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Kingdom of France[a] Royaume de France (French) | |||||||||
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| 1830–1848 | |||||||||
| Motto: Ordre et liberté (French)[1] "Order and Liberty" | |||||||||
| Anthem: La Parisienne ("The Parisian") | |||||||||
 The Kingdom of France in 1839 | |||||||||
| Capital | Paris | ||||||||
| Religion | |||||||||
| Demonym | French | ||||||||
| Government | Unitaryparliamentaryconstitutional monarchy (under aprovisional government(24–26 February 1848)) | ||||||||
| King | |||||||||
• 1830–1848 | Louis Philippe I | ||||||||
• 1848 | Louis Philippe II (claimant) | ||||||||
| Prime Minister | |||||||||
• 1830(first) | Louis Philippe I | ||||||||
• 1848(last) | Jacques-Charles Dupont de l'Eure | ||||||||
| Legislature | Parliament | ||||||||
| Chamber of Peers | |||||||||
| Chamber of Deputies | |||||||||
| History | |||||||||
| 26–29 July 1830 | |||||||||
| 7 August 1830 | |||||||||
• End ofsecond Bourbon Restoration[2] | 9 August 1830 | ||||||||
| 22–24 February 1848 | |||||||||
| Currency | French franc | ||||||||
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| Today part of | France Algeria | ||||||||
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Ancien Régime
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TheJuly Monarchy (French:Monarchie de Juillet), officially theKingdom of France (French:Royaume de France), was aliberalconstitutional monarchy inFrance underLouis Philippe I, starting on 9 August 1830, with the revolutionary victory in theJuly Revolution of 1830, and ending on 24 February 1848, with theRevolution of 1848. It marks the end of theBourbon Restoration (1814–1830). It began with the overthrow of the conservative government ofCharles X, the last king of the main lineHouse of Bourbon.
Louis Philippe I, a member of the more liberalOrléans branch of the House of Bourbon, proclaimed himself asRoi des Français ("King of the French") rather than "King of France", emphasizing the popular origins of his reign. The king promised to follow thejuste milieu, or the middle-of-the-road, avoiding the extremes of both the conservative supporters of Charles X and radicals on the left.
The July Monarchy was dominated by wealthybourgeoisie and numerous formerNapoleonic officials. It followed conservative policies, especially under the influence ofFrançois Guizot. The king promoted friendship with theUnited Kingdom and sponsored colonial expansion, notably theFrench conquest of Algeria. By 1848, Louis Philippe I's popularity had collapsed, and he abdicated following the successfulFebruary Revolution, part of the largerrevolutions of 1848.
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The July Monarchy (1830–1848) is generally seen as a period during which thehaute bourgeoisie was dominant, and marked the shift from the counter-revolutionary Legitimists to theOrléanists. The Orléanists were willing to make some compromises with the changes brought by the1789 Revolution. For instance,Louis-Philippe was crowned "King of the French", instead of "King of France": this marked his acceptance of popular sovereignty.
Louis-Philippe, who had flirted withliberalism in his youth, rejected much of the pomp and circumstance of theBourbons and surrounded himself with merchants and bankers. The July Monarchy, however, ruled during a time of turmoil. A large group ofLegitimists onthe right demanded the restoration of theBourbons to the throne. On the left, Republicanism and later Socialism remained powerful forces. Late in his reignLouis-Philippe became increasingly rigid and dogmatic and refused to remove his deeply unpopularPresident of the CouncilFrançois Guizot. The situation gradually escalated until theRevolutions of 1848 resulted in the fall of the monarchy and the establishment of theSecond Republic.
During the first few years of his reign,Louis-Philippe took actions to develop legitimate, broad-based reform. The government found its source of legitimacy within theCharter of 1830, written by reform-minded members ofChamber of Deputies and committed to a platform of religious equality among Catholics and Protestants; the empowerment of the citizenry through the reestablishment of theNational Guard, electoral reform, reform of thepeerage system, and the lessening of royal authority.Louis-Philippe and his ministers adhered to policies that seemed to promote the central tenets of the constitution. However, the majority of these policies were veiled attempts to shore up the power and influence of the government and the bourgeoisie, rather than legitimate attempts to promote equality and empowerment for a broad constituency of the French population.[citation needed] Thus, though the July Monarchy seemed to move toward reform, this movement was largely illusory.
During the years of the July Monarchy,enfranchisement roughly doubled, from 94,000 under Charles X to more than 200,000 men by 1848.[citation needed] But, this number still represented only roughly one percent of population and a small number of those men of eligible age. The extended franchise tended to favor the wealthy merchant bourgeoisie more than any other group as theright to vote was related to payment of a certain level oftaxes. Beyond resulting in the election of more bourgeoisie to the Chamber of Deputies, this electoral expansion meant that the bourgeoisie could politically challenge the nobility on legislative matters. Thus, while appearing to honor his pledge to increase suffrage,Louis-Philippe acted primarily to empower his supporters and increase his hold over the French Parliament. The election of only the wealthiest men tended to undermine any possibility for growth of a radical faction in Parliament, and effectively served socially conservative ends.
The reformed Charter of 1830 limited the power of the king, stripping him of his ability to propose and decree legislation, as well as limiting his executive authority. However,Louis-Philipe believed in a kind of monarchy in which the king was more than a figurehead for an elected Parliament, and as such, he was deeply involved in legislative affairs. One of his first acts in creating his government was to appoint the conservativeCasimir Pierre Perier as the premier of his cabinet.Perier, a banker, was instrumental in shutting down many of the Republican secret societies andlabor unions that had formed during the early years of the regime. In addition, he oversaw the dismemberment of the National Guard after it proved too supportive of radical ideologies. He conducted these actions with royal approval. He was once quoted as saying that the source of French misery was the belief that there had been a revolution. "NoMonsieur," he said to another minister, "there has not been a revolution: there is simply a change at the head of state."[citation needed]
Perier andFrançois Guizot, thenMinister of the Interior, enforced the conservatism of the July Monarchy. The regime acknowledged early on thatradicalism and republicanism threatened it, as they undermined itslaissez-faire policies. In 1834 the Monarchy declared the term "republican" illegal.Guizot shut down republican clubs and disbanded republican publications. Republicans within the cabinet, such as the bankerDupont, were all but excluded byPerier and his conservative clique. Distrusting the National Guard,Louis-Philippe increased the size of thearmy and reformed it in order to ensure its loyalty to the government.
Two factions always persisted in the cabinet, split between liberal conservatives such as Guizot (le parti de la Résistance, the Party of Resistance) and liberal reformers such as the journalistAdolphe Thiers (le parti du Mouvement, the Party of Movement), the latter never gained prominence.Perier was succeeded as premier byCount Molé, another conservative. Thiers, a reformer, succeededMolé but was later sacked by Louis-Philippe after attempting to pursue an aggressive foreign policy. After Thiers the conservativeGuizot was selected as premier.
In particular, theGuizot administration was marked by increasinglyauthoritarian crackdowns on republicanism and dissent, and an increasingly pro-business policy. This policy included protectivetariffs that defended the status quo and enriched French businessmen.Guizot's government granted railway and mining contracts to the bourgeois supporters of the government, and contributed some of the start-up costs of these enterprises. As workers under these policies had no legal right to assemble, unionize, or petition the government for increased pay or decreased hours, the July Monarchy underPerier,Molé, andGuizot generally proved detrimental to the lower classes.Guizot's advice to those who were disenfranchised by the tax-based electoral requirements was "enrichissez-vous" (enrich yourselves).
Louis Phillipe was pushed to the throne by an alliance between the people of Paris; therepublicans, who had set up barricades in the capital; and theliberalbourgeoisie. However, at the end of his reign, the so-called "Citizen King" was overthrown by similar citizen uprisings and use of barricades during theFebruary Revolution of 1848. This resulted in the proclamation of theSecond Republic.[3]
AfterLouis-Philippe's ousting and subsequent exile to Britain, the liberalOrléanist faction (opposed by thecounter-revolutionaryLegitimists) continued to support a return of theHouse of Orléans to the throne. But the July Monarchy proved to be the lastBourbon-Orleans monarchy ofFrance (although monarchy was re-established underNapoleon Bonaparte's nephew, who reigned asNapoleon III from 1852 to 1870). TheLegitimists withdrew from politics to their castles, leaving the way open for the struggle between theOrléanists and theRepublicans.
Following the ouster ofNapoleon Bonaparte in 1814, the Coalitions restored theBourbon Dynasty to theFrench throne. The ensuing period, theBourbon Restoration, was characterized by conservative reaction and the re-establishment of theRoman Catholic Church as one of the main powers inFrench politics. The relatively moderateComte de Provence, brother of the deposed-and-executedLouis XVI, ruled asLouis XVIII from 1814 to 1824 and was succeeded by his more conservative younger brother, the formerComte d'Artois, ruling asCharles X from 1824. In May 1825 he had anelaborate coronation inReims Cathedral which harkened back to the pre-revolutionary monarchy.
Despite the return of the House of Bourbon to power, France was much changed from the era of theancien régime. The egalitarianism and liberalism of the revolutionaries remained an important force and the autocracy and hierarchy of the earlier era could not be fully restored. Economic changes, which had been underway long before the revolution, had progressed further during the years of turmoil and were firmly entrenched by 1815. These changes had seen power shift from the noble landowners to the urban merchants. The administrative reforms of Napoleon, such as theNapoleonic Code and efficient bureaucracy, also remained in place. These changes produced a unified central government that was fiscally sound and had much control over all areas of French life, a sharp difference from the complicated mix of feudal and absolutist traditions and institutions of pre-Revolutionary Bourbons.
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Louis XVIII, for the most part, accepted that much had changed. However, he was pushed on hisright by theUltra-royalists, led by thecomte de Villèle, who condemned thedoctrinaires' attempt to reconcile the Revolution with the monarchy through aconstitutional monarchy. Instead, theChambre introuvable, elected in 1815, first banished allConventionnels who had voted for Louis XVI's death and then passed similarreactionary laws. Louis XVIII was forced to dissolve this Chamber, dominated by theUltras, in 1816, fearing a popular uprising. The liberals thus governed until the 1820 assassination of theDuke of Berry, nephew of the king and known supporter of the Ultras, which broughtVillèle's Ultras back to power (vote of theAnti-Sacrilege Act in 1825, and of theloi sur le milliard des émigrés, 'Act on the émigrés' billions'). His brotherCharles X, however, took a far more conservative approach. He attempted to compensate the aristocrats for what they had lost in the revolution, curbed the freedom of the press, and reasserted the power of the Church. In 1830 the discontent caused by these changes and Charles' authoritarian nomination of the Ultraprince de Polignac as minister culminated in an uprising in the streets of Paris, known as the 1830July Revolution. Charles was forced to flee andLouis-Philippe d'Orléans, a member of theOrléans branch of the family, and son ofPhilippe Égalité who had voted the death of his cousin Louis XVI, ascended the throne. Louis-Philippe ruled, not as "King of France" but as "King of the French" (an evocative difference for contemporaries).
On 7 August 1830, the1814 Charter was revised. The preamble reviving theAncien Régime was suppressed, and theKing of France became the "King of the French", (also known as the "Citizen King") establishing the principle ofnational sovereignty over the principle of thedivine right. The new Charter was a compromise between theDoctrinaires opposition to Charles X and the Republicans. Laws enforcing Catholicism andcensorship were repealed and the revolutionarytricolor flag re-established.
Louis-Philippe pledged his oath to the1830 Charter on 9 August setting up the beginnings of the July Monarchy. Two days later, the first cabinet was formed, gathering the constitutionalist opposition to Charles X, includingCasimir Perier, the bankerJacques Laffitte,Count Molé, theduke of Broglie,François Guizot, etc. The new government's first aim was to restore public order, while at the same time appearing to acclaim the revolutionary forces which had just triumphed. Assisted by the people of Paris in overthrowing the Legitimists, the Orléanist bourgeoisie had to establish its new order.
Louis-Philippe decided on 13 August 1830 to adopt the arms of the House of Orléans as state symbols. Reviewing a parade of the Parisian National Guard on 29 August which acclaimed the adoption, he exclaimed to its leader,Lafayette: "This is worth more to me thancoronation at Reims!".[4] The new regime then decided on 11 October that all people injured during the revolution (500 orphans, 500 widows and 3,850 people injured) would be given financial compensation and presented a draft law indemnifying them in the amount of 7 million francs, also creating a commemorative medal for the July Revolutionaries.
Ministers lost theirhonorifics ofMonseigneur andExcellence and became simplyMonsieur le ministre. The new king's older son,Ferdinand-Philippe, was given the title ofDuke of Orléans and Prince Royal, while his daughters and his sister,Adélaïde d'Orléans, were named princesses of Orléans – and not of France, since there was no longer any "King of France" nor "House of France".
Unpopular laws passed during the Restoration were repealed, including the 1816 amnesty law which had banished theregicides – with the exception of article 4, concerning theBonaparte family. The Church ofSainte-Geneviève was once again returned to its functions as a secular building, named thePanthéon. Various budget restrictions were imposed on the Catholic Church, while the 1825Anti-Sacrilege Act which envisioned death penalties for sacrilege was repealed.
Civil unrest continued for three months, supported by theleft-wing press.Louis-Philippe's government was not able to put an end to it, mostly because theNational Guard was headed by one of the Republican leaders, theMarquis de La Fayette, who advocated a "popular throne surrounded by Republican institutions". The Republicans then gathered themselves in popular clubs, in the tradition established by the1789 Revolution. Some of those were fronts forsecret societies (for example, theBlanquistSociété des Amis du Peuple [fr]), which sought political and social reforms, or the execution of Charles X's ministers (Jules de Polignac,Jean de Chantelauze, theCount de Peyronnet and theMartial de Guernon-Ranville). Strikes and demonstrations were permanent.[5]
In order to stabilize the economy and finally secure public order, in the autumn of 1830 the government had the Assembly vote a credit of 5 million francs to subsidize public works, mostly roads. Then, to prevent bankruptcies and the increase of unemployment, especially in Paris, the government issued a guarantee for firms encountering difficulties, granting them 60 million francs. These subsidies mainly went into the pockets of big entrepreneurs aligned with the new regime, such as the printerFirmin Didot.
The death of thePrince ofCondé on 27 August 1830, who was found hanged, caused the first scandal of the July Monarchy. Without proof, the Legitimists quickly accusedLouis-Philippe and the QueenMarie-Amélie of having assassinated theultra-royalist Prince, with the alleged motive of allowing their son, theDuke of Aumale, to get his hands on his fortune. It is however commonly accepted[weasel words] that the Prince died as a result of sex games with his mistress, theBaronessde Feuchères.[citation needed]
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Meanwhile, the government expelled from the administration allLegitimist supporters who refused to pledge allegiance to the new regime, leading to the return to political affairs of most of the personnel of theFirst Empire, who had themselves been expelled during the Second Restoration. This renewal of political and administrative staff was humorously illustrated by avaudeville ofJean-François Bayard.[6] The Minister of the Interior,Guizot, re-appointed the entireprefectoral administration and the mayors of large cities. The Minister of Justice,Dupont de l'Eure, assisted by his secretary general,Mérilhou, dismissed most of the public prosecutors. In the Army, theGeneral de Bourmont, a follower of Charles X who was commanding theinvasion of Algeria, was replaced byBertrand Clauzel. Generals, ambassadors, plenipotentiary ministers and half of theConseil d'État were replaced. In theChamber of Deputies, a quarter of the seats (119) were submitted to a new election in October, leading to the defeat of the Legitimists.
In sociological terms, however, this renewal of political figures did not mark any great change of elites. The old land-owners, civil servants and liberal professions continued to dominate the state of affairs, leading the historianDavid H. Pinkney to deny any claim of a "new regime of agrande bourgeoisie".[7]
Although some voices began to push for the closure of the Republican clubs, which fomented revolutionary agitation, the Minister of Justice,Dupont de l'Eure, and the Parisian public prosecutor, Bernard, both Republicans, refused to prosecute revolutionary associations (the French law prohibited meetings of more than 20 persons).
However, on 25 September 1830, the Minister of InteriorGuizot responded to a deputy's question on the subject by stigmatizing the "revolutionary state", which he conflated with chaos, to which he opposed theGlorious Revolution in England in 1688.[8]
Two political currents thereafter made their appearance, and would structure political life under the July Monarchy: theMovement Party and theResistance Party. The first wasreformist and in favor of support to the nationalists who were trying, all over of Europe, to shake the grip of the various Empires in order to createnation-states. Its mouthpiece wasLe National. The second was conservative and supported peace with European monarchs, and had as mouthpieceLe Journal des débats.
Thetrial of Charles X's ministers, arrested in August 1830 while they were fleeing, became the major political issue. Theleft demanded their heads, but this was opposed byLouis-Philippe, who feared a spiral of violence and the renewal ofrevolutionary Terror. Thus, on 27 September 1830 the Chamber of Deputies passed a resolution charging the former ministers, but at the same time, in an address to KingLouis-Philippe on 8 October, invited him to present a draft law repealing thedeath penalty, at least for political crimes. This in turn provoked popular discontent on 17 and 18 October, with the masses marching on theChâteau de Vincennes where the former ministers were detained.
Following these riots, Interior Minister Guizot requested the resignation of thePrefect of the Seine,Odilon Barrot, who had criticized the parliamentarians' address to the king. Supported byVictor de Broglie, Guizot considered that an important civil servant could not criticize an act of the Chamber of Deputies, particularly when it had been approved by the King and his government.Dupont de l'Eure tookBarrot's side, threatening to resign if the king disavowed him. The bankerLaffitte, one of the main figures of theParti du mouvement, thereupon put himself forward to coordinate the ministers with the title of "President of the Council". This immediately led Broglie and Guizot, of theParti de l'Ordre, to resign, followed byCasimir Perier,André Dupin, theCount Molé andJoseph-Dominique Louis. Confronted to theParti de l'Ordre's defeat,Louis-Philippe decided to putLaffitte to trial, hoping that the exercise of power would discredit him. He thus called him to form a new government on 2 November 1830.
Although Louis-Philippe strongly disagreed with the bankerLaffitte and secretly pledged to the Duke of Broglie that he would not support him at all, the new President of the Council was tricked into trusting his king.
The trial of Charles X's former ministers took place from 15 to 21 December 1830 before theChamber of Peers, surrounded by rioters demanding their death. They were finally sentenced to life detention, accompanied bycivil death forPolignac.La Fayette's National Guard maintained public order in Paris, affirming itself as the bourgeois watchdog of the new regime, while the new Interior Minister,Camille de Montalivet, kept the former ministers safe by detaining them in the Château de Vincennes.
But by demonstrating the National Guard's importance,La Fayette had made his position delicate, and he was quickly forced to resign. This led to the Minister of JusticeDupont de l'Eure's resignation. In order to avoid exclusive dependence on the National Guard, the "Citizen King" chargedMarshal Soult, the newMinister of War, with reorganizing theArmy. In February 1831,Soult presented his project, aiming to increase the military's effectiveness. Among other reforms, the project included the 9 March 1831 law creating theForeign Legion.
In the meantime, the government enacted various reforms demanded by theParti du Mouvement, which had been set out in the Charter (art. 69). The 21 March 1831 law onmunicipal councils reestablished the principle of election and enlarged the electorate (founded oncensus suffrage) which was thus increased tenfold in comparison with the legislative elections (approximately 2 to 3 million electors from a total population of 32,6 million). The 22 March 1831 law re-organized the National Guard; the 19 April 1831 law, voted after two months of debate in Parliament and promulgated afterLaffitte's downfall, decreased the electoral income level from 300 to 200 francs and the level for eligibility from 1,000 to 500 francs. The number of voters thereby increased from less than 100,000 to 166,000: one Frenchman in 170 possessed the right to vote, and the number of constituencies rose from 430 to 459.
Despite these reforms, which targeted the bourgeoisie rather than the people, Paris was once again rocked by riots on 14 and 15 February 1831, leading toLaffitte's downfall. The immediate cause of the riots was a funeral service organized by theLegitimists atSaint-Germains l'Auxerrois Church in memory of theultra-royalistDuke of Berry, assassinated in 1820. The commemoration turned into a political demonstration in favor ofHenri, Count of Chambord, Legitimist pretender to the throne. Seeing in this celebration an intolerable provocation, the Republican rioters ransacked the church two days in a row, before turning on other churches. The revolutionary movement spread to other cities.
Confronted with renewed unrest, the government abstained from any strong repression. The prefect of the SeineOdilon Barrot, theprefect of policeJean-Jacques Baude, and the new commandant of the National Guard, GeneralGeorges Mouton, remained passive, triggeringGuizot's indignation, as well as the RepublicanArmand Carrel's criticisms against the demagogy of the government. Far from suppressing the crowds, the government had theArchbishop of ParisMgr de Quélen arrested, as well as charging the friar ofSaint-Germain-l'Auxerrois and other priests, along with some other monarchists, with having provoked the masses.
In a gesture of appeasement,Laffitte, supported by the Prince RoyalFerdinand-Philippe, Duke ofOrléans, proposed to the king that he remove thefleur-de-lys, symbol of theAncien Régime, from the state seal. With obvious displeasure,Louis-Philippe finally signed the 16 February 1831 ordinance substituting for the arms of the House of Orléans a shield with an open book, on which could be read "Charte de 1830". Thefleur-de-lys, was also removed from public buildings, etc. This new defeat of the king sealedLaffitte's fate.
On 19 February 1831,Guizot verbally attackedLaffitte in the Chamber of Deputies, daring him to dissolve the Chamber and present himself before the electors.Laffitte accepted, but the king, who was the only one entitled to dissolve the Chamber, preferred to wait a few days more. In the meanwhile, the Prefect of the SeineOdilon Barrot was replaced byTaillepied de Bondy atMontalivet's request, and the prefect of policeJean-Jacques Baude byVivien de Goubert. To make matters worse, in this insurrectionary climate, theeconomic situation was fairly bad.
Louis-Philippe finally trickedLaffitte into resigning by having his Minister of Foreign Affairs,Horace Sébastiani, pass him a note written by the French ambassador toVienna,Marshal Maison, and which had arrived in Paris on 4 March 1831, which announced an imminentAustrian intervention in Italy. Learning of this note inLe Moniteur of 8 March,Laffitte requested an immediate explanations fromSébastiani, who replied that he had followed royal orders. After a meeting with the king,Laffitte submitted to the Council of Ministers a belligerent program, and was subsequently disavowed, forcing him to resign. Most of his ministers had already negotiated their positions in the forthcoming government.
Having succeeded in outdoing theParti du Mouvement, the "Citizen King" called to power theParti de la Résistance. However,Louis-Philippe was not really much more comfortable with one side than with the other, being closer to the center. Furthermore, he felt no sympathy for its leader, the bankerCasimir Pierre Périer, who replacedLaffitte on 13 March 1831 as head of the government. His aim was more to re-establish order in the country, letting theParti de la Résistance assume responsibility for unpopular measures.
Périer, however, managed to impose his conditions on the king, including the pre-eminence of the President of the Council over other ministers, and his right to call cabinet councils outside of the actual presence of the king. Furthermore,Casimir Perier secured agreement that the liberal Prince Royal,Ferdinand-Philippe d'Orléans, would cease to participate to the Council of Ministers. Despite this,Perier valued the king's prestige, calling on him, on 21 September 1831, to move from his family residence, thePalais-Royal, to the royal palace, theTuileries.
The bankerPérier established the new government's principles on 18 March 1831: ministerial solidarity and the authority of the government over the administration: "the principle of the July Revolution... is not insurrection... it is resistance to the aggression the power"[9] and, internationally, "a pacific attitude and the respect of the non-intervention principle". The vast majority of the Chamber applauded the new government and granted him a comfortable majority.Périer harnessed the support of the cabinet through oaths of solidarity and strict discipline for dissenters. He excluded reformers from official discourse, and abandoned the regime's unofficial policy of mediating in labor disputes in favor of a strictlaissez-faire policy that favored employers.
On 14 March 1831, on the initiative of a patriotic society created by the mayor ofMetz,Jean-Baptiste Bouchotte, the opposition's press launched a campaign to gather funds to create a national association aimed at struggling against anyBourbon Restoration and the risks of foreign invasion. All the major figures of the Republican Left (La Fayette,Dupont de l'Eure,Jean Maximilien Lamarque,Odilon Barrot, etc.) supported it. Local committees were created all over France, leading the new president of the Council,Casimir Périer, to issue a circular prohibiting civil servants from membership of this association, which he accused of challenging the state itself by implicitly accusing it of not fulfilling its proper duties.
In the beginning of April 1831, the government took some unpopular measures, forcing several important personalities to resign:Odilon Barrot was dismissed from theCouncil of State, GeneralLamarque's military command suppressed,Bouchotte and theMarquis de Laborde forced to resign. When on 15 April 1831 theCour d'assises acquitted several young Republicans (Godefroy Cavaignac,Joseph Guinard andAudry de Puyraveau's son), mostly officers of the National Guard who had been arrested during the December 1830 troubles following the trial of Charles X's ministers, new riots acclaimed the news on 15–16 April. ButPérier, implementing the 10 April 1831 law outlawing public meetings, used the military as well as the National Guard to dissolve the crowds. In May, the government usedfire hoses ascrowd control techniques for the first time.
Another riot, started on theRue Saint-Denis on 14 June 1831, degenerated into an open battle against the National Guard, assisted by theDragoons and the infantry. The riots continued on 15 and 16 June.
The major unrest, however, took place inLyon with theCanuts Revolt, started on 21 November 1831, and during which parts of the National Guard took the demonstrators' side. In two days, the Canuts took control of the city and expelledGeneral Roguet and the mayorVictor Prunelle. On 25 NovemberCasimir Périer announced to the Chamber of Deputies thatMarshal Soult, assisted by the Prince Royal, would immediately march on Lyon with 20,000 men. They entered the city on 3 December re-establishing order without any bloodshed.
Civil unrest, however, continued, and not only in Paris. On 11 March 1832,sedition exploded inGrenoble during thecarnival. The prefect had canceled the festivities after a grotesque mask ofLouis-Philippe had been displayed, leading to popular demonstrations. The prefect then tried to have the National Guard disperse the crowd, but the latter refused to go, forcing him to call on the army. The 35th regiment of infantry (infanterie de ligne) obeyed the orders, but this in turn led the population to demand their expulsion from the city. This was done on 15 March and the 35th regiment was replaced by the 6th regiment, from Lyon. WhenCasimir Perier learnt the news, he dissolved the National Guard of Grenoble and immediately recalled the 35th regiment to the city.
Beside this continuing unrest, in every province,Dauphiné,Picardy, inCarcassonne,Alsace, etc., various Republican conspiracies threatened the government (conspiracy of theTours de Notre-Dame in January 1832, of therue des Prouvaires in February 1832, etc.) Even the trials of suspects were seized on by the Republicans as an opportunity to address the people: at the trial of theBlanquistSociété des Amis du peuple in January 1832,Raspail harshly criticized the king whileAuguste Blanqui gave free vein to his socialist ideas. All of the accused denounced the government'styranny, the incredibly high cost ofLouis-Philippe's civil list, police persecutions, etc. The omnipresence of theFrench police, organized during theFrench First Empire byFouché, was depicted by the Legitimist writerBalzac inSplendeurs et misères des courtisanes. The strength of the opposition led the Prince Royal to shift his view somewhat further to the right.
In the second half of May 1831,Louis-Philippe, accompanied byMarshal Soult, started an official visit toNormandy andPicardy, where he was well received. From 6 June to 1 July 1831, he traveled in the east, where there was stronger Republican andBonapartist activity, along with his two elder sons, thePrince Royal and theDuke of Nemours, as well as with thecomte d'Argout. The king stopped inMeaux,Château-Thierry,Châlons-sur-Marne (renamedChâlons-en-Champagne in 1998),Valmy,Verdun andMetz. There, in the name of the municipal council, the mayor made a very political speech in which he expressed the wish to havepeerages abolished, adding that France should intervene in Poland to assist theNovember Uprising against Russia. Louis-Philippe flatly rejected all of these aspirations, stating that the municipal councils and the National Guard had no standing in such matters. The king continued his visit toNancy,Lunéville,Strasbourg,Colmar,Mulhouse,Besançon andTroyes, and his visits were, on the whole, occasions to re-affirm his authority.
Louis-Philippe decided in theChâteau de Saint-Cloud, on 31 May 1831, to dissolve the Chamber of Deputies, fixing legislative elections for 5 July 1831. However, he signed another ordinance on 23 June inColmar in order to have the elections put back to 23 July 1831, so as to avoid the risk of Republican agitation during the commemorations of the July Revolution. Thegeneral election of 1831 took place without incident, according to the new electoral law of 19 April 1831. However, the results disappointed the king and the president of the Council,Périer: more than half of the outgoing deputies were re-elected, and their political positions were unknown. TheLegitimists obtained 104 seats, theOrléanist Liberals 282 and theRepublicans 73.
On 23 July 1831, the king set outCasimir Périer's program in thespeech from the Throne: strict application of the Charter at home and strict defense of the interests of France and its independence abroad.
The deputies in the chamber then voted for theirPresident, electingBaron Girod de l'Ain, the government's candidate, on the second round. He gained 181 votes to the bankerLaffitte's 176. ButDupont de l'Eure gained the first vice presidency with 182 voices out of a total of 344, defeating the government's candidate,André Dupin, who had only 153 votes.Casimir Périer, who considered that his parliamentary majority was not strong enough, decided to resign.
Louis-Philippe thereafter turned towardsOdilon Barrot, who refused to assume governmental responsibilities, pointing out that he had only a hundred deputies in the Chamber. However, during the 2 and 2 August 1831 elections ofquesteurs and secretaries, the Chamber elected mostly government candidates such asAndré Dupin andBenjamin Delessert, who obtained a strong majority against a far-left candidate,Eusèbe de Salverte. Finally,William I of the Netherlands's decision to invadeBelgium – theBelgian Revolution had taken place the preceding year – on 2 August 1831, constrainedCasimir Perier to remain in power in order to respond to the Belgians' request for help.
During the parliamentary debates concerning France's imminent intervention in Belgium, several deputies, led byBaron Bignon, unsuccessfully requested similar intervention to support Polish independence. However, at the domestic level,Casimir Perier decided to back down before the dominant opposition, and satisfied an old demand of the Left by abolishing hereditary peerages. Finally, the 2 March 1832 law onLouis-Philippe'scivil list fixed it at 12 million francs a year, and one million for the Prince Royal, the Duke ofOrléans. The 28 April 1832 law, named after the Justice MinisterFélix Barthe, reformed the 1810Penal Code and theCode d'instruction criminelle.
Thecholerapandemic that originated in India in 1815 reached Paris around 20 March 1832 and killed more than 13,000 people in April. The pandemic would last until September 1832, killing in total 100,000 in France, with 20,000 in Paris alone.[10] The disease, the origins of which were unknown at the time, provoked a popular panic. The people of Paris suspected poisoners, while scavengers and beggars revolted against the authoritarian measures ofpublic health.
According to the 20th-century historian and philosopherMichel Foucault, the cholera outbreak was first fought by what he called "social medicine", which focused on flux, circulation of air, location of cemeteries, etc. All of these concerns, born of themiasma theory of disease, were thus concerned withurbanist concerns of the management of populations.
Cholera also struck the royal princessMadame Adélaïde, as well asd'Argout andGuizot.Casimir Périer, who on 1 April 1832 visited the patients at theHôtel-Dieu with the Prince Royal, contracted the disease. He resigned his ministerial activities before dying of cholera on 16 May 1832.
King Louis-Philippe did not regret the departure ofCasimir Périer from the political scene, as he complained thatPérier took all the credit for the government's policy successes, while he himself had to assume all the criticism for its failures.[11] The "Citizen King" was therefore not in any hurry to find a new President of the Council, all the more since the Parliament was in recess and that the troubled situation demanded swift and energetic measures.
Indeed, the regime was being attacked on all sides. The LegitimistDuchess of Berry attempted anuprising in spring 1832 [fr] inProvence andVendée, a stronghold of theultra-royalists, while the Republicans headed an insurrection in Paris on 5 June 1832, on the occasion of the funeral of one of their leaders,General Lamarque, also struck dead by the cholera.General Mouton crushed the rebellion. (Victor Hugo later described the scene in his 1862 novelLes Misérables.)
This double victory, over both Legitimists and the Republicans, was a success for the July Monarchy regime.[12] Furthermore, the death of theDuke of Reichstadt (Napoleon II) on 22 July 1832, inVienna, marked another setback for theBonapartist opposition.
Finally,Louis-Philippe married his elder daughter,Louise d'Orléans, to the newly-appointed King of the Belgians,Leopold I, on the anniversary of the establishment of the July Monarchy (9 August). Since theArchbishop of Paris,Quélen (a Legitimist), refused to celebrate this mixed marriage between a Catholic and a Lutheran, the wedding took place in theChâteau de Compiègne. This royal alliance strengthenedLouis-Philippe's position abroad.
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Louis-Philippe called a trusted man,Marshal Soult, to the Presidency of the Council in October 1832.Soult was supported by a triumvirate composed of the main politicians of that time:Adolphe Thiers, theduc de Broglie andFrançois Guizot. The conservativeJournal des débats spoke of a "coalition of all talents",[13] while the King of the French would eventually speak, with obvious disappointment, of a "Casimir Périer in three persons". In a circular addressed to the high civil-servants and military officers, the new President of the Council,Soult, stated that he would explicitly follow the policies ofPérier ("order at home", "peace abroad") and denounced both the Legitimist right-wing opposition and the Republican left-wing opposition.
The new Minister of Interior,Adolphe Thiers, had his first success on 7 November 1832 with the arrest inNantes of the rebellious Duchess of Berry, who was detained in the citadel ofBlaye. The duchess was then expelled toPalermo in theKingdom of the Two Sicilies on 8 June 1833.
The opening of the parliamentary session on 19 November 1832, was a success for the regime. The governmental candidate,André Dupin, was easily elected on the first round as President of the Chamber, with 234 votes against 136 for the candidate of the opposition,Jacques Laffitte.
In Belgium,MarshalGérard assisted the young Belgian monarchy with 70,000 men, taking back the citadel ofAntwerp, which capitulated on 23 December 1832.
Strengthened by these recent successes,Louis-Philippe initiated two visits to the provinces, first into the north to meet with the victorious MarshalGérard and his men, and then intoNormandy, where Legitimist troubles continued, from August to September 1833. In order to conciliate public opinion, the members of the new government took some popular measures, such as a program ofpublic works, leading to the completion of theArc de Triomphe in Paris, and the re-establishment, on 21 June 1833, ofNapoleon's statue on theColonne Vendôme. TheMinister of Public Instruction and Cults,François Guizot, had the famouslaw on primary education passed in June 1833, leading to the creation of an elementary school in eachcommune.
Finally, a ministerial change was enacted after the Dukede Broglie's resignation on 1 April 1834.Broglie had found himself in a minority in the Chamber concerning the ratification of a treaty signed with the United States in 1831. This was a source of satisfaction for the king, as it removed from the triumvirate the individual he disliked the most.
The ministerial change coincided with the return of violent unrest in various cities of France. At the end of February 1834, a new law that subjected the activities oftown criers to public authorization led to several days of confrontations with the police. Furthermore, the 10 April 1834 law, primarily aimed against the RepublicanSociety of the Rights of Man (Société des Droits de l'Homme), envisioned a crack-down on non-authorized associations. On 9 April 1834, when the Chamber of Peers was to vote on the law, the SecondCanut Revolt exploded in Lyon. The Minister of the Interior,Adolphe Thiers, decided to abandon the city to the insurgents, taking it back on 13 April with casualties of 100 to 200 dead on both sides.
The Republicans attempted to spread the insurrection to other cities, but failed inMarseille,Vienne,Poitiers andChâlons-sur-Marne. More serious Republican threats developed inGrenoble and especially inSaint-Étienne on 11 April, but finally public order was restored. The greater danger to the regime was, as often, in Paris. Expecting trouble,Thiers had concentrated 40,000 men there, who were visited by the king on 10 April. Furthermore,Thiers had made "preventive arrests" of 150 principalleaders of the Society of the Rights of Man and outlawed its mouthpiece,La Tribune des départements. Despite these measures, barricades were set up in the evening of 13 April 1834, leading to harsh repression, including a massacre of all the inhabitants (men, women, children and old people) of a house from where a shot had been fired. This incident was immortalized in a lithograph byHonoré Daumier.
To express their support for the monarchy, both Chambers gathered in thePalace of the Tuileries on 14 April. In a gesture of appeasement,Louis-Philippe canceled his feast-day celebration on 1 May, and publicly announced that the sums that were to have been used for these festivities would be dedicated to the orphans, widows and injured. In the same time, he ordered MarshalSoult to publicize these events widely across France (the provinces being more conservative than Paris), to convince them of the "necessary increase in the Army".[14]
More than 2,000 arrests were made following the riots, in particular in Paris and Lyon. The cases were referred to the Chamber of Peers, which, in accordance with art. 28 of the Charter of 1830, dealt with cases of conspiracy against state security (French:attentat contre la sûreté de l'État). The Republican movement was decapitated, so much that even the funeral ofLa Fayette (died 20 May 1834), passed with little incident. As early as 13 May the Chamber of Deputies voted a credit of 14 million in order to increase the army to 360,000 men. Two days later, they also adopted a very repressive law on detention and use of military weapons.
Louis-Philippe decided to seize the opportunity of dissolving the Chamber and organizingnew elections, which were held on 21 June 1834. However, the results were not as favorable to him as expected: although the Republicans were almost eliminated, the Opposition retained around 150 seats (approximately 30 Legitimists, the rest being followers ofOdilon Barrot, who was anOrléanist supporter of the regime, but headed theParti du mouvement). Furthermore, in the ranks of the majority itself, composed of about 300 deputies, a new faction, theTiers-Parti, led byAndré Dupin, could on some occasions defect from the majority and give its votes to the Left. On 31 July the new Chamber re-electedDupin as President of the Chamber with 247 votes against 33 forJacques Laffitte and 24 forPierre-Paul Royer-Collard. Furthermore, a large majority (256 against 39) voted an ambiguous address to the king which, although polite, did not abstain from criticizing him. The latter immediately decided, on 16 August 1834, to prorogue Parliament until the end of the year.
Thiers and Guizot, who dominated the triumvirate, decided to get rid of Marshal Soult, who was appreciated by the king for his compliant attitude. Seizing the opportunity of an incident concerning theFrench possessions in Algeria, they pushedSoult to resign on 18 July 1834. He was replaced byMarshalGérard, with the other ministers remaining in place.Gérard however, was forced to resign in turn, on 29 October 1834, over the question of an amnesty for the 2,000 prisoners detained in April.Louis-Philippe, theDoctrinaires (includingGuizot andThiers) and the core of the government opposed the amnesty, but theTiers-Parti managed to convinceGérard to announce it, underscoring the logistical difficulties in organizing such a large trial before the Chamber of Peers.
Gérard's resignation opened up a four-month ministerial crisis, untilLouis-Philippe finally assembled a government entirely from theTiers-Parti. However, afterAndré Dupin's refusal to assume its presidency, the king made the mistake of calling, on 10 November 1834, a figure from the First Empire, theduc de Bassano, to head his government. The latter, crippled with debts, became the object of public ridicule after his creditors decided to seize his ministerial salary. Alarmed, all the ministers decided to resign, three days later, without even advisingBassano, whose government became known as the "Three Days Ministry". On 18 November 1834,Louis-Philippe calledMarshalMortier, Duke ofTrévise, to the Presidency, and the latter formed exactly the same government asBassano. This crisis made theTiers-Parti ridiculous while theDoctrinaires triumphed.
On 1 December 1834,Mortier's government decided to submit amotion of confidence to the Parliament, obtaining a clear majority (184 votes to 117). Despite this,Mortier had to resign two months later, on 20 February 1835, officially for health reasons. The opposition had denounced a government without a leader, accusingMortier of beingLouis-Philippe's puppet. The same phrase thatThiers had spoken in opposition toCharles X, "the king reigns but does not rule" (le roi règne mais ne gouverne pas), was now addressed to the "Citizen King".
Thepolemics which led toMarshalMortier's resignation, fueled by monarchists such as BaronMassias and theCount ofRoederer, all turned around the question of parliamentary prerogative. On the one hand,Louis-Philippe wanted to be able to follow his own policy, in particular in "reserved domains" such as military affairs ordiplomacy. As the head of state, he also wanted to be able to lead the government, if need be by bypassing the President of the Council. On the other hand, a number of the deputies stated that the ministers needed a leader commanding a parliamentary majority, and thus wanted to continue the evolution towardsparliamentarism which had only been sketched out in theCharter of 1830. The Charter did not include any mechanism for the political accountability of ministers towards the Chamber (confidence motions or forcensorship motions). Furthermore, the function of the President of the Council itself was not even set out in the Charter.
In this context, the deputies decided to supportVictor de Broglie as head of the government, mainly because he was the king's least preferred choice, asLouis-Philippe disliked both his anglophilia and his independence. After a three-week ministerial crisis, during which the "Citizen King" successively called onCountMolé,André Dupin, MarshalSoult,GeneralSébastiani andGérard, he was finally forced to rely on theduc de Broglie and to accept his conditions, which were close to those imposed before byCasimir Périer.
As in the firstSoult government, the new cabinet rested on the triumvirate ofBroglie (Foreign affairs),Guizot (Public instruction), andThiers (Interior).Broglie's first act was to take a personal revenge on the Chamber by having it ratify (by 289 votes against 137) the 4 July 1831 treaty with the United States, something which the deputies had refused him in 1834. He also obtained a large majority on the debate over the secret funds, which worked as an unofficial motion of confidence (256 voices against 129).
Broglie's most important task was the trial of the April insurgents, which began on 5 May 1835 before the Chamber of Peers. The Peers finally convicted only 164 detainees on the 2,000 prisoners, of whom 43 were judgedin absentia. Those defendants who were present for their trial introduced a great many procedural delays, and attempted by all means to transform the trial into a platform forRepublicanism. On 12 July 1835, some of them, including the main leaders of the Parisian insurrection, escaped from thePrison ofSainte-Pélagie through a tunnel. The Court of Peers delivered its sentence on the insurgents of Lyon on 13 August 1835, and on the other defendants in December 1835 and January 1836. The sentences were rather mild: a few condemnations todeportation, many short prison sentences and some acquittals.
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Against their hopes, the trial finally turned to the Republicans' disadvantage, by giving them a radical image which reminded the public opinion of the excesses ofJacobinism and frightened the bourgeois. TheFieschiattentat of July 1835, which took place on Paris during a review of the National Guard byLouis-Philippe for the commemorations of the July Revolution, further scared the notables.
On theBoulevard du Temple, near thePlace de la République, avolley gun composed of 25 gun barrels mounted on a wooden frame was fired on the king from the upstairs window of a house. The King was only slightly injured, while his sons, Ferdinand Philippe, Duke of Orléans,Prince Louis, Duke of Nemours andFrançois d'Orléans, prince de Joinville, escaped unharmed. However, Marshal Mortier and ten other persons were killed, while tens were injured (among which seven died in the following days).
The conspirators, the adventurerGiuseppe Fieschi and two Republicans (Pierre Morey andThéodore Pépin) members of theSociety of Human Rights, were arrested in September 1835. Judged before the Court of Peers, they weresentenced to death andguillotined on 19 February 1836.
The Fieschi assassination attempt shocked the bourgeoisie and most of France, which was generally more conservative than the people of Paris. The Republicans were discredited in the country, and public opinion was ready for strong measures against them.
The first law reinforced the powers of the president of theCour d'assises and of thepublic prosecutor against those accused of rebellion, possession of prohibited weapons or attempted insurrection. It was adopted on 13 August 1835, by 212 votes to 72.
The second law reformed the procedure before the juries of the Assizes. The existing 4 March 1831 law confined the determination of guilt or innocence to the juries, excluding the professional magistrates belonging to theCour d'assises, and required a 2/3 majority (8 votes to 4) for a guilty verdict. The new law changed that to a simple majority (7 against 5), and was adopted on 20 August 1835 by 224 votes to 149.
The third law restrictedfreedom of press, and provoked passionate debates. It aimed at outlawing discussions concerning the king, the dynasty and constitutional monarchy, as it was alleged that these had prepared the ground for Fieschi's attempt. Despite a strong opposition to the draft, the law was approved on 29 August 1835 by 226 votes to 153.
These three laws were simultaneously promulgated on 9 September 1835, and marked the final success of the policy ofRésistance pursued against the Republicans since Casimir Périer. The July Monarchy was thereafter sure of its ground, with discussions concerning its legitimacy being completely outlawed. The Opposition could now only discuss the interpretation of the Charter and advocate an evolution towards parliamentarianism. Demands for the enlargement of the electoral base became more frequent, however, in 1840, leading to the re-appearance of Republican Opposition through the claim touniversal suffrage.
TheBroglie ministry, however, finally fell on a question concerning thepublic debt. The Minister of Finance,Georges Humann, announced on 14 January 1836 his intention to reduce the interest on government bonds in order to lighten the public debt, a very unpopular measure among the supporters of the regime, since bond interest was a fundamental component of the bourgeoisie's wealth. Therefore, the Council of Ministers immediately disavowedHumann, while the Dukede Broglie explained to the Chamber that his proposal was not supported by the government. However, his tone was judged insulting by the deputies, and one of them, the bankerAlexandre Goüin, immediately proposed a draft law concerning bonds himself. On 5 February 1836, a narrow majority of deputies (194 against 192) decided to continue the examination of the draft, thus disavowingBroglie's cabinet. The government immediately resigned: for the first time, a cabinet had fallen after having been put in a minority before the Chamber of Deputies, a sure victory of parliamentarianism.
Louis-Philippe then decided to pretend to play the parliamentary card, with the secret intention of neutralizing it. He took advantage of the ministerial crisis to get rid of theDoctrinaires (Broglie andGuizot), invited someTiers-Parti politicians to give an illusion of an opening to the Left, and finally called onAdolphe Thiers on 22 February 1836, in an attempt to convince him to distance himself from the liberal Doctrinaires, and also to use up his legitimacy in government, until the time came to call on CountMolé, whom the king had decided a long time before to make his President of the Council.Louis-Philippe thus separated the center-right from the center-left, strategically attempting to dissolve theTiers-Parti, a dangerous game since this could also lead to the dissolving of the parliamentary majority itself and create endless ministerial crises. Furthermore, as theduc de Broglie himself warned him, whenThiers was eventually pushed out, he would shift decisively to the Left and transform himself in a particularly dangerous opponent.
In the Chamber, the debate on the secret funds, marked by a notable speech byGuizot and an evasive response by the Justice Minister,Sauzet, was concluded with a favorable vote for the government (251 votes to 99). On the other hand, the draft proposal on government bonds was easily postponed by the deputies on 22 March 1836, another sign that it had been only a pretext.
Thiers' motivations for accepting the position of head of the government and taking the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well were to enable him to negotiate the Duke of Orléans's wedding with an Austrian archduchess. Since theFieschi attempt,Ferdinand-Philippe's wedding (he had just reached 25) had become an obsession of the king, andThiers wanted to effect a spectacular reversion of alliances in Europe, asChoiseul had done before him. ButMetternich and the archduchessSophie of Bavaria, who dominated the court in Vienna, rejected an alliance with the House of Orléans, which they deemed too unstable.
Another assassination attempt againstLouis-Philippe, byLouis Alibaud on 25 June 1836, justified their fears. These two setbacks upsetThiers. On 29 July 1836, the inauguration of theArc de Triomphe, intended to be the scene of a ceremony of national concord, during which the July Monarchy would harness the glory of theRevolution and of theEmpire, finally took place, quietly and unceremoniously, at seven in the morning and without the king being present.
To re-establish his popularity and in order to take his revenge on Austria,Thiers was considering a military intervention in Spain, requested by the Queen RegentMarie Christine de Bourbon who was confronted by theCarlist rebellion. ButLouis-Philippe, advised byTalleyrand andSoult, strongly opposed the intervention, which led to Thiers's resignation. This new event, in which the government had fallen not because of parliament but because of a disagreement with the king on foreign policy, demonstrated that the evolution towards parliamentarianism was far from being assured.
CountMolé formed a new government on 6 September 1836, including theDoctrinairesGuizot,Tanneguy Duchâtel andAdrien de Gasparin. This new cabinet did not include any veterans of the July Revolution, something the press immediately highlighted.Molé immediately took some humane measures in order to assure his popularity: the general adoption of smallprison cells to avoid "mutual teaching of crime", abolition ofchain gangs exposed to the public, and a royalpardon for 52 political prisoners (Legitimists and Republicans), in particular for Charles X' former ministers. On 25 October 1836, the inauguration of theObelisk of Luxor (a gift from theWali of Egypt,Muhammad Ali Pasha) on thePlace de la Concorde was the scene of a public ovation for the King.
On 30 October 1836,Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte attempted an uprising inStrasbourg, which was quickly put down and the Bonapartist prince and his accomplices were arrested on the same day. The king, wanting to avoid a public trial, and without legal proceedings, ordered thatLouis-Napoléon be taken toLorient where he was put on board the frigateL'Andromède, which sailed for the United States on 21 November. The other conspirators were brought before theCour d'assises of Strasbourg, which acquitted them on 18 January 1837.
Thereafter, on 24 January 1837, the Minister of War,GeneralSimon Bernard, proposed a draft law –loi de disjonction – aimed, in case of insurrection, at separating civilians, who would be judged by theCour d'assises, and non-civilians, who would be judged by awar council. The opposition adamantly rejected the proposal, and surprisingly managed to have the whole Chamber reject it, on 7 March 1837, by a very slim majority of 211 votes to 209.
However,Louis-Philippe decided to go against public expectation, and the logic of parliamentarianism, by maintaining theMolé government in place. But the government was deprived of any solid parliamentary majority, and thus paralyzed. For a month and a half, the king tried various ministerial combinations before forming a new government which includedCamille de Montalivet, who was close to him, but which excludedGuizot, who had more and more difficulty working withMolé, who was once again confirmed as head of the government.
This new government was almost a provocation for the Chamber: not only was Molé retained, butde Salvandy, who had been in charge of theloi de disjonction, andLacave-Laplagne, in charge of a draft law concerning the Belgian Queen'sdowry – both having been rejected by the deputies – were also members of the new cabinet. The press spoke of a "Cabinet of the castle" or "Cabinet of lackeys", and all expected it to be short-lived.
However, in his first speech, on 18 April 1837,Molé cut short his critics with the announcement of the future wedding of Ferdinand Philippe, Duke of Orléans (styled as thePrince Royal) with theDuchess Helene of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Taken by surprise, the deputies voted for the increase of the dowry of both the Duke of Orléans, which had been previously rejected, and theQueen of the Belgians.
After this promising beginning, in MayMolé's government managed to secure Parliament's confidence during the debate on the secret funds, despiteOdilon Barrot's attacks (250 votes to 112). An 8 May 1837 ordinance granted general amnesty to all political prisoners, while crucifixes were re-established in the courts, and theChurch ofSaint-Germain l'Auxerrois, closed since 1831, was authorized to renew religious activities. To demonstrate that public order had been restored, the king passed reviewed the National Guard on thePlace de la Concorde. On 30 May 1837, the Duke of Orléans' wedding was celebrated at thechâteau de Fontainebleau.
A few days later, on 10 JuneLouis-Philippe inaugurated theChâteau de Versailles, the restoration of which, begun in 1833, was intended to establish a Museum of the History of France, dedicated to "all the glories of France". The king had closely followed and personally financed the project entrusted to the architectPierre-François-Léonard Fontaine. In a symbol of national reconciliation, the military glories of the Revolution and of the Empire, even those of the Restoration, were to sit side by side with those of theAncien Régime.
Molé's government seemed stable, helped by the return of economic prosperity. Therefore, the king andMolé decided, against the Duke of Orléans's advice, that the moment was auspicious for the dissolving of the Chamber, which was done on 3 October 1837. In order to influence the forthcoming elections,Louis-Philippe decided on theConstantine expedition in Algeria, a military success ofGeneralSylvain Charles Valée and the Duke of Nemours, second son ofLouis-Philippe, who tookConstantine on 13 October.
However, the4 November 1837 elections did not deliverLouis-Philippe's hopes. Of a total of 459 deputies, only a plurality of 220 were supporters of the regime. About 20 Legitimists had been elected, and 30 Republicans. The center-rightDoctrinaires had approximately 30 deputies, the center-left about twice that many, and the dynastic opposition (Odilon Barrot) 65. TheTiers-Parti had only about 15 deputies, and 30 more were undecided. Such a Chamber carried the risk of the formation of a heterogeneous coalition against the government.
As early as January 1838, the government was under great pressure, in particular fromCharles Gauguier, over deputies who were also civil servants. On 9 January he accused the government of electoral manipulation in order to have loyal civil servants elected. Where there had been 178 in the preceding Chamber, there were now 191.Adolphe Thiers and his allies also defied the government, concerning Spanish affairs. However, with the help of theDoctrinaires,Molé obtained a favorable vote for the address to the king on 13 January 1838, with 216 votes to 116.
Molé's cabinet appeared to be taken hostage by theDoctrinaires, at the exact moment whenGuizot was distancing himself from the President of the Council. All ofThiers's efforts would be thereafter focused on pushing theDoctrinaires away from the ministerial majority. During the vote on the secret funds, bothGuizot, in the Chamber of Deputies, and the Duke of Broglie, in the Chamber of Peers, criticized the cabinet, although both ultimately voted with the government.
On 10 May 1838, the deputies rejected the government's plan for railway development, after having finally agreed, a week earlier, the proposals on government bonds opposed byMolé. The Peers, however, supportedMolé and rejected the initiative. On 20 June 1838,Molé succeeded in having the Assembly pass the 1839 budget before the parliamentary recess.
On the opening of the parliamentary session in December 1838,André Dupin was elected by a very slim majority (183 votes for 178 forHippolyte Passy, the center-left candidate and adamant opponent of the "Castle cabinet") as President of the Chamber. A coalition, includingGuizot,Thiers,Prosper Duvergier de Hauranne andHippolyte Passy, had formed during summer, but it did not prevent the vote of a favorable address to the King (221 votes against 208).
Confronted to such a slight and uncertain majority,Molé presented his resignation to the king on 22 January 1839.Louis-Philippe first attempted to refuse it, and then, approaching Marshal Soult, who was not initially persuaded, offered him the lead.Soult finally accepted after the funeral of the king's daughter, theduchesse deWürttemberg, on the condition of moving promptly to new elections. During the electoral campaign, the left-wing opposition denounced what they termed a constitutional coup, comparing the 1837 and 1839 dissolutions to the consecutive dissolutions of Charles X in 1830.Thiers comparedMolé toPolignac, one of Charles X's ministers.
The2 March 1839 elections were a disappointment for the king, who lost two loyal deputies, while the coalition mustered 240 members, against only 199 for the government.Molé presented his resignation to the king on 8 March, whichLouis-Philippe was forced to accept.
AfterMolé's fall,Louis-Philippe immediately called upon MarshalSoult, who attempted, without success, to form a government including the three leaders of the coalition who had brought downMolé:Guizot,Thiers andOdilon Barrot. Confronted with theDoctrinaires' refusal, he then tried to form a center-left cabinet, which also foundered uponThiers's intransigence concerning Spanish affairs. These successive setbacks forced the king to postpone to 4 April 1839 the opening of the parliamentary session. Thiers also refused to be associated with theduc de Broglie andGuizot. The king then attempted to keep him at bay by offering him an embassy, which provoked the outcries ofThiers's friends. Finally,Louis-Philippe resigned himself to composing, on 31 March 1839, a transitional and neutral government.
The parliamentary session opened on 4 April in a quasi-insurrectionary atmosphere. A large mob had gathered around thePalais-Bourbon, seat of the Assembly, singingLa Marseillaise and rioting. The left-wing press accused the government of provocations. Thiers supportedOdilon Barrot as President of the Chamber, but his attitude during the negotiations for the formation of a new cabinet had disappointed some of his friends. A part of the center-left thus decided to presentHippolyte Passy againstBarrot. The latter won with 227 votes against 193, supported by the ministerial deputies and theDoctrinaires. This vote demonstrated that the coalition had imploded, and that a right-wing majority could be formed to oppose any left-wing initiative.
Despite this, the negotiations for the formation of a new cabinet still were unsuccessful, with Thiers making his friends promise to request his authorization before accepting any governmental function. The situation seemed at an impasse, when on 12 May 1839, theSociété des saisons, a secret Republican society, headed byMartin Bernard,Armand Barbès andAuguste Blanqui, organized an insurrection in theRue Saint-Denis and theRue Saint-Martin in Paris. TheLeague of the Just, founded in 1836, participated in this uprising.[15] However, not only was it a failure, and the conspirators arrested, but this allowedLouis-Philippe to form a new government on the same day, presided over by MarshalSoult who had assured him of his loyal support.
At the end of May, the vote on the secret funds gave a large majority to the new government, which also had the budget passed without any problems. The parliamentary recess was decreed on 6 August 1838, and the new session opened on 23 December, during which the Chamber voted a rather favorable address to the government by 212 votes to 43.Soult's cabinet, however, fell on 20 February 1839, 226 deputies having voted against proposed dowry of the Duke of Nemours (only 200 votes for), who was to marryVictoire deSaxe-Cobourg-Kohary.
Soult's fall compelled the king to call on the main left-wing figure,Adolphe Thiers.Guizot, one of the only remaining right-wing alternatives, had just been named ambassador to London and left France.Thiers's aim was to definitively establish parliamentary government, with a "king who reigns but does not rule", and a cabinet drawn from the parliamentary majority and answerable to it. Henceforth, he clearly opposedLouis-Philippe's concept of government.
Thiers formed his government on 1 March 1840. He first pretended to offer the presidency of the Council to theduc de Broglie, and thenSoult, before accepting it and taking Foreign Affairs at the same time. His cabinet was composed of fairly young politicians (47 years old on average),Thiers himself being only 42.
Relations with the king were immediately difficult.Louis-Philippe embarrassedThiers by suggesting that he nominate his friendHorace Sébastiani as Marshal, which would expose him to the same criticisms he had previously suffered over political favoritism and the abuse of governmental power.Thiers thus decided to postponeSébastiani's advancement.
Thiers obtained an easy majority during the debate on the secret funds in March 1840 (246 votes to 160). Although he was classified as center-left,Thiers's second government was highly conservative, and dedicated to the protection of the interests of the bourgeoisie. Although he had the deputies pass the vote on government bond conversion, which was a left-wing proposal, he was sure that it would be rejected by the Peers, which is what happened. On 16 May 1840,Thiers harshly rejecteduniversal suffrage and social reforms after a speech by theRadicalFrançois Arago, who had linked the ideas of electoral reform and social reform.Arago was attempting to unite the left-wing by tying together universal suffrage claims and Socialist claims, which had appeared in the 1840s, concerning the "right of work" (droit au travail). He believed that electoral reform to establish universal suffrage should precede the social reform, which he considered very urgent.[16]
On 15 June 1838,Thiers obtained the postponement of a proposal made by the conservative deputyOvide de Rémilly who, equipping himself with an old demand of the Left, sought to outlaw the nomination of deputies to salaried public offices during their elective mandate. As Thiers had previously supported this proposition, he was acutely criticized by the Left.
Since the end of August 1838, social problems related to the economic crisis which started in 1839 caused strikes and riots in the textile, clothing and construction sectors. On 7 September 1839, the cabinet-makers of thefaubourg Saint-Antoine started to put up barricades.Thiers responded by sending out the National Guard and invoking the laws prohibiting public meetings.
Thiers also renewed theBanque de France's privilege until 1867 on such advantageous terms that the Bank had a commemorative gold medal cast. Several laws also establishedsteamship lines, operated by companies operating state-subsidised concessions. Other laws granted credits or guarantees to railway companies in difficulties.
WhileThiers favored the conservative bourgeoisie, he also made sure to satisfy the Left's thirst for glory. On 12 May 1840, the Minister of the Interior,Charles de Rémusat, announced to the deputies that the king had decided that the remains ofNapoleon would be transferred to theInvalides. With the British government's agreement, thePrince de Joinville sailed toSaint Helena on the frigateBelle Poule to retrieve them.
This announcement immediately struck a chord with public opinion, which was swept along with patriotic fervor. Thiers saw in this act the successful completion of the rehabilitation of the Revolution and of the Empire, which he had attempted in hisHistoire de la Révolution française and hisHistoire du Consulat et de l'Empire, whileLouis-Philippe, who was reluctant, aimed at capturing for himself a touch of the imperial glory, just as he had appropriated the legitimist monarchy's glory in theChâteau de Versailles. The PrinceLouis-Napoleon decided to seize the opportunity to land inBoulogne-sur-Mer on 6 August 1840, with the aim of rallying the 42nd infantry regiment (42e régiment de ligne) along with some accomplices including one ofNapoleon's comrades in Saint Helena, theGeneralde Montholon. AlthoughMontholon was in reality adouble agent used by the French government to spy, in London, onLouis-Napoleon,Montholon deceivedThiers by letting him think that the operation would take place in Metz. However, Bonaparte's operation was a complete failure, and he was detained with his men in theFort of Ham, Picardy.
Their trial took place before the Chamber of Peers from 28 September 1840 to 6 October 1840, to general indifference. The public's attention was concentrated on the trial ofMarie Lafarge, before theCour d'assises ofTulle, the defendant being accused of having poisoned her husband. Defended by the famous Legitimist lawyerPierre-Antoine Berryer, Bonaparte was sentenced tolife detention, by 152 votes (against 160 abstentions, out of a total of 312 Peers). "We do not kill insane people, all right! but we do confine them,[17] declared theJournal des débats, in this period of intense discussions concerningparricides,mental disease and reform of thepenal code.[18]
Theconquest of Algeria, initiated in the last days of the Bourbon Restoration, was now confronted byAbd-el-Kader's raids, punishingMarshalValée and theduc d'Orléans's expedition to thePortes de Fer in autumn 1839, which had violated the terms of the 1837Treaty of Tafna betweenGeneralBugeaud andAbd-el-Kader.Thiers pushed in favor of colonizing of the interior of the country, up to the edges of the desert. He convinced the king, who saw in Algeria an ideal theater for his son to cover the House ofOrléans with glory, and persuaded him to send GeneralBugeaud as firstgovernor general of Algeria.Bugeaud, who would lead harsh repression against the natives, was officially nominated on 29 December 1840, a few days afterThiers's fall.
Thiers supportedMuhammad Ali Pasha, the Wali of Egypt, in his ambition to constitute a vast Arabian Empire from Egypt to Syria. He tried to intercede in order to have him sign an agreement with theOttoman Empire, unbeknownst to the four other European powers (Britain, Austria,Prussia andRussia). However, informed of these negotiations, the British Minister of Foreign Affairs,Lord Palmerston, quickly negotiated a treaty between the four powers to sort out the "Eastern Question". When revealed, theLondon Convention of 15 July 1840 provoked an explosion of patriotic fury: France had been ousted from a zone where it traditionally exercised its influence (or attempted to), while Prussia, which had no interest in it, was associated with the treaty. AlthoughLouis-Philippe pretended to join the general protestations, he knew that he could take advantage of the situation to get rid ofThiers.
The latter pandered to patriotic feelings by decreeing, on 29 July 1840, a partial mobilization, and by starting, on 13 September 1840, the works on thefortifications of Paris. But France remained passive when, on 2 October 1840, theRoyal Navy mobilized along the Lebanese coastline. Mehemet Ali was then immediately dismissed as wali by theOttoman SultanAbdulmejid I.
Following long negotiations between the king andThiers, a compromise was found on 7 October 1840: France would renounce its support for Muhammad Ali's pretensions in Syria but would declare to the European powers that Egypt should remain at all costs autonomous. Britain thereafter recognized Muhammad Ali's hereditary rule in Egypt: France had obtained a return to the situation of 1832. Despite this, the rupture betweenThiers andLouis-Philippe was now definitive. On 29 October 1840, whenCharles de Rémusat presented to the Council of Ministers the draft of the speech of the throne, prepared byHippolyte Passy,Louis-Philippe found it too aggressive. After a short discussion,Thiers and his associates collectively presented their resignations to the king, who accepted them. On the following day,Louis-Philippe sent for MarshalSoult andGuizot so they could return to Paris as soon as possible.
WhenLouis-Philippe called to powerGuizot and theDoctrinaires, representatives of the center-right, after the center-leftThiers, he surely imagined that this would be only temporary, and that he would soon be able to call backMolé. But the new cabinet formed byGuizot would remain closely knit, and finally win the king's trust, withGuizot becoming his favorite president of the Council.
On 26 October 1840,Guizot arrived to Paris from London. He took for himself the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and let Soult assume the nominal presidency. This satisfied the king and the royal family, whileGuizot himself was sure of his ability to manipulate the old MarshalSoult as he wished. As the center-left had refused to remain in the government,Guizot's cabinet included only conservatives, ranging from the ministerial center to the center-rightDoctrinaires.
TheJuly Column was erected in honor of the 1830 Revolution. The Middle East Question was settled by theLondon Straits Convention of 1841, which permitted the first reconciliation betweenFrance and Britain. This in turn increased public favor towards the colonization of Algeria.
Both the government and the Chamber were Orléanists. They were divided intoOdilon Barrot's Dynastic Left (Gauche dynastique), which demanded the extension of the franchise to thepetty bourgeoisie and had as its mouthpieceLe Siècle; the center-left, headed by Adolphe Thiers, which aimed at restricting royal prerogatives and influence, and which had as its mouthpieceLe Constitutionnel; the conservatives, headed by Guizot and Count Molé, who wanted to preserve the regime and defended their ideas inLe Journal des débats andLa Presse.
Guizot refused any reforms, rejecting a broader franchise. According to him, the monarchy should favor the "middle classes", defined by land ownership, a "moral" tied to money, work and savings.« Enrichissez-vous par le travail et par l'épargne et ainsi vous serez électeur ! » ("Get rich through work and savings and then you will be electors!") was his famous statement.Guizot was helped in his aims by a comfortable rate of economic growth, averaging about 3.5% a year from 1840 to 1846. The transport network was quickly enlarged. An 1842 law organized the national railway network, which grew from 600 to 1,850 km, a sure sign that theIndustrial Revolution had fully reached France.
This period of Industrial Revolution was characterized by the appearance of a new social phenomenon, known aspauperism. Related to industrialization and therural exodus, theworking poor became an increasingly large segment of the population. Furthermore, the former network of workings men's associations of theAncien Régime had disappeared. Workers had a 14-hour working day, daily wages of 20 centimes, and no possibility of organizing themselves intrade unions. 250,000 beggars were registered, and 3 million citizens registered with charity offices. State assistance was nonexistent. The only social law of the July Monarchy was to outlaw, in 1841,labor of children under eight years of age, and night labor for those of less than 13 years. The law, however, was almost never implemented.
Christians imagined a "charitable economy", while the ideas of Socialism, in particularUtopian Socialism (Saint-Simon,Charles Fourier, etc.) continued to spread.Blanqui theorized about Socialistcoups d'état, while the socialist andanarchist thinkerProudhon theorized aboutmutualism. On the other hand,Liberals, inspired by Adam Smith, imagined alaissez-faire solution and the end of tariffs, which the United Kingdom, the dominant European power, had started in 1846 with the repeal of theCorn Laws.
The 1846 harvest was poor, in France as elsewhere (especiallyIreland, but alsoGalicia andBohemia). A rise in the price of wheat, the dietary staple of the common people, provoked afood shortage, whilepurchasing power decreased. The resulting fall in domestic consumption led to a crisis of industrialoverproduction. This in turn immediately led to massivelay-offs, and thus to a large withdrawal of savings, leading to a banking crisis. Bankruptcies multiplied, and stock prices on thestock exchanges collapsed. The government reacted byimporting Russian wheat, which created a negativebalance of trade. The program ofpublic works therefore stopped, including attempts to improve France'scoastal defenses.
Robert Peel's government in Britain collapsed in 1846 after disputes over the Corn Laws, bringing theWhigs back into government led byLord John Russell andLord Palmerston. The appointment of Lord Palmerston was regarded as a threat to France. Guizot's effort to bring about rapprochement with Britain in the early 1840s was virtually undone by theAffair of the Spanish Marriages, which broke out that year after Palmerston attempted to wed the Spanish queen to a member of theHouse of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha rather than to a member of the House of Orléans, asGuizot and his British counterparts had agreed to earlier in the 1840s.
Henceforth, there was an increase in workers' demonstrations, with riots in theBuzançais in 1847. InRoubaix, a city in the industrial north, 60% of the workers wereunemployed. At the same time, the regime was marred by severalpolitical scandals (Teste–Cubières corruption scandal, revealed in May 1847, orCharles de Choiseul-Praslin's suicide after having murdered his wife, daughter ofHorace Sébastiani).
Since theright of association was strictly restricted, and public meetings prohibited after 1835, the Opposition was paralyzed. In order to sidestep this law, political dissidents used civil funerals of their comrades as occasions of public demonstrations. Family celebrations and banquets also served as pretexts for gatherings. At the end of the regime, thecampagne des banquets took place in all of the big cities of France.Louis-Philippe firmly reacted to this threat, and prohibited the final banquet, which was to be held on 14 January 1848. Postponed to 22 February, this banquet would provoke theFebruary 1848 Revolution.
After some unrest, the king replacedGuizot byThiers who advocated repression. Greeted with hostility by the troops in thePlace du Carrousel, in front of theTuileries Palace, the king finally decided toabdicate in favor of his grandson,Philippe d'Orléans, entrusting the regency to his daughter-in-law,Hélène de Mecklembourg-Schwerin. His gesture was in vain as theSecond Republic was proclaimed on 26 February 1848, on thePlace de la Bastille, before theJuly Column.
Louis-Philippe, who claimed to be the "Citizen King" linked to the country by apopular sovereignty contract on which he founded his legitimacy, did not see that the French people were advocating an enlargement of the electorate, either by a decrease of the electoral tax threshold, or by the establishment of universal suffrage[citation needed].
Although the end of the July Monarchy brought France to the brink of civil war, the period was also characterized by an effervescence ofartistic and intellectual creation.
