1. La Belle Époque France 1871-1914
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette, 1876
McKay Palmer 14.74

2. French Third Republic (1870-1940)
Napoleon III captured
-Republic Proclaimed
Thiers replaced with MacMahon as president
Captain Dreyfus convicted of espionage
Third Republic replaced by Vichy government
-German Empire Declared
-Franco Prussian War ends
-Paris Commune (1871)
MacMahon resigns
Dreyfus case dismissed

3. La Belle Epoch/Age of Imperialism 1871-1914
period in European history ( )
considered a "golden age" for the upper classes
Overlaps and includes the Victorian/ Edwardian Era, Era of Bismarck, the Gilded Age in America
Period of relative peace prevailed, increased leisure time, technological boom, prosperity, ostentation, “New Imperialism, the façade of harmony
Champagne perfected, telegraph invented, department store developed, cafes, secularism
Emergence of mass politics & political parties
Birth of spectator sports (soccer, bicycle races, the Olympics (1896)
Mass loyalty to nation-state via mass education
Growing disparity between haves/have nots distracted via imperial conquests
Under surface avant garde (Freud, Nietzsche, Einstein) are breaking the paradigm
Gustave Caillebotte, (1848–1894), Paris Street, Rainy Day, 1877
Camille Pissarro, Boulevard Montmartre, 1897

4. Art of La Belle Époque Impressionism (1860s-1900)
Meant to capture one’s “impression” of a moment in time
First glance
A reaction to photography
A subjective alternative
Like Barbizon style, subject matter was secular, non-historical
But not realistic
Day to day activities, landscape
visible brush strokes, emphasis on light in its changing qualities
accentuated the effects of the passage of time
ordinary subject matter
Light colors usually reserved for historic themes
Rejected at 1st by critics
Some pieces were laced with critique of bourgeois society
Edouard Manet’s Barmaid at the Folies-Bergere
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette, 1876
Claude Monet, Impression, soleil levant (Impression, Sunrise), 1872

5. Pissarro, The garden at Pontoise, painted in 1877

6. Camille Pissarro, Boulevard Montmartre, 1898
This street was one of his favorite subjects. Confined to his hotel room in later years due to eye infection. Reflects new Paris of Hausmann

7. Edouard Manet’s A Barmaid at the Folies-Bergère
Is she merely serving drinks or sadly something more?
Edouard Manet’s A Barmaid at the Folies-Bergère

8. Edoard Manet’s Olympia (1863)
Shocked audiences (not because of its nudity) but because it portrays an independent, pleasure-seeking woman gazing at the viewer who is a prostitute. Sharply contrasts with the traditional Victorian bourgeoisie values

9. Art of La Belle Époque French Academic Style
Return of Spring (1886)
Synthesis of Neo Classicism and Romanticism
Mythological themes of Classical subjects with a heavy emphasis on the female human body
Secular themes painted from still life
A favorite style among the wealthy bourgeois of La Belle Epoque
Critiques called it sentimental, clichéd, conservative, non-innovative, bourgeois, and "styleless"
This Year Venuses Again… Always Venuses!. Honoré Daumier, No. 2 from series in Le Charivati, 1864
1863 Alexandre Cabanel - The Birth of Venus

10. This Year Venuses Again… Always Venuses. Honoré Daumier, No
This Year Venuses Again… Always Venuses!. Honoré Daumier, No. 2 from series in Le Charivati, 1864
being based on idealistic clichés and representing mythical and legendary motives while contemporary social concerns were being ignored

11. Decline of the Second French Empire
Liberalization was designed to divert criticism from Napoleon III’s unsuccessful foreign policy
Crimean War benefited France little
Italian Unification
Establishment of North German Confederation
Franco-Prussian War ( )
Napoleon III was lured into a war via the Ems Dispatch
Thought war would return him to glory, power
Second French Empire collapsed after the capture of Napoleon III during the Battle of Sedan
Napoleon III with Bismarck after B. of Sedan

12. Characteristics of the Third Republic
Politically very unstable
Intended to be a temporary republic until a new monarch could be found
Plagued by short lived ministries (political instability)
50 between (disruptive to continuity)
Extremely polarized
Republicans v Monarchists
Corrupt, Anti-Semitic & Scandals Ridden
The Boulanger Affair
The Panama Canal Scandal
The Dreyfus Affair [L’Affaire]
Still, it survived longer than any other regime since 1789! ( )

13. Third French Republic Declared!
Napoleon III abdicated September, 1870
New government headed by Conservative Adolphe Thiers
Reluctantly continued the fight against the Germans who laid siege to Paris
To defend Paris, a National Guard was raised numbering over 350,000
France surrendered in February, 1871 after 40,000 Parisians died
Prussian troops marched into Paris in March, 1871
Bismarck called for free elections for members of a National Assembly
Needed a legitimate government to surrender
Third Republic declared

14. The Third French Republic
Elections led to large monarchist presence in the National Assembly (400 out of 600)
Republicans were distrusted by provincial French people
Viewed as violent, stupid in foreign policy, unfriendly to Church, too socialistic
Thiers’ provisional President but viewed as:
Unpatriotic (had opposed war from the start)
Too conservative (supported Falloux Laws)
Too ready to accept a humiliating peace with Prussia (Alsace & Lorraine)
Too Royalist (government established itself at Versailles, NOT in Paris)
Parisians seethed with angered
March 18, 1871 Thiers ordered army to remove cannons from Montmartre
Parisians said NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

15. The Montmartre Section of Paris

16. The Paris Commune (March-May, 1871)
Parisians (republicans, socialists, anarchists, Jacobins, workers) declared the Paris Commune
Lasted from March 18-May 28, 1871
Viewed by Marxists as a communist utopia
Was really a revival of Jacobinism (’93) more than a social revolution
Republicans characterized by patriotic, anti-bourgeois, anti-aristocrats/clergy, pro price, wage control, and working condition supervision
But not sweepingly socialist
Dreamed of small direct democratic communes
A contemporary sketch of women and children helping take two National Guard cannons to Montmartre

17. Communard Reforms
Allowed unions & workers cooperatives to take over factories not in use and start them up again
Set up unemployment exchanges in town halls
Provide basic elementary education for all 
were strongly against church-controlled schools
Day nurseries near factories for working mothers
inspiration to later revolutionaries like Vladimir Lenin

18. Paris Commune (March to May 1871)
May 21 western gate was left opened
Known as the “Bloody Week
Thiers ordered National Assemblies armies to invade
25,000 Communards killed
38 thousand arrested
330 thou were denounced
7, 500 deported to New Caledonia
Third Republic is born amidst class hatred & terror

19. Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Paris Sacré-Cœur
Cathedral built ( )
Conceived as a national penance for the excesses of the Second Empire and socialist Paris Commune
Built over most rebellious neighborhood
Embodiment of conservative moral order

20. Characteristics of Third Republic
Republic meant to be temporary
New French legislative assembly dominated by monarchists
BUT Divided over which royal family their wished to grant throne
Legitimist (Bourbon) supported Henri, Count of Chambord
1st in line to receive crown
Descendant of Charles X
He refused crown unless given near absolutist power
Refused Tricolor
Bonapatist- were discredited
Orléanists wanted descendant of Louis Phillipe
But as time passed French cooled on idea of monarchy

21. The Boulanger Affair General Georges Boulanger- Minister of War
Extremely popular general
nationalist who was loved by republicans and conservatives in the military
Became involved in plot to seize gov. and become dictator
Was summoned to trial in 1887
fled to Belgium where he committed suicide on the grave of his mistress
Shook confidence in stability of Gov.

22. Panama Canal Scandal : Ferdinand de Lesseps
President of the French Company that worked on the Panama Canal
Govt. officials took bribes from the company to withhold news from the public that it was in serious economic debt
One billion francs affecting 800,000 investors
All but one of the accused went unpunished due to lack of evidence
Anti-Semitism:
Two German Jews were also involved  received the most press coverage
Results:
Scandal proved to the public that the Republic was corrupt
It created a climate of anti-Semitism that would increase in time

23. The Dreyfus Affair
In 1894 a list of French top secret military documents [called a bordereau] were found in the waste basket of the German Embassy in Paris
Captain Alfred Dreyfus
Jewish officer accused of spying for Germans
Dreyfus was tried, convicted of treason, and sent to Devil’s Island in French Guiana
Major Esterhazy
Real culprit whose handwriting was the same as that on the bordereau
government tried him and found him not guilty in two days
Author, Emile Zola, published an open letter called J’Accuse!
accused the army of a mistrial and cover-up
govt. prosecuted him for libel
Found him guilty  sentenced to a year in prison

24. J’Accuse! (1898)
But this letter has been long, Mr. President, and it is time to conclude.
I accuse Lt-Col du Paty du Clam of having been the diabolical agent of the miscarriage of justice, unconsciously, I want to believe, and of having defended his deed for the past three years by preposterous and extremely guilty machinations.
I accuse General Billot of having held in his hands evidence that would have exonerated Dreyfus and of having suppressed it, of having committed this crime against humanity and justice for a political end, and to save the compromised staff.
I have but one passion: to enlighten, in the name of humanity that has suffered so much and deserves happiness. My inflamed protest is simply a cry from my soul. Let them dare summon me before a court of law and let the inquiry take place in the light of day!
 I am waiting. Please accept, Mr. President, the assurance of my most profound respect.
Emile Zola

25. The Dreyfus Affair Public opinion was divided 
it reflected the divisions in Fr. society
Dreyfusards were anti-clericals, intellectuals, free masons, & socialists
Anti-Dreyfusards, the honor of the army was more important than Dreyfus’ guilt or innocence
Were army supporters, monarchists, & Catholics
Dreyfus finally got a new trial in 1899.
He was brought back from Devil’s Island white-haired and broken.
Results:
Found guilty again, BUT with extenuating circumstances.
Was given a presidential pardon.
Exonerated completely in 1906.
Served honorably in World War I.
Died in 1935

26. Results of Drefus Affair
Army purged of Right-winged Conservatives
The Zionist Movement
Led by Theodore Herzl
Was motivated by the Dreyfus trial to write the book, Der Judenstaat, or The Jewish State in 1896
Creates the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland
“Father of Modern Zionism.”
Separation of Church and State
The anti-clerical, republican left took power in the National Assembly in 1879.
This anti-Catholicism was a remnant of the French Revolution
Ferry Laws [ ]:
Named after Jules Ferry, one of the ablest politicians of the 3rd Republic
first major attempt at educational reform
Ferry Laws
-Only the State could grant degrees.
-Free education in public primary schools.
-Religious instruction was excluded from the State school curriculum.
-Unauthorized religious orders forbidden to teach.
-State improved training of teachers

27. Building the Republic
After 1879 the Third Republic’s Assembly was composed mostly of Republicans
Reforms
Trade unions legalized
Free compulsory elementary schools est. for boys and girls
Critical tool of nation building
Ended Catholic monopoly on education
Learned pledge of allegiance and Marseilles instead of catechism and “Ave Maria”
Bastille Day declared national holiday
Taught by married men and women
Served as vivid contrast to celibate nuns, priests
Easier for married people to cope with loneliness of teaching in villages
Stimulate low birth rate
Claude Monet, Rue Montorgueil, Paris, Festival of 30 June 1878.

28. In France, children were taught in school to not forget the lost provinces of Alsace-Lorraine, which were colored in black on maps

29. 1889 Paris Exposition
World’s Fair held in honor of the French Revolution Centennial.
The Eiffel Tower, completed in 1889, served as the entrance to the Fair.

30. 1889 Paris Exposition: Gallery of Machinery