that Sauvo, the editor of the "Moniteur," as he gave the order to go to
press, exclaimed: "God protect the King." The publication of the edict
caused an instant extraordinary fall in stocks. Thiers thundered against it
in the "Journal des Debats." Government troops seized the printing presses
of the leading journals. Murmuring crowds gathered on the streets. The King
appointed Marshal Marmont commandant of Paris. It was the last stroke, for
Marmont was popularly execrated as the betrayer of Napoleon. The National
Guards brought forth their old tricolor cockades of the Revolution and the
Empire. Though military patrols tramped the streets, the night passed
quietly. Next morning all work stopped, and the people fell to building
barricades. Whole streets were torn up. The pupils of the Polytechnic
School broke open the gates and the tricolor flag floated on the towers of
Notre Dame. Marshal Marmont reported to the King: "Sire, it is no longer a
riot, but a revolution. There is urgent need for your Majesty to take means
of pacification. Thus the honor of the Crown may yet be saved. To-morrow
it will be too late." The King's answer was to declare Paris under a state
of siege. The so-called "Great Week," or "three days' revolution," had
begun. The bourgeoisie or middle class and all the students joined the
revolt. Before nightfall 600 barricades blocked the streets of Paris. Every
house became a fortress. "Where do the rebels get their powder?" asked the
King in astonishment. "From the soldiers," was the curt reply of the
Procureur-General.
[Sidenote: Charles X. obstinate]
[Sidenote: Fall of Ministry]
[Sidenote: An interim republic]
[Sidenote: Duke of Orleans summoned]
In the evening the Hotel de Ville was captured. That evening the Ministers
tried to enlighten the King, but he only replied: "Let the insurgents lay
down their arms." While the discharges of artillery shook the windows of
the palace the King played whist. Next day two line regiments openly joined
the revolt. The Louvre was stormed. Still the King at St. Cloud would not
yield. "They exaggerate the danger," said he. "I know what concessions
would lead to. I have no wish to ride like my brother on a cart." Instead
of concessions he vested the command in the Dauphin, having grown
suspicious of Marmont. The mob sacked the Tuileries and hoisted the
tricolor flag on the clock tower. At the Hotel de Ville a municipal
commission was installed, composed of Lafayette, Casimir Perier, General
Lobau and Audry de Puyraveau. At last, when it was too late, the King
countermanded his obnoxious orders and dismissed Polignac with his
Ministry. The people no longer paid attention to the King's acts. He was
declared deposed. A republic was proclaimed and its presidency offered to
Lafayette. But the old hero declined the honor. With Thiers he threw his
influence in favor of the Duke of Orleans. The Duke of Orleans, the son of
Philip Egalite, of Revolutionary fame, was invited to Paris to exercise the
functions of lieutenant-general of the kingdom. The deposed King at St.
Cloud hastened to confirm the appointment. The Duke of Orleans respectfully
declined the royal appointment. "You cannot receive things from everybody,"
said Dupont. General Lafayette soon came to pay his respects. "You know,"
said he, "that I am a republican, and consider the Constitution of the
United States as the most perfect that has been devised." "So do I,"
replied the Duke; "but do you think that in the present condition of France
it would be advisable for us to adopt it?" "No," answered Lafayette; "what
the French people must now have is a popular throne, surrounded by
republican institutions." "That is just my opinion," said Prince Louis
Philippe.
[Sidenote: Charles X. abdicates]
Lafayette's conversation with the prince led to the so-called programme of
the Hotel de Ville. "I shall not take the crown," said the Duke of Orleans,
"I shall receive it from the people on the conditions it suits them to
impose. A charter will henceforth be a reality." At last Charles X.
abdicated in favor of his grandson, the Duke of Bordeaux. The Duke of
Orleans refused to recognize the claims of Henri V., and France and Europe
were with him. Charles X. relinquished further hopes.
[Sidenote: Louis Philippe, King of France]
The Dauphin, formerly Duke of Angouleme, in like manner resigned his rights
to his nephew. The act was signed on the 2d of August. Charles X. now set
out for Normandy with his guards, commanded by Marmont, and, on August 16,
embarked at Cherbourg in two American vessels, with the Dauphin and
Dauphiness, the Duchess of Berry, the Duke of Bordeaux, and a numerous
suite of attendants. The ships sailed for England, and, anchoring at
Spithead, the royal fugitives took up their residence at Lulworth Castle,
in Dorsetshire, but eventually removed to Holyrood Castle at Edinburgh,
which was placed at their disposal by the British Government. On August 9,
Louis Philippe, on the formal request of the two Chambers, accepted the
crown of France with a solemn oath to uphold the Constitution.
[Sidenote: Louis Philippe's previous career]
[Sidenote: Sojourn in America]
[Sidenote: "Le Roi Citoyen"]
[Sidenote: A new power in France]
The overthrow of the Bourbons was not a revolution in the sense of the
great French Revolution of the previous century. It resulted chiefly in the
transfer of government from one political faction to another. Louis
Philippe, raised to the throne by reason of his supposed democratic
principles, rather than for his royal lineage, was a Republican only in
name. His early education, together with that of his brothers, was directed
by the Countess of Genlis. On the outbreak of the Revolutionary war, the
young Prince, then Duke of Chartres, fought with distinction by the side of
Kellermann and Dumouriez at Valmy and Jemmapes. He accompanied the latter
when he took refuge in the camp of the imperialists in April, 1793. After
the death of his father, Philippe Egalite, refusing to bear arms against
France, he joined his sister and Madame de Genlis in Switzerland, where
they lived for some time under an assumed name. In 1795 he travelled into
the north of Germany, Sweden and Norway, and in the following year sailed
from Hamburg for the United States of America. Here he was joined by his
two brothers, and after some years in America, during which they were often
in distress, the three princes went to England in 1800. The Duke of Orleans
now obtained a reconciliation with the heads of his family, Louis XVIII.
and the Count of Artois. Subsequently he became a guest at the court of
Ferdinand IV., the dispossessed King of Naples, at Palermo; and here was
celebrated, in November, 1809, his marriage with the Princess Marie Amelie,
daughter of that monarch. Upon the restoration of Louis XVIII. he
re-entered France, and took his seat in the Chamber of Peers; but having
fallen under suspicion of disaffection, he once more retired to England and
did not reappear in France till 1817. During the remainder of the reign of
Louis he took no part in public affairs and lived in tranquillity at his
favorite villa of Neuilly. He was a "citizen king," only in so far as he
sent his children to the public schools and walked about the streets of
Paris with an umbrella under his arm. The most lasting effect in France of
the July revolution was the obliteration of clerical influences in the
administration and public education. The Royalist nobility likewise lost
what political ascendency they had regained during the Restoration.
Henceforth the party in power was that of the bourgeoisie or great middle
class of France, of which Louis Philippe himself was the self-constituted
representative.
[Sidenote: Revolution in Belgium]
[Sidenote: Bombardment of Antwerp]
[Sidenote: Talleyrand's last mission]
[Sidenote: Belgian Independence recognized]
Outside of France, on the contrary, the effects of the short revolution
were far-reaching. In the Netherlands ever increasing friction between the
Dutch-speaking Protestants of Holland and the French Catholics of Belgium
had excited the country to the point of revolution. Recent repressive
measures on the part of the Dutch Government made matters worse. On August
25, the performance, at the Brussels Opera House, of Auber's "La Muette di
Portici," with its representation of a revolutionary rising in Naples, gave
the signal for revolt. From the capital the insurrection spread throughout
Belgium. The King summoned the States-General to The Hague and agreed to an
administrative separation of Belgium and Holland; but the storm was not
quelled. On the appearance of Dutch troops in Brussels, barricades were
erected and the insurgents drove the soldiers out of the city. For several
days fighting continued in the outskirts. A provisional government declared
the independence of Belgium. Mediation by a conference in Holland was
frustrated by the bombardment of Antwerp by its Dutch garrison. The French
Liberals were burning to give assistance. Austria and Russia stood ready to
prevent their intervention by force of arms. Louis Philippe, while holding
the French war party in check, felt constrained to look about him for an
ally. In this extremity Prince Talleyrand, the old-time diplomat of the
Bourbons, the Republic, the Empire and the Restoration, now in his
eightieth year, was sent to London. He approached Wellington and the new
King with such consummate address that an understanding was soon reached
with England, which set at naught all projects of European armed
intervention on behalf of the Prince of Orange. Such intervention could not
have failed to drag the French into war. Now it was agreed that the
regulation of Belgian affairs should be submitted to a conference at
London. In the interim Belgian independence was accepted in effect and
hostilities ended.
[Sidenote: Leopold of Coburg declines Greek crown]
In Greece, the government of Capodistrias was beset with such difficulties
that it was decided to invite some European prince to set up a
constitutional monarchy. The throne was offered to Prince Leopold of
Coburg, the husband of the late Princess Charlotte of England. Leopold
accepted, but when he learned that the Powers would not grant complete
independence to Greece, without restoring AEtolia, Thessaly and the fertile
islands of Samos and Candia to the Sultan, he withdrew his acceptance.
[Sidenote: Revolution in Poland]
[Sidenote: War declared on Russia]
Peace had scarcely been restored in the Netherlands when the spirit of
revolt, travelling northward, seized the ardent people of Poland.
Alexander's recognition of home rule in Poland had given the Poles a
parliament and army of their own. After the Polish conspiracies at the
outset of Nicholas's reign, Alexander's successor would no longer invoke
the Polish Diet, and Russian troops and officers were sent into Poland. Of
course this was bitterly resented. Plans for an uprising had already been
made in 1828 during the Turkish war. The example of the successful risings
in Paris and Brussels now brought matters to a head. On November 29, the
revolt broke out in Warsaw. The Polish regiments of the garrison joined the
insurgents. The Russian troops, finding the odds against them, withdrew.
Grandduke Constantine narrowly escaped with his life. A provisional Polish
Diet was convoked. Prince Czartoryski was elected President. The Poles, in
remembrance of the late Czar's kindly attitude toward them, flattered
themselves that the fruits of their revolution might be left to them.
Lubecki, the former chief of the Imperial Council in Poland, with two
associates, set out for St. Petersburg to voice the Polish demands for
constitutional government before the Czar. It was even proposed that
constitutional government should be conceded to those Russian provinces
that had formerly belonged to Poland. On the way to St. Petersburg the eyes
of the envoys were opened as they met the formidable columns of Russian
troops marching to the Polish frontier. Forthwith, Lubecki forsook the
cause of Poland. His colleagues found difficulty in obtaining a hearing
from the Czar. When they were finally admitted to the imperial palace,
Nicholas gave them clearly to understand that Poland had but two
alternatives, unconditional submission or complete subjugation. When this
answer reached Warsaw it was too late to swing the outside Polish provinces
and Lithuania into the movement. Yet the Polish Diet, in a spirit of
patriotic frenzy amounting to national suicide, passed a resolution
declaring that the House of Romanoff had forfeited the Polish crown.
Feverish preparations were made for a life and death struggle with Russia.
[Sidenote: Revolt in Spain]
The fall of the Bourbons in France had once more raised the hope of the
Spanish Liberals. On the other hand, King Ferdinand's abolition of the
Salic law of succession in Spain, so as to assure the throne to his new
wife, raised up a party of absolutists against him. His brothers, Don
Carlos and Francisco, became the heads of this movement and rallied their
supporters around them, in the Basque provinces. In Portugal kindred
dissensions rent the land in twain. Dom Miguel's claims to the crown were
disputed on behalf of the constitutional government by the Duke of Palermo.
Across the seas, Dom Pedro of Brazil proclaimed himself the legitimate heir
to the throne of Braganza.
[Sidenote: Death of Bolivar]
Like other South American States, Brazil was itself a prey to internal
dissensions and civil strife. To put an end to the recurrent revolutions of
South America, Simon Bolivar conceived a scheme for a Pan-American Congress
to weld together all the quasi-republican governments of the Southern
Hemisphere and Central America. Unfortunately for this project, Bolivar's
own aspirations to dictatorial rule told against him. His chief opponents
were those who were striving for a disruption of the Colombian Union. His
own States, Peru and Bolivia, had already declared against him. The
Congress finally voted to give Bolivar a pension of $3,000 a year on
condition that he should leave America forever. Bolivar's pride was stung
to the quick. He resigned all public offices and honors, and went to
Caracas to sail for England. He died at Santa Marta, on the sea-shore, on
December 17. His last words were: "The people send me to the tomb, but I
forgive them."
[Sidenote: Bolivar's career]
In Bolivar, South America lost the most fiery of her liberators. Born at
Caracas, in 1783, he was pre-eminently a child of the modern spirit
engendered by the French Revolution of 1792. He saw Spain in the days of
its quasi-medieval darkness, and was in Paris at the close of the great
revolution. Later he was a witness of Napoleon's coronation as King of
Italy, and saw for himself the benefits of republican institutions in North
America. The turning-point in his career was the loss of his young wife
after two years of domestic happiness. As he said himself: "I loved my wife
so much that at her death I made a vow never again to marry. I have kept my
oath. Perhaps, had I not lost her, my career would have been different. I
might not, then, have been General of the Liberators. My second visit to
Europe would never have been made. The ideas which I imbibed during my
travels would not have come to me, and the experience I have had, the study
of the world that I have made, and of men and things--all this, which has
so well served me, would never have been. Politics would never have
attracted me. But the death of my wife caused the love of my country to
burn in my heart, and I have followed the chariot of Mars rather than
Ceres' plow."
[Sidenote: Van Diemen's Land]
[Sidenote: Extermination of natives]
In the new English penal colony of Van Diemen's Land in Australia, the
Tasmania of latter days, the self-assertive and domineering traits of the
Anglo-Saxon race were no less apparent among the convicts than among the
few free settlers. A few years before this the colonists had proclaimed
themselves independent of New South Wales and established a separate
government. The Van Diemen's Land Company received a grant of twenty-five
thousand acres; white population increased; religious, educational and
commercial institutions were founded. The natives were all but
exterminated. During this year Governor Arthur made an extraordinary
attempt to settle the native problem. His idea was to catch all the
aborigines of the island and pen them up on the narrow neck of land known
as Tasman's Peninsula. Upward of three thousand five hundred white persons,
including three hundred soldiers, turned out for the exciting operation of
clearing Van Diemen's Land by means of a cordon across the island. All
seemed to be going well until the line of beaters contracted, when it was
found that the natives were in the rear, instead of in the front. The
attempt proved a total failure; only two natives were captured. The total
cost of the expedition amounted to L35,000. The individual measures of the
settlers against the despised natives proved more efficacious. Within a few
years, when the last of the Tasmanian aborigines were transferred from the
mainland to Flinder's Island, by the instrumentality of George Augustus
Robinson, it was found that but three hundred were left. The white
population--largely of convict antecedents--by this time numbered more than
15,000 persons.
[Sidenote: North American dissensions]
[Sidenote: Nullification debate]
[Sidenote: Webster's declaration]
In North America the doctrine of nullification, newly put forth, emphasized
the growing differences between the Northern and Southern States. The great
debate between Hayne and Webster came about casually in the course of a
discussion of the sale of public lands. The topic of nullification was
dragged in by Southern speakers. Webster felt called upon to uphold the
cause of the Northern States. Smarting under some of his animadversions of
Southern sloth, Hayne made a two-day speech in which he inveighed against
the spirit of the New Englanders. His own State, South Carolina, and her
sister States in the South, he declared, would defend their sovereign
rights, or "perish in the last ditch." Webster's reply to those prophetic
words was the grandest oratorical effort of his life. He declared for the
continued union of all the States in all their strength: "Liberty and
Union, now and forever, one and inseparable." Jackson's progressive foreign
policy poured oil on the troubled waters. His repeal of the shipping acts
of 1818 and 1823 brought about a resumption of direct trade with the West
Indies. On October 5, Jackson was able to issue a proclamation announcing
the opening of permanent trade with all ports of the West Indies, Bermudas,
Bahamas, the Gulf of Mexico and South America.
[Sidenote: Anglo-American treaty]
[Sidenote: O'Connell's State trial]
[Sidenote: Anti-reform utterances]
[Sidenote: Wellington unpopular]
[Sidenote: Fall of Ministry]
[Sidenote: Earl Grey, Prime Minister]
This friendly treaty with America was the last satisfactory measure passed
by Wellington's Ministry in England. As elsewhere in Europe the success of
the sudden revolution in Paris created a great stir, and was brought home
to Englishmen all the more forcibly by the deposed king's flight to English
shores. In Ireland, matters were stirred up by Daniel O'Connell, who now
commenced an agitation for the repeal of the union with England. His
prosecution for treason became a State trial. O'Connell's ultimate
conviction once more alienated the powerful Catholic Association of
Ireland. The Duke of Wellington became so prejudiced against reform that he
declared in Parliament: "I am not only averse to bringing forward any
measure of this nature, but I will at once declare, so far as I am
concerned, so long as I hold any station in the government of the country,
I shall always feel it my duty to resist such a measure when proposed by
others." After this declaration the fall of the Ministry was assured.
Stocks fell in London from 84 to 77 points. Abuse and obloquy were heaped
upon the Ministers from every quarter. Caricatures of them were stamped
even on handkerchiefs and calico aprons. The Duke was mostly represented in
the livery of an old hackney coachman, while Sir Robert Peel figured as a
rat catcher. The King no longer concealed his dislike of Wellington, who in
former days had mortally offended him by his support of Admiral Cockburn,
resulting in the resignation of the Prince as Lord High Admiral of England.
As soon as Parliament was reopened late in the year, a significant rebuff
was administered to the Ministry by the Crown. The King preferred to
deliver his speech in person. In the face of the Prime Minister's
declaration against reform, Sir Harry Parnell, even before the delivery of
the King's speech, announced a bill for the revision of the civil list.
Parnell's motion was carried. Brougham followed this up with a motion for a
reform of the rotten borough system. Rather than submit to another
inevitable defeat Wellington's Ministry resigned. Earl Grey, leader of the
Whig opposition, was made Prime Minister. Brougham was raised to the
peerage, and accepted the post of Lord Chancellor. Palmerston was
reappointed Secretary of Foreign Affairs. Lord Grey's appointment of six or
seven of his relatives to administrative posts weakened his Ministry from
the outset.
1831
[Sidenote: Belgian conference]
[Sidenote: Leopold, King of Belgium]
[Sidenote: Luxemburg question]
[Sidenote: Dutch invasion of Belgium]
[Sidenote: French counter-invasion]
[Sidenote: Foreign intervention]
Under the leadership of Lord Palmerston, the Belgian Conference in London
was conducted to a successful issue. Early in January the representatives
of the Powers signed a protocol defining the limits of Belgium and Holland
and apportioning to each country its share in the national debt. The
problem of providing an acceptable government for Belgium still remained.
The Belgians themselves would have welcomed incorporation into France. With
this object in view they elected for their sovereign the Duc de Nemours,
second son of Louis Philippe. When a proclamation to this effect was made
on February 3, Louis Philippe, acting under Talleyrand's advice, withheld
official sanction. Privately he had encouraged his son's candidacy, the
more so as a Bonapartist rival, the son of Eugene Beauharnais, was in the
field. The conference at London determined not to permit Belgium thus to
become a dependency of France. The British Government decided that it would
no longer discountenance armed intervention in Belgium against French
schemes of aggrandizement. Talleyrand obtained the best terms open to his
sovereign by insisting on the withdrawal of the Bonapartist pretender. The
selection of Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, who had just been disappointed
in his aspirations for the empty throne of Greece, was encouraged by France
on the understanding that Leopold, if elected King of Belgium, should marry
a daughter of Louis Philippe. Leopold was elected on June 4, and accepted
the crown only on the condition that the London Conference should modify
its territorial arrangements of January. This brought up the Luxemburg
question. Since the Paris treaty of 1814, the formidable stronghold of
Luxemburg, though under the sovereignty of the King of Holland, was
maintained as the strongest border fortress of the German Confederation.
Now, the Luxemburgers had made common cause with the Belgians. Leopold
accordingly insisted that Luxemburg should be treated as an integral part
of Belgium. The powers at London yielded to this demand sufficiently to
annul the declarations of January, with the promise of a future settlement
of the status of Luxemburg. On this repudiation of the recent international
declaration in favor of the Netherlands, the King of Holland took up arms.
A Dutch army of 50,000 advanced into Belgium. Leopold at once appealed to
France for assistance. A French army marched into Belgium from the other
side. The powers at London made haste to intervene. A British fleet made a
demonstration before Antwerp. Under pressure Leopold signed an agreement to
raze the fortifications on the Belgian frontier. Reluctantly the King of
Holland recalled his army. Under the threat of another armed coalition
against France, Louis Philippe withdrew his forces. Outward tranquillity
was once more restored. No immediate settlement, however, was reached in
regard to Luxemburg. The union of the Luxemburgers with the Belgians
remained in effect, while on the other hand strong German garrisons
continued to hold the fortifications. For years to come this remained a
vexatious problem.
[Sidenote: Difficulties in Greece]
[Sidenote: Holocaust of Greek fleet]
[Sidenote: Mavromichalis imprisoned]
[Sidenote: Assassination of Capodistrias]