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DOCTRINAIRES

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Originally appearing in Volume V08, Page 367 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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DOCTRINAIRES , the name given to the leaders of the moderate and constitutional Royalists in See also:

France after the second restoration of See also:Louis XVIII. in 1815. The name, as has often been the See also:case with party designations, was at first given in derision, and by an enemy. In 1816 the Nain jaune refugie, a See also:French See also:paper published at See also:Brussels by Bonapartist and Liberal exiles, began to speak of M. Royer-Collard as the " doctrinaire " and also as le pere Royer-Collard de la See also:doctrine chretienne. The peres de la doctrine chretienne, popularly known as the " doctrinaires," were a French religious See also:order founded in 1592 by Cesar de Bus. The choice of a See also:nickname for M. Royer-Collard does See also:credit to the journalistic insight of the contributors to the Nain jaune refugie, for he was emphatically a See also:man who made it his business to preach a doctrine and an orthodoxy. The popularity of the name and its rapid See also:extension to M. Royer-Collard's colleagues is the sufficient See also:proof that it was well chosen and had more than a See also:personal application. These colleagues came, it is true, from various quarters. The duc de See also:Richelieu and M. de Serre had been Royalist emigres during the revolutionary and imperial. See also:epoch. MM.

Royer-Collard himself, Latne, and See also:

Maine de Biran had sat in the revolutionary Assemblies. MM. See also:Pasquier, See also:Beugnot, de See also:Barante, See also:Cuvier, See also:Mounier, See also:Guizot and See also:Decazes had been imperial officials. But they were closely See also:united by See also:political principle, and also by a certain similarity of method. Some of them, notably Guizot and Maine de Biran,were theorists and commentators on the principles of See also:government. M. de Barante was an eminent man of letters. All were noted for the doctrinal coherence of their principles and the dialectical rigidity of their arguments. The See also:object of the party as defined by M. (afterwards the due) Decazes was to " nationalize the See also:monarchy and to royalize France." The means by which they hoped to attain this end were a loyal application of the See also:charter granted by Louis XVIII., and the steady co-operation of the See also:king with the moderate Royalists to defeat the extreme party known as the Ultras, who aimed at the See also:complete undoing of the political and social See also:work of the Revolution. The Doctrinaires were ready to allow the king a large discretion in the choice of his ministers and the direction of See also:national policy. They refused to allow that ministers should be removed in obedience to a hostile See also:vote in the chamber. Their ideal in fact was a See also:combination of a king who frankly accepted the resultsof the Revolution, and who governed in a liberal spirit, with the See also:advice of a chamber elected by a very limited See also:constituency, in which men of See also:property and See also:education formed, if not the whole, at least the very See also:great See also:majority of the voters.

Their views were set forth by Guizot in 1816 in his See also:

treatise Du gouvernement representatif et de l'etat actuel de la France. The See also:chief See also:organs of the party in the See also:press were the See also:Independent, renamed the Constitutionnel in 1817, and the See also:Journal See also:des debats. The supporters of the Doctrinaires in. the See also:country were chiefly ex-officials of the See also:empire,—who believed in the See also:necessity for monarchical government but had a lively memory of See also:Napoleon's tyranny and a no less lively hatred of the ancien regime,--merchants, manufacturers and members of the liberal professions, particularly the lawyers. The See also:history of the Doctrinaires as a See also:separate political party began in 1816 and ended in 183o. In 1816 they obtained the co-operation of Louis XVIII., who had been frightened by the violence of the Ultras in the Chambre introuvable of 1815. In 183o they were destroyed by See also:Charles X. when he took the Ultra See also:prince de See also:Polignac as his See also:minister and entered on the conflict with Liberalism in France which ended in his overthrow. During the revolution of 183o the Doctrinaires became absorbed in the See also:Orleanists, from whom they had never been separated on any ground of principle (see FRANCE: History). The word " doctrinaire " has become naturalized in See also:English terminology, as applied, in a slightly contemptuous sense, to a theorist, as distinguished from a See also:practical man of affairs. See Duvergier de Hauranne, Histoire du gouvernement parlementaire en France (See also:Paris, 1857-1871), vol. iii.

End of Article: DOCTRINAIRES

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