Profile Major Works Resources

Michel Chevalier, 1806-1879.

Portrait of M. Chevalier

Michel Chevalier was one of the leaders of the French Liberal School in the mid-19th Century. 

Born in Limoges, the son of a shopkeer and bureaucrat. In 1823, the eighteen-year-old Michel Chevalier enrolled at the prestigious École Polytechnique in Paris and went on to become a mine engineer in the Nord department.

Around 1829, the youthful Chevalier became a convert to the Saint-Simonian movement, a mystical semi-socialist movement.  Chevalier was an able articulator and vigorous defender movement's principles in their principle organs the daily  Globe and the fortnightly Organisateur. Chevalier quickly discovered a natural talent for writing - as one commentator put it, his pen was able to make every subject seem interesting.  Chevalier would abandon his engineering post in November 1830 to become editor-in-chief of the Globe until its suppression in April 1832.  Among the remarkable articles in this period was Chevalier's Système de la Méditerrannée with a prescient call for governments to embrace railway-building (which had only just been invented) across Europe as an antidote to war.  Chevalier was raised to the rank of "cardinal" to the "Supreme Father" Enfantin.  In the Summer of 1832, the leaders of the Saint-Simonian sect, including Enfantin and Chevalier, were arrested and charged with spreading immorality and irreligion.  The Saint-Simonians turned up at their trial decked out in their resplendent robes and transformed the courtroom into a theatrical farce that strained the judges' patience.  On August 28, 1832, Chevalier was duly sentenced to a year's imprisonment and a fine of 100 francs.

After six months in prison, the duly-sobered Chevalier was released and resumed his engineering career.  His term had been shortened by the French government, conditional on Chevalier's commitment to undertake an study of North American transportation networks.  In late 1833, Chevalier sailed across the Atlantic.  He would spend two years there, researching roads, canals and witnessing the birth of the American railway. He also visited Mexico and Cuba. While in America, Chevalier dispatched a series of letters that were regularly published in the Journal des Débats (they had taken him on as a correspondent) which included wide-ranging reflections of his impression of American economic life and society,    After his return to France in late 1835, Chevalier's collected Lettres on America were collected and published to much acclaim.  His technical report on American transportation was published in 1840. 

In 1836, Chevalier secured support for a second trip to the United States, to study the commercial crisis, but the trip was cancelled after Chevalier suffered a vehicle accident on his way to London, forcing him to remain in France.  In November, 1836, Chevalier was given a high administrative post (maître des requêtes) by the government of Louis Mathieu Molé, and went on to be raised to Councillor of State in March 1838.  These were temporary appointments, enabling Chevalier to lend his expertise to assist in Molé's re-organization of the French ministries to encompass railroads and public works. Chevalier developed an ambitious program of public works (1838), which included not only railroads, but also professional education and credit banks.  Much of his plan was shelved after Molé government fell in December 1838, and Chevalier's influence declined under the subsequent more conservative cabinets. In 1840, Chevalier authored a famous letter (to Molé)  vigorously protesting the plan of the Thiers government to militarily fortify the city of Paris.   

Economics only came gradually to him.  Having started out as an expert on transportation, Chevalier moved on to study public works (1838) and private manufacturing (1841).  Although he had picked up snippets of economic theory here and there, his understanding was still inchoate.  But this was soon remedied. In 1841, Michel Chevalier succeeded Pelegrino Rossi to Say's old chair at the Collège de France, and had to delve into economics literature to compose his lectures.  His lecture notes were recorded by a student and compiled into the Cours d'économie politique (1842-44), and then revised for a second edition by Chevalier in 1855-56.  The lectures show Chevalier's rapid deepening mastery of the field over this time period, as well as his changing economic views.  At the beginning still a romantic Saint-simoniste, suspicious of laissez-faire, Chevalier was soon converted to a faithful adherent of the French Liberal School. and a fervent proponent of free trade principles.  In 1842, Chevalier helped found the Société d'Économie Politique and the influential Journal des économistes.

In January, 1845, Chevalier was elected a deputy from Aveyron to the French parliament.  However, his brief political career soon came to an end.  Chevalier failed to be re-elected the next year, losing to a protectionist challenger, after a prolonged polemic over the benefits of free trade versus protectionism..  In between, Chevalier found time to get married to a certain Mlle Fournier, daughter of an industrialist in Herault.

Chevalier greeted the February 1848 Revolution warily.  Chevalier authored a critique of the  budding labor schemes of  socialists Louis Blanc, Etienne Cabet and others - initially in the Revue de Deux Mondes in mid-March, and then (judging its readership too narrow) in a series of more popular letters in the Journal de Debats beginning in late March.  Chevalier's comments appalled his old Saint-Simonian comrades, notably Hippolyte Carnot, the new education minister.   His course at the  Collège de France was promptly suspended, and further steps were taken to suppress Chevalier's chair, ostensibly as part of a scheme of overall educational reform.  But it came to naught, and Chevalier's chair and course was soon restored by parliament. The matter was soon forgotten, and Chevalier found no obstacles to his election to the Académie des sciences morales et politiques in February 1851, succeeding Joseph Droz.

Michel Chevalier welcomed the coup of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte in December 1851, and was promptly given a position in Bonaparte's Council of State in January, 1852.  Chevalier's collaboration shocked fellow liberal  economists, many of whom were republicans and suspicious of the populist conservative "president prince".  There were moments of tension with the firmly anti-Bonapartiste Horace Say at the Société d'Économie Politique.  But the appearance of Chevalier's Examen later in 1852, with its vigorous defense of free trade, set doubts at rest.   Indeed, Chevalier was to be vital in making liberal economic policy a  key feature of the Second Empire.  Too busy with his government functions, Chevalier delegated Henri Baudrillard to teach his economics course at the Collège de France through the 1850s and early 1860s (Chevalier only resumed his academic duties in 1866). 

The embrace of Manchester-style "liberalism" during the Second Empire faced steep obstacles, and the chipping away at France's highly protective system came only in small steps, usually by temporary emergency decrees in the name of Napoleon III.  In June 1856, a comprehensive bill  devised by Chevalier to replace outright prohibitions on the import of manufactures with still-highly protective tariffs (30-50%), faced such tremendous opposition in the normally-compliant Chamber of Deputies that it had to be withdrawn.  By 1860, despite continuous efforts, the French protectionist system had barely been dented.  Chevalier decided to outmaneuver domestic opposition in parliament by using the emperor's prerogative to negotiate treaties. 

The ascension of the Liberal government of Palmerston and Russell in Britain late 1859, both of whom had liberal economic views and prior good relations with Napoleon III,  offered a valuable opportunity, and in October 1859, Chevalier opened secret negotiations with Richard Cobden..   In the resulting "Cobden-Chevalier" Anglo-French commercial treaty, signed on January 23, 1860, France abolished all import prohibitions, replacing them with a tariff on imports of British coal and most British manufactures of 30% or less, while Britain reduced duties on the importation of French wines and brandy.  It also included a "most-favoured-nation" clause, then a novel concept, by which Britain and France agreed to grant each other the same privileges now or in the future, that they might grant to any other foreign country (this substituted the usual "reciprocity clause", which had been customary in trade treaties before 1860 - where the extension of a new privilege to an existing trade partner was not automatic but conditional on the old partner matching the concessions of the new one).

The negotiation of the treaty was, in some senses, unorthodox and surprising.  The erratic French emperor was still viewed with suspicion in Britain, and only recently, over the Summer of 1859, there been a panic in the British press - provoked by Viscount Palmerston himself - that France was preparing to declare war and invade Britain.  The  Manchester School leaders, Richard Cobden and John Bright, had both urged trade treaties as a way to secure peace and overcome war fears with France.  Chevalier, who had been in contact with Cobden at least as far back as 1846, agreed and decided to act.  Under the guise of traveling to Bradford for an international conference on weights and measures, Chevalier zipped across the channel, and went through a quick series of meetings with Cobden, Bright, the French ambassador Flialin de Persigny, the chancellor of the exchequer William Gladstone and the suspicious prime minister Palmesrton himself.   Chevalier invited Cobden to accompany him back to France, to help persuade  and they stayed in Paris together With Palmerston's reluctant blessing, Cobden accompanied Chevalier back to France, and stayed with him in Paris through the fall of 1859, to help him persuade Napoleon III.  The emperor did need much persuading, having attended ACLL meetings while in exile in England back in 1846, and well-aware of the arguments.   But Cobden's mission, private and unofficial as it was, had an air of vitality and dulled opposition back in Britain, helping him (or more precisely, Gladstone, then chancellor of the exchequer) to sell the trade treaty as a way to "avoid war" rather than requiring him to prove it was good in itself.   The opposition of the French manufacturing interests was side-stepped by keeping them in the dark as long as possible.  However, on January 15, the Moniteur published a letter of Napoleon III (dated January 5), expressing the emperor's intention to issue a series of liberalizing decrees and sign commercial treaties, revealing the on-going negotiations of Cobden and Chevalier.   The French protectionists - notably, iron-manufacturers, "the praetorian guard of monopoly", as Cobden characterized them - howled in protest but as the treaty did not need to go through parliament, were powerless to stop it.  They duly denounced it a "another coup d'etat".  This was followed up by further more precise protocols on trade with Britain (signed on October 12 and November 16 later that year).

Chevalier's 1860 treaty coup was hailed by the French Liberal School, and any misgivings about Chevalier's credentials or dubious past associations were promptly forgiven or forgotten.  He had accomplished in one blow what careful arguments by generations of Says and Bastiats had failed.  Chevalier did not rest on this one treaty, but went on to push France to pursue other similar commercial treaties -  with Belgium (May, 1861),  Prussia and thus the German Zollverein  (August, 1862), the fledgling kingdom of Italy (January, 1863), Switzerland (June, 1864), Sweden and Norway (February, 1865), the Hanseatic towns (March, 1865), Spain (June 1865), the Netherlands (July 1865), Portugal (July 1866) and finally Austria (December, 1866).  Most came with most-favored-nation clauses, thus ensuring their benefits would be passed around.  Other nations, like Denmark, were integrated into this commercial network by their prior treaties with England.  As country after country plugged into the Anglo-French treaties, the compounding of most-favoured-nation clauses ensured a mass demolition of protectionist barriers across continental Europe.  The treaty negotiated by Chevalier and Cobden in 1860 had, in six short years, made the free trade liberal era a reality, bringing centuries of Mercantilist economic warfare to an end. At least in Europe.  The United States and Russia stuck to their protectionist policies and remained stubbornly out of the Anglo-French network - although France would eventually manage to finally bring Russia into the complex a decade later (April, 1874).  

Although sometimes given to utopian reflections on free trade, Chevalier believed in the importance of an interventionist government to check the excesses and dangers of free enterprise. Although his economic research was highly historical in nature, Chevalier was not averse to economic theory and was indeed a great admirer of the British proto-Marginalist economist Henry D. Macleod.

Chevalier was succeeded in the political economy chair at Collège de France by his son-in-law Paul Leroy-Beaulieu

 

  


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Major Works of Michel Chevalier

  • "Notice sure la carbonisation de la tourbe à Crony sur Oureq", 1829, Annal de Mines, p.223
  • "La Marseillaise", (Sep) 1830,  Organisateur, [offprint, bnf]
  • Religion saint-simonienne Politique européenne, 1831 (art. in Globe, Dec 1830 to Nov 1831) [bk]
  • Religion Saint-Simonienne: Projet de discours de la couronne, pour l'année 1831, (Jul) 1831, [bnf]
  • Religion saint-simonienne  La Presse, (Jul), 1831 [bnf]
  • Religion saint-simonienne: Événements de Lyon,  (Oct-Nov)1831 [bnf]
  • Religion saint-simonienne: Poursuites dirigées contre notre Père Suprême Enfantin, et contre notre Père Olinde Rodrigues, (Jan) 1832 [bnf]
  • Religion saint-simonienne:  Sujet de méditation pour les peuples et pour les rois, 1832 [bnf] (call for railway-building)
  • Religion saint-simonienne: La guerre et l'industrie : grands travaux à établir, 1832 [bnf]
  • Religion saint-simonienne: Politique industrielle et Système de la méditerrannée (ver. 1, Jan-Feb) 1832 [bk
  • Religion saint-simonienne: Politique industrielle et Système de la méditerrannée (ver. 2, Mar-Apr) 1832 [bk]
  • Religion saint-simonienne: La Prophétie, (Feb-Apr) 1832 [bk]
  • Religion saint-simonienne: A Tous (Apr) 832 [bk]
  • A Lyon!, (Nov) 1832 [bnf]
  • "Observations sur les mines de Mons, et sur les autres mines de charbon qui approvisionnent Paris", 1832 Annales de Mines, p.203 & p.431 [offprint bnf]
  • "Note sur l'emploi de bois dans deux haute-fourneaux des États Unis", 1836 Annales de Mines, p.155
  • "Lettres sur l'Amérique du Nord", 1836, Revue des Deux Mondes v. 8, (Oct) p.85
  • "De la Présidence du général Jackson et de son successeur", 1836, Revue des Deux Mondes v. 8 (Oct), p.129
  • Lettres sur l'Amerique du Nord, 1836.v.1 v.2  [1844 ed, v.1, v.2] [1839 English trans Society, Manners and Politics in the United States, being a series of letters on North America]
  • "Lettres sur l'Amérique du Nord (extracts)", 1836, Annal de Mines, p.461
  • "Preface", 1837, in Porter's Progrès de la Grand Bretagne. p.v
  • "La Vallée de Ariége: histoire de la République d'Andorre", 1837, Revue des Deux Mondes, v.12, (Dec), p.618
  • "Des Chemins de fer comparés aux lignes navigables", 1838, Revue des Deux Mondes, v.13 (Mar), p.789
  • "Du Réseau des chemins de fer, tel qui'il pourrait être établi aujuord'hui", 1838, Revue des Deux Mondes  v.14 (Apr), p.163
  • Des intérêts matériels en France: travaux publics, routes, canaux, chemins de fer, 1838 [bk].
  • "L'Europe et la Chine", 1840, Revue des Deux Mondes, (Jul), p.166
  • L'Europe et la Chine, l'Occident et l'Orient, 1840 [bk]
  • Histoire et description des voies de communication aux États Unis et des travaux d'art qui en dépendent, 1840-41, v.1, v.2
  • De l'industrie manufacturière en France, 1841 [bk]
  • Lettres sur l'inauguration du Chemin de Fer de Strasbourg à Bâle, 1841 [bk]
  • Les fortifications de Paris, lettre à M. le comte Molé, 1841 [bk]
  • "Note sur les richesses de la Bohême en combustibles fossiles, et sur les bassin houiller de Radnitz en particuleier", 1842, Annales de Mines, p.575
  • "Les gouvernments absolues de l'Allemagne, l'Autriche", 1842 Revue des Deux Mondes v.29, (Mar), p.743
  • Du gouvernement Autrichien: notes prises en 1840 pendant un voyage à Carlsbad, 1842 [bk]
  • "De la question de l'interventions dans les travaux publics du gouvernement fédéral et des gouvernements particuliers d'État dans l'Amérique du Nord", 1842 JdE, p.331
  • Cours d'économie politique, fait au Collège de France.
  • 1842-50.
    • (v.1) Année 1841-42, 1842 [bk]
    • (v.2) Deuxième année, 1842-43, 1844 [bk]
    • (v.3) La Monnaie, 1850 [bk]
  • "Rapport de M. Villemain sur l'instruction secondaire", 1843,, JdE, p.23
  • "Comparaison des budgets de 1830 et de 1843", 1843, JdE, p.345
  • Essais de politique industrielle: Souvenirs de voyage, France, République d'Andorre, Belgique, Allemagne [1843 ed]
  • "L'Isthme de Panama, l'isthme de Suez (relation historique des entreprises espagnols et appreciation des tentatives nouvelles pour percer l'isthme de Panama)", 1844,  Revue des Deux Mondes, (Jan), p.5 
  • L'Isthme de Panama: examen historique et géographique, 1844 [bk] [English trans. "Extract of historical and geographical examination of the Isthums of Panama", 1847, J of Franklin Inst, p.304 and p.361]
  • "De la civilisation mexicaine avant Fernand Cortez", 1845, Revue des Deux Mondes, (Mar), p.485
  • "La conquête du Mexique par Fernand Cortez, d'après de nouveaux documens americains", 1845, Revue des Deux Mondes,  (Jul) p.197  [English trans.1846, Mexico: Before and After the Conquest]
  • "Des Mines d'argent et d'or du Nouveau-monde", 1846-47 Revue des Deux Mondes,  two parts, Pt.1 (Dec 15, 1846,  p.535) and Pt.2 (Apr 1, 1847 p.1)
  • Des mines d'argent et d'or du Nouveau-monde, considérées dans leur passé et leur avenir, et comparés a celles de l'ancien continent, 1847 [bk]
  • "De la sitaution actuelle dans ses rapports avec les substistances et la Banque de France, 1847, Revue des Deux Mondes, (two parts, Feb 1 and Feb 15), p.300 and p.512
  • "De Forces alimentaires des États et de la Crise actuelle", 1847, Revue des Deux Mondes, (Jun), p.673
  • La liberté du travail: discours d'ouverture du cours d'économie politique au Collège de France, pour l'année scolaire 1847-48, prononcé le 22 décembre 1847, 1848 [bk]
  • "Des Rapports de la France et de l'Angleterre à la fin de 1847", 1848, Revue des Deux Mondes, (Feb), p.502
  • "Question des Travailleurs, l'amélioration du sort des ouvriers, l'organization du travail", 1848, Revue des Deux Mondes, (Mar), p.1057
  • Question des travailleurs: L'amélioration du sort des ouvriers, les salaires, l'organisation du travail 1848  [bk] [1848 English trans. The Labour Question]
  • Lettres sur l'organisation du travail, ou, Etudes sur les principales causes de la misère et sur les moyens proposés pour y remédier, 1848 [bk]
  • La République d'Andorre, ou une république séculaire heureuse et stable depuis Charlemagne jusqu'à nos jours, 790-1848, 1848 [bk]
  • L’économie politique et le socialisme, 1849 [bk]
  • "La Liberté aux États-Unis" 1849  Revue des Deux Mondes (Jul), p.91
  • Liberté aux Etats-Unis, 1849 [bk]
  • La Monnaie, 1850. [bk] (third volume of of Cours)
  • Accord de l'économie politique et de la morale, discours d'ouverture, 1850 [bnf]
  • L'exposition universelle de Londres considérée sous les rapports philosophique, technique, commercial et administratif, au point de vue français: aperçu philosophique, lettres écrites de Londres, 1851 [bnf]
  • Le désir du bien-être est légitime; il peut obtenir satisfaction; mais sous quelles conditions? discours d'ouvertoure, 1851 [bk]
  • Examen du système commercial connu sous le nom de système protecteur, 1852 [bk] [1853 ed]
  • Du Progrès, discours d'ouvertoure,1852 [bk]
  • Questions politiques et sociales, 1852.
  • Cours d'économie politique fait au collège de France: Réunion de tous les discours d'ouverture, 1855 v.1 (opening speeches from 1841 to 1852, cont)
  • "Historique et ésprit de la liberté du commerce en Angleterre", 1857,  Revue des Deux Mondes, (Aug) p.929
  • "De la baisse probable de l'or, des conséquences commerciales et sociales qu'elle peut avoir, et de mesures qu'elle provoque", 1857, Revue des Deux Mondes, (three parts): Pt. 1 (1 Oct, p.561), Pt. 2 (15 Oct, p.837), Pt.3 (1 Nov, p.5
  • De la baisse probable de l'or, des conséquences commerciales et sociales qu'elle peut avoir, et de mesures qu'elle provoque, 1859 [bk] [English 1859 Cobden trans. On the Probable Fall in the Value of Gold]
  • Richard Cobden, 1866
  • Le Monopole et la Liberte, 1867
  • "Le capital, dans ses rapports avec le progrès industriel et social et avec l'amélioration du sort des ouvriers", 1870, JdE, p.65
  • "Étude sur Adam Smith et sur la fondation de la science économique", 1874, JdE, (Jan), p.8 [offp]
  • Les Brevets d'Invention, 1878.
  • Ministers list (1840-1870) from JdE, 1870

HET

"" 1847, Annales de Mines, p.257

 

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Resources on Michel Chevalier

  • Depictions of train locomotives by Michel Chevalier in Des Machines à Vapeur aux États-Unis d'Amérique, 1842 [bk]
  • "Review of Chevalier's Voies de Communication, v.2", by H. Richelot, 1843, JdE, p.180
  • "Review of Chevalier's Panama isthmus", by H.R. 1844, JdE, p.185
  • "Projected Ship Canal across the Great American Isthmus: Review of Chevalier's Isthme of Panama", 1844, Foreign Quarterly Review, p.212
  • Élections dans le département de l'Aveyron. 1846. Polémique entre M. F. Cabrol, directeur des Forges de l'Aveyron, et M. Michel Chevalier, député sortant, 1846 [bnf]
  • "M. Michel Chevaliar" by Louis Reybaud, 1862, Économistes Modernes, p.172
  • Anglo-French treaty of January 23, 1860 (tables), J.O. Murray, editor, 1863 [bk]
  • "Michel Chevalier letter on the history of the treaty of commerce with France" in Bonamy Price, 1869, Principles of Currency, App. II
  • "Notice sur la vie et travaux de Michel Chevalier: discussion", 1889, JdE, p.455
  • "Chronique - Necrologie de Michel Chevalier", Polybiblion p.84
  • "Chevalier, Michel", in Palgrave's Dictionary of Political Econ, 1915 ed.
  • "Ch. X - The Treaty with France" by John A. Hobson, 1919, Richard Cobden, the International Man Ch. 10
  • Michel Chevalier page at Liberty Fund
  • Chevalier Papers at Georgetown
  • Chevalier entry at Bartleby
  • Chevalier bio (in French)
  • Chevalier page (in Spanish)
  • Wikipedia

 

 
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