The Birth of Heritage: 'Le Moment Guizot'

The Birth of Heritage: 'le moment Guizot'
DOMINIQUE POULOT
Heritage's metamorphoses
Considered in terms of the evolution of its vocabulary and in relation to different mentalite's, the
modern cult of heritage has had three principle
phases. Firstly, the word signifies a possession,
whether property or furniture; it refers to the right of
ownership. Objects are valued as relics which
provide a pretext for the promotion of a group
identity through respect for traditions, the reassurance of established opinions, and the maintenance
of an inheritance. From this perspective, French
society has no common possessions; yet, at the same
time, certain of its members possess inheritances of
diverse, indeed contradictory, value and interest
linked to specific social comportments, which they
inform and cultivate. Ultimately indifferent to the
inherent value of the object, this mode of heritage is
nonetheless resistant to any form of rational or scientific legitimation of its conservation and upkeep. Its
use is wholly 'practical', that, so to speak, of a family
inheritance.
* Heritage is clearly an unsatisfactory rendition of patrimoine, but a
convenient, consistent short hand equivalent was needed so as to avoid
repeated long-winded circumlocutions. Every now and again, the
original has been retained as a reminder of this difference. Patrimoine has
a specifically national ring to it, and is less vacuous than heritage, and is
therefore more rather than less a subject of contention. Neither is there
yet an English adjective deriving from heritage as with patrimonial no
doubt someone will soon coin a term. (Trans.)
40
The second sense of patrimoine appeared with the

modern nation state. In confiscating first Church
property, then that of the crown and emigres, the
Revolution deprived almost all the monuments of
French memory of their traditional guardians and
threatened them with privatisation. The urgent and
completely unprecedented character of the situation
opened the way for a general, systematic conservation project, based on Enlightenment ideas. In
October 1790, a patriot and antiquarian, Puthod de
Maison Rouge, defined the predicament and its
risks in a petition:
For every collector who might acquire a share of these
monuments, how many people will have no idea of their
worth! And, even were all the owners to be collectors, the
heritage of a few such individuals would not be that of the
nation.5
In the wake of the Revolution, Conservation was

explicitly devoted to a national history stripped of
past prejudices, and conditioned by present circumstances in the form of an entirely remodelled society.
This definition was at the heart of reconstructed
conservation, as, indeed, it was of revolutionary
culture as a whole (Mona Ozouf). Dominated by the
museum-inspired schema of a selection of items,
heritage was identified with a new, carefully demarcated cultural foundation and not with 'natural',
hereditary transmission. The nineteenth century
saw the triumph of a representation of an ordered
(raisonne) heritage, governed by the citizens' faith in
science and progress. The historical, that is, scientific, value of monuments came to supersede their
intended original significance, whether was merely
forgotten or challenged. In the name of its responsibility for the future, and of the universal civilisation
of which it was part, the patrie initiated a scholarly
inventory of the eternal masterpieces and specimens
of each epoch.
Finally, according to Alois Riegl, linked to the
movement towards the emancipation of the individual, in the age of the masses heritage was appreciated 'only [for its] subjective and affective effect':
the past was considered not for its own sake; it was
culturally and socially democratic because it was
purely a matter of feeling. This mode of heritage was
that of tourist crowds' naive emotion, suited to
immediate consumption. In his Modem Cult of Monuments (1903), Riegl brilliantly observed that what
had been lost in intensity was gained in scope, a lack
of depth compensated for by 'the multitude and
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In Europe today, the concept of heritage* has

become spectacularly topical, a topicality promoted
by investment from interested parties in financial,
political and intellectual quarters. Various studies
have shown the social effects that a given act of
protection (or 'classification', according to Bourdieu) can produce in the urban fabric.1 Other writers
have denounced the ideological, directly political
character of such celebrations of the national cultural
heritage, especially on the occasion of TAnnee du
Patrimoine' (Heritage Year), going beyond the
'Jacobin' or Left tradition of such criticism.2 And,
very recently, the recognition of tourism's and the
media's whole-hearted exploitation of the spectacle
of heritage has provoked a series of critical essays
and a cultural geography of the phenomenon,
although with a bias towards America.3 In parallel,
within the universities, the premises of a modern,
contemporary archaeology, clearly linked to industrial archaeology, are being worked out with the
ambition of dominating the elusive discourse of
heritage.4
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11:2
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society's amnesia, the crisis of discourse of history

and the evanescence of the New.
At the end of the 1980s, the status of heritage is
that of something wholly of the present. Heritage is
adaptable, not in Chateaubriand's sense when he
evoked the necessity of a 'predisposition suitable for
the calm recollection of the past', but rather in the
image of the historical monument as a commodity of
post-modern architecture and the redevelopment of
old city centres.10 If heritage strives to capitalise on
its ubiquitous, multifarious potential uses, it risks
becoming reduced to the level and uncertainty of
fashion, as if, having been divested of the fixity of the
past, it had become the plaything of the present.
More certainly, and perhaps also more seriously,
heritage promises to become part of a timeless
present, where the past no longer passes but is kept
in continual unpredictable use.
It is therefore all the more important to return to
the moment of the term's foundation: to recover,
beyond common-sense banalities (the struggle
against vandalism, the need to preserve the past. . .)
the precise originality and significance of an intellectual project which, today, has been rendered banal,
or simply lost sight of. In what follows we will focus
on Guizot's seminal role in the inauguration of the
contemporary history of heritage through an analysis of his 1830 Rapport.
Born in Nimes in 1787 of a Protestant father who

perished during the Terror, Francois Guizot was the
product of a Genevan education, as solid as it was
austere. Subsequently installed in Paris, through
working for bookshops and on articles, translations
(including Gibbon), and reviews of all sorts, Guizot
made himself into something of a polymath. His
marriage to Pauline de Meulan, with whom he had
already collaborated, firmly established him in the
world of publishing. In 1812, he was appointed to a
chair of modern history at the Sorbonne at the age of
twenty-five and had to develop an appropriate
mastery of history; at this time he also became the
friend of Royer-Collard. The Restoration removed
him from the University into a political and administrative career thanks to the group of doctrinaires that,
henceforward, he would represent: initially general
secretary at the Ministry of the Interior, he was
eventually to become director of departmental and
communal administration until the purge which
followed the fall of the Decazes (1820) returned him
to the Sorbonne. There he gave a two year course on
Les Origines du gouvernement repre'sentatif en Europe.
As a result of his opposition to the ministries of

Richelieu and above all Villele, in October 1822 he
was forbidden from teaching and began an intense,
productive period of publishing articles, pamphlets,
translations and editions of texts (including the
Observations sur I'Histoire de France by Mably in 1823,
complemented by his own Essais sur I'Histoire de
41
variety of the traces of oldness'. The success of

Maurice Barres's campaign6 to have all French
churches classified on sentimental, rather than
historical or artistic grounds, confirmed his
prophesy: 'if the nineteenth century was the century
of historical value, the twentieth century seems to be
that of the value of oldness'.
Two or three generations later, the proposition by
Jean-Philippe Lecat, the French Minister of Culture
at the time of Heritage Year, that 'a priori everything
should be considered an element of heritage', apart
from signalling an apparently democratic enjoyment
of the past, in fact manifests nothing less than the
end of the line in thinking about heritage. Yet this
bankruptcy was not unexpected. For heritage-forthe-masses is not supported by any metadiscourse
(of progress or of history), neither is it rooted in
individuals' pasts; this was quickly understood by
those historians who have diagnosed a loss of collective memory and a breakdown of communication
between the present and the past.7 It is defined only
by an opposition to the present, whose touchstone
is novelty value; in its insatiable search for objects, it
caters for nothing beyond individual desires. But
today the old seems less different than out of focus
hence very close, whereas the modern is marked by a
sense of deja vu according to Christopher Lasch,
this narcissistic culture has lost all interest in the
future.8
For at least the last decade, official speeches have
emphasised the contemporary currency of it to the
point of making it the leit-motiv of any remarks on
conservation. Administrative vocabulary itself has
been marked by this from Jack Lang's 'new
heritages' to the colloquium on 'Historical Monuments Tomorrow' (1984), the National Meetings of
the Ecomuseums ('Forward Memory!', 1986), or
the Heritage Forum at the Cite des Sciences et de
l'lndustrie de la Villette (1987).9 Moreover, a
proliferating professional literature has set to work
surveying the thousand and one ways in which one
can create an unknown heritage, or redesignate
the familiar so that it can be dusted off and
unveiled.
Whether 'heritage' itself, at least in its classic form,
can survive such a mobilisation of memories is by no
means certain. For heritage has become a raw
material needing to be transformed, a deposit to be
given value, and an economic sector to be developed.
This attitude or process has nothing to do with the
commonplace idea that, in each period, heritage
acquires different significance and legitimacy in so
far as it answers the needs of the times. Each period
would seem to arrive at its own definition of heritage
and fashion it according to its own interests. But
heritage had always been envisaged as other, and cut
off from the present for different reasons memory,
history, feeling. Each successive perception of the
past the search for origins, the inventory of
sources by historical science, the nostalgic review of
times past has been superceded by contemporary
France). Most importantly, the first two volumes of

his Histoire de la Revolution d'Angleterre appeared in
1826 and 1827. T h e return of the Liberals in 1828
restored him to his post, and led to his key work,
presente au Roi pourfaire instituer un inspecteur general des

monuments historiques en France (21 October 1830),
supplemented four years later by the Rapport au Roi

sur les mesures prescrites pour la recherche et la publication
des Documents inedits relatifs a I'Histoire de France
(27 November 1834). For Guizot:

the history of the arts should have a place in the vast body
of research which embraces all parts of the national
existence and destiny. Perhaps nothing can more vividly
reveal to us the social state and true spirit of past generations than the study of their religious, civil, public, and
domestic monuments, and the ideas and various conventions which were involved in their construction, the study,
in a word, of all the examples and all the varieties of
architecture which is, at one and the same time, the
beginning and fulfilment of all the arts.
H e proposed
to initiate immediately a significant study on the subject:
[. . .] [to] have executed a full inventory, a descriptive and
systematic catalogue of all types of buildings from all
periods which have appeared and still survive on French
soil. [. . .] This enterprise must not be an accidental or
ephemeral initiative; it must be a sustained homage and,
so to speak, a lasting institution in honour of France's
origins, her memories and her glory.
A singular critical fortune

The history of the administration of historical monuments in France has not yet been written, at least not
in a way which goes beyond a mere chronicle or the
parading of an ancestral gallery.12 When set in
motion by a twinge of historical conscience, such
edifying narratives all too often evade any serious
examination of the basic concepts involved. It is for
this reason that accounts of the Service des Monuments historiques have paid no attention to the
situation between 1820 and 1830. Hence the value of
a scrutinising of the primary sources which attends
42
1988
L'Histoire de la Civilisation en Europe, followed by

L'Histoire de la Civilisation en France (1828-1830). In
1827 he was founder of the famous 'Aide-toi, le Ciel
t'aidera' society. In January 1830 he became Deputy
for Lisieux, later organising the Deputies' protest
against the July Ordonnances and in due course
becoming Minister of the Interior in LouisPhilippe's first government. Between 1832 and 1837,
he was at the head of the Ministry of Public Instruction, where, with the law of June 1833, he was
responsible for the extension of primary education,
the restoration of the Academie des Sciences
morales et politiques, the foundation of the Societe
de PHistoire de France and the Service des Monuments historiques."
The aim of the Service was defined in the Rapport
to the readily legible dimension of philosophical and

historical purpose and political intention.13
Certainly, Guizot and his famous Rapport sought
to elicit the favour of a potentially influential public.
The report itself encourages research concerning the
distribution of responsibilities, which has sometimes
degenerated into pedantic 'legalistic' disputes.14 Yet
the 'Monsieur Guizot' who appears in the History of
France has been allocated no more than a modest
place within the 'modern cult of monuments"
official genealogy.15 Indeed, the praises bestowed on
the philosopher-historian omit any consideration of
the scope of his thought on the significance of
archaeology.
Such treatment is partly the result of the 'taboo
which applies to Louis-Philippe and Guizot'.16
Above all it forms part of a particular historiography
of patrimoine which defers to patriotic imagery.
Guizot is only a name in the long list of the defenders
of France's artistic riches. In histories of past sensibilities he has not been separated from the Romantic
century's supporting cast. Finally, surveys of his
government have relegated his conservation initiatives to the level of anecdote, and to the margins of
an otherwise substantial legacy.
Guizot seems to have been the victim of a selective
amnesia regarding heritage in the interests of, on the
one hand, a small pioneer group from which he is
excluded and, on the other hand, organisations
which he set up without directly participating in.
Thus, in 1887, Antonin Proust, 'Minister of Culture'
in Gambetta's cabinet during the Third Republic,
referred to only five predecessors: Alexandre Lenoir,
perhaps by virtue of his fame,17 Chateaubriand and
Victor Hugo, the indispensable geniuses of the
cause, and finally Augustin Thierry and Prosper
Merimee. Thierry provided the erudite legitimacy of
the undertaking: 'In these books [of stone] one finds
what Augustin Thierry called the soul of history;
and we have only learnt to read them thanks to him
and to the great founders of the historical school of
the nineteenth century.'18 Merimee takes his place as
founder of the Republican administration by having
proposed 'the union of all the services concerning
the arts' in the wake of the February Revolution.
Guizot's eclipse is not solely the result of the
condemnation of his politics, although this played a
part. His reputation as a 'conservationist' suffered
from disparagement of his inadequate 'Frenchness'
more than from reproaches of his conservatism and
incomprehension.19 What is more, he did not
embrace the patriotic enthusiasm judged appropriate with romantic and mediaevalising taste
to a concern with heritage. The strained haughtiness
of his Histoire moderne has been judged to suffer from
a 'lack of affective impurity',20 also evident in his
project to open an 'ideological' museum at Versailles, which Louis-Philippe's political sense transformed into a spectacle capable of moving public
opinion to the benefit of the new dynasty.21
But while Guizot's exclusion from the annals of
1988
Thus Guizot's archaeological initiative in relation

to historical monuments is relegated to a more or
less obscure position relative to his work regarding
archives. Perhapsjustly so if one considers that, even
without mentioning the intrinsic scientific contribution which is disputed by scholars Guizot's
qualifications and interest in the matter seem at first
sight singularly less significant than his historical
works and his initiative on archives.28 Even though
this episode is hardly mentioned in accounts of
'Monsieur Guizot's' political career and historical
ideas, it is worth closer inspection.
We need here to put aside the protocols of
commemoration whether positive or otherwise
that attach to the first architect of heritage, and to
recognise the inherent unity of the project behind
the measures taken and the statements made, but
without reducing this simply to a question of political concerns. On the contrary, this representation of
the historical monument in the public life of the first
half of the nineteenth century provides an excellent
illustration of the epistemological uncertainty of the
political dimension itself, shared in the exemplary
case of Guizot between 'the historian of ideas, the
philosopher and the historian of facts and institutions'.29
The new history and its project

In the first course that Guizot taught on the origins
of representative government in Europe, he affirmed
that 'the past changes with the present'; 'everything
changes in and around man . . . [as does] the point of
view from which he considers the facts and the
expectations that he brings to this examination.'30
The professor here considers historiographical activity from an historicist point of view: 'according to
their political state and the degree of civilisation,
peoples consider history under a given aspect, and
seek from it a given kind of interest.'31 To the 'first
age of societies' there belonged a poetical history,
'brilliant and naive narrations which charmed an
avid curiosity that was easy to satisfy' for example,
Herodotus. After which there followed a philosophical history: a 'series of dissertations on the progress
of humanity', of which Gibbon and Hume produced
remarkable examples, appropriate to 'a time of
enlightenment, of wealth and leisure'. Finally, a
'practical' history, exemplified by Thucydides or
Lord Clarendon, provided 'guidance analogous to
the needs that were experienced, to life as it was
lived'; it corresponded to 'an animated and strong
political life'. Today, 'as the result of an exceptional
combination of circumstances, all these tastes and
conditions seem to be united . . . and, in our own
time, history is susceptible to all these kinds of
interest'.
Indeed, history bore witness to a new respect for
the fundamental principle of civilisation, the 'elevated idea which leads and dominates wherever the
human spirit moves: equal and universal justice'.32
43
Heritage may be a consequence of the lasting

discredit which was to attach to him, more than that
it also implies the existence of a latent national
consensus regarding heritage. To confine the initiative and official responsibility for the protection of
monuments to a single figure even a statesman
would be misleading, if not a distortion. In place of
this, manifestations of a collective responsibility
such as the vote of the revolutionary Assemblies or
alternatively the demands of cultured society during
the Restoration suggest a national community in
the process of questioning its past.
The discourse of heritage paints a pious picture of
its own evolution progressing from the couragious
deterrence of 'vandalism', to a learned selflessness,
treating the creation of an administration as merely a
concern of scholarship. However, Guizot is only
invoked here in order to deny his originality, or that
he had any effective responsibility. He plays the role
of the interpreter, albeit far-seeing, of the progress of
opinion linked to the new spirit in the arts and in
history; his great merit is seen as being to have been
able to obtain the necessary government sanction.
Such an interpretation adopts, broadly speaking, the
philosophy of the doctrinaires, who, with RoyerCollard and Guizot at their head, thought that
political decisions should only ratify or sanction
social evolution and the course of ideas. However,
this is not to say that they were 'liberal': for them, the
role of the State was indispensable and a policy of
laissez-faire unrealistic.
The classic political histories of the July Monarchy interpret Guizot's policy on heritage as a
contrived deflection of criticism and antagonism
directed at the Chamber of Deputies. One interpretation of the July Monarchy sees in these
measures a Machiavellian emasculation of the intellectual class.22 Today, Guizot's attitude to heritage
has come to be described as 'a pendant to the farce of
the national "Enrich yourselves" motto'.23 This constitutes 'the fictive heritage of the disinherited', and
'the alibi of private economic property' to such a
degree that the denunciation of this particular 'connivance between capitalism and heritage'24 provides
the ultimate condemnation of the regime. For an
oppositional ideology, which identifies the conquering bourgeois as the harbinger of decadence, Guizot
stands as nothing less than the first overseer of the
West's spiritual decline.25
Beyond such peremptory judgements, analyses of
Guizot's involvement with heritage are above all
concerned with the 1833 project for a 'general
publication of all the important and as yet unpublished materials on the history of our country',
the foundation of the Societe de l'Histoire de France
and the Comite des Travaux historiques. The
importance of this legacy is not disputed.26 Above
all, for many, such as Charles-Olivier Carbonell,
'better than anything else, this historiographical
institution shows the indissociability of the links
between the statesman and the historian'.27
to discover the truth, and to realise it in the external

world, to the advantage of society; to turn it within
ourselves into beliefs capable of inspiring us with that
disinterestedness and moral energy which are the force
and the dignity of man in this world.33
In these two regards, in 1830 an engagement with
the conservation of the past had a clear contemporary relevance. Firstly, it had to serve society
through encouraging respect for the higher order of
justice as much as was humanly possible.34
Secondly, it was also supposed to accord with a new,
synthetic historical truth which superseded traditional surveys earlier.
In the course of the social and political disruptions
at the beginning of the nineteenth century, many
monuments changed hands with the result that they
came to depend on the exclusive right of their individual owners. More generally, the upkeep and
conservation of traditional heritage was threatened
by the general social instability of the period. As a
consequence, a limitation of freedom of ownership
was argued for, so as to guarantee the collective
enjoyment of Beauty and History.3^ How was it
possible to combine social legitimacy and the
interests of civilisation without appealing to the
State? In 1822, according to Guizot: 'politics must be
authentic, that is to say, national.'36 Ten years later,
44
the Inspection des Monuments historiques was

designed to fulfil this programme.
In parallel with this development, the nature of
historical truth underwent a complete transformation. Guizot, who had participated in this historiographical revolution, wanted to unite 'poetical truth'
with 'philosophical history as a study of the general,
progressive organisation of events'.37 In the field of
archaeological studies, the historian triumphed over
the antiquarian and, as Arnoldo Momigliano has
pointed out, chronologically demonstrative narrative replaced the systematic survey.38
How was it possible to conceptualise philosophical history conjointly with the statistical inventory,
and go beyond the principle of 'maintaining both
the rigour of scientific method and the legitimate
domain of the intellect'.39 The unity of the point of
view adopted grounded in an idea of civilisation
allowed the historian to 'teach the past not only
from memory but according to his understanding of
it'.40 Thus, the conservation of monuments received
an intellectual and scholarly, as much as a political
and social, legitimacy.
The theory of patrimoine

Every society, according to Guizot, requires the
cultivation of its memory. In contrast to the desire
for a tabula rasa 'this fever which sometimes seizes
peoples in the midst of the most useful, the most
glorious of regenerations' the hero of Guizot's
English Revolution, Cromwell, ensured that good
sense, that is conservation, prevailed. For, 'peoples
can, for a moment, in the middle of a violent crisis,
deny their past, even curse it; but they are unable to
forget it, nor to detach themselves from it for long or
definitively'.41
Yet the past was not all equally important to the
present. It was a question of distinguishing 'expendable events' from the 'immortal portion of history'. If
the former soon become insignificant to us, 'all
generations need to participate ('in general events')
in order to understand the past and themselves'.42 In
short, recourse to the past must be reasonable, as is
the case for all human activities for which contemporary civilisation requires 'legitimacy of motive and
utility of results'.43
This requirement is enough to distinguish absolutely the nineteenth-century approach to conservation from earlier attitudes. Quite distinct from the
vocabulary of banal polemics between revolutionary
and counter-revolutionary opinions, Guizot neither
resorted to denunciations of 'vandalism', nor called
for the resurrection of defunct memories as did the
royalist 'ultras'. He understood heritage in sociological terms as public opinion. Indeed, for Guizot, the
weakening if not the disappearance of traditional forms of conservation, followed from a weakening of social powers linked to the transformations
undergone by civilisation itself.
At the heart of Guizot's Cours, the spirit of tradiTHE OXFORD ART JOURNAL 11:2
1988
For Guizot, respect for the past 'carries with it

neither approval nor silence about whatever is false,
guilty or harmful . . . Time has not received the
impious mission of consecrating evil or error. They
are, on the contrary, revealed and cast aside.'
Within this scheme of things, acting on this absolute imperative, the nineteenth century manifests an
active conscience: 'few people think it, perhaps, but
impartiality, which is the duty of all times, is, in my
opinion, the vocation of our age; not', he immediately added by way of qualification, 'that cold and
sterile impartiality born of indifference, but a vigorous and fertile impartiality inspired by the love and
vision of truth.'
The intellectual probity of the new history was
intimately linked to its social effectiveness. In this,
the high point of historical thought was also the time
of its going public: when minds had 'become capable of understanding man across all levels of civilisation' and had the freedom to employ this
capability, 'heritage no longer belonged to scholars
alone'. In short, 'history's utility is no longer, as it
used to be, a general idea, a sort of literary and moral
dogma, professed by writers rather than adopted
and practised by the public. Now it is a necessity for
the citizen who wants to take part in the affairs of his
country, or only to be properly informed'. The task
of the historian was at one and the same time ethical
and political.
The Corns d'Histoire modeme is both an historian's
handbook and a political breviary, whose programme is summed up as follows:
tion was personified by a character borrowed from fiction not the only case of an exchange between history and fiction in the name of local colour.44 This is in
an extract from Walter Scott's The Puritans regarding
'the tombs of puritan martyrs which were still the
object of respect and devotion by their partisans':
Sixty years ago . . . someone called Robert Patterson,
descendant, so they say, of one of the victims of persecution, left his house and his small inheritance to devote
himself to the care of these humble tombs. [. . .] His
hospitality was ensured by the families of the martyrs and
the supporters of the sect. [.. .] The people, not knowing
his true name, gave him the name Old Mortality after his
chosen task.43
The administration of patrimoine

As with the example of Old Mortality, the evident
necessity for a modern approach to conservation
required someone to carry out this recuperative
endeavour. The state would confer on such a person
the responsibility for sanctioning appropriate initiatives by capable individuals, and for implementing
them as and when necessary. This responsibility
devolved on the state entirely naturally, argued
Guizot, since, 'generally speaking, power [belongs]
to superior ability and therefore superiority [is] the
natural and legitimate situation of power'.47 It was
not a matter for legislation, in the form of 'moral
laws' because the progress of civilisation made the
'form[s] of preaching, or means of teaching' of
archaic times redundant. In Guizot's opinion, the
1988
to put himself in direct contact with the authorities and

persons who concern themselves with researches relevant
to the local history of each locality, to inform owners and
holders of the interest of the buildings whose conservation
depends on their care, and, finally, to stimulate, through
guiding them, the zeal of all the Department and municipal councils in such a way as to prevent any monument of
an incontestable merit from perishing through ignorance
and haste, without the appropriate authorities having
tried all possible methods to ensure its conservation, and
also in such a way that the authorities' and individuals'
good will is not expended on objects unworthy of their
attention.
49
Thanks to the abundant provision of information

by the social body responsible administrators and
owners working in collaboration the Inspector
was to make even 'the most difficult people aware of
the necessity the government finds itself in of actively
protecting the interests of art and history'. He was to
'harness the good intentions manifested across
almost the whole of France', according to an image
of the state as a 'centre of initiative and coordination
for a wide network of relatively autonomous knowledge and influences'.50 In order to be crowned with
success, whether 'rational or social', the undertaking
would have to satisfy both scholarly needs (impartiality and exhaustiveness of the survey), as well as
the principles of government (freedom of initiative,
guarantee of property, decentralisation . . .). The
task of the Inspector General required above all the
political talent whose ideal Guizot had sketched in
his Cours: 'a combination of the remoteness and
philosopher's powers of rational inference with the
flexibility of mind and good sense of the expert'.'1
An almost commercial formula, coined by Vitet in
relation to libraries, sums up well this enlightened
pragmatism: 'We must bring life to these emporia of
unfashionable merchandise without consumers, by
linking them to the present.'32 A civilisation's heritage was also that of common sense and general
opinion, that is, of preconceived ideas, or 'the force
of things'.53 In short, it was a question of 'giving life'
to a 'ready made' heritage; however, such a doctrinaire policy of bringing it to light is absolutely
distinct from the revolutionary principle of recovering national riches which, so the argument runs, had
until then been denatured or despoiled.34
The representation of the past and the

social imaginary: the Middle Ages
From this point of view, the legacy of the Middle
Ages, whose evident popularity demonstrated its
45
This 'archaic' mode of conservation, with its religious or familial dimension corresponds to what
Guizot called society's state of 'Government'.
According to Guizot, its contemporary decline
corresponded to the decline of 'social powers of all
kinds which used to exist, from domestic powers
which remain within the family, to public powers
which are placed at the summit of the State'. Until
recently responsible for 'relations between men,
regardless of their wishes', such powers were now
effaced to the advantage of an 'ungoverned society,
which subsists by the free development of intellect
and human will', invoked as 'the basis of the social
state'.46
Thus the motive behind conservationist concern
seems to pass from the 'perpetuity and regularity . . .
imposed by the authorities' to the personal energy of
individuals. Particularly because of the disappearance of various social bodies, or, more exactly, the
remodelling of their past, the upkeep of abandoned
monuments required a form of individual memory,
possibly mobilized within a new social order. 'Spontaneous' conservation had somehow to make up for
the loss of an obligatory conservation. The protection of heritage which resulted from his new state of
affairs was anything but arbitrary, for, Guizot
explains, it was henceforth guided by the twin lights
of intellect and justice.
nineteenth century was to know only 'wise laws

which have confidence in [people's] morality, in
individuals' rationality, and which leave everything
which is purely moral in the domain of freedom'.48
The Inspector of historical monuments, the newly
designated custodian of heritage, thus had as his
mission:
vivid contemporaneity, was a phenomenon apt to be

considered by Guizot. The Histoire de la Civilisation en
France states that
its traditions, morals, adventures and monuments have
an undeniable attraction for the public. One has only to
consider Literature and the arts; to read histories, novels,
the poetry of our own time; or look at furniture and
curiosity dealers - everywhere one sees the Middle Ages
exploited, reproduced, occupying thoughts, and amusing
taste.55
the cradle of modern societies and customs. From this time

date (1) modern languages [. . .] (2) modern literature [. . .]
(3) most historical monuments in which, through the
centuries and still today, peoples gather together
churches, palaces, town halls, works of art and public
utility of all kinds (4) almost all historic families [. . .] (5) a
large number of national events, important for their own
sake and long popular [. . .] in a word almost everything
that for centuries has preoccupied and excited the
imagination of the French people.60
If the Enlightenment had misunderstood the
Middle Ages' importance, it was now time to restore
it to its proper place. Above all, unlike the eighteenth
century, the nineteenth century understood 'the
importance of imagination's role in the life of man
and society'. The mediaeval picture that Guizot
gives of feudal anarchy and the struggles of the
46
What has always been lacking in France is the recognition of the importance of this kind ofrichness;a concern
with its conservation, and taking advantage of it in the
interests of education and national history.62
The administrative concept of an 'historical
monument' was based on the ideas of modern
archaeology, whose precursors, such as Seroux
d'Agincourt and Alexandre Lenoir, had provided
the outline.63 Unlike these two, however, Guizot
gave a specific significance to the synthesis of the
catalogue with a chronological narrative that of
history.
History considered as civilisation

Borrowing from the natural sciences, Guizot's ideal
was to depict the exact physiognomy of the past by
virtue of a synthesis of 'anatomy, or the search for
facts', physiology, or 'the study of their organisation', and finally, the 'reproduction of their form and
movement'.64 The opening pages of the Histoire de la
Civilisation en Europe provide a carefully graded
repertoire, from 'visible, material facts such as
battles, wars, the official acts of governments', to
those 'hidden, moral facts, which are no less real'.
There are individual facts which have a proper name and
there are general facts, to which it is impossible to assign a
precise date, or to confine within rigorous limits, but
which are no less factual than the other, historical facts;
1988
This popular predilection was prey to attempts at

partisan manipulation, attempts which were,
however, formally condemned by Guizot. The hostility of 'sincere friends of science and progress of
humanity' towards the feudal epoch, earned the
admiration of those who, on the contrary, sought in
it 'inspiration for despotism and privilege'. 'The past
so scorned, so abandoned by some, has become for
others the object of an idolatrous cult', and 'Utopias
in the past' had been created in response to those of
'the masters of the future'.56 Here Guizot is criticizing socialist Utopias and the reactionary fantasies of
an ideal, Catholic Middle Ages - manifesting a simultaneously political and historical 'juste milieu'. Yet,
all these efforts were in vain, for 'the masses are
governed by simple, exclusive ideas and passions;
there is no fear that they might ever judge the middle
ages and its social state too favourably'.57
In the same way that doctrinaire thinking 'forbad
itself either a return to the maxims of the Ancien
Regime, or the adoption however speculative
of revolutionary principles',58 its conception of the
Middle Ages avoided both the gloom of Voltaire's
version or Sainte-Palaye's rose-tinted legend.59
Moreover, Guizot had no intention of sacrificing to
the sway of fashion, especially since his own taste
was hardly that way inclined (with the exception of
an early text, the Salon of 1810, which manifests a liking for troubadour art and national subjects).
Only intellectual significance mattered in a period
which was identified as
bourgeoisie - when compared to contemporary

civilisation, allowed recent, 'young' institutions
(founded 'in the name of reason and philosophy'), to
be aligned with 'like principles glimpsed, guarantees
sought across the centuries'. In short, the Middle
Ages could help in establishing a government still
unable to draw on 'the power of memories'.
The need for this recourse to the past was all the
more acute, according to Guizot, in that people had
been subjected to the 'overwhelming events' of the
Revolution and Empire for too long not to consider
themselves impotent. Above all, 'moral reform',
which lay behind the placidity of social life ('never
was less public force needed to quell individual
wishes'), ended up by enervating national character.
Guizot enthused that the representation of mediaeval civilisation provided contemporary individuality,
whose 'inner energy was weak and timid', with a
salutary lesson, 'in showing us what a man can be
when he knows how to believe and how to wish'.61
In this way, Guizot's initiative put a term to the
uncertainty of the early nineteenth century, when
the programme for the conservation of the past had
been clearly conceived and advocated, but without
being fully carried through into action for the lack of
an appropriate perspective and norm of historical
appreciation. According to the report to the Academie des Inscriptions drawn up in 1818 following
the initiative of the comte de Laborde:
one cannot exclude them from history without mutilating

it.65
'In reality', on the contrary, 'facts develop, so to

speak, from the inside to the outside; causes are
internal and produce external effects'. The historian
therefore always begins 'by a study of the social
state', knowing well that this 'derives from, amongst
many causes, the moral state of peoples': 'beliefs,
feelings, ideas, customs, precede the external conditions, social relations, and political institutions.'71
An essay in philosophical archaeology

In this attempt to represent the past which reveals
the interplay of external constraints and individual
freedom, of the spirit and society the history of the
arts, especially architecture, enjoys a particularly
privileged position. We may turn here to the chapter
in the Histoire de la Civilisation en France on 'the
chateau in the feudal regime', which provided
Guizot with the occasion for a methodological set
piece on the writing of'philosophical' archaeology.72
'The appalling anarchy' of the feudal centuries,
wrote Guizot, 'above all after the death of Charlemagne', explains not only the profusion but also the
predominantly practical design of chateaux.
At this period, war was omnipresent; military architecture was thus necessarily ubiquitous. [...] It was not only
a question of building strong chateaux all things were
converted into fortifications, defensive quarters, strongholds. [. . .] The land was covered with such buildings, all
of a similar character.
This reconstruction of 'the material state of feudal
buildings' was not enough on its own. It not only
provided an introduction to the narrative, it generated a series of fundamental historical questions:
What took place within? What life was led by the inhabitants? What wider influence could such a domicile and
such material circumstances have? How and in what
direction could the small society contained by the
chateau develop, and what was the formative element of
feudal society?
man and society have always advanced and grown . . .

close together. [...] Nothing has happened in the real
world which is not immediately understood and used by
intellect for its own end, creating a new richness.
Nothing, in the domain of the intellect, has been without
immediate repercussions and consequences in the real
world. Even on a general plane, in France ideas have
preceded and provoked the progress of the social order;
they were prepared as doctrines before finding form in
things, and the spirit has always been at the head of the
march of civilisation.70
The prime characteristic of this type of building

its isolation allows one to link the social state to
interior life. This would not have surprised the
audience of the Cours, for in his long treatment of
feudality, Guizot wove endless variations around his
theme. In addition to this central characteristic,
Guizot identified the crucial role of an exceptional
degree of leisure: in fact,
From this historical method the conclusion follows

logically:
never has such leisure on the part of the inhabitants been

seen in common with such isolation. [. ..] The owner of
the chateau thought only of leaving it. Shut up when
T H E OXFORD ART JOURNAL 11:2
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47
Thus Guizot was concerned with the history of

'the most important facts, those most sublime in
themselves, sublime independent of all exterior
consequences, and purely in their relation to man's
soul'; 'religious beliefs and philosophical ideas,
sciences, letters, arts'.66 These remarks were relevant
to the present, since the relation between the individual and society, or to 'the species', was at the
heart of the division of historians into 'descriptive'
and 'determinist'. Chateaubriand, while he condemned the two schools and called for a new synthesis, indirectly paid homage to Guizot: 'the history
of humanity, of general society, of universal civilisation, should not be masked by the history of social
individuality'.67
The idea of civilisation 'the general and definitive fact to which all the others lead, by which they
are summed up' seems effectively to resolve this
contradiction. Only the 'point of view of civilisation'
allows the 'individual facts' to be considered historically as part of 'progress, the development of social
activity and individual activity'.68 Hence, their
'importance grows and [their] sublimity increases
through their connection to civilisation'. 'There are
even occasions when the facts of which we speak . . .
are often considered and judged from the point of
view of their influence on civilisation; an influence
which becomes, up to a certain point and for a
certain time, the decisive measure of their merit and
value' (p. 60).
Guizot applied himself to healing the rupture
between 'the exterior condition of man' and his
moral state, his 'inner nature'. On the fundamental
question of whether 'society is made to serve the
individual or the individual to serve society',69 the
Histoire de la Civilisation en Europe concludes that any
answer must be 'conjectural' and limits itself to
repeating his friend Royer-Collard's profession of
faith. On the other hand, it was the historian's responsibility to repeat that 'these two sides of civilisation are
closely linked to each other' (p. 69). More precisely,
the Histoire de la Civilisation en France, which aimed to
go beyond the earlier exclusive study of the social
state, concluded by advocating a form of intellectualism. In France,
study and science proceed, and must proceed, from the

exterior to the interior. It is the exterior that is first
confronted, and i,t is in studying this that it is possible to
advance, to penetrate and, by degree, to arrive at the
interior.
necessary for his own security and independence, as often

as possible he sought what was most lacking society
and activity. The life of the owner offiefstook place on the
highways, and in adventures.
Hitherto determined by general insecurity, habitat
turned out to be in its turn the cause of troubles:
the long series of raids, pillages and wars which characterise the Middle Ages, was in large part the result of the
form of feudal habitation, and of the material situation in
which its masters were placed. Everywhere they sought
the social activity that they could not find at home.
at the same time, [. . .] they were in a certain respect a

principle of civilisation. [. . .] Domestic life, the family
spirit, and particularly the condition of women, developed in modern Europe much more completely and
more happily that anywhere else. [. . .] In no other form of
society was the family ever reduced to its simplest expression husband, wife and children, squashed and
crowded together, separated from any powerful rival
relationship.
In short, 'it was in the chateaux that chivalry was
born and grew up', which is to say, the moral condition from which mediaeval society arose. In this
architecture, a whole civilisation is inscribed. Such a
conception of archaeology requires the comprehension of a monument as part of a social totality.
Without this mode of analysis, 'history envelops and
overlays the history of civilisation' with an abundance of achievements and 'exterior scenes', to the
point that it becomes impossible to make it appear in
a given building.
The method of modern archaeology

The idea of turning to the method of intellectual
investigation followed from this: if'statistics [are], in
certain respects, one of the best means of studying
the state of a [contemporary] society', Guizot asked,
'why not apply them to the study of the past?' It was
a question of
presenting in tabular form the special facts of the period
which derive from the general facts and lead immediately
to the history of civilisation. The procedure does not
reproduce [the past] as living and animated, in the form
48
Statistics, which had always been increasingly

employed 'as one advances along the course of civilisation', were the tool capable of 'making the empire
of facts prevail in the intellectual domain'.74 Not only
did statistics dispense Guizot's course from having to
deal with minutiae inappropriate to [spoken] delivery, and excessively diverse ramifications, but they
alone allowed a recovery and reintegration of the
antiquarian heritage into the heart of what had been
relegated to the domain of philosophical history.70
In the same way, the general inventory conceived
in 1834 was intended to go beyond a panoramic
review of monuments of all ages and all places. If it
was to make up for earlier oblivion and ruin, such a
recapitulation of the national past, had above all to
aspire to identifying the principle of unity which,
until then, had been dissimulated or misunderstood: the meaning of civilisation.76 The classification of all the works ever built into a complex index
ought to provide 'the register of the state and general
movement of minds'77 as, in Guizot's course, the
totality of the books by someone such as Alcuin
depicted the state of affairs under Charlemagne.
From a certain point of view, nevertheless, statistics were a last resort an admission of helplessness. Certainly, the history of the arts 'has this
advantage over general history, that it has at its
disposal and can identify the objects themselves
which it wants to understand and judge'. But,
'seeing is not enough, we must understand'.78 The
richness of the material was itself of no advantage to
the historian, who was dealing less with manageable
evidence than insoluble enigmas.
Knowledge of the period is necessary for the
understanding of the works. 'How can one understand literary history without knowing the times and
men in the midst of which the relevant monuments
it were produced?' Yet this is not enough, since
these decisive traits which serve to explain the character
and conduct of peoples [. . .] do not reveal the secret of the
causes which determined the character of literatures.
[. . .] the great events of history have only acted on literature by unknown, indirect, almost intangible connections. [. . .] One thus recognises the influence of these
innumerable secondary causes whose nature and power
it is impossible to define, and sometimes even to confirm
their existence.
In short, 'the historian who wants to uncover the

determining causes of the character and of the direction of modern literature [is] obliged to content
himself with predominantly fragmentary glimpses
and disparate researches'.
This conclusion follows less from a protestation of
humility than from a sense of the complexity of
modern arts. In the Histoire de la Civilisation en
Europe, Guizot judged them 'from the point of view

of form and beauty, very inferior' to those of AntiT H E OXFORD ART JOURNAL 11:2
1988
Hence the crusades, explained in the following

lapidary manner: 'they went further and for other
causes; therein lies the main difference'.
But Guizot's argument does not stop with the
social state: 'the two characteristic traits' of feudal
mentality ('the bizarre and savage energy manifest in
individuals' and 'the persistence of customs and
their long resistance to change and progress'), are
equally related to the chateau. For, 'the ramparts
and ditches of chateaux were obstacles to ideas as
well as to enemies'. But,
of a narrative; but it sets up a framework, and prevents

general ideas from floating in vagueness and chance.73
quity; but 'from the point of view of the underlying

feelings and ideas [. . .] stronger and richer'.79 Their
imperfection was the paradoxical fruit of 'the prodigious diversity of ideas and feelings of European
civilisation'.79 In comparison to ancient archaeology,
solidly established on the 'symbolic unity' of its
material, modern archaeology, adopting the procedure of its older partner, raised the challenges of a
multiplying and dispersed corpus which included
uneven and failed monuments reflections, nonetheless, of a richer civilisation.
The legitimacy of a discipline
Finally, and above all, it was archaeological

common practice to 'juxtapose monuments with
passages from the Ancients' in order to 'take advantage of the double knowledge of facts and monuments'.82 The creation of a chair of Comparative
Literature for modern Europe in a sense satisfied the
demands of this procedure: as in the canonical
methods of Classical archaeology, it allowed the
'rapprochement of the finest monuments of art with
the finest literary monuments'. If one considers his
Memoires, moreover, Guizot granted a quite exceptional historical status to the simultaneous appearance of these two modes of analysis of modernity.
'The intellectual movement which has honoured
the Restoration' was exemplified 'by the awakening
of a taste for France's ancient historical monuments
and the study of foreign literature'. If, 'certain
measures had tried to halt the ruin of great works of
French art and to make the masterpieces of European literature known to modern France', 'a fixed
centre and the reliable means for action were lacking'.83 Hence, ministerial concern was applied to
THF. OXFORD ART JOURNAL 11:2
1988
Conservation for the future

Yet the art critic only considered the work of art in so
far as it was representative of its period. Guizot was
extremely interested in dramatic art, for it embodied
'the union of the arts with society'; he believed that a
new use of the stage should correspond to a new
social condition. As his disciple, Vitet, put it: 'taste in
France awaits its 14th July'.85 At each historical
moment, each artistic style implicitly becomes the
sole authentic and rational means of responding to
the exigencies of society. Bad art was an erroneous
form which went against the grain of civilisation,
morality, and truth. Good art was in tune with the
progress and novelty which constituted the spirit of
the time. In short, historicism was the underlying
principle if not the very tool of Guizot's conception of modern archaeology.
However, because of the range and diversity of its
inferences, the historicist position is notoriously
difficult to define. If we follow Popper's definition
'the idea that the history of man has a plot, and that,
if we succeeded in deciphering this plot, then we
would hold the key to the future'86 and apply his
formulation to Guizot, we find that several characteristic features are brought together: a search for
mechanisms of change, a law of 'the progress of
society' and 'the progress of humanity', a relativism
which recognised a whole period in each artistic
form, and a belief that this was the reflection of a
particular society.87
The principle of conservation is linked to a didactic desire to know not only what has, but also what
will and must be the architectural expression of a
period. In a wider sense, it is linked to the frequently
expressed certainty that only the artist can conceive
the image the memory of his time and pass it
on to posterity. On the occasion of a request for help
with the 1848 Prix de Rome entries, David d'Angers
gave a lucid formulation of this idea when he spoke
of artists as 'the archivists of peoples, charged with
passing on to the future the glorious annals of
humanity'.88 The sense of the passing of history,
49
The canonical procedure of the archaeology of the

'science of antiquity', as Raoul Rochette referred to
it in his contemporary public courses on Ancient
History, had been directly imported to the field of
national history.80 Hence the primacy of material
remains over other potential sources: 'The slightest
debris surviving from the ruins of antiquity teaches
us something more', if we believe Raoul Rochette,
'than all books.' For Guizot, too, architecture was
the most revealing testimony of a civilisation. No less
did he recognise the necessity of a 'series of varied
monuments from age to age in order to constitute a
school of art, [and] a succession of times and artists
in order to constitute history'. For classical archaeologists, 'art and history' were recognizable 'in Antiquity only among the Egyptians, the Etruscans and
the Greeks'.81 The modern age was itself witness to a
privileged nation: Guizot and his successors' affirmation repeated so often as to exhaust patriotism
of the chronological depth and the stylistic variety
of France's heritage can be explained in no other
way. Only a corpus of high quality monuments of a
universal dimension could legitimise national
archaeology as a resume of modern archaeology.
'these noble aspirations of human understanding',

in order to give them the support of permanent
institutions.' While Vitet had to 'pursue and popularise the restoration of France's ancient monuments', Fauriel set himself the task of 'spreading]
knowledge and enthusiasm for the great literary
productions of European genius'.84
This new concern for modern artistic production
is the underlying principle of both enterprises as it
was also for Guizot's Rapport of 1830: until Lenoir,
who had 'prepared' minds, nobody 'had appreciated the importance' of monuments 'considered as
works of art'. Earlier centuries had only seen them as
'the source of great historical understanding'. Thus
we see the historian adopting his approach from the
art critic.
which is so striking in Guizot, transforms every

work, as soon as it is finished, into the future's inheritance.
In the context of the evolution of civilisation,
contemporary architecture appeared as the heritage
which would best represent the present to the future.
The report by M. de Gasparin, president of the
Comite des Arts et Monuments, on 'the instructions
relative to the conservation of monuments' (4 May
1840), envisaged seven classes of monuments, the
last one being
monuments which do not yet exist and which are being
designed. Until the present, we have only taken into
account ancient monuments and past art; but the art and
monuments of the future must also concern the committee. Numerous opinions are requested on this subject,
and they must not be ignored. What, then, is the architectural style that France should adopt in its buildings?89
The legacy of 'le moment Guizot'

Although it was later superseded by more democratic values, Guizot's legacy was nonetheless
fundamental. He established a national legitimacy
for conservation which was quite unlike either its
civic, sometimes iconoclastic, mobilisation, or
scholarship's exclusive demands, often irrelevant to
society. The former was powerful, but also deplorable; the latter, however irreproachable, were no less
disarmed before public opinion or power.
The Second Republic seemed to wish to abandon
the category of'historical monument' in the interests
of a more utilitarian definition of the national
monument, to be conserved because of its functional
value. As if on the defensive, the 1850 Rapport
affirmed that 'today, the efforts aimed at restoring
50
a small number of monuments or objects sufficiently

important that their significance be national, and not all
those which might interest the science of history and
archaeology. In the natural course of things, only those
monuments which retain a usefulness are well looked
after, that is, those which serve to satisfy the needs and
preferences of the present generation, and only higher
interest can authorise measures of 'artificial' conservation. For the conservation of most monuments and
objects of secondary interest, we must count on the works
of enlightened people and societies; and on the progress
of taste and the force of public opinion.
Above all, the idea that, beyond the confines of
antiquarianism, monumental conservation aimed to
safeguard the expression of national character the
incarnation of universal civilisation became
cosubstantial with the discourse of heritage. In 1896,
Louis Tetreau summarised the legitimacy of conservation as follows: 'the history of a country's origins,
of its civilisation and its genius is written in its monuments. The preoccupation to conserve works of art,
the witnesses of past times, thus corresponds to a
national feeling.'95 In the opening lecture of a course
on history and national antiquities at the College de
France on December 7 1906, Camille Jullian even
asserted that 'the ruins of monuments not only
manifest the worker's hand and the architect's plan,
but also the feelings of a people; they reflect, in part,
the spirit of a generation of men, they betoken
ideas'.96
Pedagogical utility, which saw monumental
remains as a series of lessons to instruct inhabitants
and visitors, was, on the contrary, absent from the
doctrinaires' statements. By contrast, this consideration was important under the Third Republic;
Pariset explained it invoking a sensualist psychology:
1988
The conservation of the past thus formed part of

an intellectual strategy of the Nation-State.90 If an
awareness of heritage was part of even the oldest,
most general, mentality,91 here it is embodied in a
public need to organise monuments as evidence of
each phase of historical development. Its modernity derived from a historicist mobilisation of the
idea of heritage amongst all citizens.
At one and the same time a sursum corda and a
lesson in civism, the doctrine of conservation was as
much a tool of government as an extension of
individual morality. It made public the traditional
care of the owner and, among men of ability,
privatised the national imperative that was a legacy
of 1789. In the image of a free government which had
'as its intention and goal to search ceaselessly in
society, to bring to light the best [men] in all fields
[. . .], to lead them to power and [. . .] to oblige them
to merit this exposure',92 heritage was realised
through the tireless work of revealing the past to a
country which was more and more enlightened
(opposing vandalism) and increasingly moral (refusing to indulge in 'Elginism').
our ancient buildings are fully appreciated', whereas

'not long ago they would have been considered as a
form of study, or even as a form of amusement for
archaeologists'. It cast into doubt the justification for
the administrative definition inherited from Guizot:
'buildings loosely defined by the name historical
monument have a public destiny and an everyday
utility. Putting aside a few Roman ruins massive
reminders of a people whose history is the basis for
our educational system which buildings are these
if not churches, town halls, palaces of justice?'93
Beyond this brief eclipse, however, the philosophy of
the July Monarchy won the day, Viollet-le-Duc in
certain respects carrying the banner of Guizot.94
The general attitude to conservation found under
the Third Republic was based on the free involvement of individual commitment and individual
intellectual concerns, the state playing the role of
moderator or last resort. On the occasion of the
examination of the Bardoux law in 1878, CourcelleSeneuil recommended its implementation in favour
of only
scattered across the whole surface of France, these monuments stimulate the highest feelings amongst those who
have gazed upon them from the days of their childhood.
[. . .] In guaranteeing the upkeep of ancient monuments,
we contribute to raising the moral and artistic level of
those for whom these things constitute an introduction to
beauty or an evocation of patriotic greatness.9'
None of this can be found in Guizot, who did not

define the legitimacy of conservation by its essentially democratic dimension.
no study reveals to us more of the social state and authentic spirit of past generations than that of their religious,
civil, public, and domestic monuments, or of the ideas
and various rules which determined their construction
in a word, the study of all works of architecture, which is
the origin and summation of all the arts.
But Louis-Philippe's 'intellectual Prime Minister'98
deftly linked this evocation of the past to the administration of public opinion, amply illustrated by the
evidence of recent memory.
'Heritage' enlisted citizens' energies in favour of
the culture of government: firstly, by showing that
present power formed part of a long progress, and
secondly, by reviving in its own interests a sense of
individuality that had been weakened by recent circumstances. It contributed to the struggle of
contemporary minds against 'the two grave dangers
[of contemporary civilisation]: pride and laziness'.
The task of the Inspecteur des Monuments historiques, his institutional status and the absence of a
protective legislation, illustrate the sociological overlap of power and public opinion. The administration
of heritage merged with the intellectual activity of
society itself. It was a manifestation of the 'double
generalisation' of power and society, 'equally
public';99 yet it followed the principle corresponding
to this state of civilisation the 'sovereignty of
reason, of justice, and of the law', and in no way
constituted an indiscriminate idolatry of the past.
1988
found in the Histoire de la Civilisation en France, in the
chapter 'On the chateau under the feudal regime',

discussed earlier. Here the monument provided an
excellent pretext for developing a scientific analysis
of the social state both, as Guizot would put it, from
51
The conservation of monuments is a fact of contemporary civilisation, distinct from earlier practices. It
draws on the learned and disinterested aims of
modern archaeology, which first of all requires an
inventory of sources. Central to this system of knowledge, modelled on the example of the science of
antiquity, the historical monument figures as a privileged go-between for the social and the individual.
An 'external' expression, it provides an understanding of the 'internal'. Through this heuristic value,
the discovery of a given civilisation proceeds
against the grain of its conception and its creation
from the imprint to the mould.
If we are to believe the ministerial statement of
1834,
At a time, when, to adopt Stanley Mellon's phrase,

the political uses of history were common currency,
and when polemics regarding the extent, responsibilities and consequences of revolutionary vandalism remain very much alive, Guizot the politician,
who invented the administrative concern for heritage, was opposed to the idolatry of monuments, and
made quite certain that his position would not be
misconstrued in this way. While the political history
of'patrimoine francais' often seems to be made up of
the taking of a succession of archaeological or monumental hostages, Guizot represents a unique figure,
with his invocations of historical impartiality
embodied in the programme for the 1834 general
inventory the supreme antithesis of partisan,
manipulative conservation.
Even his project for a museum at the palace of
Versailles, apparently inspired by the Societe des
Observateurs de l'Homme, or at least their ideology,
is singularly less political than the museum of
national glories as conceived by Louis-Philippe.
This is so much the case that one might ask if
Guizot's almost total disappearance from both
official and lay memories of heritage in favour of
rescuers such as Lenoir or administrators such as
Merimee has not come about because of some
deficiency in the emotive, even existential resonance
of his conservational initiatives.
This leads us directly to the status given to
archaeology by Guizot. The question of Guizot's
formation and culture remains unresolved. The
breadth of his intellectual ambition, which ranged
across something of everything, was not necessarily
equivalent to superficiality or mere indifference. But,
as far as one knows, the young Guizot had established no more of a grasp of classical antiquarianism
than his contemporary Beranger when they collaborated in working for Laurent's Musee bookshop.
His approach to the field of monuments, understood
in a wide sense, was based on the classic separation
between archaeological and antiquarian studies.
Millin's Dictionnaire, published during the Empire,
had similary distinguished between the archaeologist, who dealt with works of art (and therefore
Egypt, Greece and Rome), and the antiquarian, who
was only interested in monuments in so far as they
illuminated customs and behaviour, using them as
documents. The nineteenth century's innovation,
noted Guizot, was to consider national monuments
as art and no longer as a 'source of great historical
knowledge', something that the seventeenth century
had already established.
Yet, in his teaching, Guizot clearly encountered
enormous difficulties in treating historical monuments as art. In fact, the only properly 'archaeological' analysis that he successfully applied is to be
Guizot's national archaeology was based on the

model of antique archaeology arguing around a
series, and the evolution of styles being referred to
that found in literature. The conservation of French
monuments would allow the foundation of modern
European archaeology, the necessary pendant to
antique archaeology, for it provided the exhaustive
catalogue of examples from all types and all periods
of European history. This was something new, and
not a continuation of earlier attitudes. As with all
other human activities, it had to conform to the
governing principles of contemporary civilisation,
notably 'the legitimacy of motives and the utility of
the results'. Such a form of conservation would be
impartial, since it was based on the progress of
science and social utility, that is, it would mobilise
the citizen and collective energies like the new
history which had united simple narration, philosophical dissertation and practical function. Guizot
was the first to synthesise a respect for the art of past
epochs through an understanding of the meaning
of local colour, learned utility the documentary
index, and civic use the mobilisation of able men.
Such a formulation has proved to be remarkably
successful.
Translated by Richard Wrigley

52
Notes
1. Yves Aguilar, 'La Chartreuse de .Ylirande; le monument historique
produit d'un classement de classed Actes de la recherche en Sciences sociales,
no. 42, 1982, pp. 76-85.
2. Marc Guillaume, La politique du patrimoine (Galilee, Paris, 1980).
3. See Donald Home's Grand Tour, The Great Museum. The Representation of history (Pluto Press, London, 1984); and David Lowenthal, The
Past is a Foreign Country (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1985).
4. For a survey and a bibliography, see Revue d'arche'ologie modeme et
d'arche'ologie generate, no. 3, 1984-1985, Presses de l'Universite ParisSorbonne, and Claquemurer, pour ainsi dire, tout Vumvers: la mise en exposition , directed by Jean Davallon (Editions du Centre Georges Pompidou,
Paris, 1986).
5. See our article 'Naissance du musee', in Aux armes et aux arts! Les
arts de la Revolution francaise (Adam Biro, Paris, 1988).
6. Maurice Barres, Le grande pitie des eglises de France (Emile-Paul,
Paris, 1914).
7. On the whole phenomenon see: Culture et Communication, no. 23,
January 1980, and published separately, March 1980; Revue de I'art,
December 1980, and Monuments historiques, no. 107, 1980; J. R. Gaborit
and Ph. Durey, 'L'annee du patrimoine', Universalia 1981, pp. 442-3;
and Des Chiffres pour le patnmoine (La Documentation francaise, Paris,
1981). Jean Cuisenier in the catalogue of the great exhibition Hier pour
Demain (Paris, 1980), and in Dialectiques, no. 30, 1980, pp. 63-7. I
attempted a preliminary assessment in 'L'avenir du passe', Le De'bat,
no. 12, May 1981, pp. 105-15, as also has Jean-Pierre Rioux in 'L'emoi
patrimonial', Le temps de la reflexion, VI, 1985, pp. 39-48.
8. Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism. American Life in an age
of diminishing expectations (Norton, 1979); Felix Torres, Dejavu. Postelneomodemisme: le retour du passe (Ramsay, Paris, 1986) provides a press
dossier of'heritage phenomena'.
9. Following the political change-around, the socialist programme is
summarised in Max Querrien, Une nouvelle politique du patrimoine (La
Documentation francaise, Paris, 1982), and the historical perspective in
Les monuments historiques demain. Actes du colloque du ministere de la Culture
(Picard, Paris, 1987). On a French speciality, heritage in the form of the
ecomuseum, see Actes des premieres rencontres nationales des ecomusees,
Agence Regionale d'Ethnologie Rhone-Alpes, Ecomusee NordDauphine, 1987.
10. Apart from Jean-Francois Lyotard's classic, La condition postmoderne (Minuit, Paris, 1979), see Charles Jencks, The Language of PostModem Architecture (Academy Editions, London, 1977), and What is
Post-Modernism? (Academy Editions, London, 1986); Paolo Portoghesi,
Dopo I'architettura moderna (Laterza, Rome-Bari, 1981). On the reutilisation of heritage in general, see Alain Bourdin (ed.), Le patrimoine
re'invente (P.U.F., Paris, 1984) and Jo Blatti (ed.), Past meets Present. Essays
about historic interpretation and public audiences (Smithsonian Institution
Press, Washington (D.C), 1987).
11. See Charles-Henri Pouthas, Guizot pendant le Restauration, preparation de I'homme d'Etat (Paris, 1923; thesis), and his Lajeunesse de Guizot
1787-1814 (Paris, 1936). On his historical work, see Stanley Mellon, The
political uses of history, a study of historians in the French Restoration (Stanford
University Press, Stanford, 1958), and Sister Mar)' S. O'Connor, The
Historical Thought of Francois Guizot (The Catholic University of
American Press, Washington, 1955).
12. Cf. R. Huber and R. Rieth, Glossanum artts: le monument historique
(Max Niemeyer Verlag, Tubingen, 1981), bibliography, pp. 201-38. For
the 19th century, E. Vinet, Bibliographic methodique et raisonne'e des beauxarts (Paris, 1874). See also the brilliant reflections of Jacques Le Coffin
'Documento/Monumento', Enciclopedia (Einaudi, 1978), vol. V, pp. 3848.
13. Cf. Marcel Gauchet, 'Les Lettres sur l'histoire de France
d'Augustin Thierry', Les lieux de me'moire (ed. Pierre Nora), La Motion
(Gallimard, Paris, 1986), 3 vols., vol. 1, pp. 247-8.
14. Cf. Louis Reau, Histoire du vandalisme. Les monuments detruits de I'art
francais (Hachette, Paris, 1959), 2 vols.
15. Alois Riegl, Le culte modeme des monuments. Son essence et sa genese
([1903]Seuil, Paris, 1984).
16. Pierre Chaunu, La France. Histoire de la sensibilite des Francais a la
France (Robert Laffont, Paris, 1982), p. 341.
17. Solidly based on the 'Archives du musee des monuments
the outside and from the inside. But this particular

exemplary show piece was only possible because it
was a question of something that constituted a whole
social monument, and not art in the normal sense of
the word.
As soon as one gets into the Cours, proceeding
along the path of the history of civilisation, and
monuments and their creators become individualised, Guizot makes use of statistical tables in the
form of an inventory. He proceeds as if the archaeological method oscillated between the consideration
of an archetypal monument which might even be
a synthetic, imaginary monument and a straightforward catalogue of the monuments belonging to a
reign of a period. What had appeared, in the Cours,
as a facility of exposition which dispensed with any
development requiring too much detail or breadth
which might obscure the clarity of the argument, in
1834 seems to have become elevated to the basic task
for the history of the arts; to establish an index of all
the monuments which had existed on French soil.
And, in fact, the undertaking was fundamental in
the legitimation of a national archaeology, for the
existence of a series, the documentation of a chain of
monuments within a terrain, was regularly evoked
as the basic requirement for an archaeological
science. Guizot's declarations regarding the importance of the 'full, exhaustive series' of French historical monuments 'as numerous and more varied
than those of some neighbouring countries' had
this in view. The same is true of the relation between
comparative European literatures and national
archaeology.
1988
francais', in vol. 1 of the Inventaire general des nchesses d'art en France (Paris.
1883). Louis Courajod, in Alexandre Lenoir, son journal et le Muse'e des monu-
ments franfais (18781886), 3 vols., vigorously attacked the Revolution's

record on patrimoine, while respecting Lenoir as a sort of national hero.
By contrast, Louis Dimier denounced the celebrity of the conservator in
five articles in Chroniques des arts, 25 March 1899-31 March 1900, 'Les
impostures de Lenoir, examen de plusieurs opinions revues sur la foi de
cet auteur, concernant plusieurs points de l'histoire des arts'. Cf. Henri
Zerner, 'Introduction', in Louis Dimier, L'art francais (Hermann, Paris,
1965), pp. 9-25, and Dominique Poulot, 'Alexandre Lenoir et les
musees des monuments francais', Les lieux de memoire, op. cit., vol. 2,
pp. 497-532.
18. 'Sur ces livres [de pierre] on trouve ce qu'Augustin Thierry
appelle l'ame de l'histoire: et ces livres, nous n'avons appris a les lire que
par lui et par les grands fondateurs de 1'ecole historique du XIXe siecle.'
Rapport fait au nom de la Commission chargee d'examiner U projet de lot [. . .],
by Antonin Proust (Paris, 1887), Chambre des deputes, no. 1501, and in
Recueil des pieces relatives a la conservation des monuments [. . .], a volume of
ongines de la conservation des monuments historiques en France (/ 7901830)
(Paris, 1913), pp. 203-12; Jean Hubert, 'L'archeologie medievale', in

L'Histoire et ses methodes, directed by Charles Samaran (Gallimard, Paris,
1961), p. 290; Francoise Ben;e, Les premiers travaux de la Commission
Supeneure des Monuments historiques (Picard, Paris, 1979).
29. Pierre Rosanvallon, 'Pour une histoire conceptuelle du politique',
Revue de synthise, 4th series, nos. 1-2, 1986, pp. 93-105.
30. i e passe change avec le present'; 'tout change dans l'homme et
autour de lui [. . .] le point de vue d'oii il considere les faits et les dispositions qu'il apporte dans cet examen.' Francois Guizot, Histoire des ongines
du gouvernement representatif en Europe (Didier, Paris, 1855), vol. 1, 1st
lesson of 1st year, p. 2.
31. 'selon leur etat politique et leur degre de civilisation, les peuples
considerent l'histoire sous tel ou tel aspect, et y cherchent tel ou tel genre
d'interet.' Op. cit., vol. 2, pp. 610.
32. 'premier age des societes' . . . narrations brillantes et na'ives qui
charment une curiosite avide et facile a satisfaire', . . . i e temps des
lumieres, de la richesse et du loisir'. . . . 'des instructions analogues aux
besoins qu'on eprouve, a la vie dont on vit';. . . 'par une rare concours de
circonstances, tous ces gouts, tous ces besoins semblent se reunir et
l'histoire est maintenant parmi nous susceptible de tous ces genres
d'interet'.. . . 'idee superieure qui marche la premiere et domine partout
ou se porte l'esprit humain: la justice egale, universelle.' Op. cit., vol. 1,
p. 13.
33. 'n'emporte ni I'approbation, ni le silence sur ce qui est faux,
coupable ou funeste. [. . .] Le temps n'a pas recu la mission impie de
consacrer le mal ou l'erreur. II les devoile au contraire et les use.'. . . 'peu
de gens le pensent peut-etre, mais l'impartialite, qui est le devoir de tous
les temps, est, a mon avis, la vocation du notre; non, cette impartialite
froide et sterile qui nait de l'indifference, mais cette impartialite
energique et feconde qu'inspirent I'araour et la vue de la verite.' . . .
[historical intelligence] 'a cesse d'etre le patrimoine des erudits' . . . 'sont
devenus capables de comprendre l'homme a tous les degres de la civilisation' . . . 'son utilite n'est plus, comme jadis, une idee generale, une
sorte de dogme litteraire et moral, professe par les ecrivains plutot
qu'adopte et pratique par le public. Maintenant c'est une necessite pour
le citoyen qui veut prendre part aux affaires de son pays, ou seulement
bien juger.' [. . .] 'decouvrir la verite, la realiser au-dehors, dans les faits
exterieurs, au profit de la societe; la faire tourner, au dedans de nous, en
croyances capables de nous inspirer Ie desinteressement et l'energie
morale qui sont la force et la dignite de l'homme dans ce monde.'
Francois Guizot, Histoire de la civilisation en France depuis la chute de I'Empire
romain jusqu'en 1789 (Didier, Paris, 11th edition 1869), p. 30: hereafter
HCF.
20. The formula is borrowed from Mona Ozouf s characterisation of

the aim of the Academie celtique in 'L'invention de l'ethnographie
franchise: le questionnaire del'Academie Celtique', Annales E.S.C., 36th
year, 2, March-April 1981, republished in L'e'cole de la France (Gallimard, Paris, 1984), p. 377. Ch. H. Poutas has strongly emphasised the
link between the Ideologues and Guizot.
21. A 'great ethnographic museum which will gather together the
monuments and debris of customs, civil and military life firstly of France
34. Cf. Philippe Raynaud, 'Le liberalisme francais a l'epreuve du
but also of all the nations of the world' (Memoires pour servir a l'histoire de pouvoir', in Nouvelle histoire des idees politiques, directed by Pascal Ory
mon temps [Paris, 1859], vol. 2, p. 69). In addition to the above note, see
(Hachette, Paris, 1987), p. 172,"bn i'anthropologie pessimiste'.
Edna Lemay '.Naissance de l'anthropologie sociale en France' (on
35. Cf. Jean Mallion, Victor Hugo et Vart architectural (P.U.F., Paris,
Demeunier], Dix-huitieme siecle (Gamier, Paris, 1970), no. 2, pp. 147-60,
1962); Roland Mortier, La poetique des mines en France (Droz, Geneva,
and the synthesis by Thomas W. Gaehtgens, Versailles: de la residence
1974); II Revival, directed by C. G. Argan (Mazzota, Milan, 1974). Also
royale au muse'e historique (Albin Michel, Paris, 1984).
see the remarks quoted i n j . Mallion, Prosper Menme'e et les monuments du
22. This negative image is repeated in the Congres arche'ologique de Dauphine (Editions des Cahiers de l'Alpe, Grenoble, 1979); F. Berce,
'Arcisse de Caumont et les societes savantes', Les lieux de memoire. II La
France, 1934, XCVIIe session, Paris, 2 vols., notably by Paul Leon, 'Les
Nation, vol. 2, p. 543 (Grille de Beuzelin); and Achillejubinal's report on
principes de la conservation des monuments historiques. Evolution des
t h e Bulletin monumental in t h e Journal de I'Institut historique, vol. I I , 5 t h
doctrines', 1, pp. 17-52; Paul Verdier, 'Le service des monuments
livraison, pp. 241-2.
historiques, son histoire, organisation, administration, legislation (1830
1934)', 1, pp. 53-246.
36. 'Maintenant, il faut que la politique soit vraie, c'est-a-dire
23. Pierre Marc de Biasi, 'Systeme et deviances de la collection a
nationale.' Francois Guizot, De la peine de mort en matierepolitique (1822)
l'epoque romantique', Romantisme, no. 27, 1980, pp. 77-93.
(Fayard, 'Corpus des Philosophes francais', Paris, 1984).
24. Bernard Deloche, Museologica-Contradictions el logique du muse'e
37. ia verite poetique [a] l'histoire philosophique comme etude de
(Paris-Lyon, Vrin diffusion, 1985).
l'organisation generale et progressive des faits.' HCF, vol. 1, I lth lesson,
pp. 313-15.
25. As in the words of the hero-narrator in Jacques Laurent's Les sousensembles flous (republished Hachette, Collection Le Livre de Poche,
38. Arnaldo Momigliano, 'Ancient History and the Antiquarian',
Paris, 1981), p. 44.
Journal of the Warburg and Courlauld Institutes, vol. 13, 1950, pp. 285-315
(see the French translation in Problemes d'hisloriographie ancienneet moderne
26. In this respect, the monument of scholarly piety is Xavier
[Gallimard, Paris, 1983], p. 247 on the fundamental distinction, and
Charmes' Le Comite des travaux historiques et scientijiques (Paris, 1886),
p. 283 on the early nineteenth-century doubts 'concerning the possibility
3 vols.
of unifying historical and antiquarian studies', one of the final phases
27. Charles Olivier Carbonell, 'Guizot, homme d'Etat, et le mouvedistinguishing the 'becoming' from the 'becoming/being'.
ment historiographique francais du XIXe siecle', in Actes du colloque
THK OXFORD ART JOURNAL 11:2
1988
53
18 mixed items, 1849-1888 Bibliotheque nationale, Paris, Fol. Lf

242212, piece no. 13. For an appropriate contextualisation see N. Green,
'"All the Flowers of the Field": the state, liberalism and art in France
under the early Third Republic', Oxford Art Journal, vol. 10, no. 1, 1987,
pp. 71-84.
19. The theme of an 'insufficiently French' Guizot is well described
by Laurent Theis, 'Guizot et les institutions de memoire', in Les lieux de
memoire, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 590, and by Maurice Agulhon in his compte
rendu of the Actes du colloque Francois Guizot (Societe d'Histoire du
Protestantisme francais, Paris, 1976), in Annales E.S.C., 33rd year, 4,
1978, p. 840: 'Guizot appeared as the man who did not understand, or
did not "feel" nationality, or, to put it better, French sensibilty. In spirit
[he was] a Genevan and/or an Englishman of a sort.' In fact, one of the
pamphlets of 1830 opens with this portrait of a foreigner: 'Thirty million
French people had to submit to his doctrines [. . .] Whether it was the
argument of an Ancillon, or a Gibbon, or some other author, through
the principles of another century, or the principles of another people,
what does it matter. .. .' (Francois Grille, 'Manque de foi de M. Guizot'
manuscript, 83-folios, in-8, Bibliotheque municipale, Angers, fo 5 and
9.) Cf. Pierre Benichou, Le sacre de I'ecrivain (Jose Corti, Paris, 1973),
p. 221: by virtue of his links with the pastor Ancillon referred to here,
Guizot was one of the heralds of philosophical and literary Germanicism, while Gibbon represents his English inspiration.
Francois Guizot (Paris, 22-25 October 1974) (Societe de 1'Histoire du

Protestantisme francais, Paris, 1976), p. 221.
28. Salomon Reinach, 'Esquisse d'une histoire de l'archeologie
gauloise', Revue celtique, vol. 19, 1897, p. 297; Frederic Rucker, Les
39. 'maintenir a la fois la rigueur de la methode scientifique et le

legitime empire de ['intelligence'. HCF, vol.1, pp. 33-5; see also
pp. 313-15.
40. 'd'enseigner le passe non seulement a la memoire mais a l'intelligence'. Avertisssement de l'Editeur' (1839) in Francois Guizot, Histoirede
la civilisation en Europe depuis la chute de VEmpire romainjusque 'a la Revolution
francaise, ed. Pierre Rosenvallon (Hachette, Collection Pluriel, Paris,

1985), p. 41 (hereafter (HCE).
41. 'cette fievre qui saisit quelquefois les peuples au milieu des plus
utiles, des plus glorieuses regenerations'. . . . 'les peuples peuvent un
moment, sous l'empire d'une crise violente, renier leur passe le maudire
meme; ils ne sauraient l'oublier, ni s'en detacher longtemps et absolument'. Histoire des origmes du gouvernement. . . , op. at., vol. 1, p. 10.
42. 'toutes les generations ont besoin d'assister("aux faits generaux")
pour comprendre le passe et pour se comprendre elles-memes.' HCE,
pp. 258-9.
43. 'la legitimite des motifs et Putilite des resultats', HCF, vol. 1, p. 30.
On this subject see Douglas Johnson, Guizot: aspects of French History
1787-1874 (Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1963), pp. 283-8, and
pp. 330-2.
44. On these themes see Stephen Bann, The Clothing of Clio: a study of
the representation of history in nineteenth-century Britain and France (Cam-
bridge University Press, 1984) (letter from Guizot to Barante, H J u n e

1823, regarding Walter Scott, A.N. quoted p. 23; Scott imagined a type
rather than an individual). In the chapter 'Du chateau feodal' in HCF,
Guizot also quotes a contemporary novel in support of his argument,
equivalent to a contemporary source.
45. HCF, vol. 2, 17th lesson, pp. 28-9.
46. HCF, vol. 3, 11th lesson, pp. 271-2. In particular, he noted as
had Constant that 'power has left families' (cf. Pierre Rosenvallon, Le
moment Guizot (Gallimard, Paris, 1985), p. 39, which evokes a 'depersonnification sociale', and Benjamin Constant, De la libertechez les modernes
ed. Marcel Gauchet (Hachette, Colletion Pluriel, Paris, 1980),
pp. 483-4.
47. Francois Guizot, Des moyens de gouvernement et d'opposition dans Vital
actuel de la France (1821) in Les liberaux, extracts presented by Pierre
Manent (Hachette, Collection Pluriel, Paris, 1986), vol. 2, p. 158.
48. 'lois savantes qui ont confiance dans la moralite, dans la raison
des individus, et qui laissent tout ce qui est purement moral dans le
domaine de la liberte.' On the doctrinaires' legislation, see P. Rosanvallon, Le moment Guizot, op. cit., pp. 41-5.
49. 'se mettre en rapports directs avec les autorites et les personnes
Ideologies of the Enlightenment: the world and work of La Curne de Saintequi s'occupent de recherches relatives a l'histoire de chaque localite,
Palaye (The Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore, 1968), who recognises the
[dj'eclairer les proprietaires et les deteneurs sur l'interet des edifices dont
genealogy: 'Guizot drew up a plan for the publication of the chronicle
la conservation depend de leurs soins, et [de] stimuler, enfin, en le
sources of medieval French history a plan which had already been
dirigeant, le zele de tous les conseils de departement et de municipality
worked out and put forward in the eighteenth century by members of
de maniere a ce qu'aucun monument d'un merite incontestable ne
the Academie des Inscriptions and of which Dacier's editions of Froissart
perisse par cause d'ignorance et de precipitation, et sans que les
was to have been the first fruit.' (p. 355) P. Trahard has also demonautorites competentes aient tente tous les efforts convenables pour
strated Prosper Merimee's debt, especially in La Jacquerie, to Sainteassurer leur preservation et de maniere aussi a ce que la bonne volonte
Palaye (La Jeunesse de Prosper Merimee, Champion, Paris, 1925),
des autorites ou des particuliers ne s'epuise pas sur des objets indignes
pp. 303-20.
de leurs soins.' The Rapport has had numerous re-editions and is also
60. 'le berceau des societes et des moeurs modernes. De la datent en
published as an annexe to Guizot's Me'moires.
effet (1) les langues modernes [. . .] (2) les litteratures modernes [. . .] (3)
50. 'esprits les plus difficiles la conscience de la necessite ou le
la plupart des monuments modernes, des monuments ou se sont
gouvernement se trouve de veiller activement aux interets de l'art et de
rassembles pendant des siecles et se rassemblent encore les peuples,
l'histoire. [II] regularise les bonnes intentions manifestoes sur presque
eglises, palais, hotels de ville, ouvrages d'art et d'utilite publique de tout
tous les points de la France,' [a l'image d'un Etat] 'centre d'impulsion et
genre (4) presque toutes les families historiques [. . .] (5) un grand
de coordination d'un assez large reseau d'influences et de lumieres
nombre d'evenemems nationaux, importants en eux-memes et
relativementautonomes'. Guizot described the 'double history' of civilislongtemps populaires [. . .] en un mot presque toutce qui a preoccupeet
ing centralisation followed by a 'suitably distributed' decentralisation in
agite pendant des siecles l'imaginaire du peuple francais.' HCF, vol. 3,
L'Histoire
du gouvernement
representatif
. . . . v o l . 1, p . 5 9 . T o t h e i d y l l i c
1st lesson, p. 15.
vision of Benjamin Constant, who thought it necessary to 'attach men to
61. HCF, vol. 3. 1st lesson, p. 24.
the places aroused memories and habits', Guizot contrasted a different
62. 'Ce qui a toujours manque a la France, c'est d'attacher a cette
view: 'Once the hand of power is lifted for a moment, local patriotism
sorte de richesses I'importance qu'elle merite, de veiller a sa conservastirs once again as if from its own ashes. The magistrates of the smallest
tion, et de chercher, sous le rapport de l'instruction et de l'histoire
communes are proud to embellish them. Old monuments are carefully
nationale, a en tirer parti.' Quoted by Laurent Theis, op. at.. p. 574; on
looked after. In almost every village, there is a learned man who is happy
the Academie's work, see Charles-Olivier Carbonell, L'Autre Champolto recount the rustic annals and who is listened to with respect . . .'
lion. Jacques-Joseph Champollion-Figeac (1778-1867) (Presses de l'Institut
(Reflexions sur les constitutions, 1814, ed. Plancher, vol. 1, p. 205, Paris.
d'etudes politiques de Toulouse et l'Asiateque. 1982).
1818-1820)). Cf. the comments by Rosenvallon, p. 63.
63. Cf. Angela Cipriani. 'Una proposta per Seroux d'Agincourt: la
51. 'allier la hauteur et la consequence rationelle du philosophe avec
storia delPArchitettura', Storia dell'arte, no. 11. 1971, pp. 211-25.
la flexibilite d'esprit et de bons sens du praticien'. HCF. vol. 2, 28th
64. HCF, vol. 1, 1 lth lesson, pp. 313-15.
lesson, 'Hincmar, savie, ses ecrits', p. 351.
65. 'II y a des faits individuels qui ont un nom propre; il y a des faits
54
T H E O X F O R D A R T J O U R N A L 11:2
1988
52. 'il faut ramener la vie [en les] rattachant au present [dans ces]
entrepots de marchandises passees de mode et sans consommateurs'.
Louis Vitet has visited the departments of the Oise, Aisne, Marne, Nord,
and Pas-de-Calais. See G. K. Barnett, Histoire des bibliothequespubliques en
France de 1789 a nos jours (Promodis, Paris, 1987), p. 93.
53. On the importance of this concept, see above all Boris Reizov,
L'Historiographie romantique francaise 1815-1830 (Foreign language
editions, Moscow, n.d.); Guizot's historicism as that of Saint-Simon
is based on this notion, and the capacity of governing the future (cf.
infra); 'it is only by virtue of the historical process that it is possible to
formulate an historical prediction. [. . .] In establishing the direction that
the development of society will follow, and in 'freely' submitting to
historical necessity, one can make one's work useful [. . .] [Saint-Simon]
understood the 'force des choses' as well as the doctrinaires: this is not a
blind destiny, but a supreme law, that is the result of the nature of men
and of society' (p. 771).
54. See our article, 'Naissance du monument historique', Revue
d'histoire moderne et contemporaine, vol. 32, 1985, 'Histoire et historiens',
pp. 418-50.
55. 'ses traditions, ses moeurs, ses aventures, ses monuments ont pour
le public un attrait qu'on ne saurait meconnaitre. On peut ouvrir les
histoires, les romans, les poesies de notre temps; on peut entrer chez les
marchands de meubles, de curiosites; partout on verra le Moyen Age
exploite, reproduit, occupant la pensee, amusant le gout'. HCF, vol. 3,
pp. 11-12.
56. 'Ici comme partout, l'impietq a provoque la superstition'. 'Le
passe si meprise, si abandonne des uns, est devenu pour les autres I'objet
d'un culte idolatre'. Cf. the remarks by Pierre Michel, Un Mylhe
romantique: les Barbares 1789-1848 (Presses universitaires de Lyon, Lyon,
1981), 'Independance barbare et civilisation moderne; Guizot',
pp. 131-42.
57. 'les masses sont gouvernees par des idees et des passions simples,
exclusives; il n'y a pas a craindre qu'elles jugent jamais trop favorablement le moyen age et son etat social', HCF, t. 3, 1st lesson, p. 13.
58. 'se defend a la fois du retour aux maximes de l'Ancien Regime, et
de 1'adhesion, meme speculative, aux principes revolutionnaires,' Pierre
Rosanvallon, 'Guizot et la revolution francaise', in Dictionnaire critique de
la Revolution francaise, directed by Francois Furet and Mona Ozouf
(Flammarion, Paris, 1988).
59. Cf. Ludovico Gatto, Medioevo voltairiano (Bulzoni, coll. Ipotesi,
Rome), 2nd edition, 1973, and Lionel Gossman, Medievalism and the
71. HCF, vol. 1, 2nd lesson, pp. 335. On the contrary, in his
Mcmoins, Guizot poked fun at the qitarante-huitards'% illusion thai they
could 'embed the fundamental principles of the social order into minds
by widely distributed small works'; it is not for science to suppress the
anarchy of people's souls, nor to recall the wayward masses to good
sense and virtue' (ed. M. Richard, op. cit., p. 231).
72. HCF, vol. 3, pp. 112-35.
73. HCF, vol.2, p. 120. On the use of set pieces (tableaux) in the narrative, HCF, vol. 2, pp. 141-2 and 335; on the great man, HCF, vol. 2,
p. 116. The interest in historical statistics was keen at this period,
particularly in Germany; see Georg Iggers, 'L'Universite de Gottingen,
1760-1800: la transformation des etudes historiques', Francia, vol.9,
1981, pp. 602-21 ('Statistics presuppose the existence of an administrative state which refuses to see a clear line of demarcation between the
state and society', p. 616). Two French translations of L. Goldsmith's
Statistique raisonnie de la France in 1833 and 1834. The work was dedicated
to Villele, who had commissioned the author. In the introduction, the
translator, Eugene Henrion, sketched a brief history of statistics. See
Jean Walch, Les maitres de l'histoire 1815-1850 (Champion-Slatkine,
Paris-Geneva, 1986), p. 272.
1988
74. HCF, vol. 1, pp. 24-5.

75. For a stimulating presentation of this, see Hayden V. White,
Metahistory (The John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore), pp. 649.
76. According to the Rapport au Roi sur I'e'tat des travaux relaiijs a la publication de documents ine'dits concemant l'histoire de France (2 December 1835):
'When one moves from the sciences and literature to deal with the arts,
one must necessarily change one's method. For it is no longer a question
of discovering and publishing new work. Putting aside a few specialised
treatises, the history of the arts is not to be found in books; it is written in
the monuments themselves, whose forms, varying according to time and
place, represent not only the principles and rules followed by different
schools, but, above all, the spirit, the ideas, the knowledge which
belonged to their centuries. (In X. Charmes, op. at., vol. 2, pp. 46-7.)
77. Barante considered dividing the history of France into different
sections 'in order to make the general idea soar above the spectacle of
events' (B. Reizov, op. cit., p. 225).
78. Francois Guizot, Corneille et son temps. Etudes litteraires (Didier,
Paris, 1880 (1852]), p. 1. On the debt to Madame de Stael, see Douglas
Johnson, op. cit., p. 335, and Dirk Hoeges's thesis (copy in Bibliotheque
nationale, Paris), Francois Guizot und die franzosische revolution (Bonn,
1973). Guizot himself wrote: 'The Journal des De'bats, an association of
judicious restorers of seventeenth-century ideas and literary tastes;
M. de Chateaubriand, that brilliant and sympathetic interpreter of the
moral and intellectual perplexities of the nineteenth century; Mme de
Stael, that noble echo of the generous sentiments and fine hopes of the
eighteenth century these are the three influences, the three forces
which, under the Empire, truly acted on our literature and left their
mark on history.' (1852 Preface to Corneille et son temps. Etudes litteraires,
p. xii.).
79. HCE, p. 77.
80. For a contextualisation, and a bibliography, see our 'Musee et
societe dans l'Europe moderne', Melanges de I'Ecole francaise de Rome:
Moyen Age et Temps Modemes, vol. 98, 1986, pp. 991-1096.
81. Raoul Rochette, Corns d'Architecture . . . (Paris, n.d. [1828]), 2nd
lesson, p. 38. On the final 'dispute' with Viollet-le-Duc, see Bruno
Foucart, Viollet-le-Duc, Galeries nationalux du Grand Palais, 19February-5 Mary 1980 (Editions de la Reunion des Musees nationaux,
Paris, 1980), p. 181 IT.
82. Cf. the letter from A. L. Millin to Champollion-Figeac, 5
Messidor, Year X, quoted in Ch. O. Carbonell, L'autre Champollion, op.
cit., p. 27.
83. Me'moires (Paris, 1859), vol. 2, pp. 669, and the remarks by
P. Rosanvallon, Le moment Guizot, op. cit., pp. 194203. Guizot later
returned to this subject in relation to the powers of the Ministere de
l'lnstruction publique: 'arts and literature have natural, necessary links;
it is only by this intimate and continuing interchange that they are
assured of keeping their own great characteristic, that is, the cult of
beauty and its maintenance amongst men. [. . .] Placed beyond the
sphere of literature (...) the arts run a great risk of falling under the yoke,
either of the mere material utility, or the public's most trivial fantasies'
(Me'moires, ed. M. Richard, p. 202).
84. Here the importance of the transformation of national literature,
which likewise became an 'historical monument', can only be signalled,
but cf. Michel Charles, 'La lecture critique', Poetique, vol.34, 1978,
pp. 129-51: 'By a pedagogical and historian's route, one thus discovers
that we do not know our own language.' Also, D. Grojnowski, 'Naissance de l'explication francaise', Textuel, no. 20, 1987, pp. 55-62, and
two articles in Histoire de /'Education, no. 33, 1987; Andre Chervel,
'Observations sur l'histoire de l'enseignement de la compostion francaise', pp. 21-34, and Pierre Albertini, 'L'histoire litteraire au lycee
reperes chronologiques', pp. 35-46. Vitet, a man of letters, journalist,
playwright of historical dramas, was the first Inspecteurdes Monuments
historiques, before he pursued a career in politics. He was an excellent
interpreter of a literary movement which was linked to political ambitions; we find in him a manifestation of the historicist character of
contemporary aesthetic thought.
Much older than the generation under discussion, Fauriel represents
the intellectuals of the 'Second Enlightenment', and the Ideologies of the
Directoire and the Empire. A scholar with wide interests, then
concerned himself with modern literature, especially that of Greece.
85. Cf. P. Rosanvallon, Le moment Guizot, op. cit., pp. 200-1; Pierre
Benichou, op. cit., pp. 30317.
86. Karl Popper, The Poverty of Historicism (London, 1977); Raymond
55
generaux, auxquels il est impossible d'assigner une date precise, qu'il est
impossible derenferner dans des limitesrigoureuses, etqui n'en sont pas
moins des faits comme d'autres, des faits historiques, qu'on ne peut
exclure de l'histoire sans la mutiler.' HCE, pp. 57-8.
66. 'faits les plus importants, les plus sublimes en eux-memes,
sublimes independamment de tout resultat exterieur, et uniquement,
dans leurs rapports avec 1'ame de I'homme [que sontj les croyances
religieuses et les idees philosophiques, les sciences, les lettres, les arts.'
Ibid.
67. 'l'histoire de l'humanite, de la societe generale, de la civilisation
universelle, ne doit pas etre masquee par l'histoire de l'individualite
sociale.' Preface to Etudes ou discours historiques (1831).
68. HCE, p. 64. Cf. the Editor's notice in ibid.: 'to rediscover and to
depict the fate and the achievements, the victories, and the other side of
society and the human soul, using proper names and particular events.'
69. 'II y a meme des occasions, ou les faits dont nous parlons [. . .]
sont souvent consideres et juges sous le point de vue de leur influence sur
la civilisation; influence qui devient, jusqu'a un certain temps, la mesure
decisive de leur merite et de leur valeur.' This question does not arise for
Guizot the historian. Thus, for example, in his discussion of'Des causes
de la chute des Merovingiens et des Carolingiens' (Essais sur l'histoire de
France, vol. 3, Paris, 1823): 'Hence, the event grows as it is considered
more closely and as one relates it to more and more general causes. The
struggle of two individual interests first becomes that of two political
institutions, then that of two social forces; and, to the degree that the
historian's gaze has penetrated his facts, there appears society itself, the
nation, the country, and not merely proper names which in themselves
explain nothing.'
70. Thomme et la societe ont toujours marche et grandi [. . .] a peu de
distance Tun de 1'autre. [. . .] Rien ne s'est passe dans le monde reel,
dont l'intelligence ne se soit a l'instant saisie et n'ait tire pour son propre
compte une nouvelle richesse. Rien, dans le domaine de l'intelligence,
qui n'ait eu dans le monde reel, et presque toujours assez vite, son
retentissement et son resultat. En general meme, les idees en France ont
precede et provoque les progres de l'ordre social: ils se sont prepares
dans les doctrines avant de s'accomplir dans les choses, et l'esprit a
marche le premier dans la route de la civilisation,' HCF, vol. 1, 1st
lesson. Then comes politics: 'in France, the progress of social equality
and the knowledge of civilisation have preceded political freedom; it will
therefore be fuller and purer' ('Resume' of the Essais sur l'histoire de
France, 1823). Equally similar to Saint-Simon: 'public opinion, the
dominant system of concepts in all domains of social life, organises the
period, subsumes individual activity and leads history in a route
predetermined by circumstances. It is more important for the historian
to understand the history of ideas than the history of events, for the
leading role belongs to ideas' (B. Reizov, p. 773). Amongst other
examples, one could refer here to the following explanation given in
Guizot's Me'moires for the failure of attempted reform of the universities
in 1815: 'Reform . . . came too soon; for it was the result, both systematic
and incomplete, of the thinking of several men who long had been
preoccupied by the faults of the university system, and not the fruit of the
momentum from an authentic public opinion' (edition edited and
abridged by Michel Richard [Robert Laffont, Paris, 1971], p. 33.)
93. Rapport au ministre de I'inlerieur par I'inspecleur general des monuments

historiques, Merime'e, entendu par la Commission le 19jmllel 1850, in a Recueil,
Bibliotheque nationale, op. cit.

94. Cf. Robin Middleton's opinion, quoted D. Watkin, op. cit.,
pp. 31-2; B. Foucart, op. cit., pp. 368-74.
95. Successively, Rapport pre'sente au nom des sections reunies . . . par
M. CourcelU-Seneuil, conseilUr d'Etat, rapporteur (draft law for the conserva-
tion of historic monuments, 1881), p. 2, and Louis Tetreau, Legislation

relative aux monuments et objets d'art (Paris, 1896), p. 3. At the turn of the
century, France's reputation on this was international: 'France has been
called the "classic land" of monument-lore, and her Historical Monuments Act of 1887 is generally regarded as the most important contribution yet made to legislation for the care of these relics of the past' (G. B.
Brown, The Care of Ancient Monuments . . . [Cambridge, 1905), p. 73).
This subject has been treated in numerous theses on the history of
archaeology: E. Pariset, Les monuments historiques (Paris, 1891); J. Constans, Monuments historiques et objets d'art (Montpellier, 1905); F. CrosMayrevieille, De la protection des monuments historiques ou artistiques (Paris,
1907); J . M e t m a n , La legislation francaise relative a la protection des
monuments historiques et des objets d'art (Dijon, 1911); J . Esteve, L 'art et la
proprie'te, la protection des monuments historiques et des sites, I'embellissemenl des
villes (Paris-Nancy, 1925); G. Vernhette, Le protection des monuments

historiques et des objets d'art en France et en Italic (Lyon, 1930); J. Beauchef,
La protection des perspectives monumenlales et des sites de valeur artistique (Paris,
1932); L. Sorel, La protection des paysages naturels et des perspectives monumenlales (Caen, 1932); G. Campos, Protection des monuments et oeuvres d'art en
ltalie, en France el en Egypte . . . (Lyon, 1935); S. Y. Kung, La legislation
relative a la protection des monuments histonques (Paris, 1942).
96. Revue Bleue, vol. 1, pp. 34.
97. Francois Furet summarised the point as follows: 'While the republicans of the Third Republic ceded much to an Orleanist philosophy of
interests, like their prestigious ancestors on the rue Saint-Honore they
held to the precedence of the citizen over the private person, and the
pedagogical role of the State, thus the school, in the formation of the
citizen' ('Les Jacobins', Lettre Internationale, no. 15, 1987, p. 86).
98. The formula applied to Hincmar in the lesson from the HCF
seems also to apply to whoever 'makes social power the direct servant
and the instrument of morality', Paul Bastide, Benjamin Constant et sa
doctrine (Armand Colin, Paris, 1966), vol. 2, p. 68.
99. Pierre Manent, Les liberaux, op. cit., p. 147.
This article is an extended version of a paper given at the conference on 'Francois Guizot et la colture politique
de son temps', Colloque Val Richer, September 1987.
56
1988
Boudon and Francois Bourricaud, Dictionnaue critique de la socwlogie

(P.U.F., Paris, 1982), article on 'Historicisme', pp. 267-74, and Popper's
intellectual autobiography, Unended Quest, an Intellectual Biography
(Fontana, 1976).
87. I use here the criteria proposed by Popper in The Open Society and
its Enemies, II, Hegel and Marx (. . .). For an analysis of historicism in
architecture, see D. Watkin, Morality and Architecture.
88. David d'Angers, partially published in L'Artiste, 5th series, vol. 1,
August 1848, p. 224.1 would like to thank Marie-Claude Chaudonneret
for kindly drawing this text to my attention.
89. In X. Charmes, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 575.
90. In his 23 July 1834 circular to the members of'societes savantes',
Guizot wrote that: 'at a time when popular education is spreading everywhere, and when the efforts to this end create an energetic activity of
mind amongst the numerous classes devoted to manual work, it is
important that many of the leisured classes, who occupy themselves with
intellectual work, do not allow themselves to become indifferent and
apathetic' (quoted in X. Charmes, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 309).
91. Denise Delouche, 'Le role de la noblesse francaise dans la naissance de l'archeologie aux XVIIIe and XIX siecles', in Noblesse francaise,
noblesse hongroise, XVle-XIXe siicle (C.N.R.S., Paris and Budapest, 1981),
pp. 109-19.
92. Francois Guizot, Des moyens degouvernement etd'opposition dans Vital
actuelde la France (1821), in Pierre Manent, op. cit., p. 157. See also Pierre
Manent, Histoire intellectuelle du liberalisme; dix lecons (Calmann-Levy,
Paris, 1987), pp. 199-219.

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The Birth of Heritage: 'le moment Guizot'

The second sense of patrimoine appeared with the

In the wake of the Revolution, Conservation was

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In Europe today, the concept of heritage* has

T H E OXFORD ART JOURNAL

society's amnesia, the crisis of discourse of history

Born in Nimes in 1787 of a Protestant father who

As a result of his opposition to the ministries of

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variety of the traces of oldness'. The success of

France). Most importantly, the first two volumes of

presente au Roi pourfaire instituer un inspecteur general des

supplemented four years later by the Rapport au Roi

(27 November 1834). For Guizot:

A singular critical fortune

THE OXFORD ART JOURNAL 11:2

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L'Histoire de la Civilisation en Europe, followed by

to the readily legible dimension of philosophical and

THE OXFORD ART JOURNAL 11:2

Thus Guizot's archaeological initiative in relation

The new history and its project

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Heritage may be a consequence of the lasting

to discover the truth, and to realise it in the external

the Inspection des Monuments historiques was

The theory of patrimoine

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For Guizot, respect for the past 'carries with it

The administration of patrimoine

to put himself in direct contact with the authorities and

Thanks to the abundant provision of information

The representation of the past and the

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nineteenth century was to know only 'wise laws

vivid contemporaneity, was a phenomenon apt to be

the cradle of modern societies and customs. From this time

History considered as civilisation

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This popular predilection was prey to attempts at

bourgeoisie - when compared to contemporary

one cannot exclude them from history without mutilating

'In reality', on the contrary, 'facts develop, so to

An essay in philosophical archaeology

man and society have always advanced and grown . . .

The prime characteristic of this type of building

From this historical method the conclusion follows

never has such leisure on the part of the inhabitants been

T H E OXFORD ART JOURNAL 11:2

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Thus Guizot was concerned with the history of

study and science proceed, and must proceed, from the

necessary for his own security and independence, as often

at the same time, [. . .] they were in a certain respect a

The method of modern archaeology

Statistics, which had always been increasingly