Lably
Skip to content

France in the long nineteenth century

History of France from 1789 to 1914

  • 49 min read
  • 10 chapters

Related on Lably

Through French Revolution

Lab · Class 10French RevolutionLab · Class 10Nationalism EuropeLab · Class 5–9History Explorer

Throughout this period, France underwent significant transformations that reshaped its geography, demographics, language, and economic landscape, marking a period of profound change and development. The French Revolution and Napoleonic eras fundamentally altered French society, promoting centralization, administrative uniformity across departments, and a standardized legal code. Education also centralized, emphasizing technical training and meritocracy, despite growing conservatism among the aristocracy and the church. Wealth concentration saw the richest 10 percent owning most of the nation's wealth. The 19th century saw France expanding to nearly its modern territorial limits through annexations and overseas imperialism, notably in Algeria, Indochina, and Africa. Despite territorial gains, France faced challenges, including slow population growth, compared to its European neighbors, and a late industrialization that saw a shift from rural to urban living and the rise of an industrial workforce. The loss of Alsace and Lorraine to Germany in the Franco-Prussian War further fueled nationalistic sentiments and set the stage for future conflicts.

The period was also marked by significant linguistic and educational reforms, which sought to unify the country through language and secular education, contributing to a stronger national identity. Economically, France struggled to match the industrial growth rates of other advanced nations, maintaining a more traditional economy longer than its counterparts. Politically, the century was characterized by the end of the ancien régime, the rise and fall of the First and Second Empires, the tumultuous establishment of the Third Republic, and the radical experiment of the Paris Commune, reflecting the ongoing struggle between revolutionary ideals and conservative restoration. The Third Republic embarked on modernizing France, with educational reforms and attempts to create a unified national identity. Foreign policy focused on isolation of Germany and forming alliances, leading to the Triple Entente. Domestically, issues like the Dreyfus affair highlighted the nation's divisions, while laws aimed at reducing the Catholic Church's influence sparked further controversy.

Cultural and artistic movements, from Romanticism to Modernism, mirrored these societal changes, contributing to France's rich cultural legacy. The Belle Époque emerged as a period of cultural flourishing and peace, overshadowed by the growing threats of war and internal discord. The long 19th century set the foundations for modern France, navigating through revolutions, wars, and social upheavals to emerge as a unified nation-state near the front of the global stage, by the early 20th century.

General aspects

Geography

By the French Revolution, the Kingdom of France had expanded to nearly the modern territorial limits. The 19th century would complete the process by the annexation of the Duchy of Savoy and the County of Nice (first during the First Empire, and then definitively in 1860) and some small papal (like Avignon) and foreign possessions. France's territorial limits were greatly extended during the Empire through Revolutionary and Napoleonic military conquests and re-organization of Europe, but these were reversed by the Vienna Congress. Savoy and Nice were definitively annexed following France's victory in the Franco-Austrian War in 1859.

In 1830, France invaded Algeria, and in 1848 this north African country was fully integrated into France as a department. The late 19th century saw France embark on a massive program of overseas imperialism – including French Indochina (modern day Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos) and Africa (the Scramble for Africa brought France most of North-West and Central Africa) – which brought it in direct competition with British interests.

With the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, France lost Alsace and portions of Lorraine to Germany (see Alsace-Lorraine); these lost provinces were not regained until the end of World War I.

Demographics

Between 1795 and 1866, metropolitan France (that is, without overseas or colonial possessions) was the second most populous country of Europe, behind Russia, and the fourth most populous country in the world (behind China, India, and Russia); between 1866 and 1911, metropolitan France was the third most populous country of Europe, behind Russia and Germany. Unlike other European countries, France did not experience a strong population growth from the middle of the 19th century to the first half of the 20th century. The French population in 1789 is estimated at 28 million; by 1850, it was 36 million and in 1880 it was around 39 million. Slow growth was a major political issue, as arch-rival Germany continued to gain an advantage in terms of population and industry. Ways to reverse the trend became a major political issue.

Until 1850, population growth was mainly in the countryside, but a period of slow urbanization began under the Second Empire. Unlike in England, industrialization was a late phenomenon in France. France's economy in the 1830s had a limited iron industry, under-developed coal supplies, and the great majority lived on farms. The systematic establishment of primary education and the creation of new engineering schools prepared an industrial expansion which would blossom in the following decades. French rail transport only began hesitantly in the 1830s, and would not truly develop until the 1840s, using imported British engineers. By the revolution of 1848, a growing industrial workforce began to participate actively in French politics, but their hopes were largely betrayed by the policies of the Second Empire. The loss of the important coal, steel and glass production regions of Alsace and Lorraine would cause further problems. The industrial worker population increased from 23% in 1870 to 39% in 1914. Nevertheless, France remained a rather rural country in the early 1900s with 40% of the population still farmers in 1914. While exhibiting a similar urbanization rate to the U.S. (50% of the population in the U.S. was engaged in agriculture in the early 1900s), the urbanization rate of France was still well behind that of the UK (80% urbanization rate in the early 1900s).

In the 19th century, France was a country of immigration for peoples and political refugees from Eastern Europe (Germany, Poland, Hungary, Russia, Ashkenazi Jews) and from the Mediterranean (Italy, Spanish Sephardic Jews and North-African Mizrahi Jews). Large numbers of Belgian migrant workers laboured in French factories, particularly in the textile industry in the Nord.

France was the first country in Europe to emancipate its Jewish population during the French Revolution. The Crémieux Decree of 1870 gave full citizenship for the Jews in French Algeria. By 1872, there were an estimated 86,000 Jews living in France (by 1945 this would increase to 300,000), many of whom integrated (or attempted to integrate) into French society, although the Dreyfus affair would reveal antisemitism in certain classes of French society (see History of the Jews in France).

Alsace and Lorraine were lost to Germany in 1871. Some French refugees moved to France. France suffered massive losses during World War I — roughly estimated at 1.4 million French dead including civilians (see World War I casualties) (or nearly 10% of the active adult male population) and four times as many wounded (see World War I § Aftermath).

Language

Linguistically, France was a patchwork. People in the countryside spoke various languages. France would only become a linguistically unified country by the end of the 19th century, and in particular through the educational policies of Jules Ferry during the French Third Republic. From an illiteracy rate of 33% among peasants in 1870, by 1914 almost all French could read and understand the national language, although 50% still understood or spoke a regional language of France (in today's France, only an estimated 10% still understand a regional language).

Through the educational, social and military policies of the Third Republic, by 1914 the French had been converted (as the historian Eugen Weber has put it) from a "country of peasants into a nation of Frenchmen". By 1914, most French could read French and the use of regional languages had greatly decreased; the role of the Catholic Church in public life had been radically diminished; a sense of national identity and pride was actively taught. The anti-clericalism of the Third Republic profoundly changed French religious habits: in one case study for the city of Limoges comparing the years 1899 with 1914, it was found that baptisms decreased from 98% to 60%, and civil marriages before a town official increased from 14% to 60%.

Economic laggard: 1815–1913

French economic history since its late 18th century Revolution was tied to three major events and trends: the Napoleonic Era, the competition with Britain and its other neighbors in regards to 'industrialization', and the 'total wars' of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Quantitative analysis of output data shows the French per capita growth rates were slightly smaller than Britain. However the British population tripled in size, while France grew by only third – so the overall British economy grew much faster. François Crouzet has summarized the cycles of French per capita economic growth in 1815–1913 as:

  • 1815–1840: irregular, but sometimes fast growth;
  • 1840–1860: fast growth;
  • 1860–1882: slowing down;
  • 1882–1896: stagnation; and
  • 1896–1913: fast growth.

For the 1870–1913 era, Angus Maddison gives growth rates for 12 Western advanced countries – 10 in Europe plus the United States and Canada. In terms of per capita growth, France was about average. However again its population growth was very slow, so as far as the growth rate in total size of the economy France was in next to the last place, just ahead of Italy. The 12 countries averaged 2.7% growth per year in total output, but France only averaged 1.6% growth. Crouzet concludes that the

average size of industrial undertakings was smaller in France than in other advanced countries; that machinery was generally less up to date, productivity lower, costs higher. The domestic system and handicraft production long persisted, while big modern factories were for long exceptional. Large lumps of the Ancien Régime economy survived. ... On the whole, the qualitative lag between the British and French economy ... persisted during the whole period under consideration, and later on a similar lag developed between France and some other countries—Belgium, Germany, the United States. France did not succeed in catching up with Britain, but was overtaken by several of her rivals.

Sign in to keep reading

9 more chapters are free with a Lably account.

More in History

Church of EnglandAnglican church in EnglandWhite HouseResidence and workplace of the US presidentFrench Third RepublicGovernment of France from 1870 to 1940Western cultureWestern culture, also known as Western civilization, European civilization, Occidental culEarly ChristianityHistorical era of the Christian religionOld NorseNorth Germanic language