History News, Notes and Arguments: Marianne vs. The Sacred Heart - Symbolism and the Revolutionary Dialectic

The female allegory for Liberty and for France herself, Marianne, has a long history. The rise of Marianne as an important symbol of republican France is concurrent with the rise of the French Revolution and the republican ideology to which it gave birth. Her importance was always heightened in revolutionary times, and after the fall of the Paris Commune became perhaps one of the most important that represented the Third Republic. The other visual republican symbols that represented revolutionary interests included the tri-coleur, the red cockade (liberty cap), the Gallic Cock, Hercules, and references to favorite revolutionary heroes, including busts and even the Sacred Heart of Marat.

At an intersection between history and memory stands the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on top of the Butte de Montmartre in Paris. Its history is long, its meaning is rife with contestation, and its visual power is apparent to anyone who visits Paris. What makes this monument’s legacy so intriguing is how a small group of devotees to the heart of Jesus could somehow embed this symbol into the central political debate of the nineteenth century, namely, the dialectic between revolution and counterrevolution raging at least since the 1790s, if not well before. The Sacred Heart was not the only symbol that represented popular counterrevolutionary interests; some others included the fleur-de-lys and the white banner representing popular royalism, while the crucifix and the Virgin Mary were symbols of popular Catholicism.

The inspiration for this paper is the assertion by Raymond Jonas that the Sacred Heart rushed to the counterrevolutionary defense whenever Marianne marched into battle. This statement, while metaphorical and intentionally oversimplified, reveals a fundamental truth about the battle for the hearts and minds of the French people through popular symbolism in which the dichotomy between Marianne and the Sacred Heart played a fundamental role. Whether they were used on the offensive during moments of revolutionary fervor, or used as monuments for the effacement of memory or expiation for the sins of the prior regime, symbols were crucial in the battle over memory, loyalty and public space.

This paper will start with three examples of Marianne and the Sacred Heart coming face to face. The decision to build the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on top of the Butte de Montmartre in Paris in the 1870s and the aborted suggestion by a Paris City Council to build a New York City sized statue of Liberty (Marianne) directly in front of the Basilica in 1880 show us how shared space between the two symbols was or was not possible, and the practice of placing monuments to Marianne and the Virgin Mary in opposition to one another in town squares during the nascent years of the Third Republic show us…?. From these incidents during the Third Republic, I will move backwards to the French Revolution 1789-1799 and move forward through the nineteenth century to examine the historical roots of symbolism in the revolutionary dialectic and how they led to such powerful opposition to shared space.

The essay will be a historiographical review of several works that have treated the subjects in various forms, with an extended discussion of the usefulness of the studies in understanding these three situations, and a concluding discussion at the end. Two notes for clarification: Marianne as the name of the Liberty figure did not come into popular usage until the latter half of the nineteenth century, so I will honor this distinction by using Liberty for the pre-Second Empire era and Marianne for the remainder. Symbol will be used as an umbrella term for image, allegory and representation for simplicity.