HISTORY
Subject
:
History
Paper No.
:
Paper-VI
History of Modern Europe
Unit No. & Title
:
Unit-1
Europe between 1780 & 1871
Lecture No. & Title
:
Lecture-12
Restoration and Revolution in
France
(For under graduate student)
Script
Restoration and Revolution in France
The defeat and exile of Napoleon led to the Restoration of
the Bourbons on the throne of France. The restored
Bourbons, Louis XVIII and Charles X, ruled France
from 1815 to 1830, when the July Revolution led to the
final overthrow of the Bourbons.
A
quarter
century
of
revolutionary
change
had
transformed France and this meant that Louis had the
difficult task of virtually ruling over two peoples: those
who supported the Revolution and those who returned
with him and ere against it. Louis tried a policy of
reconciliation and in a way his significance lay in his
failure. He had started by giving his people a Charter
which
recognised
some
of
the
fundamental
rights:
equality of all before law; freedom from arbitrary arrest;
freedom of conscience and confirmation of property
rights acquired during the Revolution. But while the
Royalists believed that the Charter was a gift of the king
and could be withdrawn by him, the opponents argued
that the Charter was imposed on the king by his people.
In a way the Charter defined the restored monarchy as a
constitutional monarchy.
‘As a king,’ wrote Guizot, ‘he had outstanding negative
and latent qualities, and a few active and effective ones’.
There were two houses- the Chamber of deputies and the
House of Peers. The deputies were to be elected on the
basis
of
restricted,
property-based
franchise.
The
deputies had to be over 40 and had to pay 1000 francs in
direct taxation; the electors had to be over thirty and pay
a tax of 300 francs. About 90,000 people thus constituted
the pays legal. It was around the Charter that political
groups emerged in France after 1815. To the right of the
Charter stood the Ultra-Royalists, the obstinate and
relentless
enemies
of
the
Revolution.
This
group
comprised the émigrés nobility and was led by the
Comte d’Artois, the brother of the king.
The so-called ‘Constitutional Party’ stood right behind
the charter. To them the Charter was the sheet anchor of
the new regime. Some of them like Richelieu joined the
ministry. Their most important politician was Decazes.
The supporters of this group included a section of the
liberal aristocracy and the upper middle class.
To the left of the Charter stood a ‘Motley Crowd’, which
may be described generally as the enemies of the
regime. They included republicans, liberals of different
hue, the Bonapartists and even the Orleanists.
Among the leaders of this group were Casimir-Perier,
Laffitte, and Benjamin Constant. It is interesting to
observe that all these groups had their own newspapers
and journals.
The regime was installed in an atmosphere of civil war.
Although the king had proclaimed a general amnesty, a
policy of proscription followed. Nineteen generals were
court-martialled.
In
the
countryside
violence
was
unleashed. It came to be known as the ‘White Terror’
and matched the worst excesses of the Revolution.
The elections were held in such an atmosphere and
returned
what
came
to
known
as
the
Chambre
Introuvable, full of royalists and bristling with hatred for
the revolution. Richelieu who assumed the reins of
government in September, 1815, introduced a ‘legal
terror’. A series of emergency laws was introduced
suspending individual freedom and setting up cours
prevotales for summary trial, against whose judgement
there could be no appeal. Clerical control over education
was re-established. The situation ultimately proved to be
not a little embarrassing for Louis and he was persuaded
to dissolve the chamber order fresh elections.
The
elections
returned
the
moderates
to
power.
Richelieu formed a new government and sought to alter
the tone of policies pursued by him earlier under
pressure from the Ultras. From September, 1816 to
February, 1820, when Duc de Berry was murdered,
France was ruled by the constitutional party- Richelieu
and Decazes. In the opinion of the liberal historians this
was the best phase of the Restoration period. The
indemnity was paid off to the victors of 1815 and the
army of occupation left France. France joined the
European alliance as a full member. The electoral laws
were altered to oblige the voters to come to the towns to
vote. This helped the liberals as their supporters came
mainly from the urban areas. At the same time, the
number of liberals in the Chamber increased between
1816 and 1819. Even radicalism was making its presence
felt in the Chamber. This angered the Ultras who kicked
off a terrific row over the election of the abbe Gregoire.
This had to be set aside. Richelieu resigned. The king,
still wishing to continue with the constitutional party,
appointed Decazes as the new minister. He attempted to
introduce reform by abolishing censorship and freeing the
press, introducing trial by jury. But the success gained by
the radicals in the elections took him towards the right.
What, however, brought the Ultras back to power was
the murder of the Duc de Berry, the younger son of the
Comte d’Artois. Decazes resigned and Richelieu, leaning
more to the right, assumed office again.
He suspended individual freedom, freedom of the press
and the electoral law was altered again to introduce the
so-called ‘double vote’. This gave a leverage to the
Ultras who secured a majority in the Chamber. But
Richelieu found the going hard and was soon replace by
Villele, a choice of the Ultras. What helped Villele take
an extremely reactionary stance was the radical and
Bonapartist risings which rocked France. He reintroduced
censorship and summary trial, Clerical control over
education was tightened and a law was introduced to
compensate the émigrés nobility. France even sent an
army to Spain to quell a liberal uprising. At this juncture
Louis died and was succeeded by his brother, Comte
d’Artois, who became king as Charles X.
The importance of Louis was that he tried to reconcile the
Revolution with the Restoration. He knew and said that
he had the difficult task of ruling over two peoples. His
real significance lies in his failure. By the time he died,
the policy of reconciliation had been abandoned. The
portending conflict between two peoples took place under
his successor.
Charles X
The
first
significant
thing
about
Charles
was
his
personality and his antecedence. As a man he had some
excellent kingly virtues, but what really mattered was
that he believed in absolute monarchy. A characteristic
saying of Charles was that he would prefer to chop wood
than be the king of England. The responsibilities of the
king of France failed to sober him and his determination
to restore the ancient regime in all its glory led to the
July Revolution and the overthrow of the Bourbons in
1830.
It is possible to divide the reign into three phases:
a.
under
Villele
(1824-28)-the
first
advance
of
royalism;
b. under Mrtignac (1828-29) -the retreat of royalism
and
c. under Polignac (1829-30) - the second advance and
defeat of royalism.
One of the first acts of Charles’s government was to pay
a huge compensation to the émigrés. Interest on national
debt
was
reduced
compensation.
to
Clerical
help
the
control
over
government
pay
education
was
tightened. Opposition to Villele steadily grew. Even a
section
of
the
royalists
went
against
Villele.
Chateaubriand was refused the ministry of foreign affairs
and defected with a large number of supporters to an
extreme right group, the so-called Pointus. Both liberal
ideas and the Bonapartist myth were making rapid
progress. The press was also critical of the government.
The disbandment of
the
National
Guard
was very
unpopular. But the most potent cause of discontent was
the suspected advance of clericalism. The intellectuals
who opposed this were persecuted. Guizot was taken a
prisoner. This was a departure from the prudent reaction
of Villele and thus a sign of weakness. When sacrilege
was made a capital offence, a large section of Frenchmen
went against Villele.
In response to mounting criticism, Villele dissolved the
Chamber and ordered fresh elections. The result was a
clear verdict against Villele, who resigned. Martignac now
led a group of moderate royalists. His task was difficult.
He adopted a conciliatory police and took a position
against the priest party. He failed to satisfy anybody and
had to resign in August, 1829 after a parliamentary
reverse.
Jules de Polignac, a personal friend of the king, now
took
over.
He
announced
his
determination
to
‘reorganise society, to give back the clergy its weight
in state affairs, to create a powerful aristocracy and to
surround it with privileges.’ This prompted Wellington to
comment that this was a ‘government by priests, through
priests and for the priests.” A republican party now
appeared
Tribune.
around
Others
Armand
envisaged
Marrast’s
an
newspaper
Orleanist
Le
solution,
advocated by Le National under Thiers. After 1827,
political discontent was intensified by economic distress.
Faced with this situation, the ministry was divided and
powerless, but it acted all the more threateningly for
that. When the Chamber expressed its lack of confidence
in the ministry, signed by 221 members, it raised the
question of ministerial responsibility. The Chamber was
first prorogued and then dissolved. In spite of the capture
of Algiers, the July elections were a liberal triumph: 274
opposition members were returned.
The situation was still not desperate for the king as the
well-t-do bourgeois deputies were scarcely prepared to
open the floodgates for popular movements. But the king
chose to fight and, invoking the Article 14 of the Charter,
promulgated four Ordinances. They provided for the
suspension of the freedom of the press, dissolution of the
Chamber, Changes in the electoral law, and calling for
new elections. Resistance was organised and journalists
and liberals, led by Thiers, drew up a protest in the
office of Le National. The closing of the workshops led
to popuklar protests and the two seemed to merge. The
leadership
quickly
passed
to
the
hands
of
the
republicans. On 27 July, Marmont, the commandant of
the troops in Paris, was still in control of the situation;
but on the 28th, trying to take the offensive against the
barricades which had been put up, he lost the eastern
districts and fell back on Tuileries.On 29th, he gave orders
for retreat. But, in the meantime, the deputies had
intervened, alarmed at the strength of the popular
movement. At Guizot’s suggestion, they appointed
Lafayette the commandant of the Municipal Guards and
set up a Municipal Commission of five members. By the
30th, faced with growing republican agitation, they rallied
to the candidature of the Duke of Orleans, proposed by
Thiers. Louis Philippe, the Duke of Orleans, appeared
beside Lafayette on the balcony of the Hotel de Ville
and promised to surround his throne with ‘republican
institutions.’ In point of fact, as Jacques Droz had put
it, ‘the liberal deputies had cheated the republicans of
their revolution…in the course of these July days, the
deputies rallied to the Orleanist solution only because it
limited as afar as possible the consequences of a rising
which
had begun and developed largely outside their
control.’ The trios glorieuses ended the rule of the
Bourbons finally, but did not lead to a republic.
The July Revolution has been described as an ‘inglorious
and unnecessary fall of the Bourbons’. Beyond
doubt, the fall had nothing of glory in it, but was it
unnecessary? If one argues that it was, then the only
assumption could be that a policy different from the one
pursued by Charles could have saved the Bourbon
monarchy. The crux of the problem lies, however, not in
the fall of Charles, but in the failure of Louis. The policy
of reconciliation failed as the warring groups were in no
mood to be reconciled. The old order stood utterly
discredited
and
its
opponents
had
surged
ahead
sufficiently by this time to be able to overthrow the
backward-looking regime of Charles. If the success of the
moderate liberals in installing the Orleanist monarchy
indicated the predominance of higher bourgeoisie in
France, it also postponed the further radicalisation of
French politics, at least for another 18 years. The success
of the republicans in 1848 and what followed thereafter
indicated the deep fissures in French politics which were
not easily discernible in 1830.
Louis Philippe
Louis Philippe, the new king of France, was a citizen king
chosen by his people. He was everything a liberal ruler
was expected to be in France in 1830: middle-class,
respectable and unspectacular. Indeed, with a top hat
and a rolled umbrella in his hand, Louis presented a new
image of a middle class king. His rule in France from
1830 to 1848 was characterised by the domination of the
higher bourgeoisie in France.
One change from the earlier regime was immediately
noticeable: the Charter was no longer a grant of the
king; it was imposed on the king. Article14, which gave
the king extraordinary powers, was removed. Censorship
was abolished and Catholicism was simply recognised as
the religion of the majority of Frenchmen. The Chamber
was given more powers. Voting age was reduced to 25
and one could be a Deputy at the age of 30. The
franchise was extended to include about 200,000 people.
In 1832, the National Guard was permitted to elect its
own officers. The tricolour was adopted once more as
the flag of France. Another special legislation was
Guizot’s law on primary education .It was stipulated
that every commune must have a primary school. This
enlarged
the
number
of
reading
public
in
France
substantially by the 1840s and many of them became
familiar with new ideas by the 1840s.
The new regime, however, was far from democratic. The
higher bourgeoisie were interested in consolidating their
wealth. This class, comprising the bankers, owners of
factories and capitalists, was described by Marx ‘as the
joint stock company for the exploitation of France’s
national wealth’. But a majority of Frenchmen expected
the revolution to extend the social basis of the political
life in France. Thus two different, and at a level
conflicting, vision of the nature of the new regime existed
in France. If a close associate of the king described the
revolution simply as a change of personnel associated
with the governance, he was not echoing the opinion of
the majority of common French people who felt that the
revolution
remained
incomplete.
The
republicans
considered the installation of monarchy as an act of
betrayal.
The Legitimists, who wanted the Bourbons to continue,
were still signi Temore important were the so-called
‘party of resistance’ who wished to prevent any change
and the ‘party of movement’ which was broadly against
monarchy. The king had the support of the former group
which included Guizot, Casimir-Perier, Thiers and
others. The Romantics and republicans wanted to alter
the existing regime. They considered the revolution of
1830
to
be
the
prelude
to
wider
socio-political
transformation. They also favoured a more active foreign
policy.
Recent French historians have noticed the increasing
support to republicanism between 1830 and 1848. Henri
Guillemin called the revolution of 1848 in France, ‘the
first
resurrection
of
the
Republic’.
Indeed
the
evolution of the mentalities over the next two decades
would explain this rise in support to republicanism. The
Revolution of 1789 established political rights and social
equality.
From
1789
to
1792,
then
again
under
Napoleon or under Louis Philippe these rights were
established and they had no conflict with constitutional
monarchy. Why then was it necessary to establish a
republic in 1848? Maurice Agulhon has argued that the
advance of republican ideas during the reign of Louis
Philippe was the first political cause of the revolution of
1848 in France.
Most people in Franc equated the republic with the reign
of terror and the guillotine. But, after the July Revolution,
this
idea
was
transformed.
After
1830,
the
old
republicans, even Jacobins, gradually returned to open
public life. Their political role during the revolution and
their
collective
memory
influenced
the
younger
generation. Some of the early acts of the July regime
buttressed this mentality. The adoption of the tricolour or
the honour given to the memory of the revolution
seemed to strengthen the memeory of the republic.
Delacroix painted the ‘Liberty leading the people’; Hugo
represented the ace of revolutionary romanticism. In the
1840s came the histories: Jules Michelet and Louis
Blanc’s History of the Revolution, Lamartine’s History of
the Girondins and Esquiros’s History of the Mountains. All
these celebrated the republic and the Revolution came to
be associated with the republic established in 1792. ‘It
was difficult to honour the militant revolution without
glorifying the republic.’ This resurrection of republican
sentiments went against the regime.
Another political movement that went against the regime
was the rise of socialism (of the Utopian variety).
Proudhon, Saint Simon, Fourier, Louis Blanc brought
into focus the misery of the new class: the working class.
The result of the industrial revolution was being gradually
felt and these men tried to highlight the negative socioeconomic results of the economic changes.
Another group that went against the regime were the
Bonapartists. Napoleon’s nephew, Louis Napoleon wrote
the book Des Idees Napoleoniennes and this gave
legitimacy to the group. By 1839 Napoleon’s remains
were brought from St. Helena and re-interred with
suitable ceremony at the Invalides.
The situation in France between 1830 and 1848 may be
seen in three phases. The first phase from 1830 to 1836
was one of acute disturbances. The government was
often forced to use force to quell movements. From 1836
to 1846 was the phase of relative stability. France
witnessed the beginning and expansion of the railways
and there was economic progress. But in foreign policy
there were reverses. The general crisis that Europe
experienced from 1846 touched France as well. It started
with a food crisis and a crisis in the financial system. The
social and economic distress was compounded by a crisis
of confidence that touched politics and governance.
Guizot, who had been in charge from 1836, continued to
be in office by using questionable means like electoral
corruption and nepotism. The cumulative result of the
crisis
was
the
crystallisation
of
opposition
ultimately led to the February Revolution of 1848.
which
As opposition was growing, Guizot decided to ban all
political meetings. The opponents decided to organise
‘reform banquets’ to hoodwink the government. When
even the banquets were banned, people took to the
streets and familiar scenes of barricades and street
fighting were witnessed. When the surge of revolutionary
wave became unmanageable, Louis had to abdicate and
France once again became a republic with Lamartine as
the acting President. A provisional government was set
up and included Albert, a representative of the working
class.
The crisis of the July monarchy was economic, social and
political.
Lamartine
had
described
the
impending
revolution as a ’revolution of the public conscience
and the revolution of contempt’.
The crisis was
compounded by a moral crisis among the governing
classes. The totality of the crisis did not allow July
monarchy to survive. And the progress of republican
ideas after 1830 meant that the New France had to be
republican once more.