Anti-Protestant Rhetoric in the Early Third Republic

In a recent essay the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, Nancy Roelker concluded that on the deepest, instinctive level, the record shows that Frenchmen in general were never at ease with Protestantism; it seemed an alien element invading-and threatening-the body politic and the national unity. ' 1 It is the argument of the present essay that Professor Roelker's conclusion can be accurately transported two hundred years later in French history: the same unease and the same sense of an alien element threatening the body politic and the national unity recur in late nineteenth-century French political thought, especially (but not exclusively) in conservative and nationalist thought. To examine anti-Protestant writings during the early Third Republic, one must recall two important contexts. The first is widely studied and needs only a brief reminder: the French reexamination of their national identity in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War and the Commune. This introspection produced a large body of nationalist literature glorifying French traditions and denouncing threats to them. The domestic threats were ultimately branded the quatre etats confd~ere's, a term popularized by Charles Maurras. The

Argument (complex analysis · Body politic · Element (criminal law · National identity · Nationalism · Political science · Politics · Protestantism · Rhetoric · Theology · Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics · History · Law · Philosophy · Religious studies

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