Doctrinaire

Doctrinaire, in Politics, strictly speaking a man who holds fast to abstract doctrines in all circumstances. Thus most of the French revolutionist leaders might be called doctrinaires. But the term was invented by the ultra-royalists in France just after the Restoration of 1814, and applied to a moderate Liberal group headed by Royer Collard (q.v.), and including at various times the Duc de Broglie, MM. Camille Jordan, Guizot, and others. This group professed to base their principles on the study of French history, and attacked both the revolutionists for their contempt of the past and the royalists for their reactionary tendencies. They have thus been treated as an offshoot of the great movement towards the study of history as a development, which began early in this century. Politically their doctrines might be called moderate Liberalism, at least relatively to those of the ultra-royalists. They supported constitutional monarchy and parliamentary government, but they opposed extension of the franchise, disapproved of a free press, protested against the notion that parliament should represent the views or wishes of the nation, and held that the king should govern as well as reign. Probably, therefore, they did more harm than good to the cause of constitutional monarchy in France. Louis Philippe's government more or less represented their views. After its fall in 1848 they disappeared from public life. The Orleanists carry on their traditions.