Franţa în imaginarul politic al conservatorilor români: Studiu de caz - Constantin N. Brăiloiu şi Alexandru N. Lahovary (1866-1877)

Abstract

In the conservative imaginary, at least in the cases of Constantin N. Brăiloiu and Alexandru N. Lahovary, France was not deemed a functioning political model (i.e., a political or constitutional regime) that Romania should have followed. Compared with the English political model (or rather with the Anglo-Saxon one, since the reference sometimes included the United States of America) and with the Belgian regime, France was certainly a less favoured option. However, without exception and despite all discursive artifice, in the perspective of these two politicians, who were evidently Francophile, both by education and by cultural affinities, France undeniably remained a landmark of civilization or administrative and economic efficiency, and sometimes a beacon of legal inspiration. It must be said that the latter perception was in no way related to Constantin N. Brăiloiu and Alexandru N. Lahovary’s conservative convictions. It was commonplace in the local cultural imaginary, which, regardless of one’s political, social or cultural affiliation, repeated the encomiastic mantra dedicated to imperial France, to whom the Romanians were convinced that they owed the existence of their nation. In fact, one should not overlook another typical belief of this political imaginary, which is illustrated in our case by Alexandru N. Lahovary: the Romanian politicians were persuaded that the ideals included in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen were exclusively due to the France of 1789.