We French have for some years been overcome by a furor for republicanism and for citizenship. There is no activity so humble that it cannot take on an intimidating nobility as soon as it is associated with citizenship. The republic calls us, besieges us, smothers us—but where is the republic? Are we part of a republic, or does our intemperate usage of the term mean only that we have forgotten its meaning?
I raise these questions in a nonpartisan, non-polemical way. I do not mean: Our republic is no longer republican enough; we must try harder! I mean: This collective body that we make up together, is it still legitimate to call it a republic? This question can only be raised seriously if we suspend our participation in the current political debate and strive to grasp “republic” as a discernable and shareable object of thought and subject of action.
The idea of a republic as a way of life that can be described and evaluated is not easy to grasp. The republican idea seems so near and familiar to us, it envelops us to the point that we would experience it as a kind of impiety to hold it at a distance in order to describe and judge it; its “value” paralyzes us. Moreover, we are heirs to a very long history, in the course of which different political bodies have grown and declined under the same name of “republic.” How, then, might we extract ourselves from the grip of the word?
The most constant reference for the republican idea has been the Roman Republic, just as the Roman Empire provided Europeans with the type for the idea of empire that has occupied our political imagination almost as long. Montaigne provides us with a striking expression of the pregnancy of the republican and Roman idea even in the circumstances least favorable to the republican regime. “I had knowledge of the affairs of Rome long before I knew those of my own house. I knew the Capitol and its layout before I knew the Louvre and the Tiber before the Seine,” he recalled. “I engaged in a hundred combats for the defense of Pompey and for Brutus’s cause.” It would be a mistake to dismiss such weighty testimonies, which could easily be multiplied, as mere anecdotes.
What now limits our political interest in the experience of republican Rome is the well-founded feeling that there is a qualitative difference between ancient and modern republicanism. Since representative government is the great invention of modern politics, what would be the point of seeking useful teachings in an ancient, that is, non-representative republic?