Guizot François

Photo Guizot François
François Pierre Guillaume Guizot (4 October 1787 -12 September 1874) was a French historian, orator, and statesman. Guizot was a dominant figure in French politics prior to the Revolution of 1848, actively opposing as a liberal the reactionary King Charles X before his overthrow in the July Revolution of 1830, then in government service to the "citizen king" Louis Philippe, as the Minister of Education, 1832 –1837, ambassador to London, Foreign Minister 1840 –1847, and finally Prime Minister of France from 19 September 1847 to 23 February 1848. Guizot's influence was critical in expanding public education, which under his ministry saw the creation of primary schools in every French commune. But as a leader of the "Doctrinaires," committed to supporting the policies of Louis Phillipe and limitations on further expansion of the political franchise, he earned the hatred of more advanced liberals and republicans through his unswerving support for restricting suffrage to propertied men, advising those who wanted the vote to "enrich yourselves" (enrichissez-vous) through hard work and thrift. As Prime Minister, it was Guizot's ban on the political meetings of an increasingly vigorous opposition in January 1848 that catalyzed the revolution that toppled Louis Philippe in February and saw the establishment of the French Second Republic. Guizot is famous as the originator of the quote "Not to be a republican at 20 is proof of want of heart; to be one at 30 is proof of want of head"[1]. This quote has been reworked many times, especially in reference to socialism and liberalism. It has been borrowed by or attributed to many notable figures who lived after Guizot, including Winston Churchill, George Bernard Shaw, Benjamin Disraeli, Georges Clemenceau, Otto von Bismarck, Aristide Briand, Woodrow Wilson, David Lloyd George, Wendell Willkie, William J. Casey, and others. François Guizot was born at Nîmes to a bourgeois Protestant family. On 8 April 1794, when François Guizot was 7, his father was executed on the scaffold at Nîmes during the Reign of Terror. From then on, the boy's mother was completely responsible for his upbringing. Madame Guizot had great influence over Francois Guizot and was part of his circle of friends. In the days of his exile in 1848 she followed him to London, and there at a very advanced age died and was buried at Kensal Green. Driven from Nîmes by the Revolution, Madame Guizot and her son went to Geneva, where he was educated. In spite of her decided Calvinistic opinions, the theories of Jean-Jacques Rousseau influenced Madame Guizot. She was a strong Liberal, and she even adopted the notion inculcated in Emile that every man ought to learn a manual trade or craft. Guizot was taught to be a carpenter, and succeeded in making a table with his own hands, which is still preserved. In the work which he entitled Memoirs of my own Times Guizot omitted all personal details of his earlier life. In 1805 he arrived in Paris and he entered at the age eighteen as tutor into the family of M. Stapfer, formerly Swiss minister in France, and he soon began to write in a journal edited by Suard, the Publiciste. This connection introduced him to the literary society of Paris. In October 1809, aged twenty-two, he wrote a review of François-René de Chateaubriand's Martyrs, which won Chateaubriand's approbation and thanks, and he continued to contribute largely to the periodical press. At Suard's he had made the acquaintance of Pauline de Meulan, a contributor to Suard’s journal. Her contributions were interrupted by illness, but immediately resumed and continued by an unknown hand. It was discovered that Francois Guizot had substituted for her. In 1812 Mademoiselle de Meulan married Guizot. She died in 1827. An only son, born in 1819, died in 1837 of consumption. In 1828 Guizot married Elisa Dillon, niece of his first wife, and also an author. She died in 1833, leaving a son, Maurice Guillaume (1833-1892), who attained some reputation as a scholar and writer. During the First French Empire, Guizot, entirely devoted to literary pursuits, published a collection of French synonyms (1809), an essay on the fine arts (1811), and a translation of Edward Gibbon's work, with additional notes, in 1812. These works recommended him to the notice of de Fontanes, grand-master of the university of France, who selected Guizot for the chair of modern history at the Sorbonne in 1812. His first lecture (reprinted in his Memoirs) was delivered on 11 December of that year. He omitted the customary compliment to the all-powerful emperor, in spite of the hints given him by his patron, but the course which followed marks the beginning of the great revival of historical research in France in the 19th century. He had now acquired a considerable position in Paris society, and the friendship of Royer-Collard and leading members of the liberal party, including the young duc de Broglie. Absent from Paris at the moment of the fall of Napoleon in 1814, he was at once selected, on the recommendation of Royer-Collard, to serve the government of King Louis XVIII, in the capacity of secretary-general of the ministry of the interior, under the abbé de Montesquiou. Upon the return of Napoleon from Elba he immediately resigned, on 25 March 1815, and returned to his literary pursuits. After the Hundred Days, he returned to Ghent, where he saw Louis XVIII, and in the name of the liberal party pointed out that a frank adoption of a liberal policy could alone secure the duration of the restored monarchy - advice which was ill-received by the king's confidential advisers. This visit to Ghent was brought up by political opponents in later years as unpatriotic. "The Man of Ghent" was one of the terms of insult frequently used against him in the days of his power. The reproach appears to be wholly unfounded. He was acting not to preserve the failing empire, but to establish a liberal monarchy and to combat the reactionary ultra-royalists. On the second restoration, Guizot was appointed secretary-general of the ministry of justice under de Barbé-Marbois, but resigned with his chief in 1816. Again in 1819 he was appointed general director of communes and departments in the ministry of the interior, but lost his office with the fall of Decazes in February 1820. During these years Guizot was one of the leaders of the Doctrinaires, a small party strongly attached to the charter and the crown, and advocating a policy which has become associated (especially by Émile Faguet) with the name of Guizot, that of the juste milieu, a middle path between absolutism and popular government. Adhering to the great principles of liberty and toleration, they were sternly opposed to the anarchical traditions of the Revolution. They hoped to subdue the elements of anarchy through the power of a limited constitution based on the suffrage of the middle class and promoted by the literary talents of the time. They were opposed alike to the democratic spirit of the age, to the military traditions of the empire, and to the bigotry and absolutism of the court. The Doctrinaires fell out of influence following the July Revolution in 1830 In 1820, when the reaction was at its height after the murder of the Duc de Berry, and the fail of the ministry of the duc Decazes, Guizot was deprived of his offices, and in 1822 even his course of lectures were interdicted. During the succeeding years he played an important part among the leaders of the liberal opposition to the government of Charles X, although he had not yet entered parliament, and this was also the time of his greatest literary activity. In 1822 he had published his lectures on representative government (Histoire des origines du gouvernernent représentatif, 1821-1822, 2 vols.; Eng. trans. 1852); also a work on capital punishment for political offences and several important political pamphlets. From 1822 to 1830 he published two important collections of historical sources, the memoirs of the history of England in 26 volumes, and the memoirs of the history of France in 31 volumes, and a revised translation, of Shakespeare, and a volume of essays on the history of France. Written from his own pen during this period was the first part of his Histoire de la révolution d'Angleterre depuis Charles I à Charles II (2 vols., 1826-1827; Eng. trans., 2 vols., Oxford, 1838), which he resumed and completed during his exile in England after 1848. The Martignac administration restored Guizot in 1828 to his professor's chair and to the council of state. During his time at the University of Paris his lectures earned him a reputation as a historian of note. These lectures formed the basis of his general Histoire de la civilisation en Europe (1828; Eng. trans. by William Hazlitt, 3 vols., 1846), and of his Histoire de la civilisation en France (4 vols., 1830), In January 1830 he was elected by the town of Lisieux to the Chamber of Deputies, and he retained that seat during the whole of his political life. Guizot delivered an address in March 1830 calling for greater political freedom in the Chamber of Deputies. The motion passed 221 against 181. Charles X responded by dissolving the Chamber and called for new elections which only strengthened opposition to the throne. On his returning to Paris from Nîmes on 27 July, the fall of Charles X was already imminent. Guizot was called upon by his friends Casimir Perier, Jacques Laffitte, Villemain and Dupin to draw up the protest of the liberal deputies against the royal ordinances of July, while he applied himself with them to control the revolutionary character of the late contest. Personally, Guizot was always of opinion that it was a great misfortune for the cause of parliamentary government in France that the infatuation and ineptitude of Charles X and Prince Polignac rendered a change in the hereditary line of succession inevitable. Once convinced that it was inevitable, he became one of the most ardent supporters of Louis Philippe. In August 1830 Guizot was made minister of the interior, but resigned in November. He had now joined the ranks of the conservatives, and for the next eighteen years was a determined foe of democracy, the unyielding champion of "a monarchy limited by a limited number of bourgeois."
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