Juste milieu

Juste milieu (meaning “middle way” or “happy medium”) is a term that has been used to describe centrist political philosophies that try to find a balance between extremes, and artistic forms that try to find a middle ground between the traditional and the modern. In the political sense it is most associated with the French July Monarchy (1830–1848), which ostensibly tried to strike a balance between autocracy and anarchy. The term has been used in both a positive and negative sense.

The term has been used at different times in French history. Jacques-François Blondel, in his article in the Encyclopedia of 1762 described the work of the architect Pierre Contant d'Ivry as shown in the Palais-Royal in Paris as the juste milieu between two extremes, the gravity of the former classicist style and the frivolity of the more recent Rococo style.Pierre-Alexandre-Laurent Forfait, a French engineer who became Minister of the Navy, was elected to the legislature in 1791 during the French Revolution. He was a very moderate revolutionary, and was called the Juste milieu by the extremists, a title he accepted with pride.

During the July Monarchy, in January 1831 Louis-Philippe received an address sent by the city of Gaillac, which said it submitted itself to the king's government "in order to assure the development of the conquests of July". His much-quoted response was that "We will attempt to remain in a juste milieu, in an equal distance from the excesses of popular power and the abuses of royal power."

Vincent E. Starzinger compares the Juste Milieu of the Doctrinaires of France to English Whiggism of the same period, finding similarities in ideas of sovereignty, representation, freedom and history. An article in the Edinburgh Review of January 1833 made this identification, saying the three great parties in France were "its Tory Carlists, its juste milieu Whigs, and its Radical Republicans. The article praised François Guizot and Victor de Broglie as "always the tried and consistent friends of freedom ... the most accomplished scholars ... of constitutional learning." In 1836 Guizot, then prime minister in France under Louis Philippe, described the concept as,

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