Abstract
There was, properly speaking, no royalist movement in France under the Fourth Republic. The postwar flurry of royalist activity had died down by the time the Comte de Paris returned to France. Left to their own resources after 1947 when he had decided to abandon partisan propaganda, the some 200,000 royalists of the land represented loosely organized and varied shades of monarchist sentiment.1 While the absence of statistical information makes it impossible to give definite estimates, they may be roughly grouped into four categories.
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References
S.N., Dossier Mouvement Monarchiste. The same report placed the number of Bonapartists at 15,000.
When he was asked by the author what he thought of the Comte de Paris, an old Legitimist from the Gironde replied: “Why, he is not even a royalist.”
This estimate is based on the author’s talks with several royalists of this ilk.
Quoted in Carrefour, November 17, 1950. This weekly must not be confused with the review of the same name which was published under the Comte de Paris’ auspices from 1938 to 1939.
S.N., Dossier Mouvement Monarchiste.
Personal Interview (Paris, Summer, 1956).
See especially Charles Maurras & Maurice Pujo, Au Grand Juge de France (Paris, n.d.) & Pour réveiller le Grand Juge (Paris, n.d.). See also Les Amis de Charles Maurras, Les Deux justices ou Notre J’Accuse (Paris, 1948). All this literature was issued by a private publishing house, Les Editions de la Seule France.
Chanoine A. Cormier, Mes Entretiens de prêtre avec Charles Maurras (Paris, 1953), p. 62.
Charles Maurras, Lettre à M. Vincent Auriol (Paris, 1952), pp. 1–5. When Maurras left Clairvaux, a truck had to be hired to remove the hundreds of books and papers he had accumulated during his years in prison.
See Maurras’ obituary in the New York Times, November 17, 1952.
Maurras, Trois Devoirs (Unpublished pamphlet).
Personal Testimony of a contributor to Aspects de la France, (Paris, Summer, 1957).
Raoul Girardet, “L’Héritage de l’Action Française,” Revue Française de Science Politique, VII (October-December, 1957), p. 765.
See, for instance, Sud-Ouest Dimanche, January n, 1959; & Le Monde, January 9, 1959.
France: 1940–1955 (New York, 1956), pp. 76–77.
Cormier, Entretiens de prêtre, p. 70.
Personal Testimony of a Maurrassian (Paris, Summer, 1957) ; on this point, see also Girardet, “L’Héritage de l’Action Française,” p. 784, f.n. 30. The intense bitterness of Maurrassian quarrels is exemplified by François Daudet’s letter in answer to Girardet’s article, Revue Française de Science Politique, VIII (March, 1958), pp. 241–244.
See La Nation Française, October 3, 1956.
Girardet, “L’Héritage de l’Action Française,” p. 769.
S.N., Dossier Mouvement Monarchiste.
Girardet, “L’Héritage de l’Action Française,” pp. 775–783.
Ibid., p. 783. The author, who has met Pierre Boutang and several members of the weekly’s team, and who has since followed the evolution of La Nation Française, can only concur with the conclusions of M. Girardet’s excellent article.
Personal Testimony of a Paris royalist (Summer, 1956).
“Le Cancer,” Bulletin Mensuel, February 26, 1951.
November 18, 1954. Rivarol was probably the most influential neo-Fascist publication under the Fourth Republic. It is interesting to note that one of its issues was ordered withdrawn from the stands during the early days of the Fifth Republic.
France-Soir, January 23, 1954.
“Euratom,” Bulletin Mensuel, April 25, 1957.
See especially, “Marché Commun,” Bulletin Mensuel, January 18, 1957.
At the time, there were some who felt that the Comte de Paris would make an excellent French High Commissioner in Morocco. See Maurice Martin du Gard in Bulletin de Paris, July 8, 1955; and La Presse, September 20, 1955.
“Perdre l’Algérie?” Bulletin Mensuel, May 25, 1957.
“Le Dessein Soviétique,” Bulletin Mensuel, November 20, 1956.
Personal Interview (Paris, Summer, 1956).
The wedding ceremony was performed by the Cardinal Archbishop of Paris, and traffic was directed by the state police!
See the Nouvelles de Bordeaux et du Sud-Ouest, May 10, 1936.
France-Soir, September 20, 1955.
S.N., Dossier Mouvement Monarchiste.
“On a connu comme ça un prince qui était socialiste, proudhonien, garibaldien et légèrement carbonaro sur les bords. Plus tard, il était Napoléon III.” Canard Enchaîné, February 10, 1954.
Title of an editorial in Rouergue Républicain, February 5, 1954.
Paris-Match, February 27, 1954.
“Non seulement de Gaulle, mais le Comte de Paris lui aussi fait peur au Gouvernement.” Samedi-Soir, February 11, 1954.
André Fontaine, “Can the French Save Their Republic?,” The Reporter, November ist, 1956.
This excerpt from the General’s letter was widely reproduced in the French press during the first week of June, 1957.
Bulletin Mensuel, September 18, 1958.
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© 1970 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Osgood, S.M. (1970). Maurrassians, the Comte de Paris, and the Fourth Republic 1950–1958. In: French Royalism Since 1870. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-5071-4_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-5071-4_11
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