Republican Politics in the Rural Community

Republicanism in the rural Aude during the golden age of the vine developed in three stages: first, with the beginnings of a republican opposition in rural communities under the July Monarchy and in 1848; second, with underground political associations during the repressive phase of the Second Republic; and third, with the Narbonne Commune, which clearly divided republicans in the Aude, much as the Paris Commune divided republicans nationally.

Underground republican opposition to the July Monarchy had acquired enough of a following that in the Aude, as elsewhere in France, the February revolution of 1848 immediately catapulted republicans into key administrative offices, and democratic socialist clubs burst into activity.^[29] These "rouges" (also called démoc socs or "montagnards") supported universal male suffrage under a democratic republic, the right to work, and social and economic reforms for the laboring poor. Their leaders included the socialist Armand Barbès, known as an alleged con-

spirator in the Fieschi plot and as a member of the Société des droits de l'homme, and elected deputy in April 1848; Emile Digeon, also a démoc soc active in the leftist Club de l'union in Narbonne; and Théodore Raynal, who took over as subprefect of the Aude in February 1848 and became republican deputy for the Aude the following April.^[30] In the démoc soc clubs that appeared in market towns and rural bourgs in 1848, peasants and artisans discussed republican and socialist ideas and mobilized support for republican candidates.^[31] They ended their meetings with torchlight processions, sometimes parading a small statue of the Marianne—revolutionary symbol of the republic—singing the "Marseillaise," or shouting, "A bas les blancs!" "A bas les chouans!" "Vive Barbès!" "Vive Ledru-Rollin!" Women joined these processions from time to time dressed as goddesses of liberty. Their presence symbolized the ambiguity of female representation within early republican political culture: they symbolized the republic but were excluded from it. Women did not join these political clubs, nor did Audois démoc soc clubs address the issues of work, civil liberties, and political rights for women that political groups elsewhere raised in 1848.^[32]

Groups analogous to the Club de l'union sprang up in villages throughout the Aude. In Coursan, Cuxac d'Aude, Ornaisons, Ouveillan, and Salles d'Aude démoc soc clubs drew small landowners and artisans, vinedressers, schoolteachers, café owners and wine wholesalers.^[33] These groups showed that the petty bourgeoisie, workers, and artisans had begun to challenge the "official" structures of political authority and were able to act independently of powerful conservative notables.^[34] In addition to clubs, a left republican political press, notably Théophile Marcou's La Fraternité in Carcassonne, spread republican ideas. Drawing on the symbols and images of the revolution of 1789, Audois republicans addressed each other as "citoyen commissaire" and used the term montagnard to describe the left-wing republican deputies in the Constituent Assembly. Republican electoral propaganda proclaimed the reign of "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity."

Despite their agreement on certain fundamental issues, republicans in the Aude, like republicans in the Haute Garonne and elsewhere, represented a mixture of class interests. These

differences are important because they typified two divergent views of the Republic.^[35] On one side were Armand Barbès and Théophile Marcou, who represented the radical democratic socialist wing of republicanism; Marcou's La Fraternité supported universal suffrage, the right to work, the equal distribution of property, the abolition of usury, and the establishment of a progressive income tax.^[36] In their propaganda for the elections of April 1848 addressed to peasants and vinegrowers, démoc socs pledged to reorganize taxation, establish cheap credit and free education, and abolish the hated wine tax, a sentiment immortalized in Claude Durand's popular "Chant des vignerons," sung in many areas of France. A year later they added to their platform nationalization of transportation, banks, and mines, foreshadowing the radical republicans' electoral promises of the 1880s.^[37] The depression of 1846–1847, which brought falling wheat and wine prices, made peasants and farmers especially receptive to republicans' promises to abolish the wine tax and reform taxation. The fact that in the south the agricultural depression hurt not only farmers and vinegrowers but also urban artisans and workers (unlike in the north, where lower agricultural prices benefited urban workers) helped to create political alliances between these groups in the late 1840s and early 1850s; both formed the base of a démoc soc constituency.^[38] On the other side, Théodore Raynal represented the more moderate republicanism of property owners and professionals—those who disdained political privilege but at the same time were concerned to protect their property and status. Writing in his short-lived newspaper Le Populus (begun in August 1849), Raynal rejected "the distribution of wealth that the Communists dream of" and pledged to oppose any improvement for the laboring classes that threatened the right to property.^[39] These two strains of republicanism in the Aude followed national patterns and formed the foundations of radicalism and moderate republicanism later in the Third Republic.

After the moderate republicans triumphed in the Aude in April 1848 (except that Barbès, too, was elected), the Aude became a political battleground in the struggles between republicans and conservatives. In formerly tranquil villages, disgruntled conservatives, encouraged by the slaughter of Paris

workers in June, demonstrated against republicans during the August municipal elections. In Ginestas, a mob attacked the republican national guards stationed at the ballot box; in Lézignan, conservatives tried to tear down a red flag that had been draped in the public square; and in Narbonne, where republican Théodore Raynal was elected, a crowd stormed the town hall demanding a ballot recount.^[40] The continued effects of the nationwide agricultural depression of the late 1840s, combined with the shock of revolution, resulted in a political shift to the right: the "peasant insurrection" of December 10. Whether as the defender of order in the wake of revolution or as the beneficiary of the Bonapartist legend, Louis-Napoléon garnered strong support in the Aude (over 75 percent of the vote, somewhat higher than the national average) from peasants hostile to the wine tax and the 45 percent surtax on land (he opposed both).^[41]

In the Narbonnais, however, leftist republicans did not hesitate to express their hostility to the new president. The Club de l'union in Narbonne openly proclaimed its opposition by transforming a carnival masquerade on Ash Wednesday, February 21, 1849, into a political demonstration. The procession included the Garbage Cart of the Reactionary Press; the Cattle Car of the Moderate Party; the Chariot of Justice, carrying a scale with balances of unequal lengths; a masked man carrying an empty chest inscribed with the words "Treasury-Savings Bank"; and finally, the pièce de résistance, another masked man riding backward on a donkey (a traditional symbolic form of humiliation in charivaris and English rough music), representing the president of the Republic.^[42] The transformation of traditional popular cultural forms such as carnival into vehicles of political protest constituted an important stage in rural dwellers' assimilation of national politics. But demonstrations like these also touched off a wave of repression that included the dismissal of both the sub-prefect of the Aude, Théophile Vallière, suspected of collaborating with the démoc socs who staged the demonstration, and the National Guard of Narbonne. The resurgence of the right persisted through the May 1849 elections, which dealt a blow to the démoc socs and strengthened Bonapartists in the department.^[43]

In some areas, employers threatened to dismiss workers if they refused to vote for conservative candidates.^[44] Although

repression of left-wing organizations made it more difficult for démoc socs to organize, they continued to receive support from woodcutters and small farmers in the Corbières hills, who had been hurt by the alienation of public forests; from similar groups in the Montagne noire north of Carcassonne; and from small farmers and agricultural workers in the Narbonnais. Likewise, textile artisans in Chalabre backed the left, and démoc socs won all four major towns in the Aude, Narbonne, Carcassonne, Limoux, and Castelnaudary, where the combination of markets and industrial depression made their program appealing and facilitated the establishment of a base among urban artisans.^[45] These economic conditions permitted a left constituency to survive despite the authoritarian and repressive policies of the Napoleonic Republic and early Second Empire. Thus the politics of peasants and rural artisans began to acquire a certain autonomy, apart from the influence of local notables.