Book: History of Modern Europe 1792 1878

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[Otho King of Greece, Feb. 1, 1833.]

The death of Capodistrias excited sympathies and regrets which to a great
extent silenced criticism upon his government, and which have made his name
one of those most honoured by the Greek nation. His fall threw the country
into anarchy. An attempt was made by his brother Augustine to retain
autocratic power, but the result was universal dissension and the
interference of the foreigner. At length the Powers united in finding a
second sovereign for Greece, and brought the weary scene of disorder to a
close. Prince Otho of Bavaria was sent to reign at Athens, and with him
there came a group of Bavarian officials to whom the Courts of Europe
persuaded themselves that the future of Greece might be safely entrusted. A
frontier somewhat better than that which had been offered to Leopold was
granted to the new sovereign, but neither Crete, Thessaly, nor Epirus was
included within his kingdom. Thus hemmed in within intolerably narrow
limits, while burdened with the expenses of an independent state, alike
unable to meet the calls upon its national exchequer and to exclude the
intrigues of foreign Courts, Greece offered during the next generation
little that justified the hopes that had been raised as to its future. But
the belief of mankind in the invigorating power of national independence is
not wholly vain, nor, even under the most hostile conditions, will the
efforts of a liberated people fail to attract the hope and the envy of
those branches of its race which still remain in subjection. Poor and
inglorious as the Greek kingdom was, it excited the restless longings not
only of Greeks under Turkish bondage, but of the prosperous Ionian Islands
under English rule; and in 1864 the first step in the expansion of the
Hellenic kingdom was accomplished by the transfer of these islands from
Great Britain to Greece. Our own day has seen Greece further strengthened
and enriched by the annexation of Thessaly. The commercial and educational
development of the kingdom is now as vigorous as that of any State in
Europe: in agriculture and in manufacturing industry it still lingers far
behind. Following the example of Cavour and the Sardinian statesmen who
judged no cost too great in preparing for Italian union, the rulers of
Greece burden the national finances with the support of an army and navy
excessive in comparison both with the resources and with the present
requirements of the State. To the ideal of a great political future the
material progress of the land has been largely sacrificed. Whether, in the
re-adjustment of frontiers which must follow upon the gradual extrusion of
the Turk from Eastern Europe, Greece will gain from its expenditure
advantages proportionate to the undoubted evils which it has involved, the
future alone can decide.




CHAPTER XVI.


France before 1830--Reign of Charles X.--Ministry of Martignac--Ministry of
Polignac--The Duke of Orleans--War in Algiers--The July Ordinances--
Revolution of July--Louis Philippe King--Nature and Effects of the July
Revolution--Affairs in Belgium--The Belgian Revolution--The Great
Powers--Intervention, and Establishment of the Kingdom of Belgium--Affairs
of Poland--Insurrection at Warsaw--War between Russia and Poland--Overthrow
of the Poles: End of the Polish Constitution--Affairs of Italy--
Insurrection in the Papal States--France and Austria--Austrian
Intervention--Ancona occupied by the French--Affairs of Germany--Prussia;
the Zollverein--Brunswick, Hanover, Saxony--The Palatinate--Reaction in
Germany--Exiles in Switzerland; Incursion into Savoy--Dispersion of the
Exiles--France under Louis Philippe: Successive Risings--Period of
Parliamentary Activity--England after 1830: The Reform Bill.


When the Congress of Vienna re-arranged the map of Europe after Napoleon's
fall, Lord Castlereagh expressed the opinion that no prudent statesman
would forecast a duration of more than seven years for any settlement that
might then be made. At the end of a period twice as long the Treaties of
1815 were still the public law of Europe. The grave had peacefully closed
over Napoleon; the revolutionary forces of France had given no sign of
returning life. As the Bourbon monarchy struck root, and the elements of
opposition grew daily weaker in France, the perils that lately filled all
minds appeared to grow obsolete, and the very Power against which the
anti-revolutionary treaties of 1815 had been directed took its place, as of
natural right, by the side of Austria and Russia in the struggle against
revolution. The attack of Louis XVIII. upon the Spanish Constitutionalists
marked the complete reconciliation of France with the Continental dynasties
which had combined against it in 1815; and from this time the Treaties of
Chaumont and Aix-la-Chapelle, though their provisions might be still
unchallenged, ceased to represent the actual relations existing between the
Powers. There was no longer a moral union of the Courts against a supposed
French revolutionary State; on the contrary, when Eastern affairs reached
their crisis, Russia detached itself from its Hapsburg ally, and definitely
allied itself with France. If after the Peace of Adrianople any one Power
stood isolated, it was Austria; and if Europe was threatened by renewed
aggression, it was not under revolutionary leaders or with revolutionary
watchwords, but as the result of an alliance between Charles X. and the
Czar of Russia. After the Bourbon Cabinet had resolved to seek an extension
of French territory at whatever sacrifice of the balance of power in the
East, Europe could hardly expect that the Court of St. Petersburg would
long reject the advantages offered to it. The frontiers of 1815 seemed
likely to be obliterated by an enterprise which would bring Russia to the
Danube and France to the Rhine. From this danger the settlement of 1815 was
saved by the course of events that took place within France itself. The
Revolution of 1830, insignificant in its immediate effects upon the French
people, largely influenced the governments and the nations of Europe; and
while within certain narrow limits it gave a stimulus to constitutional
liberty, its more general result was to revive the union of the three
Eastern Courts which had broken down in 1826, and to reunite the principal
members of the Holy Alliance by the sense of a common interest against the
Liberalism of the West.

[Government of Charles X., 1824-1827.]

In the person of Charles X. reaction and clericalism had ascended the
French throne. The minister, Villele, who had won power in 1820 as the
representative of the Ultra-Royalists, had indeed learnt wisdom while in
office, and down to the death of Louis XVIII. in 1824 he had kept in check
the more violent section of his party. But he now retained his post only at
the price of compliance with the Court, and gave the authority of his name
to measures which his own judgment condemned. It was characteristic of
Charles X. and of the reactionaries around him that out of trifling matters
they provoked more exasperation than a prudent Government would have
aroused by changes of infinitely greater importance. Thus in a
sacrilege-law which was introduced in 1825 they disgusted all reasonable
men by attempting to revive the barbarous mediaeval punishment of amputation
of the hand; and in a measure conferring some fractional rights upon the
eldest son in cases of intestacy they alarmed the whole nation by a
preamble declaring the French principle of the equal division of
inheritances to be incompatible with monarchy. Coming from a Government
which had thus already forfeited public confidence, a law granting the
emigrants a compensation of L40,000,000 for their estates which had been
confiscated during the Revolution excited the strongest opposition,
although, apart from questions of equity, it benefited the nation by for
ever setting at rest all doubt as to the title of the purchasers of the
confiscated lands. The financial operations by which, in order to provide
the vast sum allotted to the emigrants, the national debt was converted
from a five per cent, to a three per cent, stock, alienated all
stockholders and especially the powerful bankers of Paris. But more than
any single legislative act, the alliance of the Government with the
priestly order, and the encouragement given by it to monastic corporations,
whose existence in France was contrary to law, offended the nation. The
Jesuits were indicted before the law-courts by Montlosier, himself a
Royalist and a member of the old noblesse. A vehement controversy sprang up
between the ecclesiastics and their opponents, in which the Court was not
spared. The Government, which had lately repealed the law of censorship,
now restored it by edict. The climax of its unpopularity was reached; its
hold upon the Chamber was gone, and the very measure by which Villele, when
at the height of his power, had endeavoured to give permanence to his
administration, proved its ruin. He had abolished the system of partial
renovation, by which one-fifth of the Chamber of Deputies was annually
returned, and substituted for it the English system of septennial
Parliaments with general elections. In 1827 King Charles, believing his
Ministers to be stronger in the country than in the Chamber, exercised his
prerogative of dissolution. The result was the total defeat of the
Government, and the return of an assembly in which the Liberal opposition
outnumbered the partisans of the Court by three to one. Villele's Ministry
now resigned. King Charles, unwilling to choose his successor from the
Parliamentary majority, thought for a moment of violent resistance, but
subsequently adopted other counsels, and, without sincerely intending to
bow to the national will, called to office the Vicomte de Martignac, a
member of the right centre, and the representative of a policy of
conciliation and moderate reform (January 2, 1828).

[Ministry of Martignac, 1828-29.]

[Polignac Minister, Aug. 9, 1829.]

It was not the fault of this Minister that the last chance of union between
the French nation and the elder Bourbon line was thrown away. Martignac
brought forward a measure of decentralisation conferring upon the local
authorities powers which, though limited, were larger than they had
possessed at any time since the foundation of the Consulate; and he
appealed to the Liberal sections of the Chamber to assist him in winning an
instalment of self-government which France might well have accepted with
satisfaction. But the spirit of opposition within the Assembly was too
strong for a coalition of moderate men, and the Liberals made the success
of Martignac's plan impossible by insisting on concessions which the
Minister was unable to grant. The reactionists were ready to combine with
their opponents. King Charles himself was in secret antagonism to his
Minister, and watched with malicious joy his failure to control the
majority in the Chamber. Instead of throwing all his influence on to the
side of Martignac, and rallying all doubtful forces by the pronounced
support of the Crown, he welcomed Martignac's defeat as a proof of the
uselessness of all concessions, and dismissed the Minister from office,
declaring that the course of events had fulfilled his own belief in the
impossibility of governing in accord with a Parliament. The names of the
Ministers who were now called to power excited anxiety and alarm not only
in France but throughout the political circles of Europe. They were the
names of men known as the most violent and embittered partisans of
reaction; men whose presence in the councils of the King could mean nothing
but a direct attack upon the existing Parliamentary system of France. At
the head was Jules Polignac, then French ambassador at London, a man
half-crazed with religious delusions, who had suffered a long imprisonment
for his share in Cadoudal's attempt to kill Napoleon, and on his return to
France in 1814 had refused to swear to the Charta because it granted
religious freedom to non-Catholics. Among the subordinate members of the
Ministry were General Bourmont, who had deserted to the English at
Waterloo, and La Bourdonnaye, the champion of the reactionary Terrorists in
1816. [385]

[Prospects in 1830. The Orleanists.]

The Ministry having been appointed immediately after the close of the
session of 1829, an interval of several months passed before they were
brought face to face with the Chambers. During this interval the prospect
of a conflict with the Crown became familiar to the public mind, though no
general impression existed that an actual change of dynasty was close at
hand. The Bonapartists were without a leader, Napoleon's son, their natural
head, being in the power of the Austrian Court; the Republicans were
neither numerous nor well organised, and the fatal memories of 1793 still
weighed upon the nation; the great body of those who contemplated
resistance to King Charles X. looked only to a Parliamentary struggle, or,
in the last resort, to the refusal of payment of taxes in case of a breach
of the Constitution. There was, however, a small and dexterous group of
politicians which, at a distance from all the old parties, schemed for the
dethronement of the reigning branch of the House of Bourbon, and for the
elevation of Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, to the throne. The chief of
this intrigue was Talleyrand. Slighted and thwarted by the Court, the old
diplomatist watched for the signs of a falling Government, and when the
familiar omens met his view he turned to the quarter from which its
successor was most likely to arise. Louis Philippe stood high in credit
with all circles of Parliamentary Liberals. His history had been a strange
and eventful one. He was the son of that Orleans who, after calling himself
Egalite, and voting for the death of his cousin, Louis XVI., had himself
perished during the Reign of Terror. Young Louis Philippe had been a member
of the Jacobin Club, and had fought for the Republic at Jemappes. Then,
exiled and reduced to penury, he had earned his bread by teaching
mathematics in Switzerland, and had been a wanderer in the new as well as
in the old world. After awhile his fortunes brightened. A marriage with the
daughter of Ferdinand of Sicily restored him to those relations with the
reigning houses of Europe which had been forfeited by his father, and
inspired him with the hope of gaining a crown. During Napoleon's invasion
of Spain he had caballed with politicians in that country who were inclined
to accept a substitute for their absent sovereign; at another time he had
entertained hopes of being made king of the Ionian Islands. After the peace
of Paris, when the allied sovereigns and their ministers visited England,
Louis Philippe was sent over by his father-in-law to intrigue among them
against Murat, and in pursuance of this object he made himself acquainted
not only with every foreign statesman then in London but with every leading
English politician. He afterwards settled in France, and was reinstated in
the vast possessions of the House of Orleans, which, though confiscated,
had not for the most part been sold during the Revolution. His position at
Paris under Louis XVIII. and Charles X. was a peculiar one. Without taking
any direct part in politics or entering into any avowed opposition to the
Court, he made his home, the Palais Royale, a gathering-place for all that
was most distinguished in the new political and literary society of the
capital; and while the Tuileries affected the pomp and the ceremoniousness
of the old regime, the Duke of Orleans moved with the familiarity of a
citizen among citizens. He was a clever, ready, sensible man, equal, as it
seemed, to any practical task likely to come in his way, but in reality
void of any deep insight, of any far-reaching aspiration, of any profound
conviction. His affectation of a straightforward middle-class geniality
covered a decided tendency towards intrigue and a strong love of personal
power. Later events indeed gave rise to the belief that, while professing
the utmost loyalty to Charles X., Louis Philippe had been scheming to oust
him from his throne; but the evidence really points the other way, and
indicates that, whatever secret hopes may have suggested themselves to the
Duke, his strongest sentiment during the Revolution of 1830 was the fear of
being driven into exile himself, and of losing his possessions. He was not
indeed of a chivalrous nature; but when the Crown came in his way, he was
guilty of no worse offence than some shabby evasions of promises.

[Meeting and Prorogation of the Chambers, March, 1830.]

Early in March, 1830, the French Chambers assembled after their recess. The
speech of King Charles at the opening of the session was resolute and even
threatening. It was answered by an address from the Lower House, requesting
him to dismiss his Ministers. The deputation which presented this address
was received by the King in a style that left no doubt as to his
intentions, and on the following day the Chambers were prorogued for six
months. It was known that they would not be permitted to meet again, and
preparations for a renewed general election were at once made with the
utmost vigour by both parties throughout France. The Court unsparingly
applied all the means of pressure familiar to French governments; it
moreover expected to influence public opinion by some striking success in
arms or in diplomacy abroad. The negotiations with Russia for the
acquisition of Belgium were still before the Cabinet, and a quarrel with
the Dey of Algiers gave Polignac the opportunity of beginning a war of
conquest in Africa. General Bourmont left the War Office, to wipe out the
infamy still attaching to his name by a campaign against the Arabs; and the
Government trusted that, even in the event of defeat at the elections, the
nation at large would at the most critical moment be rallied to its side by
an announcement of the capture of Algiers.

[Polignac's project.]

While the dissolution of Parliament was impending, Polignac laid before the
King a memorial expressing his own views on the courses open to Government
in case of the elections proving adverse. The Charta contained a clause
which, in loose and ill-chosen language, declared it to be the function of
the King "to make the regulations and ordinances necessary for the
execution of the laws and for the security of the State." These words,
which no doubt referred to the exercise of the King's normal and
constitutional powers, were interpreted by Polignac as authorising the King
to suspend the Constitution itself, if the Representative Assembly should
be at variance with the King's Ministers. Polignac in fact entertained the
same view of the relation between executive and deliberative bodies as
those Jacobin directors who made the _coup-d'etat_ of Fructidor, 1797;
and the measures which he ultimately adopted were, though in a softened
form, those adopted by Barras and Lareveillere after the Royalist elections
in the sixth year of the Republic. To suspend the Constitution was not, he
suggested, to violate the Charta, for the Charta empowered the sovereign to
issue the ordinances necessary for the security of the State; and who but
the sovereign and his advisers could be the judges of this necessity? This
was simple enough; there was nevertheless among Polignac's colleagues some
doubt both as to the wisdom and as to the legality of his plans. King
Charles who, with all his bigotry, was anxious not to violate the letter of
the Charta, brooded long over the clause which defined the sovereign's
powers. At length he persuaded himself that his Minister's interpretation
was the correct one, accepted the resignation of the dissentients within
the Cabinet, and gave his sanction to the course which Polignac
recommended. [386]

[Elections of 1830.]

The result of the general election, which took place in June, surpassed all
the hopes of the Opposition and all the fears of the Court. The entire body
of Deputies which had voted the obnoxious address to the Crown in March was
returned, and the partisans of Government lost in addition fifty seats. The
Cabinet, which had not up to this time resolved upon the details of its
action, now deliberated upon several projects submitted to it, and, after
rejecting all plans that might have led to a compromise, determined to
declare the elections null and void, to silence the press, and to supersede
the existing electoral system by one that should secure the mastery of the
Government both at the polling-booths and in the Chamber itself. All this
was to be done by Royal Edict, and before the meeting of the new
Parliament. The date fixed for the opening of the Chambers had been placed
as late as possible in order to give time to General Bourmont to win the
victory in Africa from which the Court expected to reap so rich a harvest
of prestige. On the 9th of July news arrived that Algiers had fallen. The
announcement, which was everywhere made with the utmost pomp, fell flat on
the country. The conflict between the Court and the nation absorbed all
minds, and the rapturous congratulations of Bishops and Prefects scarcely
misled even the blind _coterie_ of the Tuileries. Public opinion was
no doubt with the Opposition; King Charles, however, had no belief that the
populace of Paris, which alone was to be dreaded as a fighting body, would
take up arms on behalf of the middle-class voters and journalists against
whom his Ordinances were to be directed. The populace neither read nor
voted: why should it concern itself with constitutional law? Or why, in a
matter that related only to the King and the Bourgeoisie, should it not
take part with the King against this new and bastard aristocracy which
lived on others' labour? Politicians who could not fight were troublesome
only when they were permitted to speak and to write. There was force enough
at the King's command to close the gates of the Chamber of Deputies, and to
break up the printing-presses of the journals; and if King Louis XVI. had
at last fallen by the hands of men of violence, it was only because he had
made concessions at first to orators and politicians. Therefore, without
dreaming that an armed struggle would be the immediate result of their
action, King Charles and Polignac determined to prevent the meeting of the
Chamber, and to publish, a week before the date fixed for its opening, the
Edicts which were to silence the brawl of faction and to vindicate
monarchical government in France.

[The Ordinances, July 26, 1830.]

Accordingly, on the 26th of July, a series of Ordinances appeared in the
_Moniteur_, signed by the King and counter-signed by the Ministers.
The first Ordinance forbade the publication of any journal without royal
permission; the second dissolved the Chamber of Deputies; the third raised
the property-qualification of voters, established a system of
double-election, altered the duration of Parliaments, and re-enacted the
obsolete clause of the Charta confining the initiative in all legislation
to the Government. Other Ordinances convoked a Chamber to be elected under
the new rules, and called to the Council of State a number of the most
notorious Ultra-Royalists and fanatics in France. Taken together, the
Ordinances left scarcely anything standing of the Constitutional and
Parliamentary system of the day. The blow fell first on the press, and the
first step in resistance was taken by the journalists of Paris, who, under
the leadership of the young Thiers, editor of the _National_,
published a protest declaring that they would treat the Ordinances as
illegal, and calling upon the Chambers and nation to join in this
resistance. For a while the journalists seemed likely to stand alone. Paris
at large remained quiet, and a body of the recently elected Deputies, to
whom the journalists appealed as representatives of the nation, proved
themselves incapable of any action or decision whatsoever. It was not from
these timid politicians, but from a body of obscure Republicans, that the
impulse proceeded which overthrew the Bourbon throne. Unrepresented in
Parliament and unrepresented in the press, there were a few active men who
had handed down the traditions of 1792, and who, in sympathy with the
Carbonari and other conspirators abroad, had during recent years founded
secret societies in Paris, and enlisted in the Republican cause a certain
number of workmen, of students, and of youths of the middle classes. While
the journalists discussed legal means of resistance, and the Deputies
awaited events, the Republican leaders met and determined upon armed
revolt. They were assisted, probably without direct concert, by the
printing firms and other employers of labour, who, in view of the general
suspension of the newspapers, closed their establishments on the morning of
July 27, and turned their workmen into the streets.

[July 27.]

[July 28.]

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