Book: History of Modern Europe 1792 1878

C >> C. A. Fyffe >> History of Modern Europe 1792 1878




Thus on the day after the appearance of the Edicts the aspect of Paris
changed. Crowds gathered, and revolutionary cries were raised. Marmont, who
was suddenly ordered to take command of the troops, placed them around the
Tuileries, and captured two barricades which were erected in the
neighbourhood; but the populace was not yet armed, and no serious conflict
took place. In the evening Lafayette reached Paris, and the revolution had
now a real, though not an avowed, leader. A body of his adherents met
during the night at the office of the _National_, and, in spite of
Thiers' resistance, decided upon a general insurrection. Thiers himself,
who desired nothing but a legal and Parliamentary attack upon Charles X.,
quitted Paris to await events. The men who had out-voted him placed
themselves in communication with all the district committees of Paris, and
began the actual work of revolt by distributing arms. On the morning of
Wednesday, July 28th, the first armed bands attacked and captured the
arsenals and several private depots of weapons and ammunition. Barricades
were erected everywhere. The insurgents swelled from hundreds to thousands,
and, converging on the old rallying-point of the Commune of Paris, they
seized the Hotel de Ville, and hoisted the tricolor flag on its roof.
Marmont wrote to the King, declaring the position to be most serious, and
advising concession; he then put his troops in motion, and succeeded, after
a severe conflict, in capturing several points of vantage, and in expelling
the rebels from the Hotel de Ville.

[July 29.]

In the meantime the Deputies, who were assembled at the house of one of
their number in pursuance of an agreement made on the previous day, gained
sufficient courage to adopt a protest declaring that in spite of the
Ordinances they were still the legal representatives of the nation. They
moreover sent a deputation to Marmont, begging him to put a stop to the
fighting, and offering their assistance in restoring order if the King
would withdraw his Edicts. Marmont replied that he could do nothing without
the King's command, but he despatched a second letter to St. Cloud, urging
compliance. The only answer which he received was a command to concentrate
his troops and to act in masses. The result of this was that the positions
which had been won by hard fighting were abandoned before evening, and that
the troops, famished and exhausted, were marched back through the streets
of Paris to the Tuileries. On the march some fraternised with the people,
others were surrounded and disarmed. All eastern Paris now fell into the
hands of the insurgents; the middle-class, as in 1789 and 1792, remained
inactive, and allowed the contest to be decided by the populace and the
soldiery. Messages from the capital constantly reached St. Cloud, but the
King so little understood his danger and so confidently reckoned on the
victory of the troops in the Tuileries that he played whist as usual during
the evening; and when the Duc de Mortemart, French Ambassador at St.
Petersburg, arrived at nightfall, and pressed for an audience, the King
refused to receive him until the next morning. When morning came, the march
of the insurgents against the Tuileries began. Position after position fell
into their hands. The regiments stationed in the Place Vendome abandoned
their commander, and marched off to place themselves at the disposal of the
Deputies. Marmont ordered the Swiss Guard, which had hitherto defended the
Louvre, to replace them; and in doing so he left the Louvre for a moment
without any garrison. The insurgents saw the building empty, and rushed
into it. From the windows they commanded the Court of the Tuileries, where
the troops in reserve were posted; and soon after mid-day all was over. A
few isolated battalions fought and perished, but the mass of the soldiery
with their commander fell back upon the Place de la Concorde, and then
evacuated Paris. [387]

The Duke of Orleans was all this time in hiding. He had been warned that
the Court intended to arrest him, and, whether from fear of the Court or of
the populace, he had secreted himself at a hunting-lodge in his woods,
allowing none but his wife and his sister to know where he was concealed.
His partisans, of whom the rich and popular banker, Laffitte, was the most
influential among the Deputies, were watching for an opportunity to bring
forward his name; but their chances of success seemed slight. The Deputies
at large wished only for the withdrawal of the Ordinances, and were wholly
averse from a change of dynasty. It was only through the obstinacy of King
Charles himself, and as the result of a series of accidents, that the Crown
passed from the elder Bourbon line. King Charles would not hear of
withdrawing the Ordinances until the Tuileries had actually fallen; he then
gave way and charged the Duc de Mortemart to form a new Ministry, drawn
from the ranks of the Opposition. But instead of formally repealing the
Edicts by a public Decree, he sent two messengers to Paris to communicate
his change of purpose to the Deputies by word of mouth. The messengers
betook themselves to the Hotel de Ville, where a municipal committee under
Lafayette had been installed; and, when they could produce no written
authority for their statements, they were referred by this committee to the
general body of Deputies, which was now sitting at Laffitte's house. The
Deputies also demanded a written guarantee. Laffitte and Thiers spoke in
favour of the Duke of Orleans, but the Assembly at large was still willing
to negotiate with Charles X., and only required the presence of the Duc de
Mortemart himself, and a copy of the Decree repealing the Ordinances.

[July 30.]

It was now near midnight. The messengers returned to St. Cloud, and were
not permitted to deliver their intelligence until the King awoke next
morning. Charles then signed the necessary document, and Mortemart set out
for Paris; but the night's delay had given the Orleanists time to act, and
before the King was up Thiers had placarded the streets of Paris with a
proclamation extolling Orleans as the prince devoted to the cause of the
Revolution, as the soldier of Jemappes, and the only constitutional King
now possible. Some hours after this manifesto had appeared the Deputies
again assembled at Laffitte's house, and waited for the appearance of
Mortemart. But they waited in vain. Mortemart's carriage was stopped on the
road from St. Cloud, and he was compelled to make his way on foot by a long
circuit and across a score of barricades. When he approached Laffitte's
house, half dead with heat and fatigue, he found that the Deputies had
adjourned to the Palais Bourbon, and, instead of following them, he ended
his journey at the Luxemburg, where the Peers were assembled. His absence
was turned to good account by the Orleanists. At the morning session the
proposition was openly made to call Louis Philippe to power; and when the
Deputies reassembled in the afternoon and the Minister still failed to
present himself, it was resolved to send a body of Peers and Deputies to
Louis Philippe to invite him to come to Paris and to assume the office of
Lieutenant-General of the kingdom. No opposition was offered to this
proposal in the House of Peers, and a deputation accordingly set out to
search for Louis Philippe at his country house at Neuilly. The prince was
not to be found; but his sister, who received the deputation, undertook
that he should duly appear in Paris. She then communicated with her brother
in his hiding-place, and induced him, in spite of the resistance of his
wife, to set out for the capital. He arrived at the Palais Royale late on
the night of the 30th. Early the next morning he received a deputation from
the Assembly, and accepted the powers which they offered him. A
proclamation was then published, announcing to the Parisians that in order
to save the country from anarchy and civil war the Duke of Orleans had
assumed the office of Lieutenant-General of the kingdom.

[The Hotel de Ville.]

But there existed another authority in Paris beside the Assembly of
Representatives, and one that was not altogether disposed to permit Louis
Philippe and his satellites to reap the fruits of the people's victory.
Lafayette and the Municipal Committee, which occupied the Hotel de Ville,
had transformed themselves into a provisional government, and sat
surrounded by the armed mob which had captured the Tuileries two days
before. No single person who had fought in the streets had risked his life
for the sake of making Louis Philippe king; in so far as the Parisians had
fought for any definite political idea, they had fought for the Republic.
It was necessary to reconcile both the populace and the provisional
government to the assumption of power by the new Regent; and with this
object Louis Philippe himself proceeded to the Hotel de Ville, accompanied
by an escort of Deputies and Peers. It was a hazardous moment when he
entered the crowd on the Place de Greve; but Louis Philippe's readiness of
speech stood him in good stead, and he made his way unhurt through the
throng into the building, where Lafayette received him. Compliments and
promises were showered upon this veteran of 1789, who presently appeared on
a balcony and embraced Louis Philippe, while the Prince grasped the
tricolor flag, the flag which had not waved in Paris since 1815. The
spectacle was successful. The multitude shouted applause; and the few
determined men who still doubted the sincerity of a Bourbon and demanded
the proclamation of the Republic were put off with the promise of an
ultimate appeal to the French people.

[Charles X.]

In the meantime Charles X. had withdrawn to Rambouillet, accompanied by the
members of his family and by a considerable body of troops. Here the news
reached him that Orleans had accepted from the Chambers the office of
Lieutenant-General. It was a severe blow to the old king, who, while others
doubted of Louis Philippe's loyalty, had still maintained his trust in this
prince's fidelity. For a moment he thought of retiring beyond the Loire and
risking a civil war; but the troops now began to disperse, and Charles,
recognising that his cause was hopeless, abdicated together with the
Dauphin in favour of his grandson the young Chambord, then called Duc de
Bordeaux. He wrote to Louis Philippe, appointing him, as if on his own
initiative, Lieutenant-General of the kingdom, and required him to proclaim
Henry V. king, and to undertake the government during the new sovereign's
minority. It is doubtful whether Louis Philippe had at this time formed any
distinct resolve, and whether his answer to Charles X. was inspired by mere
good nature or by conscious falsehood; for while replying officially that
he would lay the king's letter before the Chambers, he privately wrote to
Charles X. that he would retain his new office only until he could safely
place the Duc de Bordeaux upon the throne. Having thus soothed the old
man's pride, Louis Philippe requested him to hasten his departure from the
neighbourhood of Paris; and when Charles ignored the message, he sent out
some bands of the National Guard to terrify him into flight. This device
succeeded, and the royal family, still preserving the melancholy ceremonial
of a court, moved slowly through France towards the western coast. At
Cherbourg they took ship and crossed to England, where they were received
as private persons. Among the British nation at large the exiled Bourbons
excited but little sympathy. They were, however, permitted to take up their
abode in the palace of Holyrood, and here Charles X. resided for two years.
But neither the climate nor the society of the Scottish capital offered any
attraction to the old and failing chief of a fallen dynasty. He sought a
more congenial shelter in Austria, and died at Goritz in November, 1836.

[Louis Philippe made King, Aug. 7.]

The first public notice of the abdication of King Charles was given by
Louis Philippe in the Chamber of Deputies, which was convoked by him, as
Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom, on the 3rd of August. In addressing the
Deputies, Louis Philippe stated that he had received a letter containing
the abdication both of the King and of the Dauphin, but he uttered no
single word regarding the Duc de Bordeaux, in whose favour both his
grandfather and his uncle had renounced their rights. Had Louis Philippe
mentioned that the abdications were in fact conditional, and had he
declared himself protector of the Duc de Bordeaux during his minority,
there is little doubt that the legitimate heir would have been peaceably
accepted both by the Chamber and by Paris. Louis Philippe himself had up to
this time done nothing that was inconsistent with the assumption of a mere
Regency; the Chamber had not desired a change of dynasty; and, with the
exception of Lafayette, the men who had actually made the Revolution bore
as little goodwill to an Orleanist as to a Bourbon monarchy. But from the
time when Louis Philippe passed over in silence the claims of the grandson
of Charles X., his own accession to the throne became inevitable. It was
left to an obscure Deputy to propose that the crown should be offered to
Louis Philippe, accompanied by certain conditions couched in the form of
modifications of the Charta. The proposal was carried in the Chamber on the
7th of August, and the whole body of representatives marched to the Palais
Royale to acquaint the prince with its resolution. Louis Philippe, after
some conventional expressions of regret, declared that he could not resist
the call of his country. When the Lower Chamber had thus disposed of the
crown, the House of Peers, which had proved itself a nullity throughout the
crisis, adopted the same resolution, and tendered its congratulations in a
similar fashion. Two days later Louis Philippe took the oath to the Charta
as modified by the Assembly, and was proclaimed King of the French.

[Nature of the Revolution of 1830.]

Thus ended a revolution, which, though greeted with enthusiasm at the time,
has lost much of its splendour and importance in the later judgment of
mankind. In comparison with the Revolution of 1789, the movement which
overthrew the Bourbons in 1830 was a mere flutter on the surface. It was
unconnected with any great change in men's ideas, and it left no great
social or legislative changes behind it. Occasioned by a breach of the
constitution on the part of the Executive Government, it resulted mainly in
the transfer of administrative power from one set of politicians to
another: the alterations which it introduced into the constitution itself
were of no great importance. France neither had an absolute Government
before 1830, nor had it a popular Government afterwards. Instead of a
representative of divine right, attended by guards of nobles and counselled
by Jesuit confessors, there was now a citizen-king, who walked about the
streets of Paris with an umbrella under his arm and sent his sons to the
public schools, but who had at heart as keen a devotion to dynastic
interests as either of his predecessors, and a much greater capacity for
personal rule. The bonds which kept the entire local administration of
France in dependence upon the central authority were not loosened;
officialism remained as strong as ever; the franchise was still limited to
a mere fraction of the nation. On the other hand, within the administration
itself the change wrought by the July Revolution was real and lasting. It
extinguished the political power of the clerical interest. Not only were
the Bishops removed from the House of Peers, but throughout all departments
of Government the influence of the clergy, which had been so strong under
Charles X., vanished away. The State took a distinctly secular colour. The
system of public education was regulated with such police-like
exclusiveness that priests who insisted upon opening schools of their own
for Catholic teaching were enabled to figure as champions of civil liberty
and of freedom of opinion against despotic power. The noblesse lost
whatever political influence it had regained during the Restoration. The
few surviving Regicides who had been banished in 1815 were recalled to
France, among them the terrorist Barrere, who was once more returned to the
Assembly. But the real winners in the Revolution of 1830 were not the men
of extremes, but the middle-class of France. This was the class which Louis
Philippe truly represented; and the force which for eighteen years kept
Louis Philippe on the throne was the middle-class force of the National
Guard of Paris. Against this sober, prosaic, unimaginative power there
struggled the hot and restless spirit which had been let loose by the
overthrow of the Bourbon dynasty, and which, fired at once with the
political ideal of a Republic, with dreams of the regeneration of Europe by
French armies, and with the growing antagonism between the labouring class
and the owners of property, threatened for awhile to overthrow the
newly-constituted monarchy in France, and to plunge Europe into war. The
return of the tricolor flag, the long-silenced strains of the Republic and
the Empire, the sense of victory with which men on the popular side
witnessed the expulsion of the dynasty which had been forced upon France
after Waterloo, revived that half-romantic military ardour which had
undertaken the liberation of Europe in 1792. France appeared once more in
the eyes of enthusiasts as the deliverer of nations. The realities of the
past epoch of French military aggression, its robberies, its corruption,
the execrations of its victims, were forgotten; and when one people after
another took up the shout of liberty that was raised in Paris, and
insurrections broke out in every quarter of Europe, it was with difficulty
that Louis Philippe and the few men of caution about him could prevent the
French nation from rushing into war.

[Affairs in Belgium.]

The State first affected by the events of July was the kingdom of the
Netherlands. The creation of this kingdom, in which the Belgian provinces
formerly subject to Austria were united with Holland to serve as an
effective barrier against French aggression on the north, had been one of
Pitt's most cherished schemes, and it had been carried into effect ten
years after his death by the Congress of Vienna. National and religious
incongruities had been little considered by the statesmen of that day, and
at the very moment of union the Catholic bishops of Belgium had protested
against a constitution which gave equal toleration to all religions under
the rule of a Protestant King. The Belgians had been uninterruptedly united
with France for the twenty years preceding 1814; the French language was
not only the language of their literature, but the spoken language of the
upper classes; and though the Flemish portion of the population was nearly
related to the Dutch, this element had not then asserted itself with the
distinctness and energy which it has since developed. The antagonism
between the northern and the southern Netherlands, though not insuperable,
was sufficiently great to make a harmonious union between the two countries
a work of difficulty, and the Government of The Hague had not taken the
right course to conciliate its opponents. The Belgians, though more
numerous, were represented by fewer members in the National Assembly than
the Dutch. Offices were filled by strangers from Holland; finance was
governed by a regard for Dutch interests; and the Dutch language was made
the official language for the whole kingdom. But the chief grievances were
undoubtedly connected with the claims of the clerical party in Belgium to a
monopoly of spiritual power and the exclusive control of education. The one
really irreconcilable enemy of the Protestant House of Orange was the
Church; and the governing impulse in the conflicts which preceded the
dissolution of the kingdom of the Netherlands in 1830 sprang from the same
clerical interest which had thrown Belgium into revolt against the Emperor
Joseph forty years before. There was again seen the same strange phenomenon
of a combination between the Church and a popular or even revolutionary
party. For the sake of an alliance against a constitution distasteful to
both, the clergy of Belgium accepted the democratic principles of the
political Opposition, and the Opposition consented for a while to desist
from their attacks upon the Papacy. The contract was faithfully observed on
both sides until the object for which it was made was attained. [388]

[Belgian Revolution, August, 1830.]

For some months before the Revolution of July, 1830, the antagonism between
the Belgians and their Government had been so violent that no great shock
from outside was necessary to produce an outbreak. The convulsions of Paris
were at once felt at Brussels, and on the 25th of August the performance of
a revolutionary opera in that city gave the signal for the commencement of
insurrection. From the capital the rebellion spread from town to town
throughout the southern Netherlands. The King summoned the Estates General,
and agreed to the establishment of an administration for Belgium separate
from that of Holland: but the storm was not allayed; and the appearance of
a body of Dutch troops at Brussels was sufficient to dispel the expectation
of a peaceful settlement. Barricades were erected; a conflict took place in
the streets; and the troops, unable to carry the city by assault, retired
to the outskirts and kept up a desultory attack for several days. They then
withdrew, and a provisional government, which was immediately established,
declared the independence of Belgium. For a moment there appeared some
possibility that the Crown Prince of Holland, who had from the first
assumed the part of mediator, might be accepted as sovereign of the
newly-formed State; but the growing violence of the insurrection, the
activity of French emissaries and volunteers, and the bombardment of
Antwerp by the Dutch soldiers who garrisoned its citadel, made an end of
all such hopes. Belgium had won its independence, and its connection with
the House of Orange could be re-established only by force of arms.

[France and the Belgian Revolution.]

[France and England.]

The accomplishment of this revolution in one of the smallest Continental
States threatened to involve all Europe in war. Though not actually
effected under the auspices of a French army, it was undoubtedly to some
extent effected in alliance with the French revolutionary party. It broke
up a kingdom established by the European Treaties of 1814; and it was so
closely connected with the overthrow of the Bourbon monarchy as to be
scarcely distinguishable from those cases in which the European Powers had
pledged themselves to call their armies into the field. Louis Philippe,
however, had been recognised by most of the European Courts as the only
possible alternative to a French Republic; and a general disposition
existed to second any sincere effort that should be made by him to prevent
the French nation from rushing into war. This was especially the case with
England; and it was to England that Louis Philippe turned for co-operation
in the settlement of the Belgian question. Louis Philippe himself had every
possible reason for desiring to keep the peace. If war broke out, France
would be opposed to all the Continental Powers together. Success was in the
last degree improbable; it could only be hoped for by a revival of the
revolutionary methods and propaganda of 1793; and failure, even for a
moment, would certainly cost him his throne, and possibly his life. His
interest no less than his temperament made him the strenuous, though
concealed, opponent of the war-party in the Assembly; and he found in the
old diplomatist who had served alike under the Bourbons, the Republic, and
the Empire, an ally thoroughly capable of pursuing his own wise though
unpopular policy of friendship and co-operation with England. Talleyrand,
while others were crying for a revenge for Waterloo, saw that the first
necessity for France was to rescue it from its isolation; and as at the
Congress of Vienna he had detached Austria and England from the two
northern Courts, so now, before attempting to gain any extension of
territory, he sought to make France safe against the hostility of the
Continent by allying it with at least one great Power. Russia had become an
enemy instead of a friend. The expulsion of the Bourbons had given mortal
offence to the Czar Nicholas, and neither Austria nor Prussia was likely to
enter into close relations with a Government founded upon revolution.
England alone seemed a possible ally, and it was to England that the French
statesman of peace turned in the Belgian crisis. Talleyrand, now nearly
eighty years old, came as ambassador to London, where he had served in
1792. He addressed himself to Wellington and to the new King, William IV.,
assuring them that, under the Government of Louis Philippe, France would
not seek to use the Belgian revolution for its own aggrandisement; and,
with his old aptness in the invention of general principles to suit a
particular case, he laid down the principle of non-intervention as one that
ought for the future to govern the policy of Europe. His efforts were
successful. So complete an understanding was established between France and
England on the Belgian question, that all fear of an armed intervention of
the Eastern Courts on behalf of the King of Holland, which would have
rendered a war with France inevitable, passed away. The regulation of
Belgian affairs was submitted to a Conference at London. Hostilities were
stopped, and the independence of the new kingdom was recognised in
principle by the Conference before the end of the year. A Protocol defining
the frontiers of Belgium and Holland, and apportioning to each State its
share in the national debt, was signed by the representatives of the Powers
in January, 1831. [389]

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