Catholic Women and the Unmaking of French Nationalism After the Dreyfus Affair

Abstract

During the Dreyfus era militant nationalists waged a violent campaign against the Third Republic. The nationalist campaign, led by Republicans like Paul Déroulède of the Ligue des Patriotes, sought to replace the parliamentary regime with a more authoritarian presidential republic. This Republican ‘revisionist’ campaign proved highly appealing to royalists and ‘rallié’ Catholics, who generously subsidized nationalist organizations and fattened their ranks with hopes of toppling the secular republic. When the ‘Government of Republican Defense’ – formed to end the Dreyfus Affair – used the Associations law of 1901 dramatically to curb Catholic influence within France, conservatives switched funding from nationalist leagues to groups formed specifically to defend the church. Women, in particular, lent crucial weight to reorient many nationalist organizations away from their revisionist goals to a narrower end of defending the church. The flight of women and money away from nationalism and toward the church effectively ended the nationalist challenge to the Republic.