamentary life had been a touchstone for the liberal Orleanists in the nineteenth century. But Denys discovered that it had taken new forms under the Republic. From his first term in the National Assembly, Denys considered the changes in “parliamentarism” the key to understanding the Republican regime. Notable and Orleanist that he was, he believed a parliamentary regime was the only guarantee of liberty, “and that’s why I don’t like the Republic, which practices it so poorly.”51 Denys remained the independent notable who kept his politics founded in moral order and public service at a time when political life was so much more effectively based on party organization and counting heads. His liberalism and his Orleanism became more and more an anachronism. And his wealth and position proved a barrier to his understanding these new men. He was exposed to a variety of people during his military service and in his public life; yet he sometimes showed scant sympathy for them and little understanding of the new meaning of politics in their lives. As a young man and throughout his life, Denys Cochin had a mor-

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alistic attitude toward others.52 This wealthy, serious, and well-read young Denys Cochin saw little to commend in political feuds—or in the temptation to wealth that politics provided. This world had little to do with intellection, or with solutions to the country’s problems. For Denys neither the Left nor the Right had any real ideas; both, for him, were a temperament, intent on defending mere shadows of ideas.53 “Intransigence” was how Denys described what he hated throughout his political career. He claimed to find extreme measures puzzling. In July 1901, at the height of the debate about the laws on teaching orders, Denys wrote to a political ally about the danger of implementing policies against the beliefs of the bourgeoisie. The destruction of what was dear to them was, for Denys, the destruction of the heart of France: May the Republic reassure the bourgeoisie, who are starting to flee. They are its wealth and soul, finally. . . . Finally may the Republic not produce a uniform youth, an unhappy youth, skeptical and pretentious. . . . We have a common idea, against a heterogeneous majority. Let us imitate . . . the liberal union of the end of the Empire.54

Though there was opposition to the changes that the Republic was imposing in this period, it was not enough to turn Republican policies around. As spokesman for bourgeois and Catholic interests, Denys did not appeal to the complex and often conflicting aspirations of the middle classes and “virtually” bourgeois classes who had a stake in the Republic. The Republic, from the time of Le´on Gambetta, found its strength there; its founders successfully constructed a Republic that was egalitarian yet conservative in new ways. And there were many elites who did not see the secular Republic as the threat Denys Cochin thought it was.55 Thus Denys’s nostalgia for the liberal Empire is telling. The Empire was no longer there to organize democracy, and a liberal government of notables had failed long before. His discouragement and bitterness were expressed in a striking metaphor in his correspondence during the battles over teaching orders in 1902: “I am no longer of any party,” he frankly declared. “I greet my country under the Republic as I would greet my mother if I came upon her in rags. I accept this inevitability as openly as you, if with more sorrow.”56 In general, Denys Cochin turned to alliances with the Right, but since Boulanger this had not been an easy relationship. He said that he came to the Chamber of Deputies with liberal convictions, which he kept, and with great misgivings about the Right, which he lost. He claimed that the Right was made up of men who were “faithful, disinterested and active.” But Denys, victim of Boulangism, never forgot the failures of the Right. It, too, must reform: It had to show that it was truly conservative, not just right-wing; it needed steadiness of character, a solid core of ideas, and the determination to march forward according to its own lights.57 The educating state, the greatest danger to Catholics, exceeded the duties of Denys’s ideal of the liberal state: “build roads, sweep them, keep order on them,

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and guard our frontiers.”58 Denys clung to the liberal, pluralist state. He thought of it in terms identical to those of his father: Freedom meant freedom for people to assemble as they chose, whether in churches or philosophical circles, where everyone might pray or think as they wished.59 Like his father, he was a staunch “1789ist,” supporter of the liberal Revolution, not of its more radical phase, beginning in 1793.60 But he knew politics had changed, away from his and his father’s view of what it ought to be. A mature parliamentary republic the Third Republic was not; the idea of the old liberals, for whom this was the ideal, was simply absent. Argument, ideas, and liberty, Denys felt, had no role. Yet Denys did not think the Third Republic was disorderly or weak, as the political Right habitually charged. On the contrary, he saw it as too powerful, too controlling, a threat to individual freedom. His great fear was the dominance of the State. More frightening, the forces that directed this new behemoth were not those of argument or debate; they were not rational; they were scarcely comprehensible. Among his papers is a “Profession of Political Faith” from 1902 which gives the most complete view of what struck Denys most about the Republic, which took on more and more the shape of socialism: The Republic grows more monstrous each day, more paradoxical: The State is everything: It employs a tenth of its citizens in its operations, a third of the national wealth in its budget. And the government is nothing—the enormous body has no head. Parliamentary discussion is no longer a battle of ideas; no one has any, and to tell the truth, one looks for a true, sincere Republican just to shake his hand.61

Politics—at its highest form, decision making—was directed by nothing at all, of groups that pushed pieces around on a board according to rules of a game, as he once put it. But these moves had great consequences for French public life.62 The state grew larger and stronger each day. A hearing of the Commission of the Budget, he related, dealt with mountains of money and great precipices of debt, though here the French State was only imitating other nations of Europe. Interference in the lives of citizens was nourished by deficits and new and heavier taxes—especially the income tax, which Denys strenuously opposed. Interestingly, he did not think the growth of government power would lead to war between governments, since this would interrupt their own internal growth.63 During World War I he continued to express his desire for a liberal monarchy, and though his antirepublicanism cooled somewhat, he was not optimistic about stopping or reversing the larger changes in political life; his support of the Republic remained conditional. Even in 1915, en pleine guerre, he wrote: “I am ready to give my heart to the Republic when it will have beaten German Imperialism abroad and will be cured of it at home.”64 For too much State activity destroyed private charity and the sense of Christian obligation (even Le Sillon was too socialistic for Denys).65 In short, in most of the parliamentary questions raised in the first fifteen years of the century, Denys Cochin’s views were in rough conformity with his father’s. Above all, he hoped, the individual, as Denys

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understood him, should be protected. Denys’s election brochures from the April 1910 election, in which he successfully ran for his fifth term, sum up his views on this aspect of politics: He opposed the proposed income and inheritance taxes; he favored help for the sick, the aged, and the unemployed; he opposed State interference in matters of interest or conscience; what others called the sacred right of the collectivity he deemed the tyranny of the majority.66 Nevertheless the war spurred Denys’s strong sense of nationalism, nationalism that overrode some of his complaints and very gradually overcame others. The war gave Denys the opportunity to see in German society the greatest social evils he could imagine. The same problem of “statism” that he saw in the Republic, he saw in Germany albeit at a more advanced stage. Like his father, Denys thought that Germany in 1870 had contracted the disease of empire from a defeated France, and the war would awaken France to this old danger. let us take care to remain a free country. . . . German Statism was invading us even more than German junk goods. Let us always see Society as a collection of independent beings . . . and not as a collective being, the social Leviathan, invented by Thomas Hobbes. . . . These ideas became German, as most things in Germany, by importation, when Fichte, howling under the boot of Napoleon, spun out in tedious seminars the idea: Let’s do the same thing.67

Like everyone, Denys hoped war would reshape French society, and he enjoyed a rare opportunity to shape it. Because of his long experience in government and his standing as one of the important Catholic figures on the Right, on October 19, 1915, he was appointed minister of state under Aristide Briand, as a Catholic member of the Union Sacre´e. Because of his scientific training he was put in charge of the blockade.68 His functions expanded, and on March 23, 1916, he was named head of the Comite´ de Restriction. Later that year he was appointed undersecretary of state for the blockade at the Foreign Ministry, a less important position. He was then tempted to leave. But he wrote to his son Jean that he remained for three reasons: self-respect; belief that the blockade was both effective and that he had helped build it; and finally, a desire to maintain the Catholic presence in the government.69 But Denys felt he had little power and that he would have to ask for more independence.70 By the summer of 1917 at least two of his reasons for staying were gone. He knew that the Americans had become the overwhelming force in the war, at least from the viewpoint of the economic blockade. Also the cabinet refused to hear a letter from Pietro Gasparri, the papal secretary of state, discussing French interests in the Orient. Denys felt the Union Sacre´e no longer existed. He wrote his letter of resignation on July 27, 1917. Alexandre Ribot replied that the Council of Ministers was not bound to hear the letter, it being only private since there was no formal recognition of the Vatican. For Denys it was another example of the bias against a creditable role for the Holy See or the French Catholics in the war effort. The Cabinet accepted his resignation on August 10.71

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Yet the Republic’s victory over Germany was an inescapable fact, and, finally, for Denys reason for a grudging recognition of its successes. Denys explained why in a letter to Maurice Barre`s in September 1919: “I was not enthusiastic about the Republic ten years ago: How can I not recognize it and even cheer for it now that it has retaken Alsace?”72 However, he decided to retire at the end of the long wartime legislative session, which ended on October 19, 1919. He was tired and had lost two sons, had two “heroes,” as he called them, Jacques and Augustin. And in the new postwar politics, he still saw the old problem of finding a place for his ideals. He still felt strongly about the restriction on Catholic education and refused Briand’s overtures for a cooperation between conservatives and the Republic.73 Characteristically, he was not happy with the Right, either. He had broken with them in the spring of 1919 over revising the Treaty of Versailles. Their call for revision reminded him of past battles; while the treaty had its faults, the extremists on the Right presented no worthy alternatives: “I see to my right (is it really to my right?) the disciples of Cassagnac, and of Drumont, who injured me so much before for having supported Me´line and not Boulanger: They are going to cry Long live Revision! Me, no; and in these troubled times, a hundred times no.”74 His letter of dissent from the Right to Jules Delahaye summed up his political career and his sense of independence: he had always been an independent, though he supported the Right; since he was not fully agreed, he would remain independent at the end of his political career.75 He voted with the large majority that approved the Treaty of Versailles. He ended his long political career a member of no group, a fitting place for one who had experienced such frustration in political life. As a Cochin, Denys had no other place in which to express his beliefs and remain congruent with his sense of self. Under the Third Republic, the substance of politics had fundamentally changed. THE LIVING REVOLUTION Sometimes attacked but largely ignored by the historical establishment, Denys’s son Augustin (1876–1916) was recently rediscovered by Franc¸ois Furet in his “Augustin Cochin: The Theory of Jacobinism” in 1978.76 Yet Augustin’s historical work was also a product of his struggle to find a place as a Cochin. For Augustin, the nature of the term “public career” changes. For the first time in seven generations—since the middle of the eighteenth century—an important male in the Cochin family did not consider municipal or national office. Augustin abhorred the thought of serving the Third Republic above all because of its politics.77 His historical work was the substitute and the beneficiary. The intention of his work was to show that the regime was unworthy of such claims on individuals, for the Revolution and the Third Republic, he thought, betrayed their ideals by their very nature. Augustin constructed, then, a very different sense of mission, a mission sustained by an impressive intellectual energy that drove him to years of labor in Paris and in regional archives for material with

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which to illustrate his notion of the French Revolution. Amid these distractions, the duties incumbent on a Cochin were never far from Augustin Cochin’s thoughts. He felt his historical work did not measure up to his duty that he owed the family name. His career as a historian and his ideas about the French society that issued from the Revolution are unimaginable without this sensitivity. His view of the Revolution aimed above all to challenge its idea of itself by invalidating its credentials. His activity was fueled by his reaction, as a Cochin, to the Third Republic.78 The shortcomings of his work constitute more than the difficulties of an intellect working in isolation. The unlikelihood of Augustin formulating the problem of the Revolution as he did was pointed out by Furet: “it is something of a miracle that Cochin . . . raised the problem of how the French had come to reinvent society under the name of the ‘people’ or the ‘nation,’ and of how they came to set it up as the new god of a fictitious community.”79 It is less of a miracle if Augustin’s stance toward the Revolution, however poorly based on a philosophy of history, is seen as substantially the product of his disillusionment with the Third Republic—and this was influenced by his father’s troubled political career. To see Jacobinism as the central phenomenon of the Revolution overthrowing the liberal hope his grandfather and namesake had placed in 1789, to meld together 1789 and 1793 (or 1788–1914)—indeed, to see the unfolding of a single theme of Jacobinism in the drama of 1788–1794—these reflected an exhaustion of hope for conservative liberalism in a postrevolutionary world. Augustin’s grandfather implored Adolphe Thiers to found a monarchy, declaring Republicanism dead, killed by 1793, 1848, and then 1872. Denys Cochin experienced a number of disappointments under the Third Republic and felt that the liberal bourgeois had been superseded by the demagogues whose first allegiance was to the crowd, and not to the duties and principles that weighed so heavily on the bourgeois conscience and consciousness. A new character reigned. In spite of Denys Cochin’s electoral successes, he felt defeated by a system. The control of public perception, of democratic opinion, was now paramount. Extremists, “radicals,” groping to control opinion, figured prominently on both the Left and the Right. It is no surprise, then, that Augustin saw these as the essence of the Revolution, whose inheritor the Third Republic claimed to be. On this point he was already following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather. In writing against the Revolution, Augustin was also writing off the frustration of his great grandfather’s and great-great grandfather’s hopes as well as his own. Augustin Cochin’s idealization of monarchy and of the Middle Ages, on the other hand, was a new note. His great grandfather Jean Denis Marie Cochin and great-great grandfather Jacques Denis Cochin, conservative constitutional monarchists, would have disagreed with him here. The popularity of monarchism and medievalism—in a romanticized form—in Augustin’s generation was the reaction of anti-Republicans to a Republic that was firmly in control. Medievalism offered a place out of time, an escape from disillusionment into other

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illusions. The Republic was triumphing over all other political traditions—Orleanist, Legitimist, and Imperial. Centralized democratic Republicanism, organized by party leaders, was triumphing over all other forms of representation: direct, corporate, municipal, proportional, or regional. Augustin had to explain the mechanism by which this was done, over unaccountable obstacles, contrary to the sense in which his family had hoped French public life was providentially moving. The Cochins had consistently looked forward to a polity and society where they as elites would have room to reform less fortunate classes (and the upper classes who needed inspiration) by spiritual and moral example—with everything from religion to charity to workhouses to infant schools. Augustin’s work explained this failure of liberal hope in the movement of Providence and thus explained the Cochin family’s fate under the Third Republic and, by extension, under the long shadow of the Revolution. By contrast the Middle Ages seemed safer and more congenial to the antimodernist in Augustin. In September 1897 Augustin entered the E´cole des Chartes. His uncle Henry (1854–1926) had gone there as a private student a generation earlier, and Henry’s son Claude (1883–1918) would attend after him.80 Uncle Henry, a politician and Boccaccio scholar, had encouraged Augustin to choose “this profession a bit dry at first.”81 Augustin ranked first in his class and graduated with the diploma archivist-paleographer on February 4, 1902. After their training in paleography, diplomacy, and archival research, Chartistes were given preference in state service as archivists and historians, but Augustin followed the example of his uncle Henry in never intending to accept such a post. His thesis, “Le Conseil et les re´forme´s de 1652 a` 1658,” dealt with the failure of England under Oliver Cromwell to foment rebellion among the Protestants in the Midi against the French Crown. He published some chapters of the thesis later, and they contained hints of the direction his subsequent work would take.82 Augustin’s earliest works were capable pieces of a Chartiste exploring the forces of internal opposition within the State as revealed by the documents of seventeenth-century statecraft. This Huguenot “network” remained within bounds and would never take control of the state.83 Yet Augustin’s energy and his restless intellect soon turned to the French Revolution, and this topic was always to receive more than scholarly attention. Augustin devoted the remainder of his life to the dissection of modern politics through his work on the Revolution. His study of Jacobinism had a foot in both the past and the present; these are inseparable parts of his work. Even while buried deep in provincial archives, he felt he could never escape the living revolution. Augustin often traveled with his friend and collaborator Charles Charpentier; he moved from town to town, usually by train, staying for several days or several weeks, depending on the importance of the material he found. He could not avoid encountering present-day reality amid his study of the old papers. He wrote to his friend Antoine de Meaux from Troyes, a setting of some of the bloodiest scenes of the Revolution, giving free rein to his disdain for the present and his nostalgia for the Middle Ages. Over the ordinary people there

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rule bloodthirsty schoolteachers, horribly tattooed with “philosophy.” What constitutes the charm of this beautiful countryside is that it was once very civilized in a distant time: The huts of the current dwellers stand amid the ruins of large and flourishing villages—around stunning churches, whose crumbling roofs still nearly shelter stained-glass windows and statues of great value—fortunately ignored by the locals who are all of the cult of their humanitarian god; it’s curious and impressive.84

THE REVOLUTION IN BRITTANY Most of Augustin Cochin’s work was published posthumously. Les Socie´te´s de pense´e et la Re´volution en Bretagne (1925) was probably begun after 1904 and was finished in 1911; it was one of his early works on the Revolution. This unfolding of the local Revolution focused on the question, Who were “the people” whose name justified so many contradictory and horrible actions? The question was as much about revolutionary history as the Revolution itself. The people were typically the hero of the Revolution, in whose name it was made. They were the agents of the Revolution as well as its beneficiaries. The tradition had a long pedigree. The people had always been important to the work of Republican historians, but under the Third Republic they were the heroes of the academic historians, becoming part of the national historical heritage and a form of legitimation for the Revolution. Yet the people were not a later invention of apologists of the Revolution. They were the centerpiece for the Revolutionary orators themselves. For Augustin, the claims put forth about the people and their role in the Revolution were suspect. Thus, any arguments that relied on the people for their justification were not an answer but the source of new questions for Cochin. A good example was the similarities among the cahiers de dole´ances. If the people acted spontaneously in the spring of 1789, they did it in an unbelievably uniform way throughout all of France. Sent from every corner of the nation, the form, content, and vocabulary of the cahiers were remarkably alike. It clearly could not have been the people who knew how to write, who drafted the documents, and who approved them. Therefore, for Augustin, the claims put forward by historians and apologists for the Revolution, that violent excesses were justified because they were a product of the will of the people, were a dead end. Such an abstract justification for the subsequent brutal murders of “counterrevolutionaries,” “aristocrats,” “spies,” and clergy was insufficient. Who decided they were the enemy? Who decided they were to die? How were people led to see their fellow human beings in this way? “To explain 93 by Jacobin ‘Patriotism’ is to explain a mystery by an enigma.”85 These questions were not answerable from the histories of the Revolution of Cochin’s own time. He was influenced by Hippolyte Taine, who saw the Revolution as the outbreak of spontaneous anarchy at the popular level. Private vendetta, social envy, class hatred, anticlericalism, sheer love of violence, and revolutionary ardor were freely mixed

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together for Taine. Taine’s work emphasized that the Revolution was not a matter of Enlightenment ideas or even conscious control. He was trying to account for the bloodlust of mobs, of individuals and, in official form, of government at all levels. But the psychological approach so prominent in Taine was a poor answer for Augustin. Claiming to be the inheritor of the Revolution, the Third Republic justified its actions against Catholics and conservatives in the same terms as the Revolution. But why had revolutions begun only in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries? Any account of the Revolution that was dependent upon an argument of criminality was unhistorical. Neither conservative nor Republican histories offered a solution. Augustin sought another answer to why modern politics worked as it did. In Les Socie´te´s de pense´e et la Re´volution en Bretagne, Augustin took an important step in answering these questions raised by the existence of the Republic and its historian apologists. This at once simple and yet fundamental problem called for a powerful explanatory theory, one that got to the heart of the Revolution. For, by discarding the answer “the people,” Augustin sought an answer to the problem of who wanted the Revolution and who acted to carry it out. He sought the answer in the Revolution’s earliest moments. The theory he chose in his book was that the political “machine” was the center of democratic rule. The inspiration came from his reading on the nature of modern democracies—in this case Britain and the United States—found in Moisei Ostrogorski’s Democracy and the Organization of Political Parties (1902), published in French the following year, and James Bryce’s American Commonwealth (1888). Both studies were groundbreaking. Instead of focusing on formal political institutions, they sought to describe political behavior outside them. Though both Bryce and Ostrogorski were political liberals, their books heralded the end of the liberal dream of the creation of good government through institutional form. Political behavior and organization could subvert any institutional structure, as they showed in their description of the party and of the political machine operating in the mature democracies of the United States and Britain. This was welcome news to a conservative in a Third Republic still nurturing its institutions under the radical coalition government. Unlike Ostrogorski and Bryce, Augustin used the notion of the political machine in a historically backward way to suit his purposes. Ostrogorski’s study showed how American democracy was corrupted by the growth of the political machine in the large cities. The growth of the machine was, in other words, a historical development in an already existing democratic system—a parasite growing within it. In Les Socie´te´s de pense´e et la Re´volution en Bretagne, on the other hand, the political machine was the source and engine of democratic rule. The Revolution, propelled by the Jacobin machine, was impossible without the machine’s power to organize people and issues and to project an ideal of democracy—an ideal that was at the extreme opposite from the way the political machine truly worked. The political machine could work only by being a successful deceiver.

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In Les Socie´te´s de pense´e et la Re´volution en Bretagne, all the pieces were there for Augustin to explain the beginnings of the Revolution in Brittany under the inspiration of Bryce and Ostrogorski. There were the literary societies, the agricultural societies, the patriotic societies, student groups, and Masonic lodges where, from the middle of the century on, the new form of thought was brewed which produced a revolution. This new way of thinking inspired by these new forms of association was centered not on the individual searching for truth, but on a group of individuals agreeing to a common thought. Philosophical societies were democratic groups, based on consensus. Within this new world of consensus politics and ideas (since rank was ignored in this setting) some men became more adept than others in advancing by the dynamics of such a society. These practical and worldly men became the agents of a new kind of society in which, Augustin complained, values were detached from society and rearranged in new and unnatural ways—a stock conservative complaint dating back to Burke. Augustin found in the archives slogans that were still alive: “the people,” that meant a minority of “pures”; “liberty” that was really their tyranny over others; “equality” their privilege; and “truth” their opinion.86 This for Augustin Cochin was the epistemological key to the Revolution. Revolutionary opinion was false opinion. With the power of the political machine, these opinions triumphed at both the local and the national level. Their astounding success was no miracle.87 But the imposed Revolution took several months. In the estates of Brittany the school of direct democracy was first called into session among the nobles, who were a minority in one of the most important philosophical societies, the Freemasons. There were only thirty-six nobles among the 279 masons in the Rennes lodge from 1776 to 1789.88 The nobility was the first body calling for reform in 1788. The exact moment of detachment from the Old Re´gime came in two meetings of the Breton nobility in late June 1788. For the first time, members of an order declared for themselves the right to speak for that Order, from the sole fact of their numbers, and without submitting themselves to established forms. . . . the Constitution is destroyed under the pretext of defending it . . . for the established forms are it [the Constitution], as much against power from below as against authority from above; and the collective absolutism of the people—the revolutionary state—violates them as much as the personal despotism of the prince.89

Yet the same group to first call into question the old order soon lost control of events to the growing power of the Third Estate political machine. The latter, too, grew the familiar appendages of all political machines: strong-arm boys, inner leaders, controlled crowds and riots, correspondence networks, and satellite organizations throughout the countryside and neighboring towns, using “the people” as its legitimation and the ideals of equality, freedom, and individual rights to gain new adherents. Thus the Revolution was a series of dramas, the same story played over again, as the noble machine gave way to the “patriotic” ma-

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chine representing the people. Each step, each machine, had the same form and the same rules, each succeeded by being more radical than its predecessor. Augustin saw this as a nefarious activity, but his work was remarkable for his interest in explaining revolutionary activity as a mechanism. He found at the center of each organization no genius of public politics. The victory of the machine of the Third Estate, “the patriots,” over that of the nobles, called “the bastion,” was above all a process, demanded by the situation: the laws of machine rivalry. Over this social machine human liberty had only the smallest effect; the worthiness of groups or individuals played no part at all.90 He never did focus on the effects of this new form of politics on the individual. Augustin was most fascinated with the “general laws and . . . constant proceedings” of the machine; its “personal and private” action, he wrote, “is out of our reach.”91 Whether he could not or would not deal with this very important issue in this book is not clear. It seems odd in view of his claim that the political machine had power over even intimate personal behavior.92 Les Socie´te´s de pense´e et la Re´volution en Bretagne (begun about 1904 and finished by 1911) was a tour de force. In it Augustin depicted the Revolution as the work of a political machine: led by an obscure leadership, filling the vacuum of a moribund monarchy. The political machine accounted for (1) the suddenness and ubiquity—the spontaneity and the uniformity—of the Revolution’s demands and its activity, (2) the similarity of its local political organizations throughout France, and (3) the progression of purges, which propelled the Revolution to the Left by virtue of the competition between contending groups, strewing about the wreckage of men and political machines throughout the Revolution.93 COCHIN AND DURKHEIM Almost finished with his history of the Revolution in Brittany, Augustin turned out a short polemical piece against the most powerful historian and defender of the Third Republic of his day. La Crise de l’histoire re´volutionnaire: Taine et M. Aulard (1909)94 was the first appearance of Augustin’s mature thought on the Revolution. To Ostrogorski and Bryce, Augustin added, of all thinkers, Durkheim.95 Augustin certainly read Les Re`gles de la me´thode sociologique (1895); it was the only work of Durkheim that Cochin ever mentioned. If Les Re`gles de la me´thode sociologique was not the first contact with Durkheim, it appears to have been the most influential one, for Les Formes e´le´mentaires de la vie religieuse (1912) appeared too late to be of great use to Augustin. Les Re`gles was an important juncture in the development of Durkheim’s thought. In this book Durkheim was in transition between his earlier interest in looking for the most important social facts—those that concerned social cohesion—in the structure of society, and his later attempt at finding them in the ideas and beliefs contained in the consciousness of individuals.96 This halfway point suited Augustin’s purposes perfectly. He had already decided that the

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philosophical societies (socie´te´s de pense´e), wherein the revolutionary impulse grew, organized men in a new way, according to egalitarian principles, with no correspondence to real social differences and distinctions. The machine, product of the philosophical society, was a new social fact of unbridled democratic rule, ultimately reaching everyone. For Augustin it was the creator of the new France first seen in the Revolution. By also allowing for the importance of representations, symbols, and conscious thought, Durkheim in Les Re`gles left a role for language and ideas. Augustin saw it as an unintentional revelation on the part of the enemy why rhetoric about liberty, equality, and fraternity was so vital to the Revolution. The new form of society, democratic society, created its own rhetoric and expanded through that rhetoric. Revolutionary symbols, ideological fervor, and “opinion” took on a life of their own in the right social context. In keeping social morphology and mental content together in Les Re`gles de la me´thode sociologique, Durkheim showed Augustin (if he had not believed it before) that ideas interacted with the new underlying social structure of the Revolution—the philosophical societies—the socie´te´s de pense´e. Not only did the rhetoric not reflect reality; rhetoric and social structure did not reflect each other. Instead, rhetoric deliberately hid the true nature of this new society. This was the source, for Augustin, of the paradoxes of the Revolution: It gave a liberty of enslavement, an equality of terror and confiscation, and a fraternity that excluded almost everyone from true political participation. The Revolution’s manifest content served the ends of its social power. This was why the Revolution’s abstract and absolute doctrines moved to more radical ends until it was overthrown—because it was in such conflict with the real world. Moreover, this ideology could not exist on its own, but survived as long as it did only because the basis of political life was the new social structure—first the philosophical societies, then politicized society as a whole. Durkheim’s sociological method explained events of the nineteenth century. The victory of democratic Republicanism over all other political possibilities coexistent with it since the Revolution presented Augustin with a special problem. How could a conservative explain the ability of Jacobinism, this false construction, to survive and spread? Ostrogorski and Bryce provided the explanation that men were united in political parties and machines, in forms of association different from what had existed before. Durkheim’s work explained to Augustin that Jacobinism survived because it was a wholly new form of society that followed new rules and sustained itself by establishing new forms of truth. It was then not difficult for it to take over old institutions or establish new ones to reinforce its rule. Though he thought this outcome abhorrent, Augustin’s interpretation of Jacobinism gave a theory, and hence greater force, to his alienation from modern French society and his disdain for the Third Republic. In an undated letter from Beauvoir to one of his collaborators, Antoine de Meaux, he wrote of the difficulty of trying to get a friend to appreciate the futility of moral indignation:

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I don’t know how to make him understand that criticism is nothing to modern thought, and our methods: scientific curiosity has to replace moral indignation, judgments of difference, those of value—one must say “new” instead of “dreadful.” . . . Crazy?—But that’s fine: It emphasizes the impersonal force that acts in it, and of which I want to know the secret—the simplest here—and the most useful.97

In the same letter he went on to discuss the need to use Durkheim to analyze the new type of society that was the parent of the Third Republic. Durkheim was one of the new people, a product of the new society. Hence the value of his method: “for these are their methods, those of their great Durkheim—and there is no reason not to apply them to themselves.”98 After all, Durkheim was a powerful professor in the Third Republic, a Jew from Alsace, a friend of Jaure`s, an idealistic socialist concerned for the social cohesiveness of his society in which he believed science and civic morality would replace religion. To Augustin, he was the perfect target and the perfect interpreter because he believed all the illusions of the humanitarian Republic. Durkheim unwittingly gave the explanations for the social facts of democratic societies.99 Durkheim provided the concept of social fact distinct from the consciousness of any individual, observable through a new mode of analysis. The great message of Augustin’s work—using Durkheim—was that the social had the upper hand in the Revolution, that opinion was the foundation of this new—and meaningless—politics. This idea served as the basis for Augustin’s moral critique of the Third Republic. This new morality found truth through consensus, shutting out all other methods. This resulted, inevitably, in the political corruption and financial chicanery inseparable from all public life, but, more important, the moral hollowness and unyielding self-delusion of the Third Republic. By this account, liberalism, the old hope of his father and grandfather, was no longer a hope, but a casualty. Hard at work in the archives at Tours, hunting the secrets of the new France, Augustin wrote to his friend Antoine de Meaux: I find you too hard on this poor old liberalism, so outflanked so overwhelmed. It believed in reason, in discussion, in gentle and honest measures—and the beast [the Revolution] took advantage of that. . . . Comte and Renan made our fathers liberal Christians—you’ll see that Combes and Aulard will make us over-pious. Amen.100

Liberalism, then, was not consubstantial with the Revolution; it was a nineteenth-century phenomenon. The Cochinist Revolution, too, was a bloc, a whole, as he wrote in La Crise de l’histoire re´volutionnaire. From 1788 to 1795 we see a single historical phenomenon with the same principles operating throughout; seventeen-eighty-nineism may be good politics, but according to

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Augustin it was bad history.101 His grandfather and namesake would have never agreed with him. THE CRISIS OF REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY: COCHIN AND AULARD La Crise de l’histoire re´volutionnaire: Taine et M. Aulard (1909) not only marked the first appearance of Augustin’s mature thought on the Revolution, but just as important, it was Augustin’s attack on revolutionary history and its official practitioners.102 In this book of just 100 pages, Augustin compared official history as represented by Alphonse Aulard to the earlier contribution of Hippolyte Taine, and then presented his own version, what he called a “new school” of Revolutionary history. La Crise de l’histoire re´volutionnaire refuted Aulard’s charges against Taine point by point and then described the “sociology of Jacobinism.” This powerful weapon was then turned on Aulard’s Histoire politique de la Re´volution franc¸aise (1901). In La Crise de l’histoire re´volutionnaire Augustin attacked both the leader of the historical establishment of the Third Republic and its method. According to Augustin, Aulard was wrong in criticizing Taine’s scholarship.103After examining the charges of narrowness and factual error Aulard made against Taine, Augustin corrected Aulard. Errors there naturally were in Taine’s history, but it was not a bad record.104 Augustin compared the sources used by Aulard and Taine. Taine cited fifty cartons on the Constituent, Aulard only nine, and Aulard made no use of the cartons he criticized Taine for not using or citing too little;105 Taine sought eyewitness accounts and tried to avoid biased sources; Aulard relied on “patriot” newspapers and official reports, all “public acts of patriotism.”106 His sources were “purged” as much as French society was. The reason for this was simple: Aulard was the historian of the Republican defense, “that is, the restorer of a fiction, formed according to the laws of social propaganda, the opinion of the Little People.”107 Confident of his “scientific” method, Aulard took the enterprise of Republican defense farther than anyone except Louis Blanc, eliminating nothing and purifying everything as part of a single Revolution from 1788 to 1795.108 Everything was justified to the defenders of the Revolution, but never was reason granted to those who opposed it: “Lyon in revolt? Federalism, jealousy of the provinces against Paris. . . . The Vende´e? Fanaticism, royalism, revolt against the draft—but of the violent religious persecution of the preceding months, not a word.”109 Men of the machine, true patriots from all corners of France, called for help because they, the “trues,” admitted they were a minority; “there’s not a city that its Club doesn’t characterize as a Sodom, and on which it doesn’t call down fire from heaven—the revolutionary army and the guillotine,” Augustin noted.110 Taine was not describing France acting out the Revolution, but instead the effects of the philosophical societies turned political machines, according to Augustin. First putting themselves into power in the Revolution, the societies’

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work was still going on in the present, and their defense was precisely what Aulard was about.111 But the difference between the past and the present was immense for Augustin. During the first Revolution it was hard to see what was happening. But no one could claim ignorance under the Third Republic, especially after Waldeck-Rousseau. Today “our generation doesn’t have the same excuse. For ten years it has seen the new regime established in fact as well as in principle; it saw, with the rule of the ‘bloc’ the tyranny of a society replace the conflict of parties, the political practices of the machine replace those of parliament.”112 Taine’s great virtue was that he was continually surprised by the Revolution, not caught in its official defense. Aulard wanted to see it through its principles, keeping his attention focused on the “official facade.”113 Taine the great conservative was the great iconoclast; he wanted to see the Revolution without its principles.114 Taine was Augustin’s hero in this tour de force. Augustin blithely sent copies of his book, with a note, to the victims and heroes of La Crise de l’histoire re´volutionnaire. He planned his attack in collaboration with his new historian acquaintance, Albert Mathiez. Durkheim was mentioned in Mathiez’s review of Aulard’s Taine historien de la Re´volution franc¸aise in 1908 as offering the “new science” that Aulard held up as the ideal for his studies of the Revolution.115 Overall, Augustin’s polemic seemed to have had less effect than he hoped.116 The crisis of Revolutionary history posed by Augustin did not just concern the meaning of the Revolution, but the very means to understand it; it concerned the consciousness of all the defenders of modern, democratic politics. There was little reason to think he could change that. LATER WORK At the appearance of La Crise de l’histoire re´volutionnaire in 1909, Augustin began work on a project for the Socie´te´ d’Histoire Contemporaine. His last historical work was an examination of the Revolution through its messages from the center to the provinces, the “periphery,” deliberately ignoring the Revolutionary government’s rhetoric about itself. Ironically, Augustin’s Les Actes du gouvernement re´volutionnaire was to complement Aulard’s collection of the decrees of the Committee of Public Safety.117 Augustin’s project consisted of an enormous collection of abstracts of the laws of the revolutionary government from the leve´e en masse to Thermidor. The work was posthumously published from 1920 to 1936 in three volumes and a pre´cis, and it was supposed to be even larger. Augustin’s theoretical summary of the Revolution was intended as an appended volume to the laws of the Jacobin machine in situ, reflecting the two sides of its author: Les Actes du gouvernement re´volutionnaire was to be a careful archival excavation followed by a broad theoretical interpretation of direct democratic rule: Jacobinism.118 In the end, these two parts appeared separately. Les Actes du gouvernement re´volutionnaire was important by itself because

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it dealt with law, the standard of the Old Re´gime. For Augustin, law was the great paradox in revolutionary societies.119 Lawlessness in this new society was both there and not there according to Cochin. He had dealt with the question of law before, but the foreword of Les Actes has the most explicit statement of the problem: Thus, in the new city, order is assured—and yet the anarchic principles are safe. Better, order is guaranteed by anarchy itself. The same social phenomenon that produces impossible laws establishes the only power that assures their being carried out.120

Revolutionary societies demanded obedience to laws that surpassed legal forms. Whatever was against the political machine and its spirit, whoever disbelieved in the machine’s legitimacy as representative of the “people,” became criminals and had to be eliminated. “Priests,” “spies,” “aristocrats,” “traitors,” and plain “counterrevolutionaries” were categories that were expanded to include most anyone, yet still fit roles of the Revolutionary drama. The machine and, hence, society, ran on opinion, not law. Because the operative opinion was always shifting—becoming more radical—notions of criminality and law became more bizarre and “unreal.” Thus Augustin constructed a new support for an old criticism of the Revolution. By moving beyond the Tainian notion of criminality, Augustin had constructed a theory to show why law and punishment necessarily took the bloody and erratic courses they did in the Revolution. The preparation of what became three volumes on the operation of the revolutionary government “is going to give me a hell of a lot of work,” Augustin wrote a friend.121 He hoped to have the first volume ready by November 1913 and planned the second volume. But in April 1914 Cochin and Charpentier were still feverishly correcting the proofs for the first volume at Beauvoir.122 While the enforced leisure that recovery from his war wounds gave Augustin more time to work, Les Actes du gouvernement re´volutionnaire was unfinished at his death in July 1916. The family had first Charpentier and then Michel de Bouard, professor of philosophy at the University of Caen and an admirer of Cochin’s work, prepare the collection for publication; when finished, Les Actes du gouvernement re´volutionnaire came to almost 1,800 pages of text. The most complete and compelling summation of Augustin’s mature thought on the Revolution was published separately in 1924 as La Re´volution et la libre pense´e. The subtitle neatly summarized Augustin’s view of the revolutionary government: the socialization of ideas, the socialization of the person, and the socialization of property. Thus he linked the socialism of his day to the confiscatory economy of the mature revolutionary regime. Other striking analyses appeared in a collection published in 1921 as Les Socie´te´s de pense´e et la de´mocratie. These pieces illustrated his interpretation of the Jacobin regime as seen through machine politics and Durkheimian sociology. For Augustin the Revolution was the usurpation and monopolization of public power—hitherto

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held by the Crown—by the new and impersonal force, democratic politics. For Augustin democracy only weakly connoted a special appeal to any particular class or ideal; democratic rule was, rather, presumed to be attractive as a universal social fact and a ubiquitous social force.123 Originally limited to the philosophical societies, democratic thought seized the opportunities for power in the disarray of the king and his ministers, the parlements and the Estates, facing a crisis in the late 1780s. Durkheim legitimated Augustin’s hostility to the socie´te´s de pense´e. Durkheim explained how reality could be shaped and distorted by the new form of social organization and the new vocabulary it engendered. Thus, while at first his analysis drew Augustin to the plot (complot) school of the abbe´ Augustin Barruel, his subsequent work pulled him away from it, as the Revolution became the work of social forces, not the intentions of evil men. The impersonal metaphor of the machine and the cultural effects of democratic society took the place of plots. Society prevailed over the plans of all classes and men.124 Augustin’s revenge on the Revolution came in his depicting it as utterly without heroes, and as a form of false society in power. Intentions and ideas were not its guiding principles. As he had said, the party of illumination was in the dark about itself; in La Crise de l’histoire re´volutionnaire, he depicted it as unable to look upon its own fetishes. Revolutionary society was content to repeat the comforting words of its own orators. This Augustin explicitly interpreted as counsel for discouragement about his family’s place in such a society. Their “poor honest old liberalism,” was simply overwhelmed. Augustin was temperamentally interested in debunking revolutionary hagiography by focusing on the mediocrity of the revolutionary leaders and hence contemporary political and cultural figures. Their shortcomings were evident when they took over in 1788– 1789, and their shortcomings were still evident in the Third Republic. This generated a strong sense of revulsions in Augustin. He wrote his mother a letter criticizing Henri Bergson: But Bergson, there is the enemy against whom papa has so much to say—the head of all the bad tendencies of our generation, modernism, socialism, empiricism—rigidity in politics, uncertainty in science and religion, the opposite of the truth; the man who coined all the slogans of pragmatism: homo faber instead of homo sapiens—industry in place of the idea, machines instead of art, the auto instead of horses, everything one hates first by instinct, then by reason, all the bad currents that come to us from Germany. For that’s their source.125

This included attempts to make Catholicism more up to date with the modern age. As he wrote to her from the provinces about Le Sillon when the papal condemnation appeared, “I detest Le Sillon and I have never taken it back, despite the irascible tone of that letter from the Pope.”126 Yet Augustin also remained a difficult figure to place in the service of the Right. He was saved by his historical sense. On October 16, 1909, in a letter

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to the archivist of the Aube, A. Boutillier du Re´tail, Augustin flatly stated: “The royal lion died as everybody knows—and the ecclesiastical fox is seriously ill.” There was no changing this. Thus he was equally unsentimental about the heated rhetoric of the Right against the Republic: “don’t speak to me of ‘my personal enemy’; it’s as if you spoke to a laboratory worker at the Pasteur Institute about ‘his personal enemy’ the rabies bacillus: it’s grown; it’s observed, it’s not detested . . . my greatest desire is to see it up close.”127 For Augustin, these new means of rallying opinion were but another philosophical society. The new form of organization, the philosophical society, the machine, dominated both the Left and Right. Like his father, he saw few differences among “radicals.” In the modern age, Right and Left were only comforting sentimentalisms. This was one of the reasons for his—and his family’s—disagreement with l’Action Franc¸aise.128 Augustin had written its guiding spirit, Charles Maurras, two letters on the origin of French Masonry during his lifetime. At his death, Augustin was appropriated by l’Action Franc¸aise as a hero.129 But the family objected to this use of his name and his legacy. The abbe´ Ackermann, editor of Les Socie´te´s de pense´e et la Re´volution en Bretagne, wrote to Mme. Denys Cochin reminiscing that Augustin shared his father’s distaste for Maurras’s “materialist doctrine,” a Church without a faith.130 She wrote to Maurras, and her second letter seems to have succeeded. She hurled at him the ultimate Cochinism: Her son believed the Action Franc¸aise was also a philosophical society.131 All parts of the Third Republic were of the new world. During the Separation Crisis, for example, Augustin wrote his sister about his father’s decision to sign a letter to French bishops asking that an effort be made to make the Separation Law work. Augustin, like his father, resented the methods of publicity used by the extremists, and that was why his father decided to not publish the letter. There’s something worse than being beaten, and that’s winning in abandoning your principles; and it’s abandoning your principles to “demonstrate,” to cause an uproar in the newspapers and the streets, to pretend an excitement you don’t really have with an eye to the “effect produced”; those are all the methods of democrats, not Christians.132

Augustin’s letter employs the familiar terms of the Cochin’s detestation of mobilizing public opinion in mass democracies. Their distaste for these new machines of opinion had become the measure of that generations’ sense of self. It was also a measure of the Cochins’ isolation.

NOTES 1. “Il faut venir de Je´rusalem pour ne pas savoir que je suis Parisien.” Victor Bucaille, “Denys Cochin,” Le Correspondant, 287, n.s. 251 (April 10, 1922), pp. 15–32. 2. The results of his elections are as follows:

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6th Legislative (Nov. 1893–April 1898) Denys Cochin elected on the 2nd tour de scrutin: Cochin 3,053; Fre´de´ric Passey 2,512. 7th Legislative (June 1898–March 1902) Denys Cochin elected on the 2nd tour de scrutin: Cochin 4,776; Allou 3,604. 8th Legislative (June 1902–April 1906) Denys Cochin elected on the 1st tour de scrutin: Cochin 7,303; Mare´chal 2,508. 9th Legislative (June 1906–April 1910) Denys Cochin elected; no results given. 10th Legislative (June 1910–April 1914) Denys Cochin elected; no results given. 11th Legislative (June 1914–October 1919) Denys Cochin elected; no results given. SOURCE:

Annales de la Chambre de De´pute´s. De´bats (Paris: Imprimerie des journaux officiels).

3. Robert R. Locke, French Legitimists and the Politics of Moral Order in the Early Third Republic (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974). 4. “Je vous ai dit que ce se´jour a` Versailles m’a fait comprendre la royaute´; il m’a fait aussi aimer la Re´publique. Car d’abord tous les arguments de grand pe`re me prouve a` la rigeur la necessite´, mais jamais la le´gitimite´ d’un roi. Il n’est le´gitime qu’avec le droit divin, et le droit divin est une invention moderne. . . . Ensuite la raison re´pugne trop a` cette fiction d’un eˆtre que la naissance ou le suffrage e´le`vent au dessus de tous les orages: l’histoire de notre sie`cle prouve que cela n’est plus possible. . . . Au fond le changement permanent est plus stable que l’immobilite´.” Denys Cochin to an unknown correspondent, from Versailles, May 1871, in AC, Ga1. 5. “Le droit jouait vraiment un pie`tre roˆle: pique´e des reproches fort justes de M. Thiers, protestant par des cries beˆtes a` chaque moment, enfin votant pout lui en masse et par timidite´ ve´ritable.” Ibid. 6. “e´tonnants de parti pris et de vrai e´troitesse.” Ibid. 7. “j’e´tais candidat aux e´lections le´gislatives dans l’arrondissement de Corbeil. Pourquoi e´tais-je? tous les candidats de´clarent qu’ils ont ce´de´ aux instances de leurs amis. Ce n’e´tait pas du tout mon cas; on ne m’avait adresse´ aucune instance. Mais j’e´tais tre`s jeune, ayant a` peine atteint l’aˆge le´gale des candidats [25], et de´ja` plein d’inimite´ pour le radicalisme. Bref je m’e´tais lance´ gaiement audevant d’un e´chec certain.” Denys Cochin, Quatre franc¸ais (Paris: Hachette, 1912), 98. The article first appeared in Le Correspondant in 1886. 8. Ibid. Denys ran as a candidate supporting the Constitution of the Republic, “aujourd’hui au-dessus des compe´titions, de partis.” Brochure, October 1877, AC, Ga5. 9. “Monarchistes, vous n’allez pas ramener le roi. Bonapartistes, vous ne votez pas pour l’Empire. Re´publicains, vous n’avez pas a` sauver la Re´publique. . . . Le plus grand danger qui menace nos institutions, c’est le de´sordre.” Ibid. 10. “La guerre de 1870 avait amene´ un changement dans le personnel gouvernmental, mais beaucoup moins qu’on ne le pense en ge´ne´ral dans le re´gime politique. Les illusions honneˆtes et libe´rales de l’Assemble´e nationale s’en e´taient alle´es avec elle; et sous d’autres e´tiquettes, beaucoup d’anciens errements du re´gime impe´riale recommence`rent.” Denys Cochin, Louis Philippe d’apre`s les documents ine´dits (Paris: Hachette, 1918), 263. 11. Many of the projects he was assigned to report on were the basis for the articles which, collected, were published as Paris: Quatre anne´es au conseil municipal (Paris: Calmann-Levy, 1885). 12. Election results are in AC, Ga5. On October 4, 1885, he received 87,970 votes,

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but only 29,326 on the second ballot on October 12, placing him fifth, one place behind the successful candidates. 13. “Je reste tout dispose´ a` le faire s’il y a lieu—mais avant tout de´sireux de ne cre´er aucune difficulte´. . . . Au surplus, permettez-moi de vous faire un aveu—Je suis mal pre´pare´ en ce moment de faire une campagne e´lectorale, e´tant profonde´ment afflige´ de ce qui se passe en France.” Denys Cochin to an unknown correspondent, 1888, AC, Ga5. 14. “La Re´publique peut eˆtre moribonde; mais le testament n’est pas pour nous—. Il est pour le troisie`me, larron, que les royalistes ont follement e´quipe´, arme´, franchi sur leurs e´paules, quand il de´pendait d’eux de lui donner un croc en jambes.” Ibid. 15. “Rien, dans tout ce le Prince a e´crit, ne me semble autoriser les meneurs de notre parti a` prendre la direction qu’ils suivaient, et ils ont merite´ un solennel de´saveu.” Extract of the same letter, found in AC, Ga73. Although Denys knew that he would never be part of the Orleanist inner circle, Orleanism remained his ideal. In November 1889, after the Boulangist fiasco, he wrote to the Comtesse de Blacas why he was an Orleanist: “Par une pense´e personnelle. Je savais trop de choses, et j’en ai trop entendu de sa bouche meˆme [comte de Paris] pour espe´rer jamais avoir entre´e dans ses conseils et exercer la moindre influence sur sa politique. . . . Mais on ne sert pas un prince—ou du moins on a rarement cette douceur. On sert une cause,—je ne crois pas a` la Re´publique corrige´e; j’ai trop vu des re´publicains.” Denys Cochin to the Comtesse de Blacas, November 9, 1889, AC, Ga90. 16. “candidat voyageur.” Draft of proclamation in Denys Cochin’s script, January 19, 1889, in AC, Ga5. See articles in La France nouvelle, October 31, 1899, and L’Echo de Paris, November 2, 1899. 17. Cochin almost beat Mermieux and his vote surpassed that of the Republican incumbent. The results of October 6 were Mermieux 5,005; Cochin 4,830; and Fre´bault 4,684. 18. “c’est tout ce que j’ai vu en ’69, et apre`s la guerre avant la Commune pour mon mari. A` la dernie`re heure, L‘Univers d’un ton douleureux, est venu dire que la gloire de Dieu demandait de voter pour M. Mermieux contre mon fils.” Letter Mme. Adeline Cochin to unknown, October 10, 1889, AC, Ga5. 19. Ibid. 20. “Mon pauvre ami, vous eˆtes battu par les Cure´s.” Ibid. 21. “une satisfaction tre`s grand d’avoir soulage´ des causes honneˆtes et de les avoir repre´sente´ un instant avec e´clat.” Ibid. 22. Denys wrote on October 24 that “La verite´, c’est que le Boulangisme a sombre´ dans le ridicule et l’infamie; il est repre´sente´ a` la Chambre par une quarantaine de gaillards dont la bonne moitie´ sont des gens de sac et de corde, et dont les 3/4 seront demain a` l’Extreˆme gauche. Les chefs sont: un vieux communard, un rastaquoue`re, et un soldat de´shonore´.” Letter, Denys Cochin to an unknown correspondent, October 24, 1889. AC, Ga73. 23. “J’ai rec¸u des e´loges de nos adversaires opportunistes ou radicaux . . . pour deux raisons: la premie`re, c’est que j’e´tais aussi nettement qu’eux l’ennemi de´clare´ de boulangisme; la seconde, c’est que restant persuade´ que la prospe´rite´, la liberte´, et le progre`s ne serait de´finitivement assure´s que par la Monarchie, j’e´tais cependant incapable de faire une opposition systematique a` la Re´publique, si je la voyais gouverne´ par des hommes mode´re´s, libe´raux, et inte`gres.” Denys Cochin to an unknown correspondent, October 25, 1889 in AC, Ga89.

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24. Frederick H. Seager, The Boulanger Affair: Political Crossroads of France, 1886 –1889 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1969), p. 258. 25. “Je suis un monarchist libe´ral. J’ai e´te´ tre`s maltraite´ par beaucoup de monarchistes en 1889—et mon enteˆtement a` combattre—avec vous—le boulangisme m’a couˆte´ mon e´lection. Mais le roˆle des hommes politiques qui ont pousse´ le comte de Paris a` la faute et l’ont abandonne´ apre`s la de´faite—le roˆle des revisionnistes d’Octobre 1889 devenus constitutionnels en janvier 1890—m’a si fort de´plu que j’ai resolu de faire le contraire—et de rester fide`le, apre`s m’eˆtre montre´ inde´pendant.” Denys Cochin to Henri Barboux, April 1, 1892, AC, Ga73. 26. As he reflected on his subject’s years under the Revolution, Denys wrote perhaps the definitive expression of his liberalism: “La souverainete´, une, indivisible de la Nation est une invention de sociologues e´tatistes. La liberte´ est un don individuel divisible et multiple, et le Gouvernement repre´sentatif est pour la liberte´ la seule garantie d’existence jusqu’a` present connue. . . . Incalculable le dommage que produisent dans la Nation des partis extreˆmes.” Cochin, Louis Philippe, 94, 103. 27. “La cause de la Monarchie, qui m’e´tait tre`s che`re, a e´te´ perdue en 1889—au moins, bien compromise. Et beaucoup de personnes qui ont pousse´ a` la faute s’acharnent a` en rendre les conse´quences irre´parables. La cause de l’E´glise m’est plus che`re encore et je l’ai servie le mieux que j’ai pu. La voici meˆle´e plus que jamais a` la politique, et a` une politique sans union, pleine de contradictions. Ce n’est pas la peine et la fatigue de la de´faite qui me de´tournent du combat, c’est l’embarras d’y trouver une place.” Denys Cochin to Mgr. Perraud, December 1891, AC, Ga91. 28. This era of good feelings was in large part the result of the new balance of forces produced by the watershed elections of 1893. There were only 76 conservatives left. But 143 radical and 50 socialist deputies were elected to a chamber of 533 members. The governing Republicans were forced to court the Right, which was easier to do since they, for the first time, presented no threat to the Republic. 29. “Je crois que l’opinion franc¸aise: foncie`rement conservatrice, s’est e´gare´ par le fait du de´sire obstine´ de fonder la re´publique, et que la campagne boulangiste a tout confondu, et momentane´ment perdu.” Denys Cochin to Albert de Broglie, August 19, 1897, AC, Ga90. 30. “Seulement, ce mouvement ne profitera pas aux vrais conservateurs. Ce ne sont pas des ide´es libe´rales, le respect des legitimes influences sociales, l’e´conomie et l’ordre dans les finances, le retour a` l’e´ducation chre´tienne du peuple, que nous aura rendu le Ministe`re Me´line. Je n’ai de pareilles illusions mais c’est seulement la se´curite´ pour les rentiers, pour les patrons, pour les compagnies, et peut-eˆtre un peu de prospe´rite´ artificielle pour les agricultures. C’est une me´diocre et bourgeoise re´action.” Ibid. 31. The conservatives, “Confiants en Arme´e, de´voue´s a` la Patrie, estiment que les passions de´chaıˆne´es a` propos du proce`s Dreyfus unissent au respect que notre arme´e et ses chefs me´ritent et me´connaissent le service que chacun de nous doit a` la Patrie. . . . Un jugement a condamne´ un traıˆtre. Ce jugement, disent quelques personnes, n’est point fonde´—qui donc ne souhaiterait pas qu’il fuˆt ainsi? . . . Mais a` ce sujet une cabale se montre contre notre arme´e et ses chefs.” Note in Denys Cochin’s handwriting from a meeting of “De´pute´s de Droit 27 septembre” in AC, Ga5. 32. “J’ai beaucoup de peine, j’en connais, a` m’expliquer la conduite, a` me repre´senter l’e´tat d’esprit de cet officier. Je crois qu’il aura jete´ le trouble sur son pays, en s’attachant a` une mauvaise cause. Car je ne puis admettre que les juges de C de guerre et cinq ministres de la guerre successifs se soient toujours trompe´s dans le meˆme sens,

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ou se soient tous entendus pour e´craser un innocent et nous tromper. L’a-t-il fait since`rement?” Denys Cochin to an unknown correspondent, undated, AC, Ga89. This passage probably refers to the Colonel Picquart’s bringing to light, in March 1896, a message from the German attache´ Colonel Maximillian von Schwarzkoppen to Commandant Walsin Esterhazy. Picquart was struck by the similarity of the handwriting of Esterhazy and the “bordereau” that condemned Dreyfus. On November 1, 1896, Colonel Henry, apparently to exculpate Esterhazy, with whom he presumably was working, produced the torn “Alexandrine” note mentioning Dreyfus by name that Henry claimed to have removed from Schwarzkoppen’s wastebasket. This brought about Picquart’s disgrace; he was removed from his post at the intelligence service on November 14, 1896. These two letters of Cochin’s, then, probably date from late November 1896. About the same time, on November 10, 1896, Le Matin published facsimiles of the handwriting of the “bordereau” with that of Dreyfus and Esterhazy. This no doubt raised questions in Denys Cochin’s mind. Clearly in November 1896 Denys Cochin expressed doubt about why Picquart had worked so hard to show Dreyfus innocent; he was also in doubt about the propriety of Dreyfus’s conviction and the validity of the “Alexandrine” note of Henry. He was not alone among those on the Center and the Right. See Jacques Chastenet, Histoire de la troisie`me Re´publique, vol. 3, La Re´publique triomphante 1893–1906 (Paris: Hachette, 1955), 105–7. 33. According to Jean-Denis Bre´din, The Affair: The Case of Alfred Dreyfus, trans. Jeffery Mehlman (New York: Braziller, 1983, 1986), 582, only twenty-six members opposed the rehabilitation of Picquart. 34. “les imbe´ciles, les inconscients, les fous ou les mise´rables criminels qui ont tout fait pour e´touffer la voix de la ve´rite´.” Joseph Reinach, Histoire de l’affaire Dreyfus, vol. 6, La Revision (Paris: Charpentier et Fasquelle, 1908), 498. 35. “Il avait traverse´ l’Affaire sans s’e´mouvoir ni s’irriter, trop intelligent de beaucoup pour croire Dreyfus coupable et Esterhazy innocent, mais prisonnier de son parti et ayant, lui aussi, quand la politique s’en meˆlait, de l’esprit a` la place du coeur. C’e´tait la premie`re fois qu’il parlait de l’Affaire a` la tribune. . . .” Ibid., 490. 36. “ferait bien mieux de faire ensemble leur examen de conscience.” Reinach, Ibid., 491. 37. “ils e´taient des voˆtres, des re´publicains e´prouve´s, vos camarades de groupes, vos colle`gues de ministe`re.” Ibid. 38. “de´plore´es, excuse´es comme elles peuvent l’eˆtre par un entraıˆnement de l’esprit de corps, par l’habitude de la discipline.” Ibid. 39. Reinach continued: “Il dit, et c’e´tait certainement la ve´rite´, que le jour ou` il avait appris l’arrestation d’un officier israe´lite pour trahison, il avait e´prouve´ ‘une crainte profonde’, pre´vu le dechaıˆnement des passions, et tout redoute de la ‘terrible’ affaire.” Ibid. 40. The great example is Me´line’s attempt in December 1897 to end discussion of the case by announcing “There is no Dreyfus Affair.” The Chamber of Deputies voted overwhelmingly (484 to 18) to affirm the judgment. E´mile Simond, Histoire de la Troisie`me Re´publique de 1897 a` 1899, vol. 3, Pre´sidence de M. Fe´lix Faure (Paris: ChaillisLavauzelle, 1921), 95–96. 41. “Le crime! Vous voulez absolument un crime! On a torture´ expre`s un Juif, parce que juif, par fanatisme religieux! C ¸ a ne se soutient pas un instant. . . . Et qui serait les fanatiques? Mercur, Billot, Krantz, Cavaignac—dont pas un n’e´tait religieux.” Denys Cochin to an unknown correspondent 1911 in AC, Ga89.

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42. “Ajoutez que votre he´ros qui a trouve´ tant de de´fenseurs n’a pas d’amis. Clemenceau m’a dit l’anne´e dernie`re ‘Il est innocent, mais cette canaille-la` ne mettra pas, je vous l’assure, les pieds chez moi. C’est un sale juif!’ Oui, Clemenceau.” Ibid. 43. “Je puis vous assurer que celui la` n’est pas catholique.” Ibid. 44. “J’ai toujours en cette affaire se´pare´ la question Dreyfus de la campagne Dreyfusarde—La premie`re est une question de fait et de droit. Il est possible qu’une erreur judiciaire ait e´te´ commis, et nous devons, nous qui ne sont ni juges ni renseigne´s, respecter les jugements.” Ibid. 45. “tant mieux, diraient tous les franc¸ais, s’il n’y avait pas eu la campagne Dreyfusard, machine de guerre contre ‘la Re´action.’ ” Ibid. 46. “malgre´ le chagrin que j’ai de voir des gens ne pas croire ce que [je] crois eˆtre le vrai, le bien, la dignite´ et la consolation de la vie—l’ide´e ne me viendrait jamais de commettre contre eux des crimes. . . . je ne menac¸erai pas des baı¨onnettes et des balles de troupe (le sang coule probablement aujourd’hui en Bretagne)—des parents veulent e´le´ver leurs enfants a` leur guise—fussent-ils juifs et franc-mac¸ons—C’est une rage extraordinaire. . . . La violence, la beˆtise du ministe`re Combes sont blaˆme´es meˆme dans son parti, meˆme a` ma connaissance, par des membres du Ministe`re.” Denys Cochin to son Jean, August 1902, AC, Ga91. 47. “Je ne crois pas eˆtre ‘fanatique’ et quoique tout ce que j’ai lu de philosophie ne m’avait point de´tourne´, loin de la`, de mes ide´es chre´tiennes, je comprends qu’on ne les ait pas, et il faut d’abord eˆtre since`re. Mais ce que je ne comprends pas, c’est que des gens qui cherchent ailleurs une re`gle morale et une explication de notre obscure destine´e, se retournent contre les oeuvres de charite´, et d’instruction chre´tiennes, et les perse´cutent. . . . Mais voila` que mes discours me reviennent!” Denys Cochin to son Jean, May 10, 1903, AC, Ga91. 48. “ente`rent solennellement dans la salle du banquet, magnifiquement illumine´e et pre´pare´ pour trois cent convives, la musique de la garde re´publicaine e´tonna la Marseillaise. . . . “Au milieu de la fume´e et du bruit, aveugle´ par la lumie`re e´lectrique, e´tourdi par les conversations bruyantes, le hourras de la foule inondant la place et l’avenue Victoria . . . nous avons comtemple´ cet ave`nement de la de´mocratie, maıˆtresse des salons inacheve´s de l’Hoˆtel de Ville. Nous l’avons contemple´, non pas salue´.” Denys Cochin, Quatre anne´es au conseil municipal, xv–xvi. 49. “Cet homme politique e´tait le he´ros de la feˆte, le triomphateur de ce jour me´morable. Le bourgeois de´magogue a supplante´ de notre temps son aıˆne´, l’ancien bourgeois libe´ral: celui-ci recevait un sabre pour de´fendre nos institutions et au besoin pour les renverser; celui-la` tient un chapeau qu’il enfonce devant les empereurs mais qu’il oˆte devant la foule; et, fide`le a` cette capricieuse et brutale souveraine, il professe pour elle un invariable enthousiasme, soit qu’elle inauge`re l’Hoˆtel de Ville, soit qu’elle ait la fantasie de l’envahir.” Ibid., xvi–xvii. 50. “Or, eˆtes-vous suˆrs,—eˆtes-vous tous bien suˆrs, messieurs . . . eˆtes-vous bien suˆrs d’entreprendre une oeuvre juste et utile en essayant par tous les moyens—car le Gouvernement de votre choix use tous les moyens—d’arracher l’ide´e chre´tienne de ce pays, dont le fondement, l’histoire, les traditions sont chre´tiennes? Eˆtes-vous bien suˆrs que cette guerre que vous faites a` l’ide´e chre´tienne soit une bonne oeuvre?” Archives Parlementaires. Chambre des De´pute´s, July 4, 1902. 51. “et c’est pourquoi je n’aime pas la Re´publique, qui le pratique si mal.” Denys Cochin, “Impressions sur la Chambre,” September 1897, AC, Ga73.

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52. “Le monde mate´riel est bien amusant a` regarder et a` e´tudier. . . . Les affaires sont amusant aussi: non pas en elles meˆmes; mais parce qu’elles font voir les hommes. C’est a` la lueur de l’argent que les visages humaines s’e´clairent. . . . Ce qui est agac¸ante, c’est de rencontrer quelquefois des coqueries parmi les gens qui font profession de la vertu parfaite et exclusive; et des imbe´ciles parmi les gens qui croient posse´der le monopole de la science et porter le flambeau de la civilisation.” Denys Cochin to Mme. Adeline Cochin, June 29, 1880, AC, Ga91. 53. “On a bien tort de parler des ide´es des intransigeants de droite ou de gauche. Ils sont plus rapproche´s les uns des autres qu’ils ne pensent. Ils n’ont point d’ide´es. . . . L’intransigeance n’est pas une doctrine: c’est un tempe´rament. Tempe´rament d’autant plus exalte´ que la doctrine est plus nulle. . . . on ne sait pas reculer, et on de´fend quoi? Un ballon vide qui ne fait envie de personne.” Denys Cochin to [Thomas?] Charpentier, September 8, 1881, AC, Ga91. 54. “Qu’elle rassure les bourgeois lesquels commencent a` fuir. Ils sont la richesse et son aˆme, au fond. . . . Enfin qu’elle ne nous fabrique pas une jeunesse uniforme, une triste jeunesse sceptique et pre´tentieuse. . . . Nous avons une pense´e commune, contre une majorite´ he´te´roclite. Imitons . . . l’union libe´rale de la fin de l’Empire.” Denys Cochin to Alexandre Ribot, July 20, 1901, AC, Ga73. 55. Jean-Marie Mayeur and Madeleine Rebe´rioux, The Third Republic from Its Origins to the Great War, 1871–1914, trans. J. R. Foster (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; and Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 1984), 36–41. 56. “Je ne suis plus du parti. Je salue ma patrie sous la Re´publique comme j’aurais salue´ ma Me`re, si je l’avais rencontre´e en haillons. J’accepte cette fatalite´ aussi since`rement que vous quoiqu’avec plus de chagrin.” Denys Cochin to Aynard, 1902, AC, Ga73. 57. “En politique la droite reprendra sa place quand elle aura de nouveau convaincu le pays qu’elle seule est vraiment, suˆrement conservatrice. Elle a perdu sa confiance en flirtant avec la Re´publique, avec le socialisme catholique, avec le boulangisme. Une droite conservatrice, marchant au nom des ide´es, sans lien meˆme momentaire avec les partis ministeriels et de´daignant de tre`s loin leurs combinaisons—voila` ce que nous revons d’eˆtre et permettez moi de vous dire ce que nous sommes.” Denys Cochin, “Profession de foi politique,” n.d., AC, Ga89. 58. “faire des routes, les balayer, y maintenir l’ordre, et veiller sur nos frontie`res.” Denys Cochin, to “M. le Pre´sident,” n.d., prob. 1902, AC, Ga68. 59. “se reunissent comme il leur plaıˆt, en des E´glises ou en des E´coles philosophiques. Le progre`s c’est la liberte´ de prier ou de penser comme on veut.” Ibid. 60. “La Re´volution a eu deux phases bien distinct. Fille de Descartes, individualiste, libe´rale avec Mirabeau. Fille de Rousseau, avec Robespierre, et finalement Napoleon quand la “Volonte´ ge´ne´ral” dans la Socie´te´ une et indivisible e´touffe toutes les volonte´s particulie`res. Re´publique ou Monarchie impartent peu la` dedans: Hobbes pour exprimer la volonte´ ge´ne´rale admet une assemble´e . . . et Rousseau admet un roi. L’importance c’est l’abdication de l’individu, par Covenant ou par Contrat. Consentement disait l’autre jour Bourgeois.” Denys Cochin to an unknown correspondent, July 12, 1915, AC, Ga89. 61. “La Re´publique devient de jour en jour plus monstrueuse, plus paradoxale: l’e´tat est tout: il absorbe le dixie`me des citoyens dans ses fonctions, le tiers du revenu dans son budget. Et le gouvernement n’est rien—le corps e´norme n’a pas de teˆte. La discussion parlementaire n’est plus un conflit d’ide´es; personne n’en a, et en ve´rite´ on cherche

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un vrai, un since`re re´publicain pour lui serrer la main.” Denys Cochin, “Profession de foi politique,” n.d., AC, Ga89. 62. “c’est un jeu de tiens toi bien, une partie lie´e entre des coteries. On pousse les pions a` droite ou a` gauche, suivant les re`gles de l’art. . . . Et pour un pion pousse´e en avant, une carte jete´ par ces funestes joueurs, des industries seront ruine´s, des familles de´truites, des ge´ne´rations e´leve´es dans l’impie´te´.” Denys Cochin, “Profession de foi politique,” n.d., AC, Ga89. 63. “L’E´tatisme et le socialisme sont les seuls syste`mes en progre`s, en voie de re´alisation.” Denys Cochin to an unknown, correspondent, 1913, AC, Ga69. Cochin in 1914 could not believe that the larger powers would become involved in the conflict between the smaller states at any price; they would rather go broke making cannons than fire a single one, he thought. Denys Cochin to his wife, “July 1914” and “1914,” AC, Ga91. 64. “Je suis tout preˆt a` donner mon coeur a` la Re´publique quand elle aura battu l’Imperialisme allemand et en sera gue´rie chez elle.” Denys Cochin to Henry FranklinBouillon (1870–1937), deputy from Corbeil, 1915, AC, Ga73. 65. Early in his career he wrote to his friend Henri Barboux (1834–1910): “J’ai horreur du socialisme d’e´tat, meˆme chre´tien pre´concise´ par Albert de Mun. Je crois cependant que l’E´glise et ses preˆtres ont le droit de parler de la question sociale—non pour proˆner des syste`mes—mais pour rappeler des devoirs. Moins la loi sera tyrannique, moins l’E´tat se meˆlera des rapports entre patrons et ouvriers, moins il prendra la gouverne des premiers et la tutelle des seconds et plus il sera bon de rappeler a` des hommes libres les obligations de la fraternite´ humaine et de la charite´.” Denys Cochin to Barboux, April 1, 1892, AC, Ga73. Denys supported workers’ insurance, for example, though he preferred a maximum single payment. AC, Ga6. 66. Election brochure, April 24, 1910, AC, Ga16. 67. “ayons soin de rester un pays libre. La guerre nous servira a` cela. L’E´tatisme allemand nous envahissait plus encore que la camelote allemande. Regardons toujours la Socie´te´ comme une collection d’eˆtres inde´pendants . . . et non comme un eˆtre collectif, le Leviathan social, invente´ par Thomas Hobbes. . . . Ces ide´es-la` sont devenues allemandes, comme la plupart des choses en Allemagne, par importation, quand Fichte, hurlant d’admiration sous la botte de Napoleon, eut delaye´ en fastidieuses conferences la pense´e: Essayons d’en faire autant.” Denys Cochin to Henry Franklin-Bouillon (1870–1937), deputy from Corbeil, 1915, AC, Ga73. 68. A detailed account of Denys’s activities building an economic blockade against Germany is found in Marjorie Milbank Farrar, Conflict and Compromise: The Strategy, Politics and Diplomacy of the French Blockade, 1914–1918 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974). 69. “1. Amour propre et inte´reˆt personnel . . . en de pareil temps. 2. Conviction que le blocus est notre meilleure arme; sentiment d’y avoir contribue´ beaucoup. . . . 3. Garder un lien—si faible que soit le fil—avec les Catholiques et l’E´glise.” Denys Cochin to Jean Cochin, December 1916, AC, Ga90. 70. Ibid. 71. Denys encouraged his friend the comte de Las Cases (1854–1934) to accept his post. But after hesitating, Las Cases refused, fearing this would show a break of Catholic unity. Albert de Me´tin (1871–1918) succeeded Denys on August 17. Ribot’s government fell soon after. Denys’s office had recruited young men of talent who later played important roles in French political life: Lasterie, Contenson, Alicot, Montardy, and Victor

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Bucaille. Lasterie gave the true reason Denys quit: a lack of conservative representation in the “radical socialist” government—a reason muted by the wartime censor. AC, Ga47. 72. “J’e´tais peu enthusiaste de la Re´publique il y a 10 ans: comment ne pas la reconnaıˆtre et meˆme l’acclamer maintenant qu’elle a reconquis l’Alsace?” Denys Cochin to Maurice Barre`s, September 29, 1919. 73. “Aujourd’hui je ne veux plus marcher, pas plus que je n’ai marche´ dans le boulangisme. Je ne crois pas aux ‘marches paralle`les,’ aux embrassements hypocrites.” Denys Cochin to Briand, October 12, 1919, AC, Ga89. 74. “Je vois a` ma droite (est-ce bien a` droite?) des disciples de Cassagnac, et de Drumont, qui m’ont tant injure´ jadis pour avoir soutenu Me´line, et non Boulanger: ceuxla` vont encore crier: Vive la re´vision! Moi, non; et en ce temps trouble´, cent fois non.” Denys Cochin to Franc¸ois Arago, n. d., among papers dated 1920, AC, Ga6. 75. “vos vues, je le sens, sont celles du groupe, et sont en ce moment si graves, en de´saccord avec les miennes. . . . Je ne suis pas d’accord, voila` tout. Et je vais finir ma carrie`re sans eˆtre d’aucun groupe, mais avec beaucoup d’attachement, et bons services rendus je l’espe`re, a` la Droite.” Denys Cochin to Delahaye, May 16, 1919, AC, Ga6. 76. Franc¸ois Furet, “Augustin Cochin: La The´orie du Jacobinisme,” in Penser la Re´volution franc¸aise (Paris: E´ditions Gallimard, 1978), 212–59. Translated into English as “Augustin Cochin: The Theory of Jacobinism,” in Interpreting the French Revolution, trans. Elborg Forster (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Paris: E´ditions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 1981), 164–204. 77. Claude Cochin (1883–1918), however, a Chartiste as was Augustin, briefly served in the National Assembly from Dunkerque, inheriting his father Henry’s seat representing the Nord. 78. The most comprehensive work on Augustin Cochin is Fred E. Schrader, Augustin Cochin et la Re´publique franc¸aise, translated from the German Marie Claude Auger (Paris: E´ditions du Seuil, 1992). 79. Furet, 193. 80. An appreciation of Claude was published as “Sur la tombe d’un ami,” by Gabriel de Mun, Le Correspondant, March 25, 1920, pp. 1106–12. 81. “ce me´tier un peu auste`re au de´but.” Augustin Cochin to Henry Cochin, January 6, 1899, in Antoine de Meaux, Augustin Cochin et la Gene`se de la Re´volution (Paris: Plon, 1928), 196. 82. The idea that this first work shared themes with his later work is not the opinion of all of Augustin Cochin’s biographers. See Fre´de´ric Chassagne, La Pense´e d’Augustin Cochin (University of Paris, 1980). 83. Augustin admired how in the seventeenth century battles took place within institutions: “Au moyen aˆge on se faisait moins de mal mais bien plus de fracas. Au 17e les re`gles du jeu se sont complique´s . . . au lieu de se passer au ciel ouvert et librement, la bataille se livre dans un labyrinthe de lois et d’institutions que les deux adversaires sont oblige´s de respecter et de tourner.” Augustin Cochin to Mme. Denys Cochin, 1902, AC, Ha 6. He wrote regularly to his mother while working in the Protestant Archives in the south. Augustin praised the treatment he received by the Protestant pastors; he was given material unread for two hundred years. He asked in a letter to his mother: “Que faudra-t-il faire pour remercier tant de graces!” More important was his growing interest and excitement for his often tedious profession: “on est toujours d’ailleurs entre la crainte de perdre son temps et celle de ne´gliger le de´tail qui fera jaillir le trait de lumie`re—car c’est jusqu’aux de´tails qu’il faut aller pour prendre les injustices et les

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perse´cutions sur le fait. . . . Je sais bien qu’il ne faut pas se perdre dans l’e´rudition—je fais tout ce que je peux pour e´viter le ‘document curieux’ et pour me mettre au fait de ce qui est le plus ge´ne´ral et le plus ordinaire—mais on a bien de la peine a` rester dans la juste mesure et on va comme un homme ivre entre les de´tails et les ide´es.” Augustin Cochin to Mme. Denys Cochin, 1902, AC, Ha 6. 84. “sur lesquels regnent des instituteurs sanguinaires, horriblement tatoue´ de ‘philosophie.’ Ce qui fait la charme me´lancholique de ce beau pays, c’est qu’il a e´te´ tre`s civilise´ a` une e´poche ancienne: les cases des habitants actuels s’e´le`vent au milieu des ruines de grands et de florissants villages—autour d’e´glises ravissantes, dont les toits de´fonce´s abritent encore a` peu pre`s des vitreaux et des statues de grande valeur— ignore´es heureusement des indige`nes qui sont tout au culte de leur grigris humanitaire; c’est curieux et impressionant.” Augustin Cochin to Antoine de Meaux, undated, AC, Ha6. In September 1905, he wrote to his mother: “Les gens sont les plus aimables, sans doute par crainte instinctive de l’intellectuel, en ces temps de combisme, et a` cause de la grande entreprise historique d’Aulard.” Augustin Cochin to Mme. Denys Cochin, September 1905, AC, Ha6). He followed his father’s speeches in the local newspapers. Augustin and Charpentier usually stayed at a local hotel. But the son of a member of the National Assembly was a local celebrity, and he was sometimes a guest at private homes for dinner. By the summer of 1911 this routine was continued through a radical innovation: He bought an automobile. He or the two of them eventually returned, usually to Beauvoir, to arrange their material, to rest, to hunt, to write, and to plan the next circuit. Cochin usually wrote at home, in his study on the mezzanine of the family’s home on rue de Babylone. Only his closest friends were permitted to disturb him at work there. Although he spent long hours at it, he rarely talked about his historical work. 85. “Expliquer 93 par le ‘Patriotisme’ jacobin, c’est encore expliquer un myste`re par une e´nigme.” Augustin Cochin, Les Socie´te´s de pense´e et la de´mocratie (Paris: PlonNourrit, 1921), 295. 86. Augustin Cochin, Les Socie´te´s de pense´e et la Re´volution en Bretagne (1788– 1789) (Paris: Libraire Plon, 1925), 1: 4. 87. One saw “sans cesse le me´canisme le plus centralise´, plus isole´e de la re´alite´, plus solidement rattache´ a` des Socie´te´s secre`tes. De la`, une raison de plus de se me´fier des soi-disants mouvements d’opinion qui agite`rent le pays a` ce moment, et d’expliquer l’e´tonnant progre`s du patriotisme par des causes fort simples et fort naturelles, qui ne supposent ni un miracle, ni l’intervention du Deus ex Machina de la pie´te´ re´volutionnaire.” Ibid., 38. 88. Ibid., 41. 89. “Pour la premie`re fois, les membres d’un ordre s’arrogent le droit de parler au nom de cet Ordre, du seul fait de leur nombre, et sans se soumettre aux formes e´tablies . . . car les formes e´tablies le sont, autant contre le pouvoir d’en bas que contre l’autorite´ d’en haut; et l’absolutisme collectif du peuple—l’e´tat re´volutionnaire—les viole aussi bien que le despotisme personnel du prince.” Ibid., 111, 112. 90. “Ici encore, nous prenons sur le fait l’engrenage fatal des lois de la Machine, ou` la liberte´ humaine a si peu de part: les situations sont tout, se commandent et s’enchaıˆnent l’une l’autre, les personnes, rien. La ruine du [noble] Bastion est aussi peu le fait des Bastionnaires que son succe`s, et le meme sort attend les vainqueurs, et apre`s eux toutes les e´quipes sociales, et tous les programmes philosophiques, depuis

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d’Epremesnil jusqu’a` Danton. Les e´tapes du ‘progre`s des Lumie`res’ sont toutes pareilles.” Ibid., 204. 91. Ibid., 121–22. 92. “le plus merveilleux instrument de prestige et d’oppression: car elle posse`de, comme toute Socie´te´ puissante, le moyen de tromper l’opinion en masse, a` tous les de´gres, depuis l’erreur mate´rielle—la fausse nouvelle, jusqu’a` la de´formation morale— l’enthusiasme re´volutionnaire, produit du Travail social; et en meˆme temps elle a le moyen de rechercher, et le droit reconnu de de´noncer comme des crimes de le`se-patrie les moindres velle´ite´s de de´sobe´issance a` cette fausse opinion.” Ibid., 121. In spite of the note of the compiler—whose initials A. A. are those of abbe´ Augustin Ackermann— that Cochin planned to use La Re´volution et la libre pense´e as the preface to his history of the Revolution in Brittany, there is little evidence that that was the case. La Re´volution et la libre pense´e is a theoretical piece heavily indebted to Emile Durkheim. In Les socie´te´s de pense´e et la Re´volution en Bretagne, Bryce was probably used and Ostrogorski is mentioned (vol. 1, p. 17), but there is not a word about Durkheim, even concerning the social effect of the machine, where we would most expect it. 93. James Bryce, The American Commonwealth (New York: Macmillan, 1888), 2: 535–36, and Moise Ostrogorski, Democracy and the Organization of Political Parties, vol. 2, edited and abridged by Seymour Martin Lipset (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1964, 1982), 193–94 and 215–16, discuss the creation and permanence of machines in a democracy. 94. Augustin Cochin, La Crise de l’histoire re´volutionnaire: Taine et M. Aulard, 2d ed. (Paris: Champion, 1909). 95. The most intriguing questions raised by Augustin Cochin’s work on the French Revolution are not easily answered. The Cochin archive is almost completely silent on the origins of Augustin Cochin’s thought during the crucial years of its formation. Members of the family left no record. His occasional collaborators leave the impression that they knew little of what happened. The accounts left by two of Cochin’s part-time collaborators are vague: One said little about it (Frederic Chassagne, La Pense´e d’Augustin Cochin); the other wrote only that Augustin began work on the Revolution at the age of 23, and nothing else (Antoine de Meaux, Augustin Cochin et la Gene`se de la Re´volution, i–ix). Cochin never met Durkheim, who arrived at the Sorbonne in 1902, just as Cochin left the E´cole des Chartes. Augustin did not refer to any work by Durkheim, except once in La Crise de l’histoire re´volutionnaire: Taine et M. Aulard (p. 56). Augustin Cochin may have come into contact with Durkheim’s work either by hearing of it from friends and acquaintances or through his father. Denys Cochin was an avid reader and book buyer, and his broad interests may have been the first source of Durkheim. It is intiguing to imagine that the father knew of Durkheim through Jaure`s, his colleague in the Chamber of Deputies. It may be that 1908 was a pivotal year for the introduction of Durkheim into his thought. In the winter of 1908, while working on La Crise de l’histoire contemporaine, Augustin wrote to his friend Magdelaine de Bourmont about his labors. His letter sounds as though his problems with his work came not from his critique of Aulard, but from the new sociological terrain he had uncovered: “c’est un travail infernal—excitant parce que je suis suˆr maintenant que je tiens quelquechose de gros, et par le bon bout—mais je suis tout seul—a` peine qques amis comme La Combe, Goyeau, les deux Charles qui voient ou` cela va, pas un qui m’aide—et l’entreprise est audessus de mes moyens. J’avance, c’est certain, de semaine en semaine—mais il y a toujours du chemin devant

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moi . . . Et pourtant l’ide´e qui est au fond est toute simple” (Augustin Cochin to Magdeleine de Bourmont, 1908, AC, Ha6). In 1912 Durkheim published Les Formes e´le´mentaires de la vie religieuse. Both Denys and Augustin devoured this latest word from the enemy. Their copy, still in the Cochin library, contains marginalia of both Denys and Augustin and is marked in no less than three colors of pencil and a pen. To Catholics struggling to maintain a place for Catholicism in French society, the book’s “sociologizing” of religion must have explained a great deal. Les Formes appeared too late to have a profound effect on Augustin. He had already incorporated the sociological viewpoint and its vocabulary and had applied Durkheim to the phenomenon of Jacobinism. Its treatment and subject matter emphasized what Augustin had already said elsewhere about the nature of Jacobinism. Durkheim’s description of religion as making and remaking the soul of the collectivity and the individual gave Augustin another explanation for the continuance and expansion of revolutionary ideals and more particularly for the inevitability of a revolutionary cult. Yet he never abandoned, as Durkheim did, the importance of morphology. Finally, by drawing his examples from “primitive” tribes of Australia, Durkheim gave Augustin new support for his notion that Jacobinism was a cultural crudity, a falling away from the more sublime societies of medieval Europe or the Old Regime. 96. Steven Lukes, E´mile Durkheim, His Life and Work (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), 226–36. 97. “Je ne sais pas comment faire comprendre que cette critique la` ne vaut plus devant la pense´e moderne, et nos me´thodes: il faut que la curiosite´ scientifique remplace l’indignation morale, les jugements de diffe´rence, ceux de valeur—il faut dire “nouveau” au lieu de “Maurais.” . . . Idiot?—Mais tant mieux: il n’en exprimera que mieux la force impersonnelle qui agit en lui, et dont je veux savoir le secret—le plus beˆte ici—et le plus utile.” Augustin Cochin to Antoine de Meaux, undated, AC, Ha6. 98. “car ce sont la` leurs me´thodes, celles de leur grand Durkheim—et il n’y a pas de raison de ne pas la leur appliquer a` eux-meˆmes.” Ibid. 99. Durkheim never dealt in any detailed way with the subject of democracy. His work is devoid of explicitly political terms, of course. Modernization in La Division du travail social is equated with the increasing division of labor and specialization of social functions. The most evidently divisive force within a national unit—politics—was taboo. 100. “Je trouve que vous eˆtes bien se´ve`re pour ce pauvre vieux libe´ralisme, si de´borde´ si e´perdu. Il a cru a` la raison, a` la discussion, aux moyens doux et honneˆtes—et la beˆte en a profite´ . . . Comte et Renan ont fait de nos pe`res des chre´tiens libe´raux—vous verrez que Combes et Aulard feront de nous des de´vots. Amen.” Augustin Cochin to Antoine de Meaux, undated, AC, Ha6. 101. “Il est clair en effet, pour qui juge d’apre`s les textes et non d’apre`s des raisons de sentiment, qu’on est en pre´sence d’un seul et meˆme phe´nome`ne historique, de 1788 a` 1795. Ce sont, d’un bout a` l’autre, les meˆmes principes, le meˆme langage, les meˆmes moyens . . . Le ‘quatre-vingt-neuvisme’ est une position sage peut-eˆtre en politique, inde´fendable en histoire” La Crise de l’histoire re´volutionnaire, 93. 102. “Here it is already several weeks that I have been searching for fleas on Aulard,” he wrote to his friend Bernard de Lacombe. “And I have found some.” The result was La Crise de l’histoire re´volutionnaire: Taine et M. Aulard (Paris: Champion, 1909). The work was quickly followed by a second edition. It also appeared in two parts in modified form in Le Correspondant 234 (n.s. 198), no. 6 (March 25, 1909), pp. 1093–1116, and 235 (n.s. 199), no. 1 (April 10, 1909), pp. 53–79. Le Correspondant’s version may have

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been an earlier one, for it did not include the most important theoretical section, “La Sociologie du Jacobinisme.” 103. Aulard claimed in his Taine historien de la Re´volution franc¸aise: “Ce qui surtout fait impression en faveur de Taine historien, . . . c’est l’appareil d’e´rudition, re´fere´nces, cote d’archives.” A. Aulard, Taine historien de la Re´volution francaise (Paris: Armand Colin, 1907), ix. 104. “Re´sumons cet inventaire: sur plus de 550 re´fe´rences donne´es dans les 140 pages de l’Anarchie spontane´e. M. Aulard rele`ve 28 erreurs mate´rielles, qu’il faut reduire a` 15, 6 erreurs de copie, 4 erreurs de pages, 2 de dates, 3 coquilles de imprimerie— moyenne honorable en somme, et que M. Aulard lui-meˆme, au moins dans son livre sur Taine, est fort loin d’atteindre, puisqu’il se trompe, dans ses rectifications, a` peu pre`s une fois sur deux.” Augustin Cochin, Crise de l’histoire re´volutionnaire, 16. 105. Ibid., 22. 106. “actes publics du patriotisme.” Ibid., 68. 107. “c’est a` dire, le restaurateur d’une fiction, forme´e selon des lois de la propagande sociale, de l’opinion du Petit Peuple.” Ibid., 90. 108. Ibid., 92–93. 109. “Lyon se re´volte? Fe´de´ralisme, jalousie de la province contre Paris . . . La Vende´e? Fanatisme, royalisme, re´volte contre la conscription—mais de la violente perse´cution religieuse des mois pre´ce´dents, pas un mot.” Ibid., 88. 110. “pas une ville que son Club ne de´peigne comme une Sodome, et sur laquelle il n’appelle le feu du ciel—l’arme´e re´volutionnaire et le guillotine.” Ibid., 45. 111. “C’est l’organisation Jacobine, ou si l’on veut le ‘Caucus’ de Birmingham, la ‘Machine’ ame´ricaine, notre Grand-Orient, nos cercles d’Union re´publicaine, notre C.G.T., ou telle autre socie´te´ d’e´gaux, philosophique, politique, ouvrie`re, appliquant dans son sein, a` un peuple d’adeptes, les principes de la de´mocratie pure, comme la Socie´te´ jacobine pre´tendit les appliquer a` la France entie`re en 1793.” Ibid., 36. 112. “notre ge´ne´ration n’a pas la meˆme excuse. Depuis dix ans, elle a vu se fonder le re´gime nouveau, en fait comme en droit; elle a vu, avec le re`gne du ‘bloc,’ la tyrannie d’une socie´te´ succe´der au conflit des partis, les moeurs politiques de la machine remplacer les moeurs parlementaires.” Ibid., 100–101. 113. “Taine veut aller jusqu’a` l’aˆme du vrai peuple; M. Aulard note les gestes du parti populaire. Taine fait l’histoire de l’opinion d’apre`s ce qui se passe; M. Aulard, d’apre`s ce qui se publie.” Ibid., 69. 114. “Sans lui . . . nous en serions encore aux ‘ge´ne´reuses illusions’ de 89, aux ‘exce`s’ de 93, a` cette litte´rature historique mesure´e, sense´e, libe´rale—de´risoire, qui depuis cent ans corrige peu a` peu, habille, attenue l’effrayant souvenir, et pousse sur la Re´volution comme la mousse sur les ruines.” Ibid., 64. “Mesurez-vous maintenant toute l’e´normite´ du crime de Taine? Il est de ceux qui ne se pardonnent pas: c’est un sacrile`ge. Taine a renverse´ l’idole, mis en morceaux le grand fe´tiche de la Re´volution: le Peuple. Il l’a fait brutalement, naı¨vement, en homme de bon sens plus qu’en critique, sans saisir la profondeur ni la porte´e du culte, sans en de´meˆler les origines.” Ibid., 95. 115. Albert Mathiez, “A. Aulard. Taine historien de la Re´volution franc¸aise,” Annales re´volutionnaires 1 (April–June 1908), pp. 348–57. Mathiez shows no appreciation for the substance of the thought of Durkheim but mentions the sociologist’s positivist conception of the study of society and history. 116. In September he wrote to his friend Bernard Lacombe: “Toujours rien d’Aulard pas meˆme une mention—rien, pas meˆme un mot ou une carte, ni . . . de Durkheim que

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j’ai couvert de fleurs—de Broglie que je connais—et pourtant je leur avais envoye´ a` tous des exemplaires avec un mot des plus polis. Rien de Mathiez—et Sagnac a renvoye´ l’exemplaire en refusant d’en rendre compte. Quels droˆles de gens—et vraiment le parti des “lumie`res” et du “libre examen” n’est gue`re causant. Cependant le petit bouquin fait son chemin . . . C’est un plaisir de taper sur Aulard: tout le monde entend, tout le monde accourt, et la victime . . . ne re´pond rien.” Augustin Cochin to de Lacombe, September 25, 1909, AC, Ha8. Cochin wrote to Lacombe, when sending him a copy of the book, that he had helped Cochin on chapter 6, “La Sociologie du Jacobinisme” and was “a` tant d’e´gards responsable.” Augustin Cochin to Lacombe, July 21, 1909, AC, Ha 8. 117. Recueil des actes du comite´ du salut public . . . , publie´ par F. A. Aulard, 28 vols. (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1889–1951). 118. Cochin intended that a broad theoretical work would be the final volume of Actes du gouvernement re´volutionnaire. Or at least that is what is implied from the Foreword of Actes, 1: v–vi, probably written during the war. This larger sociological study of the nature of libre pense´e was obviously the manuscript published separately in 1924 as La Re´volution et la libre pense´e. It was supposed to constitute the last volume of Actes du gouvernement re´volutionnaire and not an expanded introduction to Les Socie´te´s de pense´e et la Re´volution en Bretagne as the editor of the latter—the abbe´ Ackermann of the College Stanislas—implies. 119. Crise de l’histoire re´volutionnaire, 38–39; Les Socie´te´s de pense´e et la Re´volution en Bretagne, 55; Les Actes du gouvernement re´volutionnaire, 1: vii. 120. “Ainsi, dans la cite´ nouvelle, l’ordre est assure´—et pourtant les principes anarchiques sont saufs. Bien mieux, l’ordre est garanti par l’anarchie elle-meˆme. Le meˆme phe´nome`ne social qui produit les lois impossibles, fonde le seul pouvoir qui en assure l’exe´cution.” Actes du gouvernement re´volutionnaire, 1: xxii. See also 1: vii. The nature of law in revolutionary society also appears in Les Socie´te´s de pense´e et la Re´volution en Bretagne, 54–55, and in La crise de l’histoire re´volutionnaire, 37–39. 121. “va me donner un travail du diable.” Augustin Cochin to Bernard de Lacombe, August 22, 1913, AC, Ha8. 122. The last proofs for the author were sent on July 29, 1914, according to a note from the Imprimerie Paillart, Abbeville, to Firmin-Didot, May 19, 1918, AC, Ha35. 123. Fre´de´ric E. Schrader, Augustin Cochin et la Re´publique franc¸aise, tr. MarieClaude Auger (Paris: E´ditions du Seuil, 1992), 53–54. 124. “Dans cette lutte, la force des choses est toute d’un coˆte´, nous l’avons dit—et c’est pourquoi il convient que l’intrigue, le complot, le concert volu, soient de l’autre—et nous touchons ici a` une grande loi de l’e´volution sociale.” Augustin Cochin, Les socie´te´s de pense´e et la Re´volution en Bretagne, 188. “[C]ar la volonte´, la conscience personnelle ne sont pour rien dans leur de´veloppement. La Machine n’emploie que des formes infe´rieures et de´marque´es de l’intelligence et de la volonte´, qui ne sont pas autonomes, ne portent pas la marque de l’homme et ne savent pas ou` elles vont: l’activite´ anonyme de l’agent, serviteur aveugle de la ‘conformite´,’ la dialectique abstraite du ‘philosophe,’ esclave des principes et du dogme ne´gatif—logique et tempe´rament et non pas raison et volonte´—forces d’impulsion qui agissent comme la vapeur dans une machine: elles soutiennnent le mouvement; quant a` la direction, personne ne la donne—elle re´sulte du me´chanisme des lois sociales.” Ibid., 191. Both Bryce and Ostrogorski emphasized that the members of the political machine and its bosses were not unusually wicked, but were, on the contrary, recruited from and part of their society; Bryce, 2: 455, 459; Ostrogorski, 2: 179–180.

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125. “mais Bergson, voila` l’ennemi contre qui papa a tant de choses a` dire—le patron de tous les mauvais penchants de notre ge´ne´ration, modernisme, socialisme, empiricisme—raideur en politique, inconsistance en science et religion, tout a` inverse de la ve´rite´; l’homme qui a lance´ la formule de pragmatisme: homo faber au lieu de homo sapiens—l’industrie au lieu de l’ide´e, la machine au lieu de l’art, l’auto au lieu des chevaux, tout ce qu’on de´teste d’instinct d’abord, et apre`s de raison, tous les mauvais courants qui nous viennent de l’Allemagne. Car c’est la` leur source.” Augustin Cochin to Mme. Denys Cochin, undated, AC, Ha6. 126. “Je de´teste Le Sillon et je l’ai pas contredit bien qu’il y a du pave´ et de l’ours, dans cette lettre du pape.” Augustin Cochin to Mme. Denys Cochin, 1910, AC, Ha6. 127. “ne me parlez plus de mon ‘ennemi personnel’; c’est comme si vous parlez a` un garc¸on de laboratoire de l’institute Pasteur de ‘son ennemi personnel’ le bacille de la rage: c¸a se cultive, c¸a s’observe, c¸a ne se de´teste pas. . . . mon plus vif de´sire serait d’eˆtre pre´sente´ a` ce bacille fameux et de le voir de pre`s.” Augustin Cochin to A. Boutillier du Retail, October 16, 1909, AC, Ha6. 128. Augustin’s first published work on the Revolution, “Comment furent e´lues les De´pute´s d’E´lection en Bourgogne,” debuted in the Revue de l’Action Franc¸aise, November 1 and 15, 1904. Antoine de Meaux, Augustin Cochin et la Gene`se de la Re´volution (Paris: Plon, 1928), 266, n.1. His father and uncle did not approve of its appearance there (Schrader, 60–62). 129. He was mentioned in the Revue de l’Action Franc¸aise on July 10, 1916; March 25, 1922; November 6, 1922; October 20, 1928; and May 15, 1932. 130. Ackermann to Mme. Denys Cochin, November 8, 1928. AC, Ha31. 131. Mme. Denys Cochin to Charles Maurras, October 26, 1928; quoted by Chassagne; AC, Ha31. 132. “il y a quelque chose de pis que d’eˆtre battu, c’est d’eˆtre vainqueur en abandonnant ses principes; et c’est les abandonner que de ‘manifester,’ chahuter dans les journaux et dans la rue, jouer une exaltation qu’on n’a pas vraiment, en vue de l’‘effet produit’; tout cela, ce sont des proce´de´s de de´mocrates, c’est-a`-dire pas de chre´tiens.” Augustin Cochin to Franc¸oise Cochin, March 1906, AC, Ha6.

Chapter 8

Conclusion

This study of the Cochins, which shows them experiencing succeeding stages of French public life and trying to come to grips with them, presumes that their “sociopolitical grouping” had a profound effect on how they evaluated the political reality around them. Yet the interpretive lenses most often used to highlight the changes in modern French public life do not always capture the Cochins’ experience. Political liberalism provided few clues about its own social origins and supporting social groups. Yet it constantly relied on social classes to whom it has special appeal for its very existence. Liberalism was not alone in this. Yet the reigning school of interpretation of the French Revolution, Revisionism, has not often taken into account different social groups in explaining the events in France from 1789 to 1799. Marxism, at least, dared pronounce the word “bourgeois.” It recognized social class as a Hegelian historical product and claimed that these were powerful factors in explaining societies of the past. Still, whether depicted by Karl Marx or the neo-Marxists of the Frankfurt School, these were truncated portraits, hardly representations of living classes; according to them the bourgeoisie was busy using its “reason” and “property” according to its “interests,” occupied with fulfilling what was really a superhistorical destiny. Whatever happened to the Old Re´gime haute bourgeoisie after the Revolution, we have to remember that even the word “bourgeois” lost its clear, if broad, specificity. “Bourgeois” lost its anchor as a historical reference and drifted into use as a general term; hence its decline as a category for historical analysis. Two centuries of polemical use have habituated us to interpreting “bourgeois” in polemical terms. This study has required a different approach. The real historical person, the real historical family, must play a double game—retain a sense of themselves and maintain a flexibility of response to social and political changes around

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them. Identity and perception, social action and culture are, inescapably, ad hoc constructions—a mixture of memory and hope, of opportunity and predisposition, of social position and individual effort. These were at play in the collective historical lives of the Cochin family. We have noted again and again that it was, overall, problematic to be a Cochin in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These lives lived as bourgeois and notable from the Old Re´gime to the First World War had to undergo substantial adjustments as a result of their involvement in French public life. They understood how much political regimes and even social roles were shored up, literally “made up,” after the Revolution. Yet the content of these lives is not surprising. They sought an ordered and stable social environment, modeled on the urban life under the Old Re´gime they knew so well. They maintained their moralistic attitude about the material world; while they were rich, and their material surroundings were by any account opulent, they kept their aversion to the moral evil of “luxury.” They remained prim and self-possessed, concerned about the family name—perhaps as an effective check on personal ruin. There are no scandals concerning the misuse of money, honor, or sexuality, no trace of unhappy marriages. Their material wealth grew, and the family married into other prominent families of equivalent or higher status. The transition from “bourgeois” to “notable” was practically without incident; this change was not purely a social one, for their corporate urban preferences came through as conservative liberalism. Yet they willingly played up their bourgeois origins. These public lives in each generation created a sense of fulfillment. Looking to themselves as a family for the outlines of their sense of identity, they sought, continuously, to involve themselves in public life. This put them in contact with people from a wide spectrum of social categories. Their sense of themselves relied heavily on this interaction, public and private. They saw their public lives as an extension of membership in their family with roots in the old Parisian bourgeoisie, and as a force for moral and political betterment. In general, they participated, as representatives of a family, where they thought there was fertile ground for their ideals. Jacques Denis, an adult under the Old Re´gime, could feel at home under the Restoration. He lived under the impression, most of the time, that the Revolution was a storm that had passed. Indeed, parts of public life under the July Monarchy can be seen as a natural continuation of social concern under the Old Re´gime. Yet there are hints in the Cochin papers that the Revolution might work its way to the surface of French political life again, and these were made explicit by the Revolution of 1848, witnessed by Augustin as a young man. Augustin’s ideal of public life was a recognition that democratic change was the future of France. He was able to draw upon parts of his family’s liberal tradition as well as his own romanticized Catholicism to accommodate this view into his ideals. Social reform did not remain only an expression of liberalism’s concern; social reform and social improvement would make this democratic politics liberal. Their sense of worth could still be supported by participation in public life.

Conclusion

215

Like all historical actors, the Cochins could pick and choose and adjust. And, like all historical actors, they emphasized a particular facet of their present.1 They were Catholics, but critical and independent. They were conservative liberals and unafraid to propound their views and resign from office. Their liberalism was a reflection of their own liberty and social power—to support themselves, to write and think as they chose, to take up (or lay down) the burdens of public office—to raise their children as they chose—and they received in return a reaffirmed sense of themselves at each step. Moreover, their sense of themselves, their sources of family and individual identity, always bore traces of their earlier life in their quartier and their city. The Cochins saw their actions justified by fulfilling these ideals in their “disinterested” way, as Jean Denis put into words the highest praise he could bestow on the work of the lawyer Henry Cochin. Emulation of this ideal was the central legacy to the young. In the end their liberty, their autonomy limited their public careers. While their ideals and French public life for much of the nineteenth century found substantial grounds for accommodation, they still saw the Revolution in a profoundly Augustinian way, a time of immorality and disorder. They were witnesses to the disturbances in Paris and the outrages these incidents inflicted against public decency and municipal order. Their reaction was not to stand on the sidelines; instead, they served the hospital and the treasury as administrators, attempting both to settle Claude Denis’s office and to straighten out public— Parisian—business. At the same time, they showed their unhappiness with the new political order. Napoleon Bonaparte was a part of the Revolution, and the Empire relied on war and pillage. Young Jean Denis had no career until the Restoration, and his father Jacques Denis made money independent of state office. Claude Denis fils, Jacques Denis, and then Jean Denis waited for better times. The Restoration was the beginning of a golden age of involvement for the Cochins. The Restoration and July Monarchy offered Jacques Denis and Jean Denis the mairie of the 12th and a long list of assignments to boards and committees. Private initiative and private charity intermingled with public service in a manner not unfamiliar to those with a memory of Paris under the Old Re´gime. It was a time of the reestablishment of moral order and of spreading to the less fortunate classes the lessons and discipline of that moral order. This beau ide´al of conservatives seemed within the grasp of French society. The Cochins freely imprinted their ideal of family on their activities for social reform. They expanded from the hospital to the infant school, to the workhouse, to apprentice outreach, and to the advocacy of agricultural colonies and worker insurance cooperatives, which were under the influence variously of Armand de Melun, Fre´de´ric Ozanam, and a corps of prominent reformers with whom the Cochins cooperated and interacted—all in an attempt at a conservative reform under new forms. The Cochins’ was a continuous influence on and interaction with the poor and working classes from the Old Re´gime to the nineteenth cen-

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tury. They found prominent roles for themselves through which they continued this tradition, even when public life seemed to turn against them. Though not always clearly articulated, their politics represented a parliamentary solution, a constitutional monarchy with decentralized power available to persons of conside´ration such as themselves. The Cochins’ public careers after the Revolution are a valuable historical legacy: never directly influenced by the Enlightenment, the Cochins redrew their ideal public world along lines that were suited to the older bourgeoisie. Of course their careers had a political side, and this was often defensive in tone. The Cochins showed discomfort when the liberal impulses in French political life were threatened. This was muted but clear in the legislative career of Jacques Denis under the Restoration; and Jean Denis, though a mayor, felt sufficiently threatened that he sided with the forces for change in 1830. These actions suggest a liberal constitutional politics. Augustin’s Catholic and liberal ideals at midcentury had their foundation in the Cochins’ own views. And by its own actions the Second Empire provided a well-lighted stage for Augustin and his liberal cohorts to protest its policies in the press, as candidates, and in the Institut de France. The Cochins’ fears about State power were more or less fulfilled by the course of political life under the Third Republic. Though Denys Cochin sought institutional stability and religious pacification, he depicted the Republic as a political, social, and moral world at once foreign and hostile to his politics, his Catholicism, and his background. This was the crisis of their ideals in the nineteenth century; here was the clash of cultures, in politics and religion. The historical work of his son Augustin confirmed this, claiming that the liberal hopes of his family were doomed under the Third Republic by a Revolution no one could control. The Cochins’ story outlines the careers of a social type that has played a significant role in the development of liberal politics in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries in the West. Conservative liberalism and Liberal Catholicism, and, correspondingly, the social layers it appealed to have been conspicuously weak in France since the Third Republic. “The end of the notables,” Daniel Hale´vy described this turning point. Clearly no revolution was made from these bourgeois notables. But a gradual liberal evolution of French public life was what they worked for. The France of Franc¸ois Mitterrand, and now Jacques Chirac, has shown renewed interest in liberal political thought, and neoliberalism has concerned itself with many of the issues that the Cochins worried about.2 With the decline of Marxism and the Communist party, politics in France has before it the possibility of a new future. The ideas, the sensibilities, the experience, and the concerns of this layer of notables, of this old bourgeois family, have not ceased to have value for French public life. The Cochins’ attachment to their past, to their sense of self, to their historical place as bourgeois de Paris, provided a continuous influence on their thinking about who they were and how they should act in an unprecedented world—which is to say, the world we all inhabit.

Conclusion

217

NOTES 1. See Claude Nicolet on the “rainbow” of Third Republics, each with an adjective in front of it. This might be said to be true in any particular historical epoch, whether taken as a doctrine or, more broadly, experienced at the time. L’Ide´e re´publicaine en France (1789–1924): Essai d’histoire critique (Paris: E´ditions Gallimard, 1982). 2. Pierre Manent, Histoire intellectuelle de libe´ralisme: Dix lec¸ons (Paris: CalmannLe´vy, 1987); trans. as An Intellectual History of Liberalism, trans. Rebecca Balinski (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994).

Appendix: Timeline of Cochin Family Events in Relation to French History

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The archives are the possession of the Cochin family, to whom I am indebted. The generosity, warmth, and goodwill of the Baron Denys Cochin, the Baroness Denys Cochin, and their children and friends made this study possible. All biblical quotations are from The Jerusalem Bible.

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Index

Abstractions re´volutionnaire et re´alisme catholique, 11 Acade´mie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, 95, 159 Acade´mie Franc¸aise, and Denys, 10 Les Actes du gouvernement re´volutionnaire, 11, 195–96 Action Franc¸aise, Cochin criticism of, 2, 198 Adams, Christine, 20 Administrative Council to Aid the Disabled Poor (Conseil d’Administration d’Assistance aux Mutile´s-pauvre), 95 Agricultural sector, post-Revolutionary, 64, 66 Agulhon, Maurice, 78 American Commonwealth, 189 L’Ami de l’enfance, 92 Annales de la charite´, 9, 95, 96, 97, 119 Antheaume, Charles Nicolas, 83–85, 117 Anticlericalism, of Third Republic, 10, 100–103, 127–29, 179 Anti-Semitism, of Third Republic, 127, 178–79 Antonelli, Cardinal Giacorno, 123 Asselin, Louise, 22 Asselin, Marthe, 22

“Augustin Cochin: The Theory of Jacobinism,” 185 Aulard, Alphonse, 11, 194–95, 195 Balzac, Honore´ de, 81 Barre`s, Maurice, 185 Barruel, Augustin, 197 Beaumont, Archbishop Christophe de, 6, 82, 116 Beauregard, Pierre Nau de (b. 1743), 23 Beauvoir chateau, and Cochin family, 25, 27, 31, 67 Begging, problem of, 92–94, 152, 153 Bell, Andrew, 89 Benedict XV, 139n.66 Benoist, Augustine, 23, 42n.20 Benoist, Pierre, 151–52 Benoist, Pierre Vincent (1758–1834), 42n.20 Bergson, Henri, 126, 132, 197 Berryer, Antoine Pierre, 33, 154, 158 Blanc, Louis, 194 Blanqui, Louis Auguste, 155 Boissie`re, Suzanne Matigny de la, 24 Bonaparte, Louis Napoleon, 121; Augustin’s view of, 9, 78 Bonaparte, Napoleon, 54, 149, 215; Jacques Denis’ view of, 7

238

Index

“La bonne de´mocratie,” 28 Bordas-Demoulin, Jean-Baptiste, 9, 95–96 Boulanger, Georges-Ernest, 4, 174–75 Boulangism, 10, 143, 175 Bour, Jules, 51 Bourbons, and Cochins, 8, 143, 148, 151 Bourgeois, Le´on, 176 “Bourgeois public sphere,” 4 Bourgeoisie: concept of, 213; modern, 13, 14n.8, 17–18n.29; and wealth, 50– 51 Boutillier, A. du Re´tail, 197–98 Briand, Aristide, 129, 130, 184 Brisson, (Euge`ne-)Henri, 178 Brisson, Henri, 176 Brittany, and French Revolution, 190–91 Broglie, Albert de, 9, 120, 121–22, 176 Brunetie`re, Ferdinand, 102 Bryce, James, 189, 190, 192, 211n.124 Bucaille, Victor, 172, 205–6n.71 Buchanan, James, 89–90 Buffet, Louis, 160, 168n.76 Burke, Edmund, 190 Cahiers de dole´ances, 188 Caisse d’Escompte, 59 Camet, Jean de la Bonadie`re, 149 La Campagne e´lectoral en 1789 en Bourgogne, 11 Campe, Joachim, 89 “Capacite´,” 5 Carron, Ange Marie Simone, 65 Carron, Marie Rosalie Cochin, inheritance of, 65, 66, 67 Cassagnac, Paul de, 127, 185 Catholic Church: and Cochin family, 10, 13, 32, 68, 80, 115–18; ultramontanism, 10, 122 Cavaignac, Euge`ne, 156 Cavour, Camillo Benso di, 121 Central Committee for Elementary Education, 152 Cercle des Jeunes Ouvriers, 28 Chamber of Deputies: Denys, 102, 103, 125, 127–28, 144, 176, 181, 182; Henry (1854–1926), 144; Jacques Denis, 8, 30, 41, 143, 148, 149; Jean Denis Marie, 8, 41, 152

Chambord, Henri, Comte de, 1 “Chambre Introuvable,” 77–78 “Chambre Retrouve´,” 148 Chapon, Henri, 139n.66 Charitable Assembly, 86, 87–88, 117, 146 Charity, and Cochin family, 5–9, 15– 17nn.19–21, 19, 24, 75, 80–87, 96, 98, 100, 104 Charity Committees (Comite´s de Bienfaisance), 146 Charle, Christophe, 2 Charles X, 149, 151 Charpentier, Charles, 187, 196 Charter of 1814, 151 Chef de famille, and Cochin family, 29, 34–37 Chevandrier, Jean Pierre de Valdroˆme, 160, 168n.76 Chevreau, Henri, 160 Chirac, Jacques, 216 Christianisme et civilisation, 95 “Citadin,” 5 “Citoyen,” 5, 14n.11 City Council (Conseil Municipal), and Cochin family, 10, 27, 100–101, 122, 125 Civil Constitution of the Clergy, 56–57 Civita cattolica, 124 “Classic relationship,” political action, 5 Clemenceau, Georges, 127, 129, 179 Le Cocarde, 175 Cochin, Adeline Benoist d’Azy: family life, 27, 36, 100; meditation of, 37 Cochin, Ange´lique de Montour (1760– 1839): death of, 67; education prizes, 164n.23; family life, 31, 34; marriage, 23 Cochin, Augustin (1823–1872): biography, 9–10; charitable works, 68, 86, 96, 98, 105–6n.11, 113n.113, 120; death of, 100; electoral politics, 159– 60, 161–62, 168n.72, 186; family life, 25, 27–28, 31, 32, 41; historical assessment of, 214; inheritance of, 67; investments, 68–69, 98; Legion of Honor, 159; marriage, 23; public life, 33, 39, 40, 78–79, 80, 95, 105–6n.11,

Index 120, 122, 124, 158, 163; religion, 9, 95– 96, 119–25; revolutionary events, 142, 153–54; social reformer, 9, 95–100, 150, 154–55 Cochin, Augustin (1876–1916): biography, 10–11, 12; charitable works, 104, 132, 133; death of, 133, 185; family life, 31–32; historian, 11, 39, 40, 103–4, 185–98; personality of, 31; religious beliefs, 131–33, 197–98; revolutionary forces, 142 Cochin, Augustine Benoist (1801–1827): family life, 26–27, 31; marriage, 23, 65 Cochin, Charles Nicolas (1688–1754), 29, 39 Cochin, Charles Nicolas (1715–1790), 29, 39 Cochin, Claude (b. 1598): financial resources of, 51; marriage of, 22, 38 Cochin, Claude (1656–1728): biography of, 5–6; charitable works, 5–6, 81, 83; Cochin archives, 38; estate of, 54; marriage, 22; mercer’s guild, 52; property of, 52; public life, 76, 77, 215; religious views, 116; vestryman, 5–6, 39, 52, 77, 81 Cochin, Claude Denis (pe`re) (1698–1786): biography, 6, 16–17n.24, 17n.27, 35; Cochin archives, 38–39; echevinage, 8, 15n.17, 29, 40, 77, 144–45; estate of, 54–55; Hospice St.-Jacques, 83–85, 86, 117–18; marriage, 22, 52; mercer’s guild, 52; personality, 29; property of, 53–54; public service, 6, 77, 215; vestryman, 81, 115 Cochin, Claude Denis (fils) (1724–1797): biography, 7, 12; chef de famille, 34– 36; Cochin archives, 39, 40; death of, 58; disbursar offices, 7, 55–57, 58, 146, 150; family life, 38; French Revolution, 141, 146–48; Hospice St.Jacques, 85, 87, 146; income of, 52– 53, 58; inheritance of, 54; marriage, 23, 52; mercer’s guild, 52; public service, 145–46, 215; vestryman, 81 Cochin, Claude Marie Anne (1751–1825), marriage, 23, 24 Cochin, Denis, earliest, 38, 76

239

Cochin, Denis Guillaume: family life, 31; inheritance of, 67; personality, 33, 67 Cochin, Denys (1851–1922): art collection, 68; biography, 10, 12; Chamber of Deputies, 102, 103, 125, 127–28, 144, 176, 181, 182; chef de famille, 36; City Council, 10, 100–101, 125, 173, 176; Dreyfus Affair, 177–79, 201–2n.32; electoral politics, 143, 171, 172–73, 174–76, 198–99n.2, 199– 200n.12, 200n.17; family life, 25–26, 27–28, 32, 40; inheritance, 67; investments of, 69; marriage, 23–24, 67; political philosophy, 171–72, 173, 176–77, 179–85; public life, 25, 27, 33, 39, 154, 171; real estate, 67–68; religious advocate, 100–103, 125, 127– 31; religious beliefs, 125–26; revolutionary France, 142; Union Sacre´e, 129–30, 131, 184, 205–6n.71 Cochin, Dominique Adolph, mentally ill, 36 Cochin, He´le`ne Pe´an de St. Gilles (1857– 1946): family life, 25, 27, 40; marriage, 23–24, 67; during the Occupation, 37–40 Cochin, Henri (1687–1747), barrister, 39, 40 Cochin, Henry (1854–1926): Chamber of Deputies, 144; education of, 187; family life, 27, 29, 101; on his father, 123, 124–25; personality of, 32; public life, 33, 40 Cochin, Jacques, died in WWI, 31, 185 Cochin, Jacques Denis (1729–1795): feeble-minded, 34, 42n.16; inheritance of, 55; Cochin, Jacques Denis (1757–1837): biography, 7–8, 9, 12; capitalism, views on, 62–63, 96–98; Chamber of Deputies, 8, 30, 41, 143, 148, 149; charitable work, 85–86, 146; chef de famille, 34–36; death of, 65; disbursar’s offices, 57, 58; estate of, 65– 66; family life, 25–26, 28, 31, 32, 40; French Revolution, 141–42, 146–48, 150; historical assessment of, 214; on industrial capitalism, 62–63, 148,

240

Index

150; investment in land, 63–65, 150; marriage, 23, 24; mercer’s guild, 52; personality, 29–30; public service, 63, 65, 77–78, 79, 118, 148, 186, 215; Restoration, 148, 215, 216; secular sensibilities, 118; social reform, 87–89; wealth of, 59, 60, 65–66 Cochin, Jean, of Montlhe´ry, 39 Cochin, Jean Denis (1726–1783): burial of, 15–16n.21; charitable works, 15– 16n.19, 81, 117; ecclesiastical taxation, 82, 117; exhumation of, 147; Hospice St.-Jacques, 6–7, 77, 82–83; religious views, 117; religious writings, 40, 117; St.-Jacques du Haut-pas parish, 6, 15– 16n.20, 77, 81–82, 115–16; testament of, 34 Cochin, Jean Denis Marie (1789–1841): biography, 8–9; Chamber of Deputies, 8, 41, 143, 152; charitable works, 86; conscription replacement, 61; death of, 67, 153; family life, 26–27, 28, 31, 32, 43–44n.43; infant school, 8, 27, 28, 39, 68, 89–92, 102, 152, 153; inheritance of, 65–66; investments, 64–65, 66, 68, 150; marriage, 23, 65; personality, 30; public service, 39, 40, 41, 77, 78, 79– 80, 150, 151, 152, 153, 186, 215; Revolution of 1830, 142; social philosophy, 150; workhouse, 8, 39, 68, 92–94, 153 Cochin, Louise (1705–1773), 22 Cochin, Marie Anne Henry (1727–1763): death of, 53; marriage, 38, 52 Cochin, Marie Claude (1701–1774), marriage, 6, 22, 23–24 Cochin, Marie Claude Paris, 22, 52 Cochin, Marie Jeanne (1722–1792): inheritance of, 54; marriage, 22 Cochin, Marie Rosalie (1756–1824), marriage, 23, 24, 25, 65, 70n.14 Cochin, Pierre (1857–?), personality of, 33 Cochin, Pierre Simon (1731–1815), juring priest, 34–35 Cochin, Suzanne Matigny de la Boissie`re, 24 Cochin Hospital, 9, 10, 39, 40, 65, 77, 79–

80, 86, 87, 101, 102, 127, 147, 181. See also Hospice St.-Jacques Colbert, Bishop Joachim, 29 Collette, Josephe Madeleine, 146–47, 148 Combes, Emile, 101, 129 Comite´ de Faure, 157 Comite´ de la Socie´te´ de Secours aux Blesse´s Militaires, 113n.113 Comite´ de Restriciton, 130, 184 Comite´ Franc¸ais d’E´mancipation, 159 Comite´ Libe´ral du De´partment de la Seine, 161 Commission du Sceau, Cochin family title, 40 Commission on Free Education, 9, 95, 120 Committee for the Extinction of the Poor (Comite´ de L’Extinction de Mendicite´), 86, 94, 152 Commune, and Cochin family, 4, 98, 142, 155, 161 Compagnie des forges d’Alais, and Cochin family, 68 Concordat, 118, 147, 177 Conscience de soi, 20 Conseil des Hoˆpitaux, and Cochin family, 86 Conseil des hospices et des hoˆpitaux de Paris, and Cochin family, 86 “Le Conseil et les re´forme´s de 1652 a` 1658,” 187 Conservativism: after Boulanger, 176–77; origin of modern, 51 Constitutional Monarchists, 148, 150 Le Constitutionnel, 92, 159 La Convention du 15 septembre et l’encylique du 8 de´cembre (1864), 123 Le Correspondant, 9, 69, 119, 120–23, 161 Council of State (Conseil d’E´tat), Jean Denis Marie, 8, 79, 150 Coup d’e´tat (1851), and Cochin family, 4, 78, 79, 157–58 Courcault, Iassac, 116 Le Courrier franc¸ais, 93 Le Crise de l’histoire re´volutionnaire: Taine et M. Aulard, 11, 191, 193–95, 197, 208–9n.95

Index Cromwell, Oliver, 187 “Cultuelles,” 129 Daru, Napole´on, 160, 168n.76 Daru Affair, 160 Darwin, Charles, 125 Daumard, A., 22, 52 Daumard, Ade´line, 49, 80–81 D’Azy, Ade´line Benoist, 27 D’Azy, Augustin Benoist, 98 D’Azy, Benoist, 3, 8 D’Azy, Denis Benoist, 9, 118, 119 D’Azy, Denys Benoist, 68, 78, 79, 90, 96, 97, 112n.95, 154, 155, 156, 161 Davidoff, Lenore, 20 De Bouard, Michel, 196 Debelleyme, Louis, 90, 92, 151 Delahaye, Jules, 185 Democracy, French experience of, 3 Democracy and the Organization of Political Parties, 189 Denis, Maurice, 25–26, 43n.32 Descartes, 126 Descartes, Reneˆ, 126 Desmoulins, Jean, 81, 116 Despeignes, Charles Constantin, 22, 30, 59, 60 Despeignes, Marie Jean Cochin: inheritance of, 54; marriage, 22 Desplasses, Antoine Pierre, 85 Desplasses, Pierre Antoine, 55 Deux jeunesses, 179 Dewald, Jonathan, 20 D’Hulst, abbe´ Maurice, 175 Didot, Ambroise, 159 Digeon, Claude, 126 D’Indy, Vincent, 25 Disbursar office (payeur des rentes): French Revolution, 56–58; Old Re´gime, 7–8, 17n.27, 35–36, 55–56, 77 Dreyfus, Alfred, 127, 178, 179 Dreyfus Affair, 177–79, 201n.32; and Cochin family, 4, 10, 127; impact of, 101–2 Droit d’indemnite´, Hospice St.-Jacques, 34 Drumont, Edouard, 127, 185

241

Dufaure, Jules, 161 Dugourd, Sr. Marie Madeleine, 83 Dunant, Henry, 112n.100 Dupanloup, abbe´ Fe´lix, 9, 120, 121, 123, 124, 125 Dupin, Charles, 97 Dupuy, Charles, 176 Duran, Claude Marie Anne (1751–1825): family life, 34, 36–37; marriage, 24–25 Durand, Marie Armand, 23, 34, 36–37 Durkheim, E´mile, 103–4, 126, 191, 192, 193, 195, 197, 208–9n.95, 209n.99 Duval, Vincent, 118, 147 E´chevinage, and Cochin family, 8, 15n.17, 29, 40, 77, 144–45 E´cole des Chartres, 10–11, 103, 187 E´cole maternelles, 110–11n.78 Edgeworth, Richard, 89 Education: Cochin family support of, 8, 10, 27, 28, 88, 89–92, 95, 164n.23; secularization of, 102, 127–28, 179 Education Law of 1833, 110–11n.78 8th arrondissment, Denys Cochin, 172, 176 Electoral politics, and Cochin family, 142– 44, 159–60, 161–62, 171, 172–73, 174– 76, 198–99n.2, 199–200n.12, 200n.17 Elites, rise of new, 2, 50–51 Empire, and Cochin family, 60–62 Enfants-Trouves, Claude Denis, 6 “Espirit St. Louis,” 57 Esterhazy, Walsin, 178, 201n.32 E´tat censitaire, 49–50 E´tat externe, 20 E´tat interne, 20 E´volution et la vie, 125–26 Falloux, Alfred Pierre Fre´de´ric de, 9, 33, 96, 120, 154, 158, 162 Falloux Commission, Augustin, 9, 95, 120, 157 Family: centrality of, 20, 75; membership, and Cochin family, 19– 20, 22, 26–28, 36–37; modern history of, 21, 149–50; social force, 88; tradition, and Cochin family, 4, 5, 29–

242

Index

34, 41, 99, 215; transmission of wealth, 51; women’s role, 90 Fe´lix, Joe¨l, 149–50 Ferry, Jules, 159, 160, 168n.72 Ferry laws, 4 Financial resources, and Cochin family, 13, 52–54, 58, 59, 60, 65–69 Flesselles, Jacques de, 145 Floquet, Charles, 175, 180 Foisset, The´ophile, 121 Forey, Elie, 78–79 Les Formes e´le´mentaires de la vie religieuse, 191, 192, 208–9n.95 Forster, Robert, 20 Le Franc¸ais, 69, 155 Franciscans foreign funds, Cochin stewardship of, 6, 53, 77 Frankfurt School, 213 Fre´bault, Charles Fe´lix, 175 French Revolution: Augustine (1876– 1916) view of, 188–98, 208–9n.95; and Cochin family, 4, 7, 12–13, 60–62, 77– 78, 85–87, 141–42; official vocabulary, 78; political crisis of, 50–51; revisionist view of, 2, 213 Funck-Bretano, The´ophile, 126 Furet, Franc¸ois, 12, 22, 52, 185, 186 Galland, Ange´lique, 87 Gambetta, Le´on, 162, 182 Gasparri, Pietro, 130, 184 Gazette de France, 159 General Commission on Retirement Pensions (Commission supe´rieure de la caıˆsse de retraite´s veilless), 95 General Council of Civic Hospitals (Conseil Ge´ne´ral des Hospices Civils), and Cochin family, 8, 40–41, 79–80, 87, 90, 152 General Council of Hospitals (Conseil de Surveillance d’Assistance Publique), 80, 94, 95 General Council on Public Works (Conseil Ge´ne´ral des Ponts et Chausse´es), 85 General Council on the Seine (Conseil Ge´ne´ral de la Seine), and Cochin family, 8, 79, 93, 122, 152, 153

Germany, 183, 184 Gibson, Ralph, 117 Girls, education of, 28, 88 Godard, Nicolas, 122 Government of National Defense, 161 “Green cardinals,” 129 Grevy, Jules, 180 Groethuysen, Bernhard, 14n.8, 50 Gue´rault, Adolphe, 159, 160 Guichou, Jeanne, 23 Guizot, Franc¸ois, 152 Hachette, Louis, 159 Hale´vy, Daniel, 1, 144, 216 Hall, Catherine, 20 Hamilton, James, 89 Hareven, Tamara, 21 Haussmann, Georges Euge`ne, 99 Henry, Alexandre Pierre, 6 Henry, Marie Anne (1727–1763), 23, 38, 52 Henry, Marie Jean, 23 Henry, Pierre, 23 He´rissant, Louis Antoine Prosper, 29 Hillairet, Jacques, 51 Histoire politique de la Re´volution franc¸aise, 195 L’Hoˆpital Cochin, 101 Hoˆpital Ge´ne´ral, Claude Denis, 6, 38–39, 53, 77 Hospice Board (Bureau de l’Hospice), 83 “Hospice du Sud,” 146 Hospice St.-Jacques, 6–7, 16–17n.24, 34, 77, 82–87, 117–18. See also Cochin Hospital Hospital Council of Paris (Conseil des Hoˆpitaux), 95, 152, 153 Households, Cochin family, 24–26, 34. See also La Roche; Montceaux Hume, David, 126 Income tax, 183, 184 Individual identity: and Cochin family, 29–35, 214; formation of, 20, 21 Industrial Revolution, impact of, 21 Industrialism, and Cochin family, 68–69 Infant school (salle d’asile), 8, 27, 28, 39, 90–92, 102, 152, 153, 215

Index Infant school movement, 90, 110–11n.78 Instructions, 117 “The Italian Question and Catholic Opinion in France,” 121–22 Jacobinism, 11, 103, 185–91, 192, 195 Jamdudum Cernimus, 123 James, William, 126 Jansenism: and Cochin family, 29, 20, 32, 116; St.-Jacques du Haut-pas parish, 116–17 Jardin des curieux, 29 Joly, Armand Guillaume Marie de Fleury, 83, 85 July Monarchy, 2, 51; and Cochin family, 3, 8, 12, 33, 90–91, 96, 104, 143, 150, 151, 214, 215; poverty during, 80–81; religion during, 118; study of notables, 2, 20; Voisins, Pierre Paul Alexandre, 149 Kant, Immanuel, 126 Kinship, 22 La Roche (Cochin family farm), 25, 27, 31, 63–64, 65, 98 Laborde, Alexandre, 92 Lacordaire, Henri-Dominique, 9, 120 Lagrange, Charles, 156 Lamennais, Fe´licite´, 30, 118, 120, 122 Landowners, and Cochin family, 59, 63– 65 Larochefoucault-Liancourt, Georges de, 96 Laurent, Pierre Charles de Villeneuve, 83 Law, in revolutionary societies, 195–96 Le Dauler, Martin, 56 Le Gerando, Joseph, 89 Le Play, Fre´de´ric, 9, 96, 97, 105–6n.11, 112n.102 Legal profession, and Cochin family, 7, 8, 9, 25, 59, 67 Legend of Saint Humbert, painting, 25– 26 Legitimism: Cochin criticism of, 2; decline of, 2 Legitimists, Cochin intermarriage with, 3, 8, 9, 27, 33

243

Lempereur, Jean Denis, 22 Lenoir Jean Charles Pierre, 83 Leo XIII, 127 Leroy, Pierre, 156 Leroy-Beaulieu, Anato´le, 102 Letters patent, Hospice St.-Jacques, 83– 85, 117, 149 Leve´, Gabrielle, 6, 22 Leve´, Jean, 5–6, 35 Leve´, Jean (fils) (1697–1755), 6, 7, 22, 23–24 Leve´, Jean Denis, 35–36, 55, 56, 85 Leve´, Marie The´re`se, 23 Liberal Catholic movement, 9, 10, 95, 96– 97, 120–25, 128, 129, 131 Life of Jesus, 119 Ligue de la Libe´rte´ d’Enseignement, 102, 127–28 Locke, Robert, 2 Loubet, E´mile, 176 Louis Philippe, 143 Louis Philippe d’apre`s des documents ine´dites, 176 Louis XV, 143 Louis XVIII, 143, 149 Louvet, Charles, 168n.76 Luther, Martin, 130 Lyce´e Louis-le-Grand, 27 Lynch, Katherine A., 76 MacMahon, Marshal, 173 Maignen, Maurice, 96 Maison Cochin, infant school, 9, 92, 95 Malines Catholic Conference, 119, 123 Mangin, Claude, 92–94, 151, 153 Manuel des fondateurs et des directeurs des premie`res e´coles de l’enfance, connues sous le nom de salles d’asile, 8, 32, 39, 40, 91, 95, 118 Marbeau, Euge`ne, 97 Marriage contracts, Parisian, 22 Marriages, Cochin family, 21, 22–24, 36– 37 “Martyrs of Cambrai,” 132 Marx, Karl, 50, 105n.1, 213 Material capital, 49 Mathiez, Albert, 195, 210n.115 Maurras, Charles, 33, 198

244

Index

Mayor: Montceaux, Cochin family, 79, 100; office of, 78; 10th arrondissement, Cochin family, 9, 40–41, 78–79, 157; 12th arrondissement), Cochin family, 8, 25, 40–41, 77, 78, 79, 89, 92, 118, 148– 49, 151, 215 Medievalism, Augustine (1876–1916), 132, 186–88 Meditations, 126 Me´line, Jules, 176, 178, 185 Melun, Armand de, 9, 96, 97, 112n.95, 119, 120, 215 Mercer’s guild, and Cochin family, 5, 6, 52 Merchants, and Cochin family, 22–23, 51– 52 Mermieux, Dieudonne´ Gabriel Jean Terrail, 175 Le Messager des chambres, 93 Messimy, Adolphe, 178 Me´tin, Albert de, 205–6n.71 Michelet, Jules, 159 Millet, Fre´de´ric, 90 Mitterrand, Franc¸ois, 216 “Modernization,” 21 Monarchism, 1, 8, 174, 186–87 Mont de Pie´te´, 152 Montagnin, Mgr. Carlo, 129 Montalembert, Charles de, 9, 97, 120–21, 123, 125 Montceaux: Cochin family estate, 64–65, 66, 150; Cochin mayors, 79, 100 Montour, Ange´lique de, 23 Moralisation des autres, 32 “Moralization,” 90, 100, 181–82, 214 Mun, Albert de, 128, 205n.65 Mutual instruction, infant schools, 91–92, 95, 110–11n.78 National Assembly: disbursars office, 56– 57; ecclesiastical nationalization, 86, 106n.17; Third Republic, 171–72, 181 National Domain laws, 86 National Guard, and Cochin family, 151– 52, 154, 155 National Treasury, disbursar’s office, 56 Nationalism, 184

Nau, Marie Rosalie (1756–1824): family life, 34; marriage, 25 Nau, Pierre, 24 Necker, Jacques, 83 Necker, Suzanne, 83, 108n.37 “The Needs of the Poor,” 88–89 “New Spirit,” 101, 127, 176, 177 Nobility, and wealth, 50 Noblesse de cloche, and Cochin family, 3, 41 Noirlieu, cure´ Martin de, 96, 97 Notables: Cochin family marriages, 23, 214; eclipse of, 1–3; electoral politics, 142–43; family histories of, 20, 149; historical view of, 1–2, 152–53; relation to church, 115; Third Republic, 172–73; wealth of, 49–50 “Notice sur Mettray,” 95 Old Re´gime, and Cochin family, 5–7, 8, 12, 13, 29, 38–39, 80–85, 104, 142– 43, 214 Ollivier, E´mile, 10, 91, 168n.76 L’Opinion nationale, 160 Orle´ans railroad, and Cochin family, 68, 98 Ostrogorski, Moisei, 189, 190, 192, 211n.124 Les Ouvriers europe´ens, 97 Owens, Robert, 91 Ownership, bourgeoisie, 50 Ozanam, Fre´de´ric, 9, 96, 119, 215 Paris, Louis-Philippe-Albert, Comte de, 175, 176, 177–78 Paris, Marie Claude, 22, 52 Paris: City Council, 10, 100–101, 125, 173–74, 176; and Cochin family, 3–4, 5–13, 24–26, 51–52, 54, 141–42; poverty in, 80–81, 95, rebuilding of, 99; street numbering system, 24 Paris: Quatre anne´e au conseil municipal, 174, 180, 199n.11 Parisian City Assembly (Assemble´e de la Ville de Paris), 141 Parlementaires, advancement of, 149–50 “Parliamentarism,” 181 “Le parti extreˆme,” 123

Index Pasteur, Louis, 10, 25 Pastoret, Claude, 152 Paternalism, and Cochin family, 28, 87, 89, 99–100 Patronage of Young Apprentices, 9, 96 Pe´rier, Jean Casimir, 176 Perraud, Adolphe, 176 Pestalozzi, Johann, 89, 95 Peyron, Louis Ernest, 101 Picard, Ernest, 159 Pichon, Stephen, 131 Picquart, Georges, 177, 178, 201n.32 Pius IX, 9, 121, 122, 124, 131 Pluralism, Third Republic, 172, 181, 183 Poland, dismemberment of, 131 Political machines, French Revolution, 189–91, 194–95, 196, 211n.124 Prefecture of Versailles, 162 Pre´voˆts royals: Asselin family, 22; Cochin family, 5, 38, 76 “Pre´voyance,” 98 Private Education League, 107, 127–28 Private sphere, Cochin family, 4, 14n.9 “Profession of Political Faith,” 183 “The Progress of the Sciences and Industry from the Christian Point of View,” 119 Provisioning Committee (Comite´ des Subsistances), 77, 145 “Public careers,” 4 Quanta Cura, 123, 124 Quinze\Vingt hospital, 152 Railroad industry, and Cochin family, 68, 98 Real estate, and Cochin family, 67–68 Re´gime censitaire, 143, 150, 152–53, 154 Les Re`gles de la me´thod sociologique, 191 Reinach, Joseph, 178 Religion, and Cochin family, 4, 9–10, 13, 95–96, 115–13 Religious instruction, infant school, 28 Renault, Le´on, 173 Rentes, and Cochin family, 55 Rentes du Clerge´, 56–57 “Rentiers de l’Etat,” 93

245

Republicans, Third Republic, 173, 174, 177–79, 180 Rerum Novarum, 127, 176 Restoration: and Cochin family, 3, 8, 12, 40, 63, 66, 89, 90–91, 104, 148–49, 150, 214, 215, 216; poverty during, 80 La Re´volution et la libre pense´e, 11 Revolution of 1830, and Cochin family, 4, 78, 142 Revolution of 1848: Catholic Church, 122; and Cochin family, 4, 9, 142, 153– 54, 157, 214 Ribot, Alexandre, 176, 184 Richard, Cardinal Archbishop Franc¸ois, 26, 129 Right wing, Cochin opposition to, 2, 143, 171, 182, 185 Rosanvallon, Pierre, 50 Royer-Collard, Pierre Paul 149, 152 St.-Benoıˆt parish: and Cochin family, 5– 6, 21, 22, 39, 52, 55, 77, 81, 86, 115– 116; French Revolution, 147 St. Francis Xavier Society, 95, 98 St. Gilles, He´le`ne Pe´an de (1857–1946), 23–24 St. Gilles, Pe´an de, 65, 79, 90 St. Gilles, Pierre Alexandre Pe´an de (1690–1769), 23 St. Gilles, Pierre Henri Pe´an de (1726– 1786), 23 St. Gobains, and Cochin family, 68–69, 98, 161 St.-Jacques du Haut-pas parish, 6, 7–8, 77, 84, 96; and Cochin family, 17n.27, 21, 24, 80–81, 84, 86, 115–18; French Revolution, 147–48 Ste. Genevie`ve, Claude Denis, 6, 53 Saulnier, Denis, 22 Saulnier, Jean, 22 Saunier, Jehan, 14–15n.13, 51 Second Empire: and Cochin family, 9, 80, 99, 104, 142, 143, 153–54, 157, 159–61, 182, 216; political order, 51 Second Republic: Cochin family, 98–99, 157–58; political order, 51 Secularization, Third Republic, 100–103, 127–29

246

Index

Self, formation of, 20, 27 Se´nac, abbe´ Augustin, 9, 95–96, 119 Separation Crisis, 127, 198 Separation Law, 10, 102–3, 128, 129, 177, 179, 181, 198 “Seventeen eighty-nineism,” 141, 183 7th arrondissment, Denys Cochin, 174, 175 Seventh Electoral College, 143, 149 Sisters of Charity, 83 Sisters of St. Lazarus, 81 Sisters of St. Mary, 101 Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul, 81 Social capital, 49 Social class, French Revolution, 213 Social conflict, nineteenth century, 75–76 Social conservativism, and Cochin family, 7, 8, 10, 11 Social identity: and Cochin family, 5; formation of, 50 “Social problem,” 8–9, 89 “Social question,” 2–3 Social reform: and Cochin family, 8, 10, 13, 89–100, 214, 215; Liberal Catholics, 96–97; theories of, 75 Socialism, 183, 205n.65 Socie´te´ d’E´conomie Charitable, 112nn.95,102 Socie´te´ de Histoire Contemporaine, 195 Les Socie´te´ de pense´e et la de´mocratie, 196 Les Socie´te´ de pense´e et la re´volution en Bretagne, 11, 188–91, 198 Socie´te´ de St.-Vincent-de-Paul, 9, 28, 96, 119 Socie´te´ de Secours Mutuels, 98 Socie´te´ l’Urane, and Cochin family, 69 Socie´te´ pour l’Encouragement d’Instruction Primaire et E´ducation Moral et Religieuse, 100 Socie´te´s de pense´e, 189–91, 192, 197 Society, and Cochin family, 4 “Sociology of Jacobinism,” 194 “Sociopolitical grouping,” 213 “Some Features of the Present Religious Polemic,” 120 Stae¨l, Anne-Louise-Germaine, 91 “Statism,” 184

Supreme Court (Cour de Cassation), 8, 27, 79, 150 Syllabus of Errors, 123, 124 Taine, Hippolyte, 188–89, 194 Talhouet-Roy, Auguste, 168n.76 Tarbe´, Sebastien Prosper, 64 Le Temps, 159 10th arrondissement, and Cochin family, 9, 40–41, 78–79, 157 Theophilanthropists, St.-Jacques du Hautpas parish, 147 Thiers, (Louis-)Adolphe, 9–10, 152, 156, 160, 162, 186 Third Republic: anticlericalism of, 10, 100–103, 127–29, 179; Cochin critique of, 193, 195; and Cochin family, 9–10, 11, 12, 13, 80, 100–104, 125–33, 142, 144, 171–98, 216; intellectual climate, 126; political order, 51; political practices of, 103, 173 Thiroux, Louis de Crosne, 83 Tiberghien, Father Pierre, 139n.66 Tirard, Pierre-Emmanuel, 175 Title, Cochin family, 8, 15n.17, 29, 40, 150, 152 “To Augustine, For her alone,” 27 Tocqueville, He´rve, 91 “Traveling candidate,” 174 Treaty of Versailles, 185 Tribunal Civil de la Seine, Cochin Hospital, 101 Tudesq, Andre´-Jean, 2, 20, 49, 153 12th arrondissement: and Cochin family, 8, 25, 40–41, 77, 78, 79, 79, 89, 92, 118, 148–49; poverty in, 80–81 Ultramontanism, Catholic Church, 10, 122 Ultraroyalists, Cochin opposition to, 8, 148, 150, 151 Unigenitus, 117 Union Sacre´e, 129–30, 131, 184 L’Univers, 122, 124, 175 Universal Exhibition of 1855, 97, 155, 159

Index Values, Augustin (1823–1872), 41, 62– 63, 96–99; and Cochin family, 4–5, 8– 9, 28, 32–34; Denys, 102–3; Jacques Denis, 61–62, 87–89 Vassal, Jacques, 92 Veblen, Thorstein, 50 Vestrymen: and Cochin family, 5–6, 39, 52, 77, 81, 115, 119, 143; role of, 81 Veuilleuve-Bargemont, Alban de, 97 Veuillot, Louis, 9, 97, 120, 122, 124 Vivien, Alexandre, 93 Voisins, Gilbert de, 83, 85 Voisins, Pierre Paul Alexandre, 149 Voisins, Pierre Paul Gilbert, 116, 149

247

Waldeck-Rousseau, Pierre Marie Rene´, 102, 127, 179, 195 Wealth: bourgeoisie, 50–51; Cochin family, 52–55, 58, 59, 60, 65–66, 67; types of, 49–50 Weber, Max, 50 Witt-Guizot, Franc¸ois, 102 Women, Cochin family, 27–28 Workhouses, Jean Denis Marie, 8, 39, 68, 92–94, 151, 153, 215 Working class: Augustine Cochin on, 155; and wealth, 50; workhouses, 94 World War I, Cochins, 4, 130–31, 183– 84

About the Author LAURENCE H. WINNIE is Associate Dean and Assistant Professor in the College of Liberal Arts at the Rochester Institute of Technology. He is a member of the Society for French Historical Studies and the American Historical Association.