ABSTRACT
Everyone is familiar with the story Tocqueville tells of leading his peasants to vote on 23 April 1848.1 A little parade with Tocqueville at the head, everyone else in alphabetical order, made its way to the chef-lieu de canton to vote the son of their former seigneurs into the Constituent Assembly. Tocqueville himself had conducted a restrained campaign in the Manche and on voting day limited himself to a little warning to his people not to be diverted into the taverns before casting their ballots. Earlier, he referred to the family seat as ‘the natural centre of my influence’. Tocqueville, then, took his election entirely for granted, and was clearly uncomfortable when earlier he had to solicit votes from the masses. So was the Comte de Falloux. He stood in the elections of 1863 in Maine-et-Loire and campaigned by going around to the great houses. He referred to the influence of a neighbour, the Marquise de Maillé, who ‘conquered a popularity which extended far by her virtue and charity alone’.2 That those at the top of the social heap should consider their authority natural and legitimate is entirely to be expected, but there are plenty of indications that those lower down the scale shared the same view. During the counterrevolutionary wars of the West in the 1790s, ordinary people not only accepted the leadership of their erstwhile seigneurs, they actively sought it out. After a time, they developed notions of deference and hierarchy to which individual nobles had to conform or else face a kind of popular derogation.3 A bitter deception that some nobles accepted the compromises demanded by the Napoleonic settlement even surfaced in the risings of 1815 and 1832.4.
