Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Esprit de Corps: A Timeline
- Introduction: A Thousand Platoons – The Enduring Importance of Esprit de Corps
- 1 Musketeers and Jesuits: The French Birth of Esprit de Corps in the Eighteenth Century
- 2 ‘Adunation’ of the Nation: Towards a Republican Esprit de Corps
- 3 ‘We Must Hang Together’: The English Appropriation of Esprit de Corps in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
- 4 The Way of Napoleon: The Uniformisation of Esprit de Corps in Early Nineteenth-Century France
- 5 Collective Temperament: Esprit de Corps as Sociality and Individuation in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century
- 6 The Mystique of Esprit de Corps in France in the Twentieth Century
- 7 The Way of Hilton: Esprit de Corps in the UK and the USA in the Twentieth Century
- Conclusion: Ensemblance
- Bibliography
- Index
4 - The Way of Napoleon: The Uniformisation of Esprit de Corps in Early Nineteenth-Century France
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 October 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Esprit de Corps: A Timeline
- Introduction: A Thousand Platoons – The Enduring Importance of Esprit de Corps
- 1 Musketeers and Jesuits: The French Birth of Esprit de Corps in the Eighteenth Century
- 2 ‘Adunation’ of the Nation: Towards a Republican Esprit de Corps
- 3 ‘We Must Hang Together’: The English Appropriation of Esprit de Corps in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
- 4 The Way of Napoleon: The Uniformisation of Esprit de Corps in Early Nineteenth-Century France
- 5 Collective Temperament: Esprit de Corps as Sociality and Individuation in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century
- 6 The Mystique of Esprit de Corps in France in the Twentieth Century
- 7 The Way of Hilton: Esprit de Corps in the UK and the USA in the Twentieth Century
- Conclusion: Ensemblance
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Superiorly Normal: Renewal and Normalisation of Esprit de Corps
Around 1800, esprit de corps became a praised notion once more in France, provided that its manifestation was not only authorised but also controlled by the state. In the early nineteenth century, esprit de corps was nationally manufactured, and Napoleon was its first engineer. The phrase came to describe an institutionalised form of competition for social distinction, a new national sport, the expected prizes of which were individual prestige and collective order. This national production of esprit de corps became possible partly because of the generalised acceptance that humans have a natural tendency to form rivalling coteries: instead of trying in vain to crush intermediary groups, as attempted by the Revolution, a strong state was to organise, supervise and utilise them.
This programme was clearly theorised by Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, Bonaparte's minister of foreign affairs. In 1800, Talleyrand told the other members of the government that each branch of state administration should have its own subordinate ‘esprit‘: ‘This spirit [esprit] confers unity, uniformity, and a certain energy to the conducting of business; it transmits a tradition of duties’ and ‘binds the corps and its individual members to the Government’, the latter being the ‘goal and source of all consideration’. Talleyrand advocated a system of promotions, rewards and advancements that became the basis of France's state bureaucracy.
The forging of the citizen's esprit de corps in the name of social order started early in life. Lycées and boarding schools became places of masculine friendship: ‘The camaraderie of the schools and the strong esprit de corps that resulted […] often delinquent within the internat [boarding school]’ was expected to produce disciplined servitors of the state afterwards. The elite offspring were given the opportunity to develop an elitist esprit de corps in the newly created grandes écoles, which are still today a pillar of French education. A student of the prestig-ious École polytéchnique in the years 1814–16, the philosopher Auguste Comte ecstatically described this higher education institution as a ‘paradise, where the most perfect union existed among the students’.
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- EnsemblanceThe Transnational Genealogy of Esprit de Corps, pp. 112 - 139Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2020