ADOLPHE THIERS WAS CENTRAL TO THE FRENCH RIGHT FOR ALMOST HALF A CENTURY
(FROM THE 1830 REVOLUTION TO HIS DEATH IN 1877)
An appalling figure who in some ways deserves respect.
-- A balanced biography:
Thiers, bourgeois et révolutionnaire by Georges Valence
An erudite, lively, honest historian, his books on John Law, the Revolution and Napoleon are still read:
"After 15 years of arduous work I have just finished
History of the Consulate and Empire"
"One could, I agree, work more quickly, but I have such respect for the mission of history that the fear of announcing a fact that is inaccurate fills me with a kind of confusion. Then I cannot rest till I have been able to prove the object of my doubt. I seek it wherever it may be, and do not stop until I have found it, or come to the certainty that it does not exist.
In that case [... ] I state my intimate conviction, but always with the extreme fear of error, for I find that when one has undertaken to tell the truth of great events, there is nothing worse [...] than to disguise by weakness, to alter by passion, and to lie, consciously or not, to one's own time and to times to come."
-- Translation and bolding mine
He overcomes obstacles that should have been crippling. At a time when...
- Family origins are fundamental, his family is not only indigent but dishonored: His father blackmails him and his brother is a known deserter and agent provocateur. He helps both.
- Physical presence and oratory are also essentiel but Theirs is so short that his legs barely encircle a horse, while at the Assembly his disagreeably high-pitched voice can hardly be heard.
- Urbanity is indispensable, he shows off his newly-acquired wealth like the parvenu he is.
Work, intelligence and Marseilles blarney explain his success:
- He founds the first Opposition newspaper at the end of the 1820's, writes the call that launches the 1830 Revolution, persuades Louis-Philippe to accede to the throne and holds the highest positions during that reign.
- As head of the conservative opposition he is jailed after Napoleon III's coup d'état and for most of the Second Empire (1851-1870) is retired. He returns to politics as a deputy (in 1868) and is one of the few to oppose the Franco-Prussian war (in July 1870).
- That lucidity leads to his heading the Third Republic when the Empire implodes (in September 1870). He becomes its President, and holds that position until his death.
- Commands the brutal repression of a silk workers' revolt in Lyons, France's second largest city (in 1834):
"Let them fire the first shot. Then let them have it." Six hundred people are killed, almost all workers.
- Orders crushing the Parisian revolt that follows, accompanying the troops himself:
Internet without more information
- Tacitly encourages the massacre of Communards (in 1871):
Internet without more information
- Inspires this image, where with one foot in the grave he asks Death to wait while he bombards Paris under La Commune:
"O death! Wait a minute more!"
Thiers leads or contributes to
all the massacres of his times except that
all the massacres of his times except that
following Napoleon III's take-over in 1851,
when he is in prison.
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