Chapter XVI (1)

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

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

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

In the person of Charles X. reaction and clericalism had ascended the French throne. The minister, Villèle, who had won power in 1820 as the representative of the Ultra-Royalists, had indeed learnt wisdom while in office, and down to the death of Louis XVIII. in 1824 he had kept in check the more violent section of his party. But he now retained his post only at the price of compliance with the Court, and gave the authority of his name to measures which his own judgment condemned. It was characteristic of Charles X. and of the reactionaries around him that out of trifling matters they provoked more exasperation than a prudent Government would have aroused by changes of infinitely greater importance. Thus in a sacrilege-law which was introduced in 1825 they disgusted all reasonable men by attempting to revive the barbarous mediæval punishment of amputation of the hand; and in a measure conferring some fractional rights upon the eldest son in cases of intestacy they alarmed the whole nation by a preamble declaring the French principle of the equal division of inheritances to be incompatible with monarchy. Coming from a Government which had thus already forfeited public confidence, a law granting the emigrants a compensation of £40,000,000 for their estates which had been confiscated during the Revolution excited the strongest opposition, although, apart from questions of equity, it benefited the nation by for ever setting at rest all doubt as to the title of the purchasers of the confiscated lands. The financial operations by which, in order to provide the vast sum allotted to the emigrants, the national debt was converted from a five per cent, to a three per cent, stock, alienated all stockholders and especially the powerful bankers of Paris. But more than any single legislative act, the alliance of the Government with the priestly order, and the encouragement given by it to monastic corporations, whose existence in France was contrary to law, offended the nation. The Jesuits were indicted before the law-courts by Montlosier, himself a Royalist and a member of the old noblesse. A vehement controversy sprang up between the ecclesiastics and their opponents, in which the Court was not spared. The Government, which had lately repealed the law of censorship, now restored it by edict. The climax of its unpopularity was reached; its hold upon the Chamber was gone, and the very measure by which Villèle, when at the height of his power, had endeavoured to give permanence to his administration, proved its ruin. He had abolished the system of partial renovation, by which one-fifth of the Chamber of Deputies was annually returned, and substituted for it the English system of septennial Parliaments with general elections. In 1827 King Charles, believing his Ministers to be stronger in the country than in the Chamber, exercised his prerogative of dissolution. The result was the total defeat of the Government, and the return of an assembly in which the Liberal opposition outnumbered the partisans of the Court by three to one. Villèle's Ministry now resigned. King Charles, unwilling to choose his successor from the Parliamentary majority, thought for a moment of violent resistance, but subsequently adopted other counsels, and, without sincerely intending to bow to the national will, called to office the Vicomte de Martignac, a member of the right centre, and the representative of a policy of conciliation and moderate reform (January 2, 1828).

[Ministry of Martignac, 1828-29.]

[Polignac Minister, Aug. 9, 1829.]

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

[Prospects in 1830. The Orleanists.]

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

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

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

[Polignac's project.]

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

[Elections of 1830.]

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

[The Ordinances, July 26, 1830.]

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

[July 27.]

[July 28.]

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

[July 29.]

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

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

[July 30.]

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

[The Hôtel de Ville.]

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

[Charles X.]

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

[Louis Philippe made King, Aug. 7.]

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

[Nature of the Revolution of 1830.]

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

[Affairs in Belgium.]

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

[Belgian Revolution, August, 1830.]

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

[France and the Belgian Revolution.]

[France and England.]

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

[Leopold elected King, June 4.]

Thus far, a crisis which threatened the peace of Europe had been surmounted with unexpected ease. But the first stage of the difficulty alone was passed; it still remained for the Powers to provide a king for Belgium, and to gain the consent of the Dutch and Belgian Governments to the territorial arrangements drawn up for them. The Belgians themselves, with whom a connection with France was popular, were disposed to elect as their sovereign the Duc de Nemours, second son of Louis Philippe; and although Louis Philippe officially refused his sanction to this scheme, which in the eyes of all Europe would have turned Belgium into a French dependency, he privately encouraged its prosecution after a Bonapartist candidate, the son of Eugène Beauharnais, had appeared in the field. The result was that the Duc de Nemours was elected king on the 3rd of February, 1831. Against this appointment the Conference of the Powers at London had already pronounced its veto, and the British Government let it be understood that it would resist any such extension of French influence by force. Louis Philippe now finally refused the crown for his son, and, the Bonapartist candidate being withdrawn, the two rival Powers agreed in recommending Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, on the understanding that, if elected King of Belgium, he should marry a daughter of Louis Philippe. The Belgians fell in with the advice given them, and elected Leopold on the 4th of June. He accepted the crown, subject to the condition that the London Conference should modify in favour of Belgium some of the provisions relating to the frontiers and to the finances of the new State which had been laid down by the Conference, and which the Belgian Government had hitherto refused to accept.

[Settlement of the Belgian frontier.]

The difficulty of arranging the Belgian frontier arose principally from the position of the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg. This territory, though subject to Austria before the French Revolution, had always been treated as distinct from the body of the Austrian Netherlands. When, at the peace of 1814, it was given to the King of Holland in substitution for the ancient possessions of his family at Nassau, its old character as a member of the German federal union was restored to it, so that the King of Holland in respect of this portion of his dominions became a German prince, and the fortress of Luxemburg, the strongest in Europe after Gibraltar, was liable to occupation by German troops. The population of the Duchy had, however, joined the Belgians in their revolt, and, with the exception of the fortress itself, the territory had passed into possession of the Belgian Government. In spite of this actual overthrow of Dutch rule, the Conference of London had attached such preponderating importance to the military and international relations of Luxemburg that it had excluded the whole of the Duchy from the new Belgian State, and declared it still to form part of the dominions of the King of Holland. The first demand of Leopold was for the reversal or modification of this decision, and the Powers so far gave way as to substitute for the declaration of January a series of articles, in which the question of Luxemburg was reserved for future settlement. The King of Holland had assented to the January declaration; on hearing of its abandonment, he took up arms, and threw fifty thousand men into Belgium. Leopold appealed to France for assistance, and a French army immediately crossed the frontier. The Dutch now withdrew, and the French in their turn were recalled, after Leopold had signed a treaty undertaking to raze the fortifications of five towns on his southern border. The Conference again took up its work, and produced a third scheme, in which the territory of Luxemburg was divided between Holland and Belgium. This was accepted by Belgium, and rejected by Holland. The consequence was that a treaty was made between Leopold and the Powers; and at the beginning of 1832 the kingdom of Belgium, as defined by the third award of the Conference, was recognised by all the Courts, Lord Palmerston on behalf of England resolutely refusing to France even the slightest addition of territory, on the ground that, if annexations once began, all security for the continuance of peace would be at an end. On this wise and firm policy the concert of Europe in the establishment of the Belgian kingdom was successfully maintained; and it only remained for the Western Powers to overcome the resistance of the King of Holland, who still held the citadel of Antwerp and declined to listen either to reason or authority. A French army corps was charged with the task of besieging the citadel; an English fleet blockaded the river Scheldt. After a severe bombardment the citadel surrendered. Hostilities ceased, and negotiations for a definitive settlement recommenced. As, however, the Belgians were in actual occupation of all Luxemburg with the exception of the fortress, they had no motive to accelerate a settlement which would deprive them of part of their existing possessions; on the other hand, the King of Holland held back through mere obstinacy. Thus the provisional state of affairs was prolonged for year after year, and it was not until April, 1839, that the final Treaty of Peace between Belgium and Holland was executed.

[Affairs of Poland.]