A History of Modern Europe, 1792-1878 Part 36

The mediation of Great Britain was now offered to the Porte upon the terms thus laid down, and for the fourteenth time its mediation was rejected. But the end was near at hand. Diebitsch crossed the Balkans, and it was in vain that the Sultan then proposed the terms which he had scouted in November.

The Treaty of Adrianople enforced the decisions of the March Protocol.

Greece escaped from a limitation of its frontier, which would have left both Athens and Missolonghi Turkish territory. The principle of the admission of the provinces north of the Gulf of Corinth within the h.e.l.lenic State was established, and nothing remained for the friends of the Porte but to cut down to the narrowest possible area the district which had been loosely indicated in the London Protocol. While Russia, satisfied with its own successes against the Ottoman Empire and anxious to play the part of patron of the conquered, ceased to interest itself in Greece, the Government of Great Britain contested every inch of territory proposed to be ceded to the new State, and finally induced the Powers to agree upon a boundary-line which did not even in letter fulfil the conditions of the treaty. Northern Acarnania and part of aetolia were severed from Greece, and the frontier was drawn from the mouth of the river Achelous to a spot near Thermopylae. On the other hand, as Russian influence now appeared to be firmly established and likely to remain paramount at Constantinople, the Western Powers had no motive to maintain the Sultan's supremacy over Greece. This was accordingly by common consent abandoned; and the h.e.l.lenic Kingdom, confined within miserably narrow limits on the mainland, and including neither Crete nor Samos among its islands, was ultimately offered in full sovereignty to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, the widower of Charlotte, daughter of George IV. After some negotiations, in which Leopold vainly asked for a better frontier, he accepted the Greek crown on the 11th of February, 1830.

[Government of Capodistrias.]

In the meantime, Capodistrias was struggling hard to govern and to organise according to his own conceptions a land in which every element of anarchy, ruin, and confusion appeared to be arrayed against the restoration of civilised life. The country was devastated, depopulated, and in some places utterly barbarised. Out of a population of little more than a million, it was reckoned that three hundred thousand had perished during the conflict with the Turk. The whole fabric of political and social order had to be erected anew; and, difficult as this task would have been for the wisest ruler, it was rendered much more difficult by the conflict between Capodistrias' own ideal and the character of the people among whom he had to work. Communal or local self-government lay at the very root of Greek nationality. In many different forms this intense provincialism had maintained itself unimpaired up to the end of the war, in spite of national a.s.semblies and national armaments. The Hydriote ship-owners, the Primates of the Morea, the guerilla leaders of the north, had each a type of life and a body of inst.i.tutions as distinct as the dialects which they spoke or the saints whom they cherished in their local sanctuaries. If antagonistic in some respects to national unity, this vigorous local life had nevertheless been a source of national energy while Greece had still its independence to win; and now that national independence was won, it might well have been made the basis of a popular and effective system of self-government. But to Capodistrias, as to greater men of that age, the unity of the State meant the uniformity of all its parts; and, shutting his eyes to all the obstacles in his path, he set himself to create an administrative system as rigorously centralised as that which France had received from Napoleon. Conscious of his own intellectual superiority over his countrymen, conscious of his own integrity and of the sacrifice of all his personal wealth in his country's service, he put no measure on his expressions of scorn for the freebooters and peculators whom he believed to make up the Greek official world, and he both acted and spoke as if, in the literal sense of the words, all who ever came before him were thieves and robbers. The peasants of the mainland, who had suffered scarcely less from Klephts and Primates than from Turks, welcomed Capodistrias' levelling despotism, and to the end his name was popular among them; but among the cla.s.ses which had supplied the leaders in the long struggle for independence, and especially among the ship-owners of the Archipelago, who felt the contempt expressed by Capodistrias for their seven years' efforts to be grossly unjust, a spirit of opposition arose which soon made it evident that Capodistrias would need better instruments than those which he had around him to carry out his task of remodelling Greece.

[Leopold renounces the crown, May, 1830.]

It was in the midst of this growing antagonism that the news reached Capodistrias that Leopold of Saxe-Coburg had been appointed King of Greece.

The resolution made by the Powers in March, 1829, that the sovereign of Greece should belong to some reigning house, had perhaps not wholly destroyed the hopes of Capodistrias that he might become Prince or Hospodar of Greece himself. There were difficulties in the way of filling the throne, and these difficulties, after the appointment of Leopold, Capodistrias certainly did not seek to lessen. His subtlety, his command of the indirect methods of effecting a purpose, were so great and so habitual to him that there was little chance of his taking any overt step for preventing Leopold's accession to the crown; there appears, however, to be evidence that he repressed the indications of a.s.sent which the Greeks attempted to offer to Leopold; and a series of letters written by him to that prince was probably intended, though in the most guarded language, to give Leopold the impression that the task which awaited him was a hopeless one. Leopold himself, at the very time when he accepted the crown, was wavering in his purpose. He saw with perfect clearness that the territory granted to the Greek State was too small to secure either its peace or its independence. The severance of Acarnania and Northern aetolia meant the abandonment of the most energetic part of the Greek inland population, and a probable state of incessant warfare upon the northern frontier; the relinquishment of Crete meant that Greece, bankrupt as it was, must maintain a navy to protect the south coast of the Morea from Turkish attack. These considerations had been urged upon the Powers by Leopold before he accepted the crown, and he had been induced for the moment to withdraw them. But he had never fully acquiesced in the arrangements imposed upon him: he remained irresolute for some months; and at last, whether led to this decision by the letters of Capodistrias or by some other influences, he declared the conditions under which he was called upon to rule Greece to be intolerable, and renounced the crown (May, 1830).

[384]

[Government and death of Capodistrias.]

Capodistrias thus found himself delivered from his rival, and again face to face with the task to which duty or ambition called him. The candidature of Leopold had embittered the relations between Capodistrias and all who confronted him in Greece, for it gave him the means of measuring their hostility to himself by the fervour of their addresses to this unknown foreigner. A dark shadow fell over his government. As difficulties thickened and resistance grew everywhere more determined, the President showed himself harsher and less scrupulous in the choice of his means. The men about him were untrustworthy; to crush them, he filled the offices of government with relatives and creatures of his own who were at once tyrannous and incapable. Thwarted and checked, he met opposition by imprisonment and measures of violence, suspended the law-courts, and introduced the espionage and the police-system of St. Petersburg. At length armed rebellion broke out, and while Miaoulis, the Hydriote admiral, blew up the best ships of the Greek navy to prevent them falling into the President's hands, the wild district of Maina, which had never admitted the Turkish tax-gatherer, refused to pay taxes to the h.e.l.lenic State. The revolt was summarily quelled by Capodistrias, and several members of the family of Mauromichalis, including the chief Petrobei, formerly feudal ruler of Maina, were arrested. Some personal insult, imaginary or real, was moreover offered by Capodistrias to this fallen foe, after the aged mother of Petrobei, who had lost sixty-four kinsmen in the war against the Turks, had begged for his release. The vendetta of the Maina was aroused. A son and a nephew of Petrobei laid wait for the President, and as he entered the Church of St. Spiridion at Nauplia on the 9th of October, 1831, a pistol-shot and a blow from a yataghan laid him dead on the ground. He had been warned that his life was sought, but had refused to make any change in his habits, or to allow himself to be attended by a guard.

[Otho King of Greece, Feb. 1, 1833.]

The death of Capodistrias excited sympathies and regrets which to a great extent silenced criticism upon his government, and which have made his name one of those most honoured by the Greek nation. His fall threw the country into anarchy. An attempt was made by his brother Augustine to retain autocratic power, but the result was universal dissension and the interference of the foreigner. At length the Powers united in finding a second sovereign for Greece, and brought the weary scene of disorder to a close. Prince Otho of Bavaria was sent to reign at Athens, and with him there came a group of Bavarian officials to whom the Courts of Europe persuaded themselves that the future of Greece might be safely entrusted. A frontier somewhat better than that which had been offered to Leopold was granted to the new sovereign, but neither Crete, Thessaly, nor Epirus was included within his kingdom. Thus hemmed in within intolerably narrow limits, while burdened with the expenses of an independent state, alike unable to meet the calls upon its national exchequer and to exclude the intrigues of foreign Courts, Greece offered during the next generation little that justified the hopes that had been raised as to its future. But the belief of mankind in the invigorating power of national independence is not wholly vain, nor, even under the most hostile conditions, will the efforts of a liberated people fail to attract the hope and the envy of those branches of its race which still remain in subjection. Poor and inglorious as the Greek kingdom was, it excited the restless longings not only of Greeks under Turkish bondage, but of the prosperous Ionian Islands under English rule; and in 1864 the first step in the expansion of the h.e.l.lenic kingdom was accomplished by the transfer of these islands from Great Britain to Greece. Our own day has seen Greece further strengthened and enriched by the annexation of Thessaly. The commercial and educational development of the kingdom is now as vigorous as that of any State in Europe: in agriculture and in manufacturing industry it still lingers far behind. Following the example of Cavour and the Sardinian statesmen who judged no cost too great in preparing for Italian union, the rulers of Greece burden the national finances with the support of an army and navy excessive in comparison both with the resources and with the present requirements of the State. To the ideal of a great political future the material progress of the land has been largely sacrificed. Whether, in the re-adjustment of frontiers which must follow upon the gradual extrusion of the Turk from Eastern Europe, Greece will gain from its expenditure advantages proportionate to the undoubted evils which it has involved, the future alone can decide.

CHAPTER XVI.

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 Const.i.tution--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 Const.i.tutionalists 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 const.i.tutional 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 princ.i.p.al 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, Villele, 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 mediaeval 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 t.i.tle 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 n.o.blesse. 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 Villele, 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 subst.i.tuted 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 a.s.sembly in which the Liberal opposition outnumbered the partisans of the Court by three to one. Villele'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 a.s.sist him in winning an instalment of self-government which France might well have accepted with satisfaction. But the spirit of opposition within the a.s.sembly 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 p.r.o.nounced 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 amba.s.sador 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 pa.s.sed 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 Const.i.tution. 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 egalite, 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 subst.i.tute 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-cla.s.s 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 a.s.sembled 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 const.i.tutional powers, were interpreted by Polignac as authorising the King to suspend the Const.i.tution itself, if the Representative a.s.sembly 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'etat_ of Fructidor, 1797; and the measures which he ultimately adopted were, though in a softened form, those adopted by Barras and Lareveillere after the Royalist elections in the sixth year of the Republic. To suspend the Const.i.tution 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, surpa.s.sed 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 _coterie_ 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-cla.s.s voters and journalists against whom his Ordinances were to be directed. The populace neither read nor voted: why should it concern itself with const.i.tutional 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.d 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 Const.i.tutional 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 cla.s.ses. While the journalists discussed legal means of resistance, and the Deputies awaited events, the Republican leaders met and determined upon armed revolt. They were a.s.sisted, 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 a.r.s.enals and several private depots of weapons and ammunition. Barricades were erected everywhere. The insurgents swelled from hundreds to thousands, and, converging on the old rallying-point of the Commune of Paris, they seized the Hotel de Ville, and hoisted the tricolor flag on its roof.

Marmont wrote to the King, declaring the position to be most serious, and advising concession; he then put his troops in motion, and succeeded, after a severe conflict, in capturing several points of vantage, and in expelling the rebels from the Hotel de Ville.

[July 29.]

In the meantime the Deputies, who were a.s.sembled 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 a.s.sistance 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 ma.s.ses. 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-cla.s.s, 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 Amba.s.sador at St.

Petersburg, arrived at nightfall, and pressed for an audience, the King refused to receive him until the next morning. When morning came, the march of the insurgents against the Tuileries began. Position after position fell into their hands. The regiments stationed in the Place Vendome abandoned their commander, and marched off to place themselves at the disposal of the Deputies. Marmont ordered the Swiss Guard, which had hitherto defended the Louvre, to replace them; and in doing so he left the Louvre for a moment without any garrison. The insurgents saw the building empty, and rushed into it. From the windows they commanded the Court of the Tuileries, where the troops in reserve were posted; and soon after mid-day all was over. A few isolated battalions fought and perished, but the ma.s.s 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 pa.s.sed from the elder Bourbon line. King Charles would not hear of withdrawing the Ordinances until the Tuileries had actually fallen; he then gave way and charged the Duc de Mortemart to form a new Ministry, drawn from the ranks of the Opposition. But instead of formally repealing the Edicts by a public Decree, he sent two messengers to Paris to communicate his change of purpose to the Deputies by word of mouth. The messengers betook themselves to the Hotel de Ville, where a munic.i.p.al 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 a.s.sembly 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 doc.u.ment, 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 const.i.tutional King now possible. Some hours after this manifesto had appeared the Deputies again a.s.sembled 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 a.s.sembled. 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 rea.s.sembled 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 a.s.sume 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 a.s.sembly, 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 a.s.sumed the office of Lieutenant-General of the kingdom.

[The Hotel de Ville.]

But there existed another authority in Paris beside the a.s.sembly 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 Munic.i.p.al Committee, which occupied the Hotel de Ville, had transformed themselves into a provisional government, and sat surrounded by the armed mob which had captured the Tuileries two days before. No single person who had fought in the streets had risked his life for the sake of making Louis Philippe king; in so far as the Parisians had fought for any definite political idea, they had fought for the Republic.

It was necessary to reconcile both the populace and the provisional government to the a.s.sumption of power by the new Regent; and with this object Louis Philippe himself proceeded to the Hotel de Ville, accompanied by an escort of Deputies and Peers. It was a hazardous moment when he entered the crowd on the Place de Greve; but Louis Philippe's readiness of speech stood him in good stead, and he made his way unhurt through the throng into the building, where Lafayette received him. Compliments and promises were showered upon this veteran of 1789, who presently appeared on a balcony and embraced Louis Philippe, while the Prince grasped the tricolor flag, the flag which had not waved in Paris since 1815. The spectacle was successful. The mult.i.tude 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 a.s.sumption 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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sembly, and was proclaimed King of the French.

[Nature of the Revolution of 1830.]