The Mountain (1849)
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The Mountain
La Montagne |
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|---|---|
| Leader | Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin |
| Founded | 1849 |
| Dissolved | 1852 |
| Headquarters | Paris, France |
| Ideology |
Democratic socialism Christian socialism Utopian socialism |
| Political position | Left-wing |
| International affiliation | None |
| Colours | Red |
The Mountain (French: La Montagne), with its members collectively called Democratic Socialists (French: Démocrate-socialistes), was a political group of the Second French Republic. It drew its name from The Mountain, a group active in the early period of the French Revolution. Standing on a republican platform, its main opposition was the conservative Party of Order (Parti de l'Ordre). The Mountain achieved 25% of the vote, compared to 53% for the Party of Order. It was led by Ledru-Rollin, one of the members of the Second Republic's early provisional government.
After 1849, the Barrot Party of Order-backed government sought to repress protests against alcohol excises and the '45 centime', as well as demand for cheap credit and other grievances. The démoc-socs clandestinely organized this dissent in the face of press censorship, restrictions on political meetings, and harassment. The Mountain's broader strategy was to prepare for the 1852 legislative and Presidential elections, by continuing to espouse its utopian Christian socialist message alongside attempts to politicize the three million voters who had been disenfranchised in 1850 despite the Republic's constitution proclaiming universal (manhood) suffrage. Marx again found cause for criticism, accusing The Mountain of impotently "prophesying future victories".
The causes behind The Mountain's success amongst particular demographics are disputed. Margadent, McPhee, and Merriman have argued that the peasant vote signalled an acceptance of modernization, whilst Weber, Jones, Corbin have argued that peasant support was typical, even if the provincial rivalries and support for negative demands such as low taxation present were cloaked in urban political lexicon. Tombs has pointed out that the demands of voters were expressed in a number of different ways and that support was fleeting (wine growers were also prepared to back Louis-Napoléon or the Bourbons to get excise duties cut), and that peasants in the south-west and Massif Central who backed The Mountain also accepted Louis-Napoléon after his coup of 1851, and the end of the Second Republic. For the remainder of the Second Empire, Louis-Napoléon found the core of his support lay in the peasantry.
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