The Ligue de la patrie française (English: French Homeland League) was a French nationalist and anti-Dreyfus organization. It was officially founded in 1899, and brought together leading right-wing artists, scientists and intellectuals. The league fielded candidates in the 1902 national elections, but was relatively unsuccessful. After this it gradually became dormant. Its bulletin ceased publication in 1909.
Contents
History
Origins
The League originated with three young academics, Louis Dausset, Gabriel Syveton and Henri Vaugeois, who wanted to show that Dreyfusism was not accepted by all at the University.
They were opposed to the League for the Rights of Man and wanted to show that not all intellectuals supported the Left, and the cause of the homeland was as valid as the cause of Dreyfus and the lay Republic.
After an initial meeting on 25 October 1898 in Paris a section was quickly opened in Lille.
They launched a petition that attacked journalist and novelist Émile Zola and what many saw as an internationalist, pacifist left-wing conspiracy. In November 1898 their petition gained signatures in the Parisian schools, and was soon circulated throughout political, intellectual and artistic circles in Paris.
Charles Maurras gained the interest of the writer Maurice Barrès, and the movement gained the support of three eminent personalities: the geographer Marcel Dubois, the poet François Coppée and the critic and literature professor Jules Lemaître. Barrès would provide the inspiration while Lemaitre looked after the organization. Charles Daniélou had been present at the last meeting between Zola and François Coppée during the Dreyfus affair. Zola had decided to publish his article J'accuse…!, in which he proclaimed that Dreyfus was innocent, despite pleas by Coppée. Daniélou sided with Coppée and helped found the League in December 1898. The final decision to create the League was made on 31 December 1898.
Active period
The Ligue de la patrie française was established on 4 January 1899 with Jules Lemaître as its nominal leader.
Lemaître held the organizational meeting on 19 January 1899.
Maurice Barrès was in practice the intellectual leader.
The League was aligned with the Académie française, the army, the church, the aristocracy and the wealthy classes. It brought together a large number of antidreyfusard intellectuals to show that the great names of letters and science did not support revision of the verdict of the Dreyfus trial.
This conservative group had prestige comparable to that of the signatories of the Manifeste des intellectuels launched by Georges Clemenceau. Many well-known members of the Académie signed on including Léon Daudet, Albert Sorel and Jules Verne. The painters Edgar Degas and Pierre-Auguste Renoir supported the movement. About 30,000 members joined in the first month. Workers, artisans and employees represented at most 4% of the membership, while members of the literary, artistic, legal and medical professions made up almost 70%.
The League did not at first take an anti-Semitic position, although Lemaitre claimed at the January organizational meeting that for the past twenty years Jews, Protestants and Freemasons had conspired to run France.
The League refused to engage in a resolute defense of the church. The League was interested in restoring order, but not in establishing an authoritarian regime. Unlike the Ligue des Patriotes and other populist leagues, with Lemaître as president the Ligue de la patrie française rejected violence and avoided abusive language, and thus was more acceptable to the middle classes.
By February 1899 the league claimed 40,000 members.
However, despite being well-funded and represented throughout France the organization was weak. The League was divided between Republican moderates like Ferdinand Brunetière who just wanted to end the disruption caused by the Dreyfus affair and anti-Semitic nationalists like Barrès who wanted an excuse to overthrow the Republic. François Coppée had Bonapartist leanings and was in favor of a coup.
Later years
General Louis André, the militantly anticlerical War Minister from 1900 to 1904, used reports by Freemasons to build a huge card index on public officials that detailed those who were Catholic and attended Mass, with a view to preventing their promotions. In 1904, Jean Bidegain, assistant Secretary of Grand Orient de France, sold a selection of the files to Gabriel Syveton for 40,000 francs.
In November 1904 Syveton gained notoriety when he physically attacked General André in the Assembly in a debate over the files. Syveton died on 9 December 1904 the day before he was due to appear before the Court of Assizes. The nationalists claimed that he had not committed suicide but had been assassinated by the Masons. The Affaire Des Fiches scandal led directly to the resignation of prime minister Émile Combes.
After Lemaitre left the League, Louis Dausset assumed the presidency. He in turn resigned in 1905. The Bulletin officiel de la Ligue de la Patrie française appears to have ceased publication in 1909.
Executive
The executive of the league included:
Members
The first members of the league also included: