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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2009
The struggle between village priest and schoolteacher in France over education, the struggle for the minds of the young, has a long history. Although it reached its peak in the Third Republic, it developed throughout the nineteenth century. Unfortunately, evidence is heavily anecdotal, so we do not actually know how extensive or intensive it was, and thus how significant for the history of France.
1. The best introduction to this subject is Singer, Barnett, Village Notables in Nineteenth-Century France: Priests, Mayors, Schoolmasters (Albany, N.Y., 1983).Google Scholar
2. For the Guizot Law see Duvergier, , Collection complète des lois, décrets, ordonnances, reglements et avis du Conseil-d'Etat (Paris, 1833), pp. 234–243Google Scholar. For the Ministry's instructions to the Rectors of the Academies, the teachers, and the inspectors, see the Education Ministry's circulaires in the Archives nationales, F17 1468. See in particular Le Minstre secrétaire d'état de l'instruction publique to the inspecteurs des écoles primaires of 13 August 1835.
3. Inspectors changed at a rapid rate, too fast even for the Almanach Royale to keep up. The six departments are Ain, Charente-Inférieure, Corsica, Creuse, Isère, and the Pyrénées-Orientales. In all of these, the initial report described the clergy as supportive while the second described them as indifferent, divided, or favoring religious schools. There is very little information on the inspectors. Louis Ogès gives a sympathetic description in his L'Instruction primaire dans le Finistère sous le régime de la loi Guizot, 1833–1850 (Quimper, France, 1935), pp. 13–14Google Scholar. Inspectors were to visit two or three communes per day, which gave them about two hours in each. During that time they had to meet with the local committee and inspect the school.
4. Under the Restoration primary education had been left largely to the bishops, or effectively to the local clergy. Under the Guizot Law, the clergy had only one seat on local and arrondissement education committees, and the mayor chaired the local committee. For these reforms see Ponteil, Félix, Histoire de l'enseignement en France (Paris, 1966), pp. 197–203.Google Scholar
5. The classic statement of this argument is in Dansette, Adrien, The Religious History of Modern France (London, 1961), 1: 231–232.Google Scholar The best recent histories of nineteenthcentury French religion, Cholvy, G. and Hilaire, Y. M., Histoire religieuse de la France contemporaine, 2 vols. (Toulouse, France, 1985–1986);Google Scholar and Gibson, Ralph, A Social History of French Catholicism, 1789–1914 (London, 1989)Google Scholar, have little to say about primary education. Histories of education also focus on the battle over secondary education and say little about the church's position on primary education. See, for example, Ponteil, Histoire de l'enseignement.
6. Indeed, the first goal of primary education, according to the Guizot Law, was moral and religious education, which came before reading and writing. For the specific directives see AN F17 1468. See Sevrin, E., Mgr Clausel de Montals, éveque de Chartres, 1769–1857 (Paris, 1955), p. 204.Google Scholar
7. Few have ventured such an assessment. Ralph Bigson cites the ambivalence of the clergy, but reveals as well his own; at one point he suggests that more priests approved of the spread of education than generally assumed, while elsewhere he stresses the church's fear of increased literacy. Gibson, French Catholicism, pp. 96–97, 233–234. The reports are found in AN F17 9306–9313, and are classified by year and within each year alphabetically by Académie. I have covered all the years from 1833 to 1849 to find the two best reports on clerical attitudes. The nine not reporting were the inspectors of Ardèche, Eure, Gironde, Ille-et-Vilaine, Haute-Marne, Nord, Orne, Seine-et-Oise, and Vienne (Haute).
8. Alpes (Basses), Alpes (Hautes), Ardennes, Aube, Aude, Aveyron, Bouches-du-Rhône, Calvados, Dordogne, Doubs, Eure-et-Loir, Gers, Hérault, Indre, Indre-et-Loire, Jura, Landes, Loiret, Lot-et-Garonne, Lozère, Marne, Meurthe, Nièvre, Pas-de-Calais, Hautes-Pyrénées, Haut-Rhin, Haute-Saône, Sarthe, Seine, Seine-Inférieure, Sévres (Deux), and Somme.
9. Haute-Loire, 1841–1842. The inspector-general called this department the most difficult in all the Midi. Haute-Loire, 1835. I will identify these reports only by department and year. The thirteen improving were: Cantal, Card, Loir-et-Cher, Haute-Loire, Maine-et-Loire, Manche, Mayenne, Meuse, Puy-de-Dôme, Vendée, Vienne, Vosges, and Yonne.
10. Aisne, Charente, Cher, Côte-d'Or, and Morbihan.
11. Ariége, Côtes-du-Nord, Drome, Haute-Garonne, Loire, Loire-Inférieure, Rhône, Saôneet-Loire, Tarn, Tarn-et-Garonne, and Var.
12. The ten are Allier, Corrèze, Finistère, Lot, Moselle, Oise, Basses-Pyrénées, Bas-Rhin, Seine-et-Marne, and Vaucluse. The six are Ain, Carente-Inférieure, Corse, Creuse, Isère, and Pyrénées-Orientales.
13. Report for 1837–1838.
14. Alpes (Basses), 1842–1843; Nièvre, 1837–1838, Isère, 1841–1842; Sarthe, 1838–1839.
15. Hautes Pyrénées, 1841–1842; Dordogne, 1841–1842; Jura, 1837–1838; Loiret, 1840–1841. For other examples of such help see Calvados, 1840–1841, and Var, 1845–1846.
16. Lot-et-Garonne, 1846–1847.
17. Morbihan, 1841–1842; Finistère, 1846–1847.
18. Gard, 1841–1842.
19. Dordogne, 1841–1842; Aude, 1848–1849; Seine-Inférieure, 1837–1838; Alpes (Basses), 1840–1841, 1841–1842, 1842–1843.Google Scholar
20. See, for example, Gibson, French Catholicism, pp. 99, 234.Google Scholar
21. Nièvre, 1837–1838; Meurthe, 1841–1842; Aude, 1848–1849; Loiret, 1841–1842.Google Scholar
22. Calvados, 1846–1847.Google Scholar
23. Meuse, 1847–1848; Vienne, 1847–1848; Loir-et-Cher, 1841–1842; Vendee, 1842–1843.Google Scholar
24. Cher, 1840–1841, 1842–1843, 1846–1847.Google Scholar
25. Report for 1842–1843.Google Scholar
26. Report for 1841–1842.Google Scholar
27. Report for 1846–1847.Google Scholar
28. Côte-d'Or, 1842–1843; Aisne, 1841–1842.Google Scholar
29. Loire-Inférieure, 1841–1842; Rhône, 1837–1838; Saône-et-Loire, 1841–1842. The law allowed teaching boys and girls together where (lay) communal schools for girls did not exist. This mixing continued to trouble people throughout this period.Google Scholar
30. Maine-et-Loire, 1846–1847.Google Scholar
31. 1845–1846.Google Scholar
32. 1838–1839.Google Scholar
33. See, for example, Gough, Austin, Paris and Rome: The Gallican Church and the Ultramontaine Campaign, 1848–1853 (Oxford, 1986), pp. 8–13.Google Scholar
34. Vaucluse, 1840–1841; Tarn-et-Garonne, 1845–1846.Google Scholar
35. 1840–1841.Google Scholar
36. Oise, 1846–1847; Somme, 1846–1847; Landes, 1841–1842; Lot-et-Garonne, 1846–1847.
37. Indre, 1837–1838; Lot, 1846–1847; Aude, 1848–1849; Ain, 1848–1849.Google Scholar
38. 1841–1842.Google Scholar
39. Haute-Saône, 1847–1848; Somme, 1840–1841; Doubs, 1847–1848.Google Scholar
40. Doubs, 1847–1848; Jura, 1837–1838.Google ScholarFor an emphasis on the teachers' growing resentment of these expectations see Meyers, Peter V., “Professionalization and Societal Change: Rural Teachers in Nineteenth Century France,” Journal of Social History 9 (1976): 542–558.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
41. Somme, 1840–1841.Google Scholar
42. 1846–1847.Google Scholar
43. 1841–1842.Google Scholar
44. Aisne, 1848–1849; Aveyron, 1841–1842 and 1848–1849; Herault, 1848–1849; Haute-Saone, 1846–1847 and 1847–1848. For a general picture of the Third Republic schoolmasters as the “classic in-betweener” see Singer, Village Notables, pp. 108–146.Google Scholar
45. 1837–1838.Google Scholar
46. Lot-et-Garonne, 1841–1842; Aveyron, 1848–1849.Google Scholar
47. I have used in particular the Carte religieuse de la France rural of Fernand Boulard in his Premiers itineraires en sociologie religieuse (Paris, 1954).Google Scholar
48. Cobban, Alfred, “The Influence of the Clergy and the ‘instituteurs primaires’ in the Election of the French Constituent Assembly, April 1848,” in his France Since the Revolution and other Aspects of Modern History (New York, 1970), pp. 68–81.Google ScholarSee also John Merriman's discussion in his The Agony of the Republic (New Haven, Conn., 1978), pp. 118–123.Google Scholar
49. Bernanos, Georges, Le Journal d'un cure de campagne (Paris, 1936);Google ScholarChevallier, Gabriel, Clochemerle (Paris, 1936).Google Scholar
50. For this literature, see, Prevost, J.-L., Le Pretre ce héros de roman, 2 vols. (Paris, 1952–1953);Google ScholarFranche, Paul, Le Pretre dans le roman francais (Paris, 1902).Google Scholar