Unlikely though it may seem in a regime based on universal manhood suffrage, family connections and nepotism played an extremely important role in representative democracy in the French Third Republic (1870-1940). Indeed, these practices remain significant in some parts of the political sphere even today. This article examines hereditary political connections and practices in detail in the department of the Marne, a political space where a number of different sorts of family connections operated at different levels. Using the concept of the Sippe devised for the study of wider family connections in the early middle ages, this statistical survey of families and politics peels away different layers of family influence, at the level of the municipality, the conseil d'arrondissement, the conseil général of the department, and the national parliament. It suggests that at each level, different sorts of family connections were vital.
Third Republic; parliament; local elections; nepotism; lineage; France; family networks
