The impact of Napoleon III on British politics, 1851-1880

Transactions of the Royal Historical Society

Volumn 11, Issue , 2001, Pages 147-175

  Parry, J P ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 33749333940     PISSN: 00804401     EISSN: 14740648     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0080440101000081     Document Type: Conference Paper

References (115)

1. Matthew Arnold is perhaps the best example. It is also important to point out how profoundly some liberals and radicals disliked the increased respect which Napoleon III received from society, business and the press after the 1860 Commercial Treaty - a dislike that was caustically expressed in A.V. Dicey, 'Louis Napoleon: 1851 and 1873', Fornightly Review, 13 (Jan.-June 1873), 197-204.
2. 1863: R. Millman, British Foreign Policy and the Coming of the Franco-Prussian War (Oxford, 1965), 116.
3. S. Cottrell, 'The Devil On Two Sticks: Franco-Phobia In 1803', in Patriotism: The Making And Unmaking of British National Identity, ed. R. Samuel (3 vols., 1989), 1, 267-8.
4. M. F. Urban, British Opinion and Policy on the Unification of Italy 1856-1861 (New York, 1938), 355-6;
5. F. Krein, The Last Palmerston Government: Foreign Policy, Domestic Politics, And The Genesis of Splendid Isolation (Ames, Ia, 1978), 21-2.
6. Clarendon, 1864, in J. K. Laughton, Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve (2 vols., 1898) 11, 103.
7. See also W. E. Gladstone, 'Germany, France, and England', Edinburgh Review, 132 (Oct. 1870), 574.
8. B. Porter, '"Bureau and Barrack": Early Victorian Attitudes towards the Continent', Victorian Studies, 27 (1983-4), 407-33.
9. On the radicals, see G. Claeys, 'Mazzini, Kossuth, and British Radicalism, 1848-1854', Journal of British Studies, 28 (1989), 225-61.
10. See e.g. S. Laing, Observations on the Social and Political State of the European People in 1848 and 1849 (1850);
11. Manchester Guardian, 1851, quoted in A. Briggs, Victorian People: a Reassessment of Persons and Themes, 1851-67 (Harmondsworth, 1965 edn), 57-8;
12. Palmerston, 25 June 1850, Hansard, 112, 443;
13. H. Reeve, 'Earl Grey on Parliamentary Government', Edinburgh Review, 108 (July 1858), 272.
14. Gladstone, 'Germany, France, and England', 576-80;
15. J.H. Hippisley, 'The Realities of Paris', Westminster Review, 17 (Jan. 1860), 59;
16. H. Reeve, 'France', Edinburgh Review, 133 (Jan. 1871), 1-32.
17. Sarah Austin, 1848, in J. Ross, Three Generations of Englishwomen: Memoirs and Correspondence of Mrs John Taylor, Mrs Sarah Austin, and Lady Duff Gordon (2 vols., 1888), 1, 218.
18. Laing, Observations, ch. 7;
19. The Collected Works of Walter Bagehot, VIII, ed. N. St. John Stevas (1974), 183;
20. George Eliot, 1870, in C. Campos, The View of France from Arnold to Bloomsbury (1965), 50;
21. Duncan, The Life and Letters of Herbert Spencer (1908), 155;
22. J.C. Morison, 'The Abortiveness of French Revolutions', Fortnightly Review, 14 (July 1873), 41-53.
23. Urban, British Opinion, 128, 358.
24. A.W. Kinglake, The Invasion of the Crimea; its Origin, and an account of its Progress Down to the Death of Lord Raglan (8 vols., 1863-87), 1, ch. 14, esp. 277, 282.
25. See also e.g. M.S. Hardcastle, Life of John, Lord Campbell (2 vols., 1881), 11, 299.
26. 14 Jan. 1852, The Letters of Charles Dickens, ed. G. Storey et al. (11 vols. to date, Oxford, 1965-99), VI, 575.
27. A. Hayward, 'The Personal History of Imperialism in 1870', Fraser's Magazine, 2 (Nov. 1870), 638-9;
28. Marquess of Salisbury, 'Political Lessons of the War', Quarterly Review, 130 (Jan. 1871), 261;
29. Dicey, 'Louis Napoleon'.
30. 1861: W.R.W. Stephens, The Life and Letters of Edward A. Freeman (2 vols., 1895), 1, 295-6.
31. A.V. Kirwan, Modern France: its Journalism, Literature and Society (1863), 356;
32. Hayward, 'Personal History of Imperialism', 640;
33. W.R. Greg, 'Suum cuique: 'The Moral of the Paris Catastrophe', Fraser's Magazine, 4 (July 1871), 127.
34. Spectator and Times, 1870
35. quoted in D. Raymond, British Policy and Opinion During the Franco-Prussian War (1921), 74.
36. Of course, some Englishmen applauded the notion of strong leadership by a Carlylean moral hero. However, Carlyle and his followers despised Napoleon III more than most: e.g. L. Huxley, Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley (3 vols., 1903 edn), 1, 334, 336.
37. See Salisbury in 1860 and 1871: P. Smith, Lord Salisbury on Politics: A Selection from his Articles in the Quarterly Review, 1860-1883 (Cambridge, 1972), 129-30;
38. R. Lowe, 'Imperialism', Fortnightly Review, 24 (Oct. 1878), 458.
39. See e.g. Lady Eastlake, 1858, quoted in J. Pemble, The Mediterranean Passion: Victorians and Edwardians in the South (Oxford, 1987), 64.
40. This, in Gladstone's eyes, was the difference between an English and an imperial policy. Palmerston, however, had argued that intervention of one sort or another was the norm for major powers, so Britain was merely standing up for her interests and principles. Palmerston's use of the Roman comparison was presumably intended to imply no more than that Britain should be ready to act as an arbiter of justice as she defined it. However, he was distinctly sympathetic, by generation and upbringing, to the propagation of classical cultural values in public life - as is shown, among other things, by his doughty defence of a classical design for the Foreign Office. Incidentally, both he and Gladstone compared the Second Empire to Augustan Rome, neither very censoriously: see F. C. Palm, England and Napoleon III: A Study in the Rise of a Utopian Dictator (Durham, NC, 1948), 171,
41. and L.A. Tollemache, Talks With Mr Gladstone (1898), 118.
42. The Daily Telegraph, 26 Nov. 1858, 4.
43. E. A. Freeman, General Sketch of European History (1872), 351, 365;
44. Freeman, 'The Panic and its Lessons', Macmillan's Magazine, 24 (May 1871), 2;
45. A. H. Louis, England And Europe: A Discussion of National Policy (1861), 353.
46. M. Taylor, The Decline of British Radicalism, 1847-1860 (Oxford, 1995), 216-18.
47. D. Nicholls, 'Richard Cobden and the International Peace Congress Movement, 1848-1853', Journal of British Studies, 30 (1991), 351-76.
48. Laughton, Reeve, 1, 251-3.
49. J.P. Parry, 'Disraeli and England', Historical Journal, 43 (2000), 716-23.
50. See e.g. Sir H. Maxwell, The Life and Letters of George William Frederick Fourth Earl of Clarendon (2 vols., 1913), 1, 350;
51. Laughton, Reeve, 11, 13.
52. See various speakers (e.g. Bury, Palmerston, Bright, Russell) in the debate on the Address, 7, 9, 10 June 1859, Hansard, 154, 98, 193, 297.
53. Urban, British Opinion, 190-1.
54. Lord Stanmore, Sidney Herbert Lord Herbert of Lea: A Memoir (2 vols., 1906), 11, 166;
55. A.I. Dasent, John Thadeus Delane Editor of 'The Times': His Life and Correspondence (2 vols., 1908), 1, 310.
56. See, for example, the cartoon, 'Free Italy (?)', in Punch, 37, 37, 23 July 1859.
57. M.J. Salevouris, 'Riflemen form': The War Scare of 1859-1860 in England (New York, 1982), ch. 5. Napoleon's annexation of Nice and Savoy in March 1860, though a slight embarrassment to the government in other ways, was of great political benefit in fomenting popular feeling in favour of extensive defensive preparations.
58. E.D. Steele, Palmerston and Liberalism, 1855-1865 (Cambridge, 1991), 99.
59. H.C.F. Bell, Lord Palmerston (2 vols., 1966 edn), 11, 262.
60. J. S. Mill, 'A Few Words on Non-Intervention', Fraser's Magazine, 60 (Dec. 1859), 766-76;
61. W. R. Greg, 'Principle and No-Principle in Foreign Policy', National Review, 13 (July 1861), 241-73;
62. A. H. Layard, 'England's Place in Europe', Saint Paul's: A Monthly Magazine, 1 (1867-8), 275-91;
63. M.E.G. Duff, A Glance Over Europe: Being an Address Delivered at Peterhead on the 19th December 1867 (Edinburgh, 1867), 57.
64. See J. P. Parry, Democracy and Religion: Gladstone and the Liberal Party, 1867-1875 (Cambridge, 1986), 31;
65. Disraeli, Derby and the Conservative Party: Journals and Memoirs of Edward Henry, Lord Stanley 1849-1869, ed. J. Vincent (Hassocks, 1978), 175.
66. K. Martin, The Triumph of Lord Palmerston: A Study of Public Opinion in England before the Crimean War (1963 edn), 70-1.
67. R. Williams, The Contentious Crown: Public Discussion of the British Monarchy in the Reign of Queen Victoria (1997), 100-2, 161-4.
68. J. Parry, The Rise and Fall of liberal Government in Victorian Britain (New Haven, 1993), 39-41.
69. E.g. Wood's views, 1853, quoted by Disraeli and Russell in Hansard, 124, 84-5;
70. R. Lowe, Speeches and letters on Reform (2nd edn, 1867), 147, 163;
71. (1853) Hardcastle, Campbell, 11. 299-300, 312.
72. See also Clarendon, 3 May 1859, in 'My Dear Duchess': Social and Political Letters to the Duchess of Manchester, 1858-1869, ed. A.L. Kennedy (1956), 56.
73. Elcho, a keen volunteer and equally keen Adullamite, argued against the need for Reform in 1865 from his experience as a colonel in a working-class volunteer regiment: C.J. Kauffman, 'Lord Elcho, trade unionism and democracy', in Essays in anti-Labour History: Responses to the Rise of Labour in Britain, ed. K.D. Brown (1974), 189.
74. See Goldwin Smith, 'The Experience of the American Commonwealth', in Essays in Reform (1867),
75. and H. Tulloch, 'Changing British Attitudes towards the United States in the 1880s', Historical Journal, 20 (1977), 825-40.
76. J. P. Parry, 'Past and Future in the Later Career of Lord John Russell', in History and Biography: Essays in Honour of Derek Beales, ed. T. C. W. Blanning and D. Cannadine (Cambridge, 1996), 159-60.
77. See Ayrton's parliamentary speeches, and M. H. Port, 'A Contrast in Styles at the Office of Works: Layard and Ayrton: Aesthete and Economist', Historical Journal, 27 (1984), 151-76.
78. H. Cunningham, The Volunteer Force: A Social and Political History, 1859-1908 (1975), 15.
79. T. Hughes, 'The Volunteer's Catechism, with a Few Words on Butts', Macmillan's Magazine, 2 (July 1860), 192.
80. W.H.G. Armytage, A.J. Mundella 1825-1897: The Liberal Background to the Labour Movement (1951), 29.
81. To Dickens: R. Gibson, Best of Enemies: Anglo-French Relations since the Norman Conquest (1995). 225.
82. R. Christiansen, Tales of the New Babylon: Paris, 1869-1875 (1994), 17.
83. Your Dear Letter: Private Correspondence of Queen Victoria and the Crown Princess of Prussia 1865-1871, ed. R. Fulford (1971), 300.
84. W. Arthur, 'The People's Day': An Appeal to the Rt. Hon. Lord Stanley MP Against his Advocacy of a French Sunday (fifth edn, 1855), 14-15, 37.
85. J. L. Paton, John Brown Paton: A Biography (1914), 133. Paton was Principal of the Congregational Institute.
86. Josephine E. Butler: An Autobiographical Memoir, ed. G.W. and L.A. Johnson (Bristol, 1909), 88-90, 94-6, 113-24.
87. J. M. Ward, Colonial Self-Government: The British Experience, 1759-1856 (1976), 232.
88. R. Koebner and H.D. Schmidt, Imperialism: The Story and Significance of a Political Word, 1840-1960 (Cambridge, 1964), 69-71;
89. Steele, Lord Salisbury: A Political Biography (1999), 17-18.
90. Reeve, 1852, in Laughton, Reeve, 1, 261;
91. Taylor, Decline of British Radicalism, 218-19;
92. Forster, 1875, in The Concept of Empire: Burke to Attlee 1774-1947, ed. G. Bennett (1953), 260.
93. E. Jenkins, 'Two Solutions', Fraser's Magazine, 3 (Apr. 1871), 451-6.
94. See e.g. Russell, in Koebner and Schmidt, Imperialism, 93.
95. For Harcourt, see e.g. M.M. Bevington, The Saturday Review 1855-1868: Representative Educated Opinion in Victorian England (New York, 1941), 64-5.
96. Finn, After Chartism: Class and Nation in English radical politics, 1848-1874 (Cambridge, 1993), 177-86.
97. There is also some material relating to these two paragraphs in J. Parry, 'Gladstone, Liberalism and the Government of 1868-74', in Gladstone Centenary Essays, ed. D.W. Bebbington and R. Swift (Liverpool, 2000), 94-112.
98. M. E. Grant Duff, Foreign Policy (1880), 16.
99. Lowe, 'Imperialism', 462-4.
100. W. E. Gladstone, 'England's Mission', Nineteenth Century, 4 (Sept. 1878), 561-2.
101. Harcourt, Hansard, 243, 767-8, 13 Dec. 1878.
102. A. S. Wohl, '"Dizzi-ben-Dizzi": Disraeli as Alien', Journal of British Studies, 34 (1995), 375-411.
103. N. Ferguson, The World's Banker: The History of the House of Rothschild (1998), 822-4.
104. See e.g. the debate initiated by Goldsmid, 11 Aug. 1879, in Hansard, 249, 681 (one of several).
105. For Gladstone and Lowe on plutocracy, see e.g. W.E. Gladstone, 'The County Franchise and Mr Lowe Thereon', Nineteenth Century, 2 (Nov. 1877), 554.
106. E.g. Jacob Bright, 1878, in Williams, Contentious Crown, 132.
107. Hartington 20 May 1878, Hansard, 240, 264.
108. cited in N. Vance, The Victorians and Ancient Rome (Oxford, 1997), 230;
109. Harcourt, 20 May 1878, Hansard, 240, 335.
110. Grant Duff, Foreign Policy, 50-3;
111. Gladstone, 'England's Mission', 569-70.
112. F. Seebohm, 'Imperialism and Socialism', Nineteenth Century, 7 (Apr. 1880), 727;
113. W.E. Gladstone, Midlothian Speeches 1879, ed. M.R.D. Foot (Leicester, 1971 edn), 50.
114. H. Cunningham, 'The Language of Patriotism', in Patriotism, ed. Samuel, 1, 75.
115. Though the party could unite, it was, once again, for different reasons. While the majority probably saw the Conservatives as the target, some radicals followed Harrison in seeing the 'imperialist' enemy as the whole 'military and commercial aristocracy of England', who had been implementing a policy of conquest and force against native peoples for a generation: 'Empire and humanity', Fortnightly Review, 27 (Feb. 1880), 295.