“An empire of velvet”, by David Todd: Sweet French imperialism of 19th century

The historian details the strategies of political and economic domination, but not colonial, of France, between 1815 and 1870.

by

In 1869, at the end of the Second Empire, the production of champagne reached 18 million bottles, against a few hundred thousand before the revolution of 1789. More than four out of five bottles were exported. The whole luxury and half-luxury industry experienced a phenomenal increase in production during the same period, largely devoted to export. This “commodification of taste” constituted one of the pillars of “French informal imperialism” in the heart of the 19th ^e century, that the historian David Todd analyzes in a stimulating book, a velvet empire . “Informal”, because it does not consist in the armed conquest of territories, as will be the case, after 1870, during the large phase of European colonization, but took softer, if not gentle, domination forms.

Where historiography tends to see a decline in France between the loss of its first colonial domain, almost entirely liquidated in 1815, and the constitution of its second colonial domain in Africa and Asia at the of the XIX ^{e century and at the beginning of the XX e , David Todd sees, on the contrary, the rational choice, but also cynical, of a less expensive and very effective soft power . This consists in weighing on the destiny of other states by making them economically dependent by the loan, in deploying an ambitious export strategy, to protect its expatriate nationals thanks to advantageous legal statutes, to impose itself as A cultural model, that of good taste, elegance and pleasures.}

a rereading of the XIX ^e century

David Todd therefore delivers a fascinating rereading of the century, which completes others, political – historiography showed that these same years 1815-1870 constituted a laboratory very rich in experiments – and economic – since the ‘Idea of ​​a “French delay” in industrial matters compared to Victorian Britain is now nuanced, even questioned. In the same way, he demonstrates that France has participated in the globalization of the 19th ^{e century, as vigorously as Great Britain, and often in concert with it.}

To convince us, he reads Talleyrand and the Saint-Simoniens, travels with account books, is interested in economic-diplomatic litigation during which France imposed its law on weaker states, in Haiti as in Egypt. His analysis of the colonization of Algeria in the 1840s, as a failure of a prior strategy of informal domination, is very interesting. All in his demonstration, David Todd, however, generalizes sometimes to excess, because he seeks at all costs of coherence effects. Thus, the fact of inducing the monarchical character of most of the political regimes of France between 1815 and 1870 the idea that this informal imperialism would be conservative in its objectives and in its forms would require larger discussions.

You have 15.56% of this article to read. The continuation is reserved for subscribers.