Legitimism

LEGITIMISM. - It is the theory postulated at the time of the Restoration concerning the ethico-juridical obligation to restore the Bourbons to the throne of France and the former sovereigns to their other thrones after the collapse of "the usurper" Napoleon.

In the diplomatic field the principle of legitimism did not emerge from an empirical stage, whence Talleyrand's laments: "la force mystérieuse de la légitimité se perd parce qu'elle n'a jamais été comprise. Tous les hommes de révolution la réduisent à être un moyen de conservation pour la puissance des rois, tandis que c'est surtout un élément nécessaire de repos et de bonheur pour les peuples, tandis que c'est la garantie la plus solide et, j'oserais dire, la seule de l'existence des nations et de leur durée" (G. Lacour-Gayet, Talleyrand, III, Paris 1934, pp. 107-108). The principle of legitimism served, in France, as a method of alliance between the State and the Church, against the after-effects of Jacobin revolutionism.

But legitimism did not remain merely on a tactical plane; it became, for example, in Italy, a true and proper ideal. For Cesare Balbo the principle of legitimism represents justice in the face of force, legality in the face of arbitrariness, postulating the principle of legitimism, against Jacobin abstractionism, a substantial political historicism. The legitimist principle was also theorized on an economic-social plane by Antonio Rosmini, who defended a concept of patrimonial legitimacy, precisely because property is the criterion of legitimism.

Legitimists were then called, in France, the supporters of the Bourbons against Louis Philippe of Orléans, or in other countries and at other times the advocates of analogous situations.

Massimo Petrocchi