Book: History of Modern Europe 1792 1878

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[Second Austrian intervention, Jan., 1832.]

[French occupy Ancona, February, 1832.]

It now remained to be seen whether Pope Gregory and his cardinals had the
intelligence and good-will necessary for carrying out the reforms on the
promise of which France had abstained from active intervention. If any such
hopes existed they were doomed to speedy disappointment. The apparatus of
priestly maladministration was restored in all its ancient deformity. An
amnesty which had been promised by the Legate Benvenuti was disregarded,
and the Pope set himself to strengthen his authority by enlisting new bands
of ruffians and adventurers under the standard of St. Peter. Again
insurrection broke out, and again at the Pope's request the Austrians
crossed the frontier (January, 1832). Though their appearance was fatal to
the cause of liberty, they were actually welcomed as protectors in towns
which had been exposed to the tender mercies of the Papal condottieri.
There was no disorder, no severity, where the Austrian commandants held
sway; but their mere presence in central Italy was a threat to European
peace; and Casimir Perier was not the man to permit Austria to dominate in
Italy at its will. Without waiting for negotiations, he despatched a French
force to Ancona, and seized this town before the Austrians could approach
it. The rival Powers were now face to face in Italy; but Perier had no
intention of forcing on war if his opponent was still willing to keep the
peace. Austria accepted the situation, and made no attempt to expel the
French from the position they had seized. Casimir Perier, now on his
death-bed, defended the step that he had taken against the remonstrances of
ambassadors and against the protests of the Pope, and declared the presence
of the French at Ancona to be no incentive to rebellion, but the mere
assertion of the rights of a Power which had as good a claim to be in
central Italy as Austria itself. Had his life been prolonged, he would
probably have insisted upon the execution of the reforms which the Powers
had urged upon the Papal government, and have made the occupation of Ancona
an effectual means for reaching this end. But with his death the wrongs of
the Italians themselves and the question of a reformed government in the
Papal States gradually passed out of sight. France and Austria jealously
watched one another on the debatable land; the occupation became a mere
incident of the balance of power, and was prolonged for year after year,
until, in 1838, the Austrians having finally withdrawn all their troops,
the French peacefully handed over the citadel of Ancona to the Holy See.

[Prussia in 1830.]

[The Zollverein, 1828-1836.]

The arena in which we have next to follow the effects of the July
Revolution, in action and counter-action, is Germany. It has been seen that
in the southern German States an element of representative government, if
weak, yet not wholly ineffective, had come into being soon after 1815, and
had survived the reactionary measures initiated by the conference of
Ministers at Carlsbad. In Prussia the promises of King Frederick William to
his people had never been fulfilled. Years had passed since exaggerated
rumours of conspiracy had served as an excuse for withholding the
Constitution. Hardenberg had long been dead; the foreign policy of the
country had taken a freer tone; the rigours of the police-system had
departed; but the nation remained as completely excluded from any share in
the government as it had been before Napoleon's fall. It had in fact become
clear that during the lifetime of King Frederick William things must be
allowed to remain in their existing condition; and the affection of the
people for their sovereign, who had been so long and so closely united with
Prussia in its sufferings and in its glories, caused a general willingness
to postpone the demand for constitutional reform until the succeeding
reign. The substantial merits of the administration might moreover have
reconciled a less submissive people than the Prussians to the absolute
government under which they lived. Under a wise and enlightened financial
policy the country was becoming visibly richer. Obstacles to commercial
development were removed, communications opened; and finally, by a series
of treaties with the neighbouring German States, the foundations were laid
for that Customs-Union which, under the name of the Zollverein, ultimately
embraced almost the whole of non-Austrian Germany. As one Principality
after another attached itself to the Prussian system, the products of the
various regions of Germany, hitherto blocked by the frontier dues of each
petty State, moved freely through the land, while the costs attending the
taxation of foreign imports, now concentrated upon the external line of
frontier, were enormously diminished. Patient, sagacious, and even liberal
in its negotiations with its weaker neighbours, Prussia silently connected
with itself through the ties of financial union States which had hitherto
looked to Austria as their natural head. The semblance of political union
was carefully avoided, but the germs of political union were nevertheless
present in the growing community of material interests. The reputation of
the Prussian Government, no less than the welfare of the Prussian people,
was advanced by each successive step in the extension of the Zollverein;
and although the earlier stages alone had been passed in the years before
1830, enough had already been done to affect public opinion; and the
general sense of material progress combined with other influences to close
Prussia to the revolutionary tendencies of that year.

[Insurrections in Brunswick and Cassel.]

[Constitutions in Hanover and Saxony, 1830-1833.]

There were, however, other States in northern Germany which had all the
defects of Prussian autocracy without any of its redeeming qualities. In
Brunswick and in Hesse Cassel despotism existed in its most contemptible
form; the violence of a half-crazy youth in the one case, and the caprices
of an obstinate dotard in the other, rendering authority a mere nuisance to
those who were subject to it. Here accordingly revolution broke out. The
threatened princes had made themselves too generally obnoxious or
ridiculous for any hand to be raised in their defence. Their disappearance
excited no more than the inevitable lament from Metternich; and in both
States systems of representative government were introduced by their
successors. In Hanover and in Saxony agitation also began in favour of
Parliamentary rule. The disturbance that arose was not of a serious
character, and it was met by the Courts in a conciliatory spirit.
Constitutions were granted, the liberty of the Press extended, and trial by
jury established. On the whole, the movement of 1830, as it affected
northern Germany, was rationally directed and salutary in its results.
Changes of real value were accomplished with a sparing employment of
revolutionary means, and, in the more important cases, through the friendly
co-operation of the sovereigns with their subjects. It was not the fault of
those who had asked for the same degree of liberty in northern Germany
which the south already possessed, that Germany at large again experienced
the miseries of reaction and repression which had afflicted it ten years
before.

[Movement in the Palatinate.]

Like Belgium and the Rhenish Provinces, the Bavarian Palatinate had for
twenty years been incorporated with France. Its inhabitants had grown
accustomed to the French law and French institutions, and had caught
something of the political animation which returned to France after
Napoleon's fall. Accordingly when the government of Munich, alarmed by the
July Revolution, showed an inclination towards repressive measures, the
Palatinate, severed from the rest of the Bavarian monarchy and in immediate
contact with France, became the focus of a revolutionary agitation. The
Press had already attained some activity and some influence in this
province; and although the leaders of the party of progress were still to a
great extent Professors, they had so far advanced upon the patriots of 1818
as to understand that the liberation of the German people was not to be
effected by the lecturers and the scholars of the Universities. The design
had been formed of enlisting all classes of the public on the side of
reform, both by the dissemination of political literature and by the
establishment of societies not limited, as in 1818, to academic circles,
but embracing traders as well as soldiers and professional men. Even the
peasant was to be reached and instructed in his interests as a citizen. It
was thought that much might be effected by associating together all the
Oppositions in the numerous German Parliaments; but a more striking feature
of the revolutionary movement which began in the Palatinate, and one
strongly distinguishing it from the earlier agitation of Jena and Erfurt,
was its cosmopolitan character. France in its triumph and Poland in its
death-struggle excited equal interest and sympathy. In each the cause of
European liberty appeared to be at stake. The Polish banner was saluted in
the Palatinate by the side of that of united Germany; and from that time
forward in almost every revolutionary movement of Europe, down to the
insurrection of the Commune of Paris in 1871, Polish exiles have been
active both in the organisation of revolt and in the field.

[Reaction in Germany.]

Until the fall of Warsaw, in September, 1831, the German governments,
uncertain of the course which events might take in Europe, had shown a
certain willingness to meet the complaints of their subjects, and had in
especial relaxed the supervision exercised over the press. The fall of
Warsaw, which quieted so many alarms, and made the Emperor Nicholas once
more a power outside his own dominions, inaugurated a period of reaction in
Germany. The Diet began the campaign against democracy by suppressing
various liberal newspapers, and amongst them the principal journal of the
Palatinate. It was against this movement of regression that the agitation
in the Palatinate and elsewhere was now directed. A festival, or
demonstration, was held at the Castle of Hambach, near Zweibruecken, at
which a body of enthusiasts called upon the German people to unite against
their oppressors, and some even urged an immediate appeal to arms (May 27,
1832). Similar meetings, though on a smaller scale, were held in other
parts of Germany. Wild words abounded, and the connection of the German
revolutionists with that body of opponents of all established governments
which had its council-chamber at Paris and its head in Lafayette was openly
avowed. Weak and insignificant as the German demagogues were, their
extravagance gave to Metternich and to the Diet sufficient pretext for
revising the reactionary measures of 1819. Once more the subordination of
all representative bodies to the sovereign's authority was laid down by the
Diet as a binding principle for every German state. The refusal of taxes by
any legislature was declared to be an act of rebellion which would be met
by the armed intervention of the central Powers. All political meetings and
associations were forbidden; the Press was silenced; the introduction of
German books printed abroad was prohibited, and the Universities were again
placed under the watch of the police (July, 1832). [394]

[Attempt at Frankfort, April, 1833.]

If among the minor sovereigns of Germany there were some who, as in Baden,
sincerely desired the development of free institutions, the authority
exercised by Metternich and his adherents in reaction bore down all the
resistance that these courts could offer, and the hand of despotism fell
everywhere heavily upon the party of political progress. The majority of
German Liberals, not yet prepared for recourse to revolutionary measures,
submitted to the pressure of the times, and disclaimed all sympathy with
illegal acts; a minority, recognising that nothing was now to be gained by
constitutional means, entered into conspiracies, and determined to liberate
Germany by force. One insignificant group, relying upon the armed
co-operation of Polish bands in France, and deceived by promises of support
from some Wuertemberg soldiers, actually rose in insurrection at Frankfort.
A guard-house was seized, and a few soldiers captured; but the citizens of
Frankfort stood aloof, and order was soon restored (April, 1833). It was
not to be expected that the reactionary courts should fail to draw full
advantage from this ill-timed outbreak of their enemies. Prussian troops
marched into Frankfort, and Metternich had no difficulty in carrying
through the Diet a decree establishing a commission to superintend and to
report upon the proceedings instituted against political offenders
throughout Germany. For several years these investigations continued, and
the campaign against the opponents of government was carried on with
various degrees of rigour in the different states. About two thousand
persons altogether were brought to trial: in Prussia thirty-nine sentences
of death were pronounced, but not executed. In the struggle against
revolution the forces of monarchy had definitely won the victory. Germany
again experienced, as it had in 1819, that the federal institutions which
were to have given it unity existed only for the purposes of repression.
The breach between the nation and its rulers, in spite of the apparent
failure of the democratic party, remained far deeper and wider than it had
been before; and although Metternich, victor once more over the growing
restlessness of the age, slumbered on for another decade in fancied
security, the last of his triumphs had now been won, and the next uprising
proved how blind was that boasted statesmanship which deemed the sources of
danger exhausted when once its symptoms had been driven beneath the
surface.

[Conspirators and exiles.]

[Dispersion of the Swiss exiles, 1834.]

In half the states of Europe there were now bodies of exasperated,
uncompromising men, who devoted their lives to plotting against
governments, and who formed, in their community of interest and purpose, a
sort of obverse of the Holy Alliance, a federation of kings' enemies, a
league of principle and creed, in which liberty and human right stood
towards established rule as light to darkness. As the grasp of authority
closed everywhere more tightly upon its baffled foes, more and more of
these men passed into exile. Among them was the Genoese Mazzini, who, after
suffering imprisonment in 1831, withdrew to Marseilles, and there, in
combination with various secret societies, planned an incursion into the
Italian province of Savoy. It was at first intended that this enterprise
should be executed simultaneously with the German rising at Frankfort.
Delays, however, arose, and it was not until the beginning of the following
year that the little army, which numbered more Poles than Italians, was
ready for its task. The incursion was made from Geneva in February, 1834,
and ended disastrously. [395] Mazzini returned to Switzerland, where
hundreds of exiles, secure under the shelter of the Republic, devised
schemes of attack upon the despots of Europe, and even rioted in honour of
freedom in the streets of the Swiss cities which protected them. The effect
of the revolutionary movement of the time in consolidating the alliance of
the three Eastern Powers, so rudely broken by the Greek War of Liberation,
now came clearly into view. The sovereigns of Russia and Austria had met at
Muenchengraetz in Bohemia in the previous autumn, and, in concert with
Prussia, had resolved upon common principles of action if their
intervention should be required against disturbers of order. Notes were now
addressed from every quarter to the Swiss Government, requiring the
expulsion of all persons concerned in enterprises against the peace of
neighbouring States. Some resistance to this demand was made by individual
cantons; but the extravagance of many of the refugees themselves alienated
popular sympathy, and the greater part of them were forced to quit
Switzerland and to seek shelter in England or in America. With the
dispersion of the central band of exiles the open alliance which had
existed between the revolutionists of Europe gradually passed away. The
brotherhood of the kings had proved a stern reality, the brotherhood of the
peoples a delusive vision. Mazzini indeed, who up to this time had scarcely
emerged from the rabble of revolutionary leaders, was yet to prove how
deeply the genius, the elevation, the fervour of one man struggling against
the powers of the world may influence the history of his age; but the fire
that purified the fine gold charred and consumed the baser elements; and of
those who had hoped the most after 1830, many now sank into despair, or
gave up their lives to mere restless agitation and intrigue.

[Difficulties of Louis Philippe.]

[Insurrections, 1832-1834.]

[Repressive Laws, Sept., 1835.]

It was in France that the revolutionary movement was longest maintained.
During the first year of Louis Philippe's rule the opposition to his
government was inspired not so much by Republicanism as by a wild and
inconsiderate sympathy with the peoples who were fighting for liberty
elsewhere, and by a headstrong impulse to take up arms on their behalf. The
famous decree of the Convention in 1792, which promised the assistance of
France to every nation in revolt against its rulers, was in fact the true
expression of what was felt by a great part of the French nation in 1831;
and in the eyes of these enthusiasts it was the unpardonable offence of
Louis Philippe against the honour of France that he allowed Poland and
Italy to succumb without drawing his sword against their conquerors. That
France would have had to fight the three Eastern Powers combined, if it had
allied itself with those in revolt against any one of the three, passed for
nothing among the clamorous minority in the Chamber and among the orators
of Paris. The pacific policy of Casimir Perier was misunderstood; it passed
for mere poltroonery, when in fact it was the only policy that could save
France from a recurrence of the calamities of 1815. There were other causes
for the growing unpopularity of the King and of his Ministers, but the
first was their policy of peace. As the attacks of his opponents became
more and more bitter, the government of Casimir Perier took more and more
of a repressive character. Disappointment at the small results produced in
France itself by the Revolution of July worked powerfully in men's minds.
The forces that had been set in motion against Charles X. were not to be
laid at rest at the bidding of those who had profited by them, and a
Republican party gradually took definite shape and organisation. Tumult
succeeded tumult. In the summer of 1832 the funeral of General Lamarque, a
popular soldier, gave the signal for insurrection at Paris. There was
severe fighting in the streets; the National Guard, however, proved true to
the king, and shared with the army in the honours of its victory.
Repressive measures and an unbroken series of prosecutions against
seditious writers followed this first armed attack upon the established
government. The bitterness of the Opposition, the discontent of the working
classes, far surpassed anything that had been known under Charles X. The
whole country was agitated by revolutionary societies and revolutionary
propaganda. Disputes between masters and workmen, which, in consequence of
the growth of French manufacturing industry, now became both frequent and
important, began to take a political colour. Polish and Italian exiles
connected their own designs with attacks to be made upon the French
Government from within; and at length, in April, 1834, after the passing of
a law against trades-unions, the working classes of Lyons, who were on
strike against their employers, were induced to rise in revolt. After
several days' fighting the insurrection was suppressed. Simultaneous
outbreaks took place at St. Etienne, Grenoble, and many other places in the
south and centre of France; and on a report of the success of the
insurgents reaching Paris, the Republic was proclaimed and barricades were
erected. Again civil war raged in the streets, and again the forces of
Government gained the victory. A year more passed, during which the
investigations into the late revolt and the trial of a host of prisoners
served rather to agitate than to reassure the public mind; and in the
summer of 1835 an attempt was made upon the life of the King so terrible
and destructive in its effects as to amount to a public calamity. An
infernal machine composed of a hundred gun-barrels was fired by a Corsican
named Fieschi, as the King with a large suite was riding through the
streets of Paris on the anniversary of the Revolution of July. Fourteen
persons were killed on the spot, among whom was Mortier, one of the oldest
of the marshals of France; many others were fatally or severely injured.
The King, however, with his three sons, escaped unhurt, and the repressive
laws that followed this outrage marked the close of open revolutionary
agitation in France. Whether in consequence of the stringency of the new
laws, or of the exhaustion of a party discredited in public estimation by
the crimes of a few of its members and the recklessness of many more, the
constitutional monarchy of Louis Philippe now seemed to have finally
vanquished its opponents. Repeated attempts were made on the life of the
King, but they possessed for the most part little political significance.
Order was welcome to the nation at large; and though in the growth of a
socialistic theory and creed of life which dates from this epoch there lay
a danger to Governments greater than any purely political, Socialism was as
yet the affair of thinkers rather than of active workers either in the
industrial or in the Parliamentary world. The Government had beaten its
enemies outside the Chamber. Within the Chamber, the parties of extremes
ceased to exercise any real influence. Groups were formed, and rival
leaders played against one another for office; but they were separated by
no far-reaching differences of aim, and by no real antagonism of
constitutional principle. During the succeeding years of Louis Philippe's
reign there was little visible on the surface but the normal rivalry of
parties under a constitutional monarchy. The middle-class retained its
monopoly of power: authority, centralised as before, maintained its old
prestige in France, and softened opposition by judicious gifts of office
and emolument. Revolutionary passion seemed to have died away: and the
triumphs or reverses of party-leaders in the Chamber of Deputies succeeded
to the harassing and doubtful conflict between Government and insurrection.

[The English Reform movement.]

The near coincidence in time between the French Revolution of 1830 and the
passing of the English Reform Bill is apt to suggest to those who look for
the operation of wide general causes in history that the English Reform
movement should be viewed as a part of the great current of political
change which then traversed the continent of Europe. But on a closer
examination this view is scarcely borne out by facts, and the coincidence
of the two epochs of change appears to be little more than accidental. The
general unity that runs through the history of the more advanced
continental states is indeed stronger than appears to a superficial reader
of history; but this correspondence of tendency does not always embrace
England; on the contrary, the conditions peculiar to England usually
preponderate over those common to England and other countries, exhibiting
at times more of contrast than of similarity, as in the case of the
Napoleonic epoch, when the causes which drew together the western half of
the continent operated powerfully to exclude our own country from the
current influences of the time, and made the England of 1815, in opinion,
in religion, and in taste much more insular than the England of 1780. The
revolution which overthrew Charles X. did no doubt encourage and stimulate
the party of Reform in Great Britain; but, unlike the Belgian, the German,
and the Italian movements, the English Reform movement would unquestionably
have run the same course and achieved the same results even if the revolt
against the ordinances of Charles X. had been successfully repressed, and
the Bourbon monarchy had maintained itself in increased strength and
reputation. A Reform of Parliament had been acknowledged to be necessary
forty years before. Pitt had actually proposed it in 1785, and but for the
outbreak of the French Revolution would probably have carried it into
effect before the close of the last century. The development of English
manufacturing industry which took place between 1790 and 1830, accompanied
by the rapid growth of towns and the enrichment of the urban middle class,
rendered the design of Pitt, which would have transferred the
representation of the decayed boroughs to the counties alone, obsolete, and
made the claims of the new centres of population too strong to be resisted.
In theory the representative system of the country was completely
transformed; but never was a measure which seemed to open the way to such
boundless possibilities of change so thoroughly safe and so thoroughly
conservative. In spite of the increased influence won by the wealthy part
of the commercial classes, the House of Commons continued to be drawn
mainly from the territorial aristocracy. Cabinet after Cabinet was formed
with scarcely a single member included in it who was not himself a man of
title, or closely connected with the nobility: the social influence of rank
was not diminished; and although such measures as the Reform of Municipal
Corporations attested the increased energy of the Legislature, no party in
the House of Commons was weaker than that which supported the democratic
demands for the Ballot and for Triennial Parliaments, nor was the repeal of
the Corn Laws seriously considered until famine had made it inevitable.
That the widespread misery which existed in England after 1832, as the
result of the excessive increase of our population and the failure alike of
law and of philanthropy to keep pace with the exigencies of a vast
industrial growth, should have been so quietly borne, proves how great was
the success of the Reform Bill as a measure of conciliation between
Government and people. But the crowning justification of the changes made
in 1832, and the complete and final answer to those who had opposed them as
revolutionary, was not afforded until 1848, when, in the midst of European
convulsion, the monarchy and the constitution of England remained unshaken.
Bold as the legislation of Lord Grey appeared to men who had been brought
up amidst the reactionary influences dominant in England since 1793, the
Reform Bill belongs not to the class of great creative measures which have
inaugurated new periods in the life of nations, but to the class of those
which, while least affecting the general order of society, have most
contributed to political stability and to the avoidance of revolutionary
change.

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