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5. “Seconding the Views of the Government” Maternal Societies and the State When the Society for Maternal Charity issued the organization’s first bylaws in February 1789, the language reflected Enlightenment optimism, with its faith in the potential benefits of combined philanthropic and governmental action: The government, eager to extend the sources of public prosperity, the population , and [good] morals, has encouraged [our] work and doubled [our] strength by a considerable donation; businesses have seconded the views of the Government by enriching us; the number of subscribers has increased; and this Society, having only zeal as its guide; for hope, only the concern it should inspire; for arms against all the obstacles opposed to its establishment, only the need to attack a disastrous evil . . . 1 While giving credit to the compagnies that had provided money to their fledgling organization for “seconding the views of the Government,” the maternal society believed that it was seconding the views of the government , as well. From the time of its origins, the links between the Society for Maternal Charity and the French government were strong, as the state relied on maternal societies to provide social services that it would not, or could not, provide. The operations of the various branches of the society and their relationship with the government provide insight to the provision of social services in France in the years before the welfare state and suggest why the variation in services to the poor in different regions of the country was so great, even in a state so centralized. The Society for Maternal Charity would serve as a model for the provision of social services to poor mothers and their children 140 chapter 5 under the Third Republic and beyond. The visibility of the dames visiteuses in providing assistance, advice, and surveillance to poor families undoubtedly made it easier for administrators under the Third Republic—and even earlier—to accept women as inspectors in situations where their maternal and domestic skills would be useful.2 Although charitable ladies have sometimes been mocked as elitist and overly moralistic,3 Jean-Pierre Chaline argues that many took their work very seriously and they could, in fact, be quite effective. He suggests that “the common view today of the dame patronnesse probably leads us to underestimate the influence which . . . these women could have, exercising power, utilizing funds that were sometimes considerable.”4 While we have seen that the Society for Maternal Charity attracted support, and its most illustrious members, from the highest reaches of French society—Queen Marie Antoinette, Empress Marie-Louise, the Duchesse of Angoulême, Queen Marie-Amélie, and the Empress Eugénie all served as présidentes—the workhorses were the dames distribuantes, dames visiteuses or dames administrantes, and, for some societies , the dames associées.5 Madame Pastoret, the society’s first secretary after its reconstitution in 1801, and later its vice president, serves as exemplar of the dame administrante. Celebrated for her willingness to seek out and personally provide help to those in the poorest areas of Paris, she had already founded at her own expense a salle d’asile, the first crèche in Paris, in the year 1800. She was also known for her zealous participation in other charities, such as the Visite des Hôpitaux. Her contemporaries praised both her “esprit” and her charitable works; her husband famously said of her that she “loved to do well the good she did” (aimait à faire bien le bien qu’elle faisait).6 The marquise de Pastoret was one of the most visible faces of the Society for Maternal Charity in its early years. Wife of a prominent statesman and philanthropist, she was in her own right one of the best-known and respected dames de charité in the capital. One of the most prestigious and powerful charities in France, the society attracted women who were influential and well connected in the provinces as well as in Paris. Madame Guestier, longtime présidente of Bordeaux’s maternal society, was a member of that city’s most famous wine family, owners of the commercial house Barton and Guestier.7 From the time of its founding, Bordeaux’s society was dominated by its commercial bourgeoisie, traditionally the most influential group in this port city located in France’s premier wine country.8 Madame Delahante, who served nearly twenty years as president of Lyon’s society, was a member of a wellconnected family involved in finance;9 she was succeeded by the...

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