A Virtue for Courageous Minds: Moderation in French Political Thought, 1748-1830 by Aurelian Craiutu (review)

Much has been written about the radical and democratic Enlightenments, but little about the moderate Enlightenment; the present study, beginning with Montesquieu's Esprit des lois and following the tradition of moderation up to and beyond the Revolution, is a selective contribution to the topic. An introductory chapter offers a brief history of moderation from the ancient world to the present, where the concept is more difficult to define; its meaning becomes clearer, however, in the context of the chosen period, where it is, essentially, hostility to the abuse of power, whether from the Right or the Left, combined with a theory of mixed government or balanced constitution. Separate chapters on Montesquieu, the monarchiens of 1789, Jacques Necker, Mme de Staël, and Benjamin Constant offer a series of surveys that are detailed and competent rather than new or exciting. Perhaps it is difficult to give a lively account of these 'moderate' political views, which today often seem rather commonplace; one wonders, however, whether the writers referred to were always as moderate (or consistent) as the author would have us believe. What is one to make of the 'moderate' Montesquieu who presents Jornandez the Goth as one of those valiant warriors whose achievement was to liberate men from 'les fers forgés au midi' and to teach them that, 'la nature les ayant faits égaux, la raison n'a pu les rendre dépendants que pour leur bonheur' (Esprit des lois, XVII, 5)? As for Constant, it is surprising that so much space should be devoted to his early career, during the Directory, when the form of 'moderation' he preached was the dubious one of propping up a government that survived only by means of unconstitutional expedients. In his later years he preferred to forget these early writings and his defence of the coup d'état of Fructidor. Besides, as Henri Grange demonstrated in Benjamin Constant: amoureux et républicain, 1795-1799 (Paris: Belles lettres, 2004), the real moderates of this period were not the politicians (particularly Barras) whom Constant supported, but the constitutionnels (Roederer, Dupont de Nemours, and others), whom he ignored or misrepresented as dangerous royalists or radicals. It is also surprising that this 'moderation' of the younger Constant is presented as compatible with his mature liberalism (p. 237), which, in fact, is characterized by hostility to unconstitutional acts and particularly to mesures d'exception. As for the later Constant, there is little discussion of De l'esprit de conquête (1814), which surely offers his most eloquent defence of moderation, and no really detailed analysis of the relation between his views on political moderation and those he held on religion and perfectibility. On these and a number of other points, one would have welcomed a more probing critical approach, especially to contradictions (real or apparent) and difficulties in the texts. However, while Aurelian Craiutu's presentation of the representatives of the moderate tradition is rather bland, his book will be read with interest, particularly as a contribution to the constitutional history of the period.