Last updated 10th July 2024: Online ordering is currently unavailable due to technical issues. We apologise for any delays responding to customers while we resolve this. For further updates please visit our website https://www.cambridge.org/news-and-insights/technical-incident
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 February 2017
In a high-profile newspaper editorial written in the fall of 1868, the future French premier Jules Ferry denounced the “lamentable” state of training in France's law faculties in no uncertain terms: “One must say that the lowly consideration that is given today in our courts to what was once legal science; the mania for judging and pleading only on the facts; the growing elasticity of texts and the lazy indiscipline of interpretation; the substitution of equity, that is to say arbitrariness, for the rule of law, have all created harmful trends that threaten all the good habits, the noble scruples, and all of the perhaps strict but salutary traditions of past times.” Given the limits placed on the press, suffrage, and the practice of law itself under the regime of Napoleon III, it is striking that Ferry would focus on France's law faculties as a primary area of concern. But like other critics who spoke out on the issue, Ferry saw the weakness of legal education as a symbol of the corruption of elites in Second Empire France, and education reform would be a hallmark of his tenure as Premier in republican governments of the 1880s. In addition to the momentous laws that bore his name making secondary education “obligatory, secular and free,” the reform of training for the professions was a priority for Ferry and others who followed his strain of moderate, or “opportunist,” republicanism.
1 Ferry, Jules, “Lamentables études du droit,” Le Temps, 23 September 1868, 3.Google Scholar
2 For a recent synthesis in English, see Lehning, James, To Be a Citizen: The Political Culture of the Early French Third Republic (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001).Google Scholar
3 See Milet, Marc, La Faculté de droit de Paris face à la vie politique de l'affaire Scelle à l'affaire Jèze, 1925–1936 (Paris: LGDF, 1996). On the republicanism of the nineteenth-century French Bar, see Nord, Philip, The Republican Moment: Struggles for Democracy in 19th century France (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), chapter 6; Karpik, Lucien, Les Avocats entre l'Etat, le Public et le Marché (Paris: Gallimard, 1995), chapter 2–3; Debré, Jean-Louis, La Justice au XIXe siècle: Les Républiques des Avocats (Paris: Perrin, 1984).Google Scholar
4 Despagnet, Frantz, “La fonction sociale des facultés de droit.” Revue Internationale de l'Enseignement (hereafter RIE) 22 (1891): 531–58.Google Scholar
5 See for example, Ringer, Fritz, Fields of knowledge: French Academic Culture in Comparative Perspective, 1890–1920 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Weisz, George, The Emergence of Modern Universities in France, 1863–1914 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983); Charle, Christophe, La République des Universitatres, 1870–1940 (Paris: Seuil, 1994); Gatti-Montain, Jacqueline, Le Système d'enseignement du droit en France (Lyon: Presses Universitaires de Lyon, 1987); Burney, John, Training the Bourgeoisie: The University of Toulouse in the 19th century, Faculties and Students in Provincial France (New York: Garland, 1987); Clark, Terry Nichols, Prophets and Patrons: The French University and the Emergence of the Social Sciences (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1973); Gerbod, Paul, La Condition Universitaire en France au XIXe siècle (Paris: PUF, 1965) For a recent comparison of national trajectories in legal education, see Halpérin, Jean-Louis, Histoire des droits en Europe de 1750 à nos jours (Paris: Flammarion, 2003), 172–93.Google Scholar
6 Weisz, Cf., Emergence of Modern Universities, 188–89; Charle, , Rèpublique des Universitaires, 278–88; Gatti-Montain, Le Système d'enseignement, 123–33; Ringer, Fields of Knowledge, 53.Google Scholar
7 Savage, John, “The Problems of Wealth and Virtue: The Paris Bar and the Generation of the Fin-de-siècle” in Lawyers and Vampires: Cultural Histories of Legal Professions, ed. Pue, Wesley and Sugarman, David (Portland, OR: Hart, 2003), 171–210.Google Scholar
8 Sorlin, Pierre, Waldeck-Rousseau (Paris: Colin, 1966), 89. Although the whole notion of an “exegetical school” has been overstated, and was largely a construction of sociological reformers of the turn of the century, academic training was perhaps one area where the term was usefully descriptive. See Dubouchet, Paul, La Pensée Juridique avant et après le Code civil (Paris: L'Hermès, 1994), 147–60, and Atias, Christian, “Philosophic du Droit: les enjeux d'une fin-de-siècle,” in L'Evolution de la Philosophie du Droit en Allemagne et en France depuis la fin de la Seconde Guerre Mondiale, ed. Planty-Bonjour, Guy and Legeais, Raymond (Paris: PUF, 1991), 235–73.Google Scholar
9 Warée, Barnabé, Annuaire de l'ordre judiciaire de l'Empire français (Paris: Cotillon, 1859), 22–23.Google Scholar
10 Fortoul, Rapport, 22 August 1854 and Danton, Rapport, 4 April 1856, cited in Motte, Olivier, “La Faculté de Droit de Paris et le Ministère de l'Instruction Publique au XIXè siècle” (D.E.S. Thesis, University of Paris II, 1974), 112.Google Scholar
11 Bibliothèque Interuniversitaire Cujas de droit et de sciences économiques (hereafter CUJ) 11.090 pièce 8, “Projet de decret portant creation à la faculté de droit de Paris d'une section administrative et économique” (1869). See also Sandra Horvath-Peterson, Victor Duruy & French education: liberal reform in the Second Empire (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1984).Google Scholar
12 Haute Commission des de Droit, Etudes, Delibérations des Facultés de Droit sur les Questions Proposées à la Haute Commission par M. le Ministre de l'Instruction Public (Paris: n.p., 1845), 53; Thuillier, Gerard, L'ENA avant l'ENA (Paris: PUF, 1983), 27.Google Scholar
13 Fruneau, H., “L'Ouverture du cours de M. Barbie.” La Conférence 15 (5 December 1864): 482–84.Google Scholar
14 For example, the Commission rejected the idea of reinstating the course in constitutional law out of concern for the possible “disruptions” it might provoke; Archives Nationales (hereafter AN) AJ 16 1791, Régistres des déliberations du Conseil et de l'Association de la Faculté de Droit, June 1871–April 1872; see also Gerbod, , La Condition Universitaire, 530–31.Google Scholar
15 AN AJ 16 1791, 6 May 1872.Google Scholar
16 Acollas, Emile, Introduction à l'étude du droit (Paris: A. Chevalier-Marescq, 1885), 85.Google Scholar
17 Ibid., 65, 83. On the use of competition as a guiding principle of educational reform, see André Dauteribes, “Laboulaye et la réforme des études de droit.” Revue d'Histoire des Facultés de droit et de la science juridique 11 (1990): 13–53.Google Scholar
18 AN AJ 16 1792, 25 November 1875.Google Scholar
19 AN AJ 16 1792, 25 November 1875; 2 December 1875. The question of exams was discussed at length in the meetings of 24 December 1879 and 8 January 1880.Google Scholar
20 Weisz, , Emergence of Modern Universities, 5.Google Scholar
21 AN AJ 16 1792, 11 April 1878.Google Scholar
22 AN AJ 16 1792, 8 May 1878 and letter to the provost of 29 March 1880. The Civil code would be the subject of seven out of a total of eighteen exams, instead of six of nineteen during the three years of study for the licence. In the meeting of May 15, 1878, several professors expressed particular concern over the effects this might have on the fate of Roman law.Google Scholar
23 Boutmy, Emile, “Des Rapports et des limites des études juridiques et des études politiques.” RIE 17 (1889): 238.Google Scholar
24 AN AJ 16 1792; letter of 29 March 1880.Google Scholar
25 In his analysis of Second Empire education policy, Patrick Harrigan found that 70 percent of lycée students planning to study law were from what he termed “the traditional upper class,” more than double the total number who completed secondary studies. He also noted the heavy degree of social reproduction in the law faculty, with about half of the students having fathers who had also attended, and concluded it was the least open of all the professional schools in the late Second Empire. According to an 1865 report, advanced study in law was the goal of the single largest group of students at the secondary level. Patrick Harrigan, Mobility, Elites, and Education in French Society of the Second Empire (Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1980), 32, 36, 72. See also Gerbod, Paul, “The Baccalaureat and Its Role in the Recruitment and Formation of French Elites in the 19th century,” in Elites in France: Origins, Reproduction and Power, ed. Cerny, Philip and Howarth, Jolyon (London: Frances Pinter, 1981), 53–54.Google Scholar
26 AN AJ 16 1791, 17 April 1872. The changing social makeup of the student body is corroborated by himself, Louis Liard, who noted the “dramatic decline” in the financial “ease” of middle class students at the law faculty. See Liard, Louis, “La Réforme de la la licence en droit.” RIE 18 (1889).Google Scholar
27 AN AJ 16 1791, 29 April 1872.Google Scholar
28 AN AJ 16 1792, letter of 29 March 1880. Students were required to have a certain number of inscriptions in order to take each of the successive exams. These rules were published annually in the Guide-Manuel de l'Etudiant en Droit distributed to students.Google Scholar
29 AN AJ 16 1792, 24 December 1879.Google Scholar
30 AN AJ 16 1791, 13 June 1872. Cheating was no doubt facilitated by the fact that students could have copies of the various law codes with them while writing the exam, as discussed in a meeting of June 27, 1872.Google Scholar
31 AN AJ 16 1791, 13 June 1872.Google Scholar
32 AN AJ 16 1797, 6 March 1901.Google Scholar
33 AN AJ 16 1792, 21 January 1880.Google Scholar
34 AN AD XIXj 100, Statistiques de l'Enseignement Supérieur (1868); ANF*17 3305 Statistiques de l'Enseignement Supérieur (1889; 1900); Annuaire Statistique de la France (1878–1899); RIE 57 (1909), 304; Le Temps, 9 July 1895, 4.Google Scholar
35 AN AJ 16*1796, 11 February 1889.Google Scholar
36 Le Temps, 14 October 1889, 1–2.Google Scholar
37 Bufnoir, Charles, “Le Service Militaire et les Etudes de Droit.” RIE 15 (1888): 518.Google Scholar
38 Bufnoir, , “Le Service Militaire,” 521.Google Scholar
39 “Rapport des Conseils généraux des facultés pour l'année scolaire 1888–1889.” Enquetes et Documents relatif à l'enseignement superieur 35 (1889).Google Scholar
40 This reality was noted by contemporaries and was reflected in the distribution of scholarships among the various faculties. Compared with students from the faculty of letters, law students were virtually excluded from consideration for financial aid until 1897. See Moulinier, Pierre, La Naissance de l'étudiant moderne (XIXe stiècle) (Paris: Belin, 2002), 96–97.Google Scholar
41 See AN AJ 16 1794, 17 May 1887. Two professors who were members of the reformist Sociéeté de l'enseignement supérieur, Bufhoir and Duverger, voted against the faculty's decision to maintain this system of privilege of seniority, which essentially guaranteed that traditional teaching would continue to dominate and new trends would remain marginal for another generation. This tendency was confirmed in 1890, when the Paris faculty council rejected a proposal to create a national competitive examination for faculty appointments in order to reestablish the balance between Paris and the provincial doctoral programs; see AN AJ 16* 1795, 26 February 1890. Charle, , République des Universitaires, 272.Google Scholar
42 Liard, , “Réforme de la Licence,” 117.Google Scholar
43 The proposal was voted down by eleven votes to four with four abstentions; AN AJ 16* 1795, 22 March 1890.Google Scholar
44 Despagnet, , “La fonction sociale,” 534.Google Scholar
45 Ibid., 547.Google Scholar
46 “Higher education is rightly considered today as one of the sources of general ideas which, when spreading from one level (couche) to another, end up becoming part of the nation's moral sensibility. As much as the other faculties, more than the others in some regards, the law faculties have a hand in this work.” Ibid., 533.Google Scholar
47 Ibid., 551. On the importance of natural law discourse to eighteenth-century lawyers, see David Bell, Lawyers and Citizens: The Making of a Political Site in Old Regime France (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).Google Scholar
48 “Les Elections au Conseil Supérieur de l'Instruction Public.” RIE 21 (1891): 207. see also AN AJ 16 963, Dossiers Personnels des Professeurs, Dossier Beudant.Google Scholar
49 E. Thaller, “Les Facultés de droit dans les futurs universités.” RIE 21 (1891): 221.Google Scholar
50 CUJ 96.310, “Circulaire du Conseil Supérieur de l'Instruction Public,” 8 April 1892; AN AJ 16 993, Dossier Bufnoir.Google Scholar
51 AN AJ 16 1795, 13 July 1892 and 22 July 1892; cours litres were open to students interested in the topic but held no weight in the formal degree program.Google Scholar
52 Faure, Fernand, “La Sociologie dans les Facultés de Droit de France.” RIE 26 (1893): 6.Google Scholar
53 Lot, Ferdinand, “Les études libérates et les étudiants en droit.” RIE 37 (1899): 369–71.Google Scholar
54 Beudant, Charles, “Les Etudiants en Droit et les Facultés de Lettres.” RIE 37 (1899): 130–36.Google Scholar
55 AN AJ 16 1795, 10 January 1894.Google Scholar
56 AN AJ 16 1795, 18 January 1894.Google Scholar
57 La Question des Etudes Sociales et Politiques et le Projet de création d'un Doctorat en Droit Public devant les Conseils Généraux des Facultés (1894); “La Loi sur les Universités devant le Sénat.” RIE 32 (1896): 252–67.Google Scholar
58 See Levan-Lemesle, Lucette, Le Juste ou le Riche: L'Enseignement de l'economie politique, 1815–1950 (Paris: Ministère de l'Economie, des Finances et de l'Industrie, 2004), 270–85.Google Scholar
59 CUJ 96.310, Circulaire du Ministère de l'Instruction Publique sur la reforme de l'enseignement du droit civil (1895). For his part, Professor Léveillé played the role of rabble rouser and defender of less fortuned law students. He promoted the study of economics in a speech before a student group and initiated a petition protesting measures that made passing mid-year exams more difficult. See “Le Punch des étudiants en droit,” Le Temps, 25 November 1896, 2.Google Scholar
60 Boutmy, Emile, “La réforme des études supérieur de droit,” Revue Bleue, 7 April 1894, 425nl.Google Scholar
61 But as a professor of criminal law noted, his field had not evolved for a quarter century in France, whereas in Italy, where scholars took advantage of sociological approaches, it was vibrant and dynamic. See Paul Cuche, “L'enseignement du Droit Pénal en France.” RIE 38 (1899): 291. On the influence of the Italian model of legal education, see Ernest Dubois's, “Review of Giuseppe Carle's La Vita del Diritto nei suoi rapporti coll Vita Sociale.” RIE (1881): 330–32.Google Scholar
62 Boutmy, , “La Réforme des études,” 427.Google Scholar
63 The number of aspirants to the doctorate went from 411 in 1891 to 1,212 in 1895. Le Temps, 9 July 1895, 4.Google Scholar
64 Feilbogen, Sigismond, “Les Examens à la Faculté de droit de Paris.” RIE 59 (1910): 516.Google Scholar
65 Cuche, Paul, “Le regime des examens de licence dans les facultés de droit.” RIE 58 (1909): 295.Google Scholar
66 Patrick Harrigan concludes that because the law faculty had no organized entrance examination such as those required for the Ecole Polytechnique and other grandes écoles, upper class students were more drawn to it. The presence of a formal examination tended to encourage students who depended on a purely meritocratic form of education and not one, like the law faculty, where the appreciation of students’ work remained more subjective. Harrigan, Mobility, Elites, and Education, 70.Google Scholar
67 On the continuing tensions between Paris and provincial law faculties, see Hauriou, Maurice, “Les Facultés de droit et les elections de 1904 au Conseil Superieur de l'Instruction Publique.” RIE 48 (1904): 4–5; Deries, Léon, “Les epreuves orales dans les examens,” Revue Pédagogique, 15 May 1904.Google Scholar
68 AN F* 17 3305 Statistiques de l'Enseignement Supérieur, 1879–1899 (1900).Google Scholar
69 Glasson, Emile, “La Crise des facultés de droit.” RIE 42 (1902): 385–86. The police were increasingly called upon to respond to violence in this period. For example, the disorderly protest aimed at a Roman Law professor by mainly first year law students, or the riots threatened by third-year students if the time of their civil law class was not changed to allow them to get to their afternoon jobs as clerks for notaries and solicitors. See Archives de la Prefecture de Police (APP) Ba 23, reports of 15 January 1903, 7 November 1905.Google Scholar
70 The tract's author had been the first president of the University of Paris student association, and his clear implication was mat diplomas were artificial requirements aimed at draining the savings of lower middle class students. Henry Bérenger, Les Prolétaires Intellectuels en France (Paris: Editions de la Revue, 1901), 39. Writing years later during the War, another author calculated the cost of pursuing a law doctorate at 20,000 francs per year for living and tuition expenses, and 3,000–4,000 more each year in the early career phase, with few earning much money in the long run. Liévin, Jean, Les Meilleurs Professions pour faire fortune après la guerre (Paris: Les Editions pratiques et documentaires, 1916).Google Scholar
71 According to Weber, Eugen, 1905 was the “seminal year” in the emergence of Action Française as the most important right wing student movement; Action Française: Royalism and Reaction in Twentieth century France (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1962), 26, 38.Google Scholar
72 Massis, Henri and de Tarde, Alfred, L'Esprit de la Nouvelle Sorbonne: la crise de la culture classique, la crise du français (Paris: Le Mercure de France, 1911), 130–42. See also Savage, “The Problems of Wealth and Virtue,” 204–10.Google Scholar
73 Glasson, , “La Crise des facultés de droit,” 389.Google Scholar
74 Deputy Thierry's proposal in Chamber of Deputies to reform legal studies of November 27, 1903, cited in “Licence en Droit, Réforme,” CUJ 31.039 Enquetes et Documents relatif à l'enseignement superieur 85 (1904).Google Scholar
75 “Notes et événements.” RIE 43 (1902): 128.Google Scholar
76 Discussions preceding the vote of this curriculum are in AN AJ 16* 1795 12 February 1903. On 1905 as a turning point in the history of legal training, see Gustave Aron, L'Enseignement du droit et la formation du citoyen (Paris: Impr. du Palais, 1919), 30–32.Google Scholar
77 See Gruffy, Georges, La Réforme de la licence en droit envisagée au point de vue de la pratique judiciaire (Paris: Lois nouvelles, 1905); Thierry proposal in Chamber of Deputies of November 27, 1903, CUJ 31.039. In 1901 the socialist deputy Jules Coutant, presented a proposal to abolish the Order of Advocates because of “the near impossibility for young men of working class families” to enter its ranks. Journal Officiel, Documents Parlementaires de la Chambre… Annexe 2253, Session Ordinaire, 12 March 1901, 202.Google Scholar
78 AN AJ 16 1797, meetings of 22 January 1904; 29 January 1904; and 4 March 1904.Google Scholar
79 Gruffy, , La Réforme de la licence, 6.Google Scholar
80 Cuche, Paul, cited in Aron, L'Enseignement du droit, 32.Google Scholar
