What better time to take stock of a life than a funeral, obituary or eulogy? In Funeral Directors (Perrin), the great historian Michel Winock paints a portrait of a dozen personalities of the Third Republic, famous (Victor Hugo, Jules Ferry, Jean Jaurès…) or unknown (Louis Rossel, Hubertine Auclert…), from their end. The opportunity in particular to note that the media of the time had no need of social networks to spit their venom on a corpse. Ernest Renan, yet an academician and administrator of the Collège de France? A “rotten old cow” according to Léon Bloy, a “repulsive man” according to The Cross. Emile Zola? Still in The Cross : “A whole generation was corrupted by his writings of unprecedented shamelessness. Zola did not commit suicide, it seems, so be it! He was not there yet; but how many have had enough of life, after having read Pot-Bouille ! How many have been disgusted by a world where only a corrupt society moved! How many have fled the restorative purity of the fields, of which he showed only the manure in The Earth “.
For L’Express, Michel Winock looks back at the disappearances of some of these great republican figures. The emeritus professor of universities at Science Po also questions the “lame” comparison between Emmanuel Macron and Marshal Mac Mahon brandished by the left (“Jules Simon is not Lucie Castets”), while criticizing the lack of political lucidity of the tenant of the Elysée.
L’Express: Why did you want to portray ten figures of the Third Republic through their funerals?
Michel Winock: Because their disappearances have aroused emotion in the public or the press, but also the opportunity to say what we thought of these different personalities. In the 19th century, unlike today, we did not mince our words when talking about the dead. We could perfectly well say the worst things about someone who had just died. For example, Ernest Renan, the author of The Life of Jesusupon his death, was the subject of vindictiveness in the Catholic press despite his reputation as a scholar. All this because he committed the sacrilege of having taken away Jesus Christ’s divine character. Defrocked, Renan was seen as a Judas.
Zola, upon his death, was also the victim of the anathemas of the entire nationalist and conservative right. He was perceived as a pornographic writer and, above all, the author of I accuse. The moment of death thus crystallizes passions. But death can be a political event in itself, like the assassination of Jaurès or the disappearance of a president like Sadi Carnot or Félix Faure.
The most grandiose funeral was that of Victor Hugo in 1885…
Hugo is the funeral of the century. He is the first since the beginning of the Third Republic to be placed in the Pantheon, since the Pantheon had previously been returned to the Church. And it is an incredible spectacle, with a million people on the route, from the Arc de Triomphe to the Pantheon. French people slept under the stars on the paths of the Champs Élysées so as not to miss the event.
Hugo is both the great writer and the great republican. The great writer, because he knows how to do everything: novel, poetry, theater, speeches, articles… And among his books, Les Misérables were read by an audience that far exceeded that of regular readers. On the political level, he was the man who said no to Napoleon III’s coup d’état until the end. As one of his verses says, “And if only one remains, I will be that one.” Despite the amnesty law of 1859, Hugo remained in exile until the end of the Second Empire. He was then one of the great voices of the siege of Paris, launching an appeal to the Germans to make peace, then becoming one of the heroes of Parisian patriotism. A cast-down cannon even bears his name. And then he became a senator, playing a political role until the end. Even before his death, his 80th birthday gave rise to an incredible spectacle. The Minister of Education came to see him in person to congratulate him, while thousands of citizens filed past his window. Hugo was an icon.
But even for him, there were violent attacks upon his death…
As is often the case, extremes meet. The Catholic right has not forgiven Hugo for his anticlericalism. But the prize goes to the socialist Jules Guesde, leader of the Workers’ Party, who writes in The Cry of the People : “This solemn Béranger, this unrepentant singer of a God who never existed, of a family that exists less and less, of a homeland that can only exist by killing humanity, belongs to the enemy, to the old order of things that the historical mission of the proletariat is to bury, and that Hugo’s dreaded new 93 will throw into the sewer!”
Why did you begin your book with the little-known figure of Louis Rossel, a patriotic communard now neglected by both the right and the left?
I discovered him through the works of Roger Stéphane. There was also a TV film in 1966 by Jean Prat with Sami Frey. Rossel is an extraordinary character, an “adventurer” who got involved in a cause that was not his own. He found himself in the Commune, and was even named Minister of War, even though he was not a socialist. He was a soldier, a Protestant republican disgusted by the re-edition of Bazaine in Metz, from where he returned to join Gambetta in Tours, and continue to fight. When the Commune broke out on March 18, 1871, he sent his resignation to the Minister of War: “There are two parties fighting in the country, I unhesitatingly side with the one that did not sign the peace and that does not have in its ranks generals guilty of capitulations”. But in the Commune, he was out of step. When he took military command, Rossel found himself with fighters who were certainly full of bravery, but devoid of any sense of discipline and hierarchy, while he wanted to apply the rules of the army. During the Bloody Week, he took refuge with a friend, but he was denounced, arrested, sentenced to death and shot. It was a tragic fate, which brought to mind De Gaulle, who also said no to the armistice and was sentenced to death in absentia. It was the same refusal to surrender, the desire to continue the fight out of patriotism.
Rossel remains an unknown figure because, having made the Commune, the Third Republic did not reserve a very complimentary fate for him. But the socialist left could not make a hero of him either, even if he was a republican with a social sensitivity. This fascinating figure has therefore remained in obscurity.
Like Mona Ozouf, you call for no anachronism regarding Jules Ferry’s colonialist positions…
When François Hollande praised Jules Ferry for his school laws in 2012, he felt obliged to point out that other parts of the work were less recommendable – an allusion to colonial policy. But all the European powers were then engaged in colonization. Jules Ferry wanted a policy of grandeur to make people forget the humiliation of 1870. He also denounced the methods used in Algeria, criticizing the “dispossessions” imposed on the Arabs and proposing reforms that provoked the anger of the colonists. He is not the horrible imperialist as he is presented today. Let us not judge the 19th century with our system of values born of the Second World War and decolonization.
On the other hand, if there is one point on which Ferry can be criticized, it is his lack of vision and social policy. He is a big bourgeois convinced that the emancipation of the people will be achieved through school. His great rival Clemenceau, on the other hand, has a real social program, with a series of proposals that will become laws. As much as it is anachronistic to make Ferry a trial on colonization, as much on the social aspect, he was lacking.
In the chapter on John Jaurès, you express sympathy for Maurice Barrès…
The paradox of Barrès is that he can rightly be classified as the founder of a xenophobic and anti-Semitic nationalism. A horrible one! But he is also a great writer who has had a considerable influence on the minds of both the left and the right, including Jaurès and Blum.
What fascinated me was that Barrès and Jaurès were adversaries over the Dreyfus affair as well as over the Three-Year Law that increased the length of military service in 1913. And yet, they respected and esteemed each other. When Barrès learned of Jaurès’ death, he immediately wrote a letter to his daughter Madeleine, telling her that he loved her father and “always suffered from having to be separated from him.” Then he went to his bedside. This provoked the anger of a section of the far right. Why did these two esteem each other beyond politics? What linked them was culture. Barrès and Jaurès would meet at the Palais Bourbon or in a bookstore, talking about Pascal or Georges Sand. It was a different time. Today, we can’t imagine someone from the far left expressing their esteem for a man or woman from the hard right… or vice versa.
What does the historian think of the comparisons between Emmanuel Macron and Mac Mahon?
The dissolution was a huge stupidity. No one understood a narcissistic gesture, a sort of whim. The president trapped himself, and is trying to find a solution. Macron was wrong to sweep aside Lucie Castets’ left. Rationally, he can of course say that the New Popular Front would have been quickly overthrown. That’s true, but at least the mortgage had to be lifted. That could have detached some of the socialists from this alliance. But Macron only consolidated the union of the left. However, there are fundamental contradictions in this association between socialists and Insoumis, as we see with the request for impeachment or the demonstrations wanted by Mélenchon. It is a purely electoral alliance, championed by Olivier Faure. But, in my opinion, Macron made a tactical error by not letting the NFP go all the way.
“Macron made a tactical error in not letting the NFP go all the way”
And the comparison with Mac Mahon brandished on the left?
Let us recall the facts. In 1876, the elections gave the majority to the republicans, while the monarchists had dominated until then. President elected for 7 years, Mac Mahon was not a republican, but he was obliged to appoint a president of the Council of this new majority, Jules Simon. Following various twists and turns, including Catholic demonstrations, Simon resigned due to the will of Mac Mahon, who appointed as head of government the Duke of Broglie, even though he was in the monarchist minority. But this comparison between Mac Mahon and Macron is flawed, because there is no majority in Parliament today. Jules Simon is not Lucie Castets.
Macron is wrong to procrastinate, to wait for I don’t know what to go there. This can only push the radical left into the streets, and force the socialists to remain united. Basically, Macron is not a great politician. Very intelligent, he sometimes has remarkable ideas, especially in foreign policy. But in terms of domestic policy, he has always wanted to govern from above, from the presidency and the Elysée. This works as long as you have an absolute and aligned majority. But since 2022, it’s over. Macron has been caught up by an increasingly parliamentary regime, where things are played out at least as much at the Palais Bourbon as at the Elysée. He hardly seemed ready for this major turning point.
Funeral directorsby Michel Winock. Perrin, 350 p., €22.50.
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