Le probléme des origines des Assemblées d'États: Réflexions méthodologiques à la lumière de l'histoire sud‐est européenne de l'institution

Summary

This paper examines the relations between republican and democratic forces in Restoration Spain. From the middle of the last century, republicanism was the political movement most clearly involved with the democratization of Spanish politics. After the collapse of the 1873 Republic, the republican movement went through a severe crisis which led to its fragmentation over issues both of principle (federalists against unitarists) and of practice (revolutionaries against reformists). Between 1873 and 1931 Spanish republicanism underwent a marked transformation. The old republicanism was characterized by the modes of political activity of the nineteenth century — the club, the committee, the masonic lodge. The new republicanism, on the other hand, emerged from the first decade of the present century clearly moving in the direction of the modern political parties which finally crystallized out in 1931. Together the Radical and the Reformist parties are a case‐study in the transition between the classical and the modern which perfectly exemplifies the hybrid nature of republican democracy.

Though Spanish republicanism was socially heterogeneous, embracing within its various parts elements of the upper and middle bourgeoisie, substantial sections of the petty, urban bourgeoisie, and a declining, but still numerous, section of the working class, it still needed an alliance with the socialists (the Conjunción of 1910). However, what was most notable about Spanish republicanism was its link with the intelligentsia; it was they who gave it its character and who made the greatest effort to integrate Spain into the most modern currents of European thought.     

Le pouvoir royal et les barons des États de Languedoc

SUMMARY

In this article Juliusz Bardach examines how the federal principles of the Polish-Lithuanian Union were handled in the framing of the Polish Constitution of 3 May 1791. It is shown how the tension between the unitary aims of the king and the reformers and the federalist aims of the Lithuanian delegates was resolved. Although the constitutional draft that was voted on 3 May 1791 appeared to establish a unitary kingdom, it has to be supplemented under Lithuanian pressure. In October 1791 there was added the ‘Mutual Guarantee of the Two Nations’, which reaffirmed the federal character of the Polish-Lithuanian state.     

La rémunération des députés aux États généraux de France et son incidence institutionnelle

SUMMARY

In 1814, after the defeat of the Napoleonic Empire, the Allied states decided to unite the former Dutch Republic and the former Habsburg Netherlands (the later Belgium), as part of their attempt to elaborate a balanced system of European states. As the age of nationalism was arriving, the chances of this unification succeeding depended upon the gradual integration of the two parts into one Netherlandish nation. Stefaan Marteel argues that the eventual failure of this project, which abruptly came to an end with the Belgian Revolution of 1830, can to a large extent be ascribed to the differences in the political and intellectual history of the two countries, differences that found expression in the development of irreconcilable political languages during the constitutional debates of 1815 and thereafter. In the Northern Netherlands, despite the experiments with radical constitutionalism since the Patriot Revolution, the republican past proved a major obstacle to the construction of a functional constitutional monarchy. The paradoxical result was the enforcement of monarchical authority within a political model that was clearly designed to be constitutionalist. In the Southern Netherlands, on the contrary, the rupture that occurred in its political history owing to the annexation of France allowed, in 1814, for certain innovations in political thought. These innovations were further inspired by the idea that the new political order lacked historical legitimization. Consequently, when social issues arose, such as problems concerning education, religion and public freedom, the government and the political opposition in the Belgian provinces would persistently draw on different interpretations of the constitution. This, in turn, reinforced the impression of a fundamental national division, and created the conditions, should a popular revolt occur, for a rapid radicalization in a nationalist direction.     

Les États de Provence en 1788 et 1789: représentants et représentés dans une province française à la veille de la Révolution

SUMMARY

In this article Monique Cubells has examined the special case of the Estates of Provence, which had been suspended in 1639, but restored in their original form in 1787. The structure of the Estates is analysed to show how none of the three Estates was representative of its Order, since all the deputies sat by virtue of status or function and none were directly elected to the Estates. There was the further feature that the Estates of Provence voted by head, not by Order, a position that was fiercely defended in Provence by the same people who would bitterly resist it when applied to the Estates General of 1789. In Provence, the arrangement meant that the Clergy and the Nobility easily outvoted the Third Estate, in addition to which several members of the Third Estate were nobles. Thus the Estates of Provence were not, and had never been representative even of the ruling elites, much less of the wider society. The article then examines the growing public debate in Provence after 1787 in which pamphlets and public meetings demanded changes to introduce the principle of representation, based on natural right, reason and justice. But when Louis XVI decreed a uniform electoral system for the Estates General of 1789, the issue of representation in Provence faded into the background. The abolition of the Estates of Provence, in consequence of the vote of 4 August 1789 then aroused only minor protests.     

Les États—Unis d'Italie: la solution fédérative du problème national chez les démocrates du Risorgimento

SUMMARY

In this article Franco Bozzi discusses the case made by the supporters of Italian Risortgimento, who advocated a federal structure for the new Italian national state. Because in the course of events, Cavour's model of a unitary state under the House of Savoy was adopted, it is often overlooked that coherent arguments were advanced, to the effect that the whole historical-political tradition of political life in Italy had been federalist, built around the tradition of the autonomous City Commune. Thinkers such as Carlo Cattaneo, Enrico Cemuschi and outsiders, including Proudhon, suggested that a federal structure for the new state would be in line with the political tradition of Italy and would attract a much higher level of popular support and consent, whereas a unitary structure would have to be enforced from above on a reluctant people. In the light of their thinking, the unification after 1860 could be seen, and has been interpreted, as a potential popular revolution that failed or was stifled by Cavour and the centralizers.     

Les députés de Lyon en cour et l’art des communications de la ville et du pouvoir royal au XVIe siècle*

In the ancien régime, major municipalities in France constantly sent delegates, or deputies and solicitors to the court to make petitions and refer disputes to arbitration seeking favour for the city. Their mission was to defend the interests of the city. The deputies of Lyon were most often urban elites, who were expected to play an active part in negotiations with the royal government. J.P. Gutton ranked the deputies and clarified the activities during the seventeenth century: ‘The agent responsible for the affairs of the city’ resides permanently in Paris, ‘the ordinary deputy’ resides normally in Lyon and travels with instructions made by the consulate, and the ‘extraordinary envoys’ accompany ordinary deputies. However, in the sixteenth century, the deputies were not yet specialized and the consulate decided which deputy to send to court if necessary. This article aims to clarify the appointment of deputies, their relations with the royal officers in the government, as well as the contents of their business. To this end, the correspondence exchanged between the deputies and the consulate in series AA of the archives municipales de Lyon will be analysed, especially the consular deliberations in series BB, on the selection of deputies and the purpose of dispatch. Finally, this article will focus on understanding the negotiations that were held between the important city, Lyon, and the monarchy through the intermediary of the deputies. An analysis of the deputies of the city would also suggest where they went to get decisions in the royal administration and how consensus was formed in sixteenth-century France.     

Réflexions sur des États Provinciaux au XVIIIe siècle: Provence,Comtat Venaissin,Corse

SUMMARY

In this article F-X Emmanuelli examines the experiences of three sets of provincial Estates, those of Provence, Comtat Venaissin and Corsica in face of the pressures from the governments of Louis XV and Louis XVI aimed at undermining the autonomy of the Pays d'Etats and extending the direct authority of the royal government. The article suggests that the royal government did follow a consistent policy of seeking to enlist the support of the social groups in provincial society which it judged most likely to be cooperative and at the same time seeking to reduce the sphere of activity of the Estates to routine administration and the assessment of taxation, for the royal government did not venture to try and suppress their traditional fiscal privileges. After an examination of the different experiences of these three provinces, the article suggests reasons why the Estates enjoyed considerable success in resisting the pressures put upon them and safeguarding their traditional liberties. The level of success, however, is shown to depend on the particular nature of the institutions of the province and the social structure of the Estates themselves.     

Voyage chez France culture:à la découverte des spécificités et de la notion de culture

本文通过对一电台节目——“法兰西例外”(Exception francaise)的时间构成、题目内涵、音乐效果和主持风格的分析,试图把握法国文化电台所体现的文化宗旨和由此而见的法国文化政策。     

Apparence et réalité du pouvoir de représentation des provinces à Paris L'exemple des Etats provinciaux du Nord au XVIIIème siècle

SUMMARY

In this article, Marie-Laure Legay has examined the relations of the Provincial Estates on the north-eastern border of France—Flanders, Artois and le Cambrésis—with the central government. It shows that they did not waste energy disputing the tax demands of the crown, their right to assent to taxation had been reduced to a formality and they voted them without debate. But they then used direct representations through the delegations they sent to Paris, which usually resulted in some concessions being made by the crown. Similarly the Estates did not engage in formal assertions of their autonomy, but the full-time agents they hired in the capital processed a flow of remonstrances and petitions to the agencies of the central government. Thus instead of resisting the movement towards increased centralization of authority, they used it to pursue local advantages. In this way, the Estates were able to purchase the right to make appointments to local offices, while they repeatedly bypassed the Intendant, lobbying successfully for the transfer of many of his areas of competence to the Estates. This pragmatic strategy of working with the system, rather than opposing it was pursued consistencly down to 1789.     

Du système des bureaux au système des groupes et des commissions. Le règlement parlementaire italien de 1920 et la doctrine constitutionnelle*

An attempt to explore the scope of Italian parliamentary reforms in 1920 in the context of the transition from a traditional constitutional culture to a new model of political representation is presented. The workings of Parliament were ‘temporarily’ established in 1848, when a system of ‘bureaux’ was adopted which was to last until 1920. They were distributed among members by lot. Preliminary discussions took place in these ‘bureaux’, which then nominated a commission with the responsibility to present its work to the Assembly. This system related to the concept of representation according to which each deputy freely represented the entire nation. By contrast, the 1920 reforms proposed to organise this by means of commissions whose membership mirrored the proportional weighting of political groupings to which all deputies had to belong. This regulation complemented earlier electoral reforms which, following the introduction of male mass suffrage, favoured the presence on the political scene of modern parties. As a result of this new parliamentary regulation and in spite of resistance based on constitutional tradition, the political parties, now part of political life, moved to the heart of the institutional life of the state.     

La "poésie objective" de Rimbaud et les paysages des poètes chinois classiques

Je me propose d'appréhender la "poésie objective" de Rimbaud en la rapproc hant des paysages des poètes chinois classiques. Mon sujet, comme on le voit, touche a un vaste domaine complexe,aussi ne puis-je en parler ici que d'une facon élémentaire et sommaixre.Par "paysage", je veux dire ce que nos critiques classiques entendaient par le terme chinois "I-Jing"(意境)ou "Jing-Jie"(境界). C'est le monde qui nalt de la fusion du monde intéricur et du monde extérieur     

La procédure des Gravamina lors des sessions de la Diète hongroise

Summary

In 1791 there were published eight weeklies and one fortnightly in the British North American colonies which, in 1867 and the following years, united to form the Canadian confederation. The British newspapers served them all as principal sources of information about the events in Europe. The positive and sympathetic press reports in Great Britain relating to the momentous changes in Poland, which were introduced with the adoption of the 3 May 1791 Constitution by the Diet, were thus also ‘echoed’ in Canada. These ‘echoes’ notwithstanding, judging by the scope of press coverage, which started on 4 July 1791, as well as by some editorial comment, it can be concluded that there also existed a genuine interest in Canada about the progress of the peaceful Polish ‘revolution,’ which contrasted so sharply with the bloody strife in America and France.     

Analyse des motivations,des besoins et des attentes des étudiants dans l''''apprentissage du francais dans le cadre des facultés de sciences économiques

法语第二外语教学长期以来都是以所用的教材来决定上课的内容和形式,而较少考虑到学生的学习动机以及他们对法语课的需求和期待,上课的气氛比较单调和沉闷。本文采取问卷调查的方法,主要对财经类院校学生学习法语的动机进行分析,研究这一特殊教学对象的学习需求和期待,以便更好地为他们提供相适应的教学内容和形式。     

Peuple,patrie et nation: les mots et les idées dans le Discours parlementaire portugais du dix-neuvième siècle

SUMMARY

In this article Maria Manuela Tavares Ribciro analyses how the Portuguese Republicans of the later nineteenth century drew inspiration from the ideas and the symbols of the Revolution of 1820 in Portugal. The subsequent liberal regimes located sovereignty in the Nation, which they distinguished from the People, who only shared in the exercise of sovereignty through voting. The will of the Nation was expressed through the elected deputies and was distinct from the will of the People and superior to it. Against this the Republicans set the revolutionary concept of the ‘Patrie’, distinct from the Nation and the direct embodiment of the collective will of the People. It was by drawing on the revolutionary concepts and symbolism of the 1820s that the late nineteenth-century Republicans articulated their claim that by setting up a republic, the People would re-invigorate the moribund liberal Nation by their direct, collective action and fashion a new and better Nation in its place.     

L'invention de la décentralisation. Noblesse et pouvoirs intermédiates en France et en Europe XVII-XIXe siècles

SUMMARY

Following the 57th Conference of the ICHRPI/CIHAE held in Paris in September 2006, a linked conference took place in Lille on 7–9 December 2006 on the theme of ‘The Invention of Decentralization: Nobility and Intermediate Powers in France and in Europe from the 17th to 19th centuries’. The underrepresentation of speakers on the nineteenth century and the absence of some communications on Spain meant that the main thrust of the papers was on early modern Europe, with particular emphasis on France, the Netherlands, the Habsburg lands and Poland. Among the conclusions that emerged was the notion that the role of the nobility in intermediate state bodies or institutions was an institutional reflection of a social reality, prefiguring what happened in the nineteenth century. In France, the provincial vocation of the nobility developed fully between 1750 and 1850. The proceedings of the conference will be published, but in the meantime the editor offers her summing up of the papers.