THE "July Revolution" of 1830 caused a great rumbling and tumbling in Europe. It seemed as if France was about to start again on her old path of being the trouble-maker for the world. Almost before the tidings of the new king in Paris had become cold, the report spread of the outbreak in Brussels (August 25, 1830) whereby the Belgians declared their independence and put an end to their uncomfortable union with Holland. In November was to come a revolt in Poland against Russian authority, and before the year closed there had been also movements in many of the smaller German States aiming to wring constitutions from their unwilling rulers. Early in 1831 there were new uprisings of Liberalists in several of the wretched little Italian principalities in a vain effort to get better government and less tyranny. For all these upheavals, which threatened to wreck the whole precious system laid down in 1815 at Vienna, the autocrats of Austria, Russia, and Prussia, and their second cousins the Tory party in England, were prone to blame Louis- Philippe. Would France fly off at a tangent? Would she quickly degenerate into a new Jacobinism at home, and encourage every kind of disturbing propaganda abroad? There was a serious possibility that German, Austrian, and Russian armies might even, at Metternich's behest, invade France again, to restore the Bourbons as a preventive of a new spread of Revolutionary heresy.
All these fears were in vain. The whole history of the reign of Louis-Philippe is one of dull anti-climax. The new régime was very little different from that of the Restoration. The real change consisted in giving power to a new set of men. Instead of the Bourbons, tied by tradition and obligation to the old noblesse and the clergy, there was the Orléans family, half bourgeois and "Voltairean," and forced to lean on the semi-liberal middle classes. Theoretically, indeed, this "July Monarchy" represented the acceptance of the sovereignty of the people. Thiers in a proclamation said, "It is from the French people that he [ Louis-Philippe] will hold his crown." Guizot, another promoter of the new dynasty, announced, "He will respect our rights, for it is from us that he will hold his own rights." The new ruler himself declared that he was "King of the French by the grace of God and the good-will of the nation"; and he took particular pains to swear allegiance to the Charter. It was written into the law that the Charter was not merely granted by the Monarch, but handed down by the nation and agreed to by the King; also that the King had no power to issue ordinances which suspended or altered the regular statutes. So far all was excellent. France was to become a limited monarchy in fact as well as in name. But although the King was to be "limited," he was nevertheless still a king. The question of his personality and policy became all-important.
Louis-Philippe was the son of a Duke of Orléans who in 1789 would have possessed a clear title to the throne had anything cut off the reigning family of the Bourbons. The elder prince had been on very uncousinly terms with Louis XVI, had pandered demagogically to the Revolutionists, had called himself "Philippe Égalité (Equality)" when the old titles were shipped overboard, and had finally been elected to the Convention and actually voted for the execution of the King. Citizen "Égalité" himself fell under the guillotine in 1793. His oldest son was Louis-Philippe. That heir to a great title spent a wandering and poverty-stricken youth. He taught mathematics in Switzerland. For a little while he lived as an exile in the United States near Brooklyn; then he drifted back to England, the Government whereof gave him a pension. He married the daughter of the King of Sicily and in 1814 came back to Paris with the Bourbons. His kinsmen naturally detested him, and gave him just as little favor at court as possible, but he recovered most of his family property, and made himself very popular by his democratic habits-walking the streets under his green umbrella, talking and rubbing elbows with working-men, sending his sons to the same schools as did well-to-do bourgeois, and welcoming to his palace artists and literary men who were of avowedly "liberal" tendencies. His habits were those of a jovial English gentleman rather than of a French grand seigneur, and when in 1830 it became needful to make a hurried dispatch of the Bourbons, no candidate for the throne seemed more likely to meet the requirements than he. He would steer France to liberty, it was said, without plunging her on the rocks of Jacobinism.
Nevertheless this "Citizen-King," who even after reaching the throne seemed so delightfully democratic in his habits, was as a matter of fact intensely tenacious of authority, anxious to dictate to his ministers, and almost as obstinate as Charles X. He had a large family. He devoted a large part of his energies to the eminently "bourgeois" pursuit of marrying off his children advantageously and adding to the great personal wealth of the Orléans princes. He took pains not to violate the terms of the Charter as it was revised in 1830-31, but he set his face like flint against any proposition to amplify the modest liberties therein granted. He knew the other Great Powers regarded his advent with distrust if not with aversion. He carefully discouraged, therefore, any proposal by the French liberals to carry diplomatic and military aid to the struggling revolutionists in other countries. His private life was virtuous and dignified,but he never was guilty of constructive statesmanship, and he hugged the delusion that by playing for the favor of a single influential class of the nation he could avoid the need of conciliating all the rest. This delusion was the final cause of his downfall.
The Charter had presented certain features which even the most moderate Liberals in 1830 demanded should be altered. Of course the Republicans desired universal suffrage. They were told in substance to be content with their beloved Tricolor flag and a very modest enlargement of the electorate. By the new law of 1831 the double vote for the very rich was suppressed. For the electors, the legal age was lowered to twenty-five, and the tax rating from 300 to 200 francs ($40). Certain professional "capacities"-lawyers, judges, professors, physicians-were allowed to vote even if they only paid 100 francs. To be a candidate for the Chamber of Deputies one had to pay 500 francs tax, not 1000 as formerly. This raised the whole electoral body to about 190,000 out of a population of 30,000,000. The 190,000 were known soon by an arrogant name, insulting to the rest of the nation; they were the Pays légale ("the country before the law"), as if the rest of their fellow citizens counted for nothing!
To defend this aristocracy of wealth the ruling powers now proceeded to reorganize the National Guard, and make it into a really formidable fighting force. Its purpose, however, was not so much to defend the frontier against a new Prussian or Austrian invasion as to defend the July Monarchy against the assaults by the radicals. Pains were taken that only reliable bourgeois should be enrolled in the lists of the new "legions." The reorganized militia found in truth that its task was no sinecure. It had to handle serious riots and even rebellions. In the first years of Louis-Philippe more than two thousand Guardsmen were killed or wounded fighting insurgents. The Corps was in short the bulwark of the Orléanist régime. While it was faithful the Constitutional Monarchy held its own. When it deserted, in 1848, Louis-Philippe fled quickly into exile.
So then we have a fairly complete and formidable personal monarchy "veiled under a middle-class disguise." Just as Augustus Cæsar called himself, not "king," but "first citizen," to hoodwink his fellow Romans as to the true nature of his government, so Louis-Philippe erased the royal lilies from the panels of his carriages, and on reception days caused the doors of his palace to stand open to almost any decently dressed citizen who cared to come in and shake hands with the head of the State. But the true philosophy of his government revealed itself in the speech of his prime minister, Casimir-Périer, in March, 1831, "France has desired that the Monarchy should become national: it does not desire that it should become powerless."
No recent period of French history is so exempt from striking episodes as this reign of Louis-Philippe (1830-48). There were no serious wars except in Algeria-a colonial conquest to be discussed later, no important crisis in the Government, absolutely no important political reforms. The Church now paid the penalty for the much-vaunted alliance of "the Altar and the Throne" under Charles X. Without being actually persecuted and deposed as a State religion, the Church party was made to feel clearly enough that the new Government owed it little and loved it less. On the other hand, the Republicans, without whose brave if undisciplined fighting behind the barricades the overthrow of the Bourbons would have been impossible, were soon angry and vengeful. They had dreamed of some kind of a return to the brave days of 1792-94: and behold, the new rulers of France were barely adhering to the most essential things won in 1789! The result was a series of insurrections by the working-classes bent on completing the task they had dropped in 1830. There were two days of fierce street fighting in Paris in 1832; while in 1834 in Lyons the ill-paid silk-workers rose in insurrection giving the city over to a five days' riot, and only succumbing to a serious military effort.
These attempts should have been a warning to Louis-Philippe and his "Liberal" ministers that a genuine attempt should be made to conciliate the lower classes, both by enlarging the electorate and by legislation calculated to improve the economic condition of the industrial elements. Nothing substantial was done except in the way of repression. The courts were clogged with prosecutions of Republican newspapers, and the Tribune (a leading radical organ) was prosecuted 111 separate times, and condemned to fines in the aggregate of 157,000 francs ($31,400). The hatred for the King grew: between 1835 and 1846 six distinct attempts were made to murder him. The 1835 attempt was especially diabolical. A Corsican, one Fieschi, manufactured an "infernal machine" with a hundred gun-barrels, which were fired simultaneously at the King when' he rode with his suite through a street in Paris. Louis-Philippe and his sons all escaped: but twelve other persons perished. The natural answer to such a deed was more repression. Special courts were set to handle offenders attacking the security of the State. Convictions could be given by a mere majority vote of the jury, seven out of twelve. Exceedingly heavy penalties were provided for all "excesses" by the press; for example, it was forbidden to publish the lists of jurors; and if a newspaper was fined, it was forbidden that sympathizers of the editor should take up a subscription to discharge his penalty.
There seemed now as little real liberty in France as in the palmiest days of the Ultras. Louis-Philippe was thus subjected from both sides to the most biting manner of criticism; the friends of the Church and of the old Bourbons (still to be reckoned with) of course would have none of him, and as most unnatural allies they now had the Republicans. These elements of dissatisfaction continued to grow until the new explosion of 1848.
The one class the King did stand well with was his sworn partisans, the upper bourgeois. This was an age for stockjobbing and expanding commercial enterprises. France was prosperous, although it was not a prosperity that was shared fairly by the artisan classes. Wealth was creating a host of pre- tentious parvenus who found the prevailing atmosphere of Paris much to their liking. Thiers, and Guizot, the most important of Louis-Philippe's ministers, were nothing if not ardent defenders of "the rights of property." The novels of Balzac, written in this period, give typical pictures of the spirit of sordid acquisitiveness which seemed to dominate the life of the nation: a spirit whose loftiest gospel was that "honesty is the best policy," and which often seemed to treat bankruptcy as a less pardonable offense than murder. With lighter and more romantic touch, the elder Dumas, in his "Count of Monte Cristo," gives a commentary upon the "higher circles" of this periodthe great financiers who think in terms of millions, the vulgar scrambling for wealth as the key to power, the sham aristocrats who boast their nobility while they conceal a very recent family skeleton: the willingness of great and small to cringe before any adventurer who seems to have a vast banker's credit. It was as if the nation that had given the world the theology of Calvin, the philosophy of Rousseau, the heroic idealism of the Girondists, was running to seed in an inglorious commercialism which made wealth the superior of breeding, intelligence, and religion. This was not so, but it was certainly true of the men who seemed leading the policy of France for these monotonous eighteen years.
While Louis-Philippe maintained pretty stiffly his personal control of the Government, he did not make the mistake of trying to do without real ministers. On the contrary, by using competent administrators he boasted that he alike confirmed his own power and satisfied the "country-before-the-law." He was obliged repeatedly to use as prime minister Thiers, one of the Liberals to whom he largely owed his throne in 1830. But Thiers was not sufficiently subservient. He held that the King should choose his ministers from the party predominant in the Chamber and then let them govern in their own way, until they lost the confidence of the deputies. That, however, was far too "constitutional" for Louis-Philippe. He desired to choose his
own ministers, and mark out for them a policy of his own selection, leaving to them the task of manipulating the Chamber so as to avoid friction, and getting it to ratify cheerfully the propositions submitted.
Thiers was a personage of very high ability, who was repeatedly summoned to power prior to 1840 because the King could find no other man able to handle the Chamber, but in 1840 there came a crisis over foreign matters. England, Austria, and Russia were interfering in the affairs of Egypt, whose viceroy, Mehemet Ali, had placed himself under French protection. Thiers was willing to risk even a war with England to vindicate French interests in the Near East, and he urged a bellicose policy. Louis-Philippe understood clearly enough, however, that his beloved bourgeois wished for anything sooner than a capital war. At best, it would interrupt speculations and dividends; at worst, it would see France invaded by a new coalition. He dismissed Thiers from office, pocketed the national pride, and summoned as prime minister Guizot (another Liberal of 1830 fame), who by a somewhat inglorious surrender of French claims in Egypt tided over the crisis. At last the King had found a lieutenant after his own heart. Guizot and Louis- Philippe remained in close working alliance from 1840 to 1848 when they suddenly and simultaneously had to take the road to exile.
Before Thiers left power he had apparently, with the hearty consent of the King, taken a step which was to have important consequences. Ever since 1815, the Napoleonic legend had been growing and gripping the imaginations of the rising generation of France. The Corsican was no longer the pitiless "ogre" of the conscription; he was the peerless champion of France against her old enemies, the hero of Lodi, Jena, and Moscow. Thiers had himself greatly contributed to this rehabilitation of the Emperor's memory by his literary efforts, he being already one of the most famous historians as welt as politicians of France. Napoleon had expressed a wish in his will to be buried on the banks of the Seine, "in the midst of the French people I have loved so well." In 1840 the Government sent a frigate to St. Helena, and Louis-Philippe's third son, Prince de Joinville, honored the famous dead by commanding this vessel that brought the casket homeward. In December, 1840, Paris went into extravagant excitement over the most magnificent State funeral which the capital had ever seen. As the catafalque passed under the Arch of Triumph the old cry once more rang out- "Vive l'Empereur!" The numerous veterans of the great captain dissolved in tears. And so the procession swept on to the Dome of the Invalides.
This funeral was undoubtedly a serious political blunder. It seemed to revive and to stimulate the "Napoleonic legend"- the belief growing in the hearts of all too many Frenchmen that the Emperor had been a true patriot who had been overthrown only because he had defended the honor and liberty of the nation. Within less than ten years the friends of the July Monarchy were to lament this celebration in their exile, and yet in 1840 the proceedings seemed harmless enough. If there were dangers to Louis-Philippe were they not from the old Bourbons or the new Republicans? As for the Bonapartist pretensions, the leader of the party was a certain Louis Napoleon, son of the one-time "King of Holland." He was considered a very impractical adventurer. In 1836 he had attempted a filibustering raid upon Strasbourg. It had failed comically. In 1840 he had just attempted another raid upon Boulogne. It had failed even more comically, and this time its leader had been lodged tightly in prison. The King and his ministers had more dangerous foes to dread.
Louis-Philippe had had ten prime ministers in the ten years preceding 1840: now he was to have only one for eight years. François Guizot was frankly a Monarchist. "The throne," as he put it, "was not an empty armchair." He was a native of Nismes in the South Country and was born of a Protestant family at a time when to be a Protestant meant public disfavor if not regular persecution. He had been professor of modern history in the University of Paris, but in 1822 the Ultra ministers found his teachings "too liberal" and suspended him. From that time until 1830 he had been one of the leading defenders of constitutionalism against reaction, and he might have been expected to go on and advocate a progressive régime under the "Citizen-King." This was not to be. As he had opposed anything less than the terms of the Charter before 1830, so after 1830 he opposed the slightest enlargement of its very narrow "liberties." Constitutionalism to him meant the rule of the upper bourgeoisie-the only part of France educated, but not mediævalized. He was entirely willing, with all his Calvinist tenacity, to put his talents at the disposal of Louis-Philippe. He had been first tried in lesser positions. Now he was made prime minister. The King was delighted with him, declaring, "He is my mouth!"
This last phase of the July Monarchy is extremely uneventful. The Government had neither a reform programme nor even one of deliberate reaction. Its sole ambition was for the static prosperity of the dynasty and of the favored classes. There were no serious wars (save in Algeria), and Guizot deliberately endured the taunt that he was "for peace at any price" in his foreign policy. Louis-Philippe continued to play the "Citizen- King," although after the Fieschi affair in 1835 he no longer dared to walk along the Paris streets, and when he drove out he sat with his back to the horses, as being thus a less exposed target for assassins. Thirteen times in all he is alleged to have been shot at, and it must be admitted that the King faced with considerable bravery the constant chance of being murdered; but he never seems to have endeavored to make his existence safer by conciliating public opinion with liberalizing reforms. The brilliant orator Lamartine summed up the situation when in 1842 he said of Guizot and his master, "A stone post could carry out their policy!" And in 1847 another protesting deputy cried, "What have they done in seven years?-Nothing, nothing, nothing!" To all of which criticism Guizot calmly replied that his aim was "to satisfy the general body of sane and calm citizens" rather than "the limited body of fanatics" affected with "a craze for innovation."
And yet this was a strictly constitutional régime. The minister and the King could declare they were living up to the precise letter of the Charter. Not merely did Guizot have a majority in the Chamber in 1840; it was increased by the elections of 1842 and of 1846. How, therefore, could it be truthfully said that the policy of the Government defied public opinion? As a matter of fact the ministers, with admirable adroitness, had made themselves very secure with the "countrybefore-the-law." The body of electors was so small that it was possible for the Government to offer direct inducements to their disposing fraction to get it to select deputies who would be after the "Citizen-King's" own heart. Readers familiar with the means whereby Walpole in eighteenth-century England retained his majority in the House of Commons will have a keen idea of the methods of Guizot. The average "electoral college" contained such a number of public officials (who owed their positions to the good-will of the ministry) that the Government could count on a solid block of devoted friends in every district. Petty governmental favors-for example, patronage with licenses to sell tobacco, opportunities for good speculations in the new railways, and actual gifts of Government contracts, etc.-would secure the votes of more waverers. After a deputy had been elected, it would be lucky if Guizot did not soon have him bound hand and foot. There were no salaries to the memhers of the Chamber. The Government would offer them all kinds of chances to get railway franchises, and what was worse, downright official positions. Presently about 200 deputies, nearly fifty per cent of the entire Chamber, were holding Government offices and drawing Government pay-which they were naturally loath to forfeit by unfriendly votes and speeches! "Corruption" (the name was almost openly used) thus became a regular system of government, and the numerous scandals, revealed in 1848, proved sufficiently that the subalterns practiced the system as well as the austere prime minister.
"What is the Chamber?" cried a deputy in 1841-"A great bazar, where every one barters his conscience, or what passes for his conscience, in exchange for a place or an office."
There was, indeed, an opposition to Guizot that vented itself in protests about his inert foreign policy and in demands for electoral reform. It was only a helpless minority. Part of the protests came from sincere liberals, who desired either an orderly republic, or at least a monarchy with infinitely greater popular rights than existed under the "Citizen-King." There was rising, however, a party of protest which aimed for economic as well as merely political reforms. French industry was developing. The factories were increasing in size. The use of the steam engine and of the new machinery was driving out the old hand work. Labor conditions were bad, the hours long, pay pitifully small, and the legitimate grievances of the workingclass many. The bourgeois administration met the rising industrial discontent with few concessions, almost no intelligent reforms and much repression. Better working conditions implied, for the moment at least, smaller dividends for the great manufacturers who swore by Guizot. It was well known that the Paris industrial quarters were full of socialist theorizing and that a very clever author and thinker-Louis Blanc-was advocating not merely a democratic republic, but the creation of "national workshops," owned by the State, controlled by their workmen, and suppressing, or at least gradually succeeding, all private industrial establishments. As early as 1842, an acute German observer, Stein, asserted, "The time for purely political movements in France is past: the next revolution must inevitably be a social revolution."
The King, the Prime Minister, and the bourgeoisie heeded none of these things. Guizot met the demand for an increase of the voting body with arrogant disdain. "Work and grow rich!" he declared. "Then you will become voters!" – although his whole policy toward the artisans made it practically impossible for the average Frenchman even to hope to "grow rich."
There were, indeed, certain desirable changes made by the July Monarchy. Some of the terribly severe penal laws were modified. An honest attempt was made to introduce better primary schools. Hitherto elementary instruction for the chilren of the poor in many communes had been simply a farce. Henceforth the communes were required not merely to appoint a schoolmaster, but to provide him with a lodging, a schoolroom, and a fixed salary. These primary schools, however, were not strictly free, and this fact put them still at a heavy discount. It was to be a good while before the French school system was on a satisfactory basis.
The July Monarchy was thus mainly a period of shams, sterility, and growing discontent. Nevertheless Louis-Philippe did witness one great change for France which was to react mightily upon her future and, one may say, upon the future of other nations, especially that of the great continent of Africa.
In 1815 France had possessed one foothold on African soil, the insignificant trading post of Senegal. In 1914 she was to possess nearly one third of the entire African continent, acquiring this by one of the most important feats of colonial expansion in the history of the world. The foundations for this amazing success were laid by the otherwise inglorious monarchs Charles X and Louis-Philippe.
Algeria was one of the Mohammedan North African States between Tunis on the east and Morocco on the west. Since the Arabs had conquered the country in the seventh century, sweeping out the remnants of Roman and Byzantine power, the country had lapsed back into semi-barbarism. The native Moors had become completely Mohammedanized, and under Islamic conditions the country, which had given to the Christian world St. Augustine, was as lost to progress as if sunk in the bottom of the sea. The government had been nominally under a "dey" supposed to be the vassal of the Turkish Sultan, but his authority over the interior tribes of "Arabs" and "Berbers" was very uncertain. It became still more uncertain when, beyond the heights of the Atlas Mountains, Algeria wandered off into the limitless sands of Sahara. Under good government, however, Algeria was capable of great fertility, and was one of the most promising lands not yet occupied by Europeans.
In 1815, Algiers, the chief city, was still the center of a lawless piratical power whose ships were the terror of Mediterranean waters. Most Americans know that in 1815 the United States declared war on the Dey, and sent a squadron under Commodore Decatur which avenged the depredations against American commerce and forced the Corsairs to promise good behavior for the future. There were also English demonstrations against the Dey in 1816 and 1819, but nothing real was accomplished. Oriental promises are easily broken, and the Algerine pirate chiefs were irresponsible and incorrigible. In 1827, however, a dispute arose between France and Dey Hussein over a commercial matter. The local despot lost his temper during a discussion and struck the French consul in the face with his fly-flapper. This was a direct insult to Charles X's Government which could not be overlooked unless the French wished to lose all prestige before Orientals. French warships blockaded Algiers Harbor, and in 1829 the corsairs added to their insults by firing on a French vessel carrying a flag of truce. The Paris Government was now compelled to very resolute action.
A regular expeditionary force was sent to Algeria, the Dey was attacked by land and sea, and on July 5, 1830, the city of Algiers surrendered. This act was almost simultaneous with the July Revolution. The victory came too late to prop up the prestige of the tottering Bourbons, and Louis-Philippe found himself faced with the question of following up the conquest or at once evacuating the country. In France there were soon two parties. The majority of the Chambers favored letting Algeria alone. To the average bourgeois elector the region seemed far away, with only remote commercial possibilities, but with a very great certainty of being a heavy drain on the taxpayer. Popular sentiment, however, was decidedly in favor of pursuing a conquest fairly begun. With characteristic sluggishness the July Monarchy decided merely to occupy the chief harbors and "to await events." The natives, however, provided the "events" themselves. They made formidable attacks on the French troops and it was needful to take the offensive to avenge the outbreaks.
Nevertheless, the French hold on Algeria for long was confined merely to the coast. For several years only the towns of Algeria, Oran, and Bona were occupied by garrisons, although some attempts were made to negotiate with the local "beys" of the interior (former dependents of the "dey"), that they should put themselves under French protection. While matters were in this inchoate state, however, the Moors found a redoubtable leader: the Emir Abd-el-Kader, "a man of rare intelligence, a fearless horseman, and an eloquent orator." This gallant chieftain, a veritable new Jugurtha on the old Numidian soil, united the scattered tribes under his sovereignty, and for fifteen years waged fairly even warfare with the whole power which France could send to Africa.
For Louis-Philippe to have evacuated Algeria now, in the face of such an attack, would have shaken the prestige of his Government alike in all the Levant and in France itself. This became increasingly true after 1835, when the Emir defeated General Trezel in a regular battle on the banks of the Macta. Abd-el-Kader continued to fight so successfully that in 1837 the French were fain to make a treaty with him by which, in return for a vague acknowledgment of "French sovereignty," the whole of western Algeria was resigned to his direct rule. But the Emir looked on this treaty only as a truce preparatory to a regular Jidad ("Holy War"). He devoted his great energies to organizing a formidable army partly on the European model, and assembled not merely field artillery, but a park of siege guns. It was claimed that 50,000 cavalry and a still larger body of footmen would answer his summons. He prepared arsenals, powder factories, cannon foundries, and posts for supply along the probable strategic positions. When he believed that all was ready, in 1839 he broke the truce, and drove his attack up to the very gates of Algiers, burning the farms and massacring the unlucky French colonists who fell into his hands.
There was nothing for it now but for Louis-Philippe to send a really formidable army into Algeria. General Bugeaud was given first 80,000, then 115,000, men to handle a decidedly serious military situation. He made a deliberate change in the French system of warfare in Africa. Hitherto the invaders had held on to the coast towns, but had made no effort to grasp the hinterland. Bugeaud lightened the equipment of his regulars, used small cannon that could be carried by mule-back. and multiplied the number of his swift, mobile columns. By this principle of the "resolute offensive" Bugeaud carried the war into the western Oran district, whence Abd-el-Kader drew most of his resources, captured his strongholds and magazines one by one, and by 1843 he had chased the Emir and the remnant of his forces into Morocco. This was not quite the end, however. Islamic fanaticism made a supreme effort. A devotee, Bu-Mazu (the "Goat Man"), called the faithful again to arms and Abdel-Kader appeared again in Algeria. But by this time the Berbers and the other Moorish elements were splitting into parties. A strong faction had come to regard French rule as a lesser evil than that of falling under the despotism of the Emir. Finally, in 1847, Abd-el-Kader surrendered to the Duc d'Aumale, a son of Louis-Philippe (Bugeaud having recently retired), and the period of conquest was over.
The French had still, of course, their problems in Algeria. To handle the warlike and fanatical mountain or desert tribes required much firmness and very much tact. There was to be a spasmodic insurrection in 1864, and a decidedly serious one in 1871, when the prestige of France was everywhere lowered by the defeat by Germany, and when the restless Moors were fain to believe that her power was broken. They learned to their cost that Frenchmen could still fight, although it required a bitter struggle to reassert European authority at a moment when the home Government was sorely beset with many nearer problems.
By 1890 the French hold on Algeria was so consolidated that the attempt could be begun to reach out across the Sahara and to couple up with the French post developing in the great region of the Niger and the Senegal. Finally in 1914 the relations between European and Algerine had become so mutually trustful that France was able, not merely to withdraw a large fraction of her entire army of occupation to meet the German crisis but to recruit many tens of thousands of fiery Berbers to fight valiantly and loyally for the cause of the world's freedom on the fields of Picardy and Champagne. The surrender of Abd-el-Kader was only two months, almost to a day, before the downfall of Louis-Philippe. The July Monarchy continued apparently prosperous and pretentious up to the very end. The suddenness of its downfall indicated how rotten had been its foundation. Its prestige and popularity had been, indeed, undermined by the notorious "Spanish marriages," wherein the King had clearly shown his willingness to advance the private interests of his family even at the expense of the general interests of France. The downfall of Louis Philippe had, indeed, been foreseen for years by many shrewd observers. Metternich, who (with all his narrowness) was no fool, remarked early in the reign that the Orléanist régime rested neither on popular enthusiasm, the authority of a plebiscite, the glory of a Napoleon, nor the sanction of a "legitimate" dynasty. "Its durability rests solely upon accidents." That it lasted as long as it did was mainly due to the inherent conservatism of the French masses outside of Paris, the sordid worldly wisdom of the King's bourgeois politicians, the generally peaceful state of Europe, and to a large amount of mere good luck. In February, 1848, that good luck suddenly deserted.
Year by year the demand for "reform" – mainly electoral reform – had been rising. Even with the very limited franchise there was a respectable amount of protest in the Chamber. Outside of the Chamber there was still more protest. In 1847 there began to be a series of "reform banquets," as a substitute for parades and for regular public meetings which the Government resolutely discouraged. The participants in these banquets often claimed to be loyal to the King, but that they were simply desiring a wider franchise. Sometimes the agitators, however, expected something more. There began to be "Republican" banquets at which the Monarchy's right to existence was at least indirectly criticized. Nothing was done to meet the demands of the moderates, so it was not surprising that the radicals made headway. It could not be denied that the existing franchise made the Chamber a mere "club of capitalists"; and when charges of corruption were hurled against the body, Guizot felt it enough to ask his own nominees in the deputies whether they felt themselves corrupted? The whole situation was summed up in the striking assertion of Lamartine, "France is bored."
Omitting picturesque and merely personal incidents the overthrow of the July Monarchy came briefly thus: on the 22d of February, 1848, the Opposition elements in the deputies resolved to hold a grand banquet of protest against the "do nothing" policy of the Government. The authorities, however, foolishly prohibited the banquet. The original holders thereof peaceably decided to give it up, but the news of its abandonment was not spread in time. There was excitement and expectancy of a clash, and on the 22d many Parisians were on the streets. Turbulent elements were soon shouting recklessly, "Hurrah for reform!" All day there were petty riots and some gun-shops were plundered. The police, however, seemed to have the situation well in hand.
The leaders of the radical movement considered the case unpromising and did not issue a summons to arms, but on the morning of the 23d unattached bodies of working-men began casting up barricades. The Government then called out the National Guard. That body, however, "bourgeois" as it was, was disgusted with the ministry. Many of its members in turn began yelling, "Hurrah for reform!" – often adding, "Down with Guizot." This defection of the Guard shook the resolution of King and premier. Guizot resigned and the word spread that there would be a "reform ministry" and a genuine recasting of the Constitution. What more was there to fight for? That night all respectable middle-class Parisians first illuminated their windows and then quietly went to bed. The victory was won and the crisis seemed over.
But the crisis was not over for the Republican radicals. They realized that there was no time like the present, when barricades were up and arms were still in the hands of the industrial element. In front of the Foreign Office a body of anti-monarchists was fired upon by the police. Placing several dead bodies on a cart and parading the same by torchlight through the artisan quarters, the radicals called the people "to arms!" The Monarchy had been slaughtering the people; now let the people turn out the Monarchy. On the 24th the cry was no longer for "reform," but, "Long live the Republic!"
Vainly Louis-Philippe now began announcing concession after concession. The soldiers, as in 1830, proved none too valiant when fighting for a Government highly unpopular. The eastern quarters of the city were soon held by the insurgents. Everywhere were the placards, " Louis-Philippe massacres us as Charles X did; let him follow Charles X!" The elderly King showed considerable energy in exhorting the National Guard to resist the radicals, but when he heard discordant shouts from its ranks he returned discouraged to the Tuileries and hastily abdicated in favor of his young grandson, the Comte de Paris. Under a popular regent for the lad the dynasty might be saved.
But no such eleventh-hour subterfuge could deliver the Orléanists. At 4.30 P.M. on that turbulent 24th of February the mob forced its way into the Tuileries. The Chamber had in the meantime proclaimed the young Comte de Paris as king. The lad's "reign" lasted only a few minutes. The mob surged into the hall. The Republican fraction of the deputies hastily took charge of the situation and proclaimed a provisional government to rule France until a more regular executive could be chosen. The last relics of royalty vanished. At the City Hall a still more radical body of "Democratic Republicans" had also proclaimed a new government, but the two factions presently reached a compromise by which the conservative Republicans took most of the governmental portfolios, and the radical leaders were put in as "secretaries" to the various ministers. The next day the new provisional rulers sent out their proclamation, "The Republic is the Government of France!" A few days later they decreed the convocation of a national convention to draw up a constitution. Meantime the Orléans princes were fleeing, not very heroically, across the Channel to join their Bourbon cousins in dreary exile.
Old Louis-Philippe died in England in 1850. He had been neither a knave nor a fool, but by his sordid, self-centered, obstinate policy he had destroyed the chance that France could find a peaceful happiness as a democratic government with an hereditary president as in England. Needless to say his opinions of the acts of his countrymen remained bitter unto the end. "All is possible," said he, to a visitor in his exile – "all is possible to France – an empire, a republic, the [Bourbon claimant] Chambord, or my grandson; but one thing is impossible – that any of these should last. The nation has killed respect."
This judgment was, of course, harsh and untrue. But it was quite true that an insurrection by only a limited fraction of Paris had overthrown the Government and substituted another without making the slightest attempt to discover what kind of a reformed régime would be most welcome to the rest of France. The departments had accepted the new revolution in a kind of stupor, unprepared, unconsulted, unorganized for prompt action and confronted with a completed deed. Speedy developments, however, were to show the great gulf fixed between the explosive faubourgs and the conservative solid peasantry. As a very competent judge (Jules Simon) thus sums up the 1848 Revoluition: "The agitation, set on foot by certain Liberals, resulted in the Republic which they dreaded, and at the last moment, universal suffrage, set on foot by certain Republicans, resulted in promoting the cause of socialism which they abhorred."
ASPECTS OF FRENCH LIFE UNDER THE RESTORED MONARCHY: 1814-1848
DESPITE the fact that this is mainly a political history, certain phases of French life, the development of conditions in Paris, etc., have a considerable importance in illustrating the conditions under which the events of 1814 to 1848 were possible.
The revolutions of 1830 and 1848 were both largely of Parisian manufacture, and to understand them a certain understanding of affairs in the capital is highly necessary. French society in this period reflects the general state of transition from the days of the Old Régime to the Modern France of to-day, and like every era of social transition it presented various phases which have to be accounted for in ordinary history.
French society has never seemed more refined than during this period when the nobility, who had profited by recent adversity, and the bourgeoisie, who had never forsaken their habits of cold restraint, set their stamp upon society. It is true, however, that there were now political dissensions which gave rise to at least two political parties, and we no longer find a single, unified upper society as in the France of the eighteenth century. On the one side were the salons of the Royalists; on the other, those of the Liberals. When the Chaussée-d'Antin or the Faubourg Saint-Honoré entertained and held their revels, it might safely be concluded that the Faubourg Saint-Germain was depressed and had no interest in the lists of invitations and in the succeeding festivities.
Royalists and Liberals alike, however, shared a predilection for unostentatious elegance, took a keen delight in the life of the salon, and enjoyed the society of elegant women. The old type of French conversation, with its deference and spirited gallantry, was revived. The polish and the etiquette peculiar to these circles have in fact never again been witnessed since their decline after the year 1848. In the salons of 1820 and 1840 there lived again that same ingenious type of conversation with its clever retorts, its pleasantries and witticisms; even the very madrigals and other poetic affectations of the Ancien Régime. Politics, philosophy, art, literature were discussed, but just as in the period before the Revolution, much less mention was made of natural science because the interests of the people were essentially literary. The dramas of Victor Hugo, the works of Ingres or of Delacroix, the lyrical compositions of Meyerbeer or Berlioz held a much more prominent place in conversation than the discoveries of Ampère the electrician, or of Arago the astronomer.
The influence exerted by the ruling classes on the life of society had not yet been menaced by the counter-influence of the lower classes. It was rarely that any person of social pretensions allowed even a single word of "slang" to intrude into his conversation. Nor had society as yet been affected by those stormy petrels of the middle classes, the artists or the "daubers," the litterati, or above all the literary "bohemians." The ideas, the manners, the artistic and literary tastes of these parvenus in letters and in learning, were still simply the occasion for jests and caricatures on the part of good society; and to stamp a thing as "bourgeois" was to damn it as equivalent to all that was hopelessly out of date.
Society, however, had its caprices; for example, about 1820 it suddenly became completely infatuated with the poetry of Byron, with Goethe's "Werther," with "René," by Chateaubriand; and as a consequence of this mania it became actually fashionable to look "dispirited" and "weary of life." "The younger set, who were usually in the best of health, posed as consumptives." The seraphic poetry of Lamartine was popular with large coteries of ethereal and fragile ladies who, with their eyes lifted to heaven, "affected to live on nothing else than the perfume of roses!"
Very little is heard of the court of Louis XVIII; the King, who was of a studious nature, a scholar and a classicist, in short, an urbane old gentleman who recited Horace and who made really clever jests, was infirm and afflicted with gout, and had no fondness for society. When his daughter-in-law, the Duchess de Berry, ceased to do the honors of the court after the tragic death of her husband, very little entertaining was indulged in except at the residences of the Duke and Duchess of Angouleme or at the Pavillon de Marsan where the Count of Artois, the heir-presumptive, held his state. Under Charles X these receptions were limited to a small circle of Royalists of good standing, or to such individuals as had given proof of their loyalty to the Monarchy. Under the Orléans régime there was of course a decidedly marked change.
Louis-Philippe, who held his throne as a result of the combined efforts of the Paris masses and of the bourgeois, had caught the allegiance of the former by singing the "Marseillaise" on the balcony of the Tuileries, of the latter by his practice of admitting them freely to his salons. The first receptions given by Louis-Philippe at the Palais Royal were in fact a curious spectacle. By the indulgence of the King practically any orderly person who desired was allowed to attend, and the officers of the National Guard from the market districts and from the suburbs arrived in full dress, their wives on their arms, to pay their compliments to the "Citizen-King."
The personal virtues of the King and Queen and the Simple, unaffected manners of the entire royal household naturally delighted the bourgeois. They were gratified when the King authorized them to promenade in the Garden of the Tuileries under the very windows of his apartment, which was in turn thrown open to them on certain days. Visitors were impressed, while passing through the salons, and even the bedchambers of the royal couple, to see everywhere evidences of good management in both the public and private life of the court. They enjoyed and appreciated the familiar sight of the King going about with his green umbrella, an act and article which was to the average bourgeois a symbol alike of economy and of foresight. They were also greatly impressed on learning that the King like themselves carved his own fowl at table even in the presence of ambassadors.
The sons of the King received the same education as the sons of the bourgeoisie, and attended the public lycée; when they had finished the general course there, a reception was held at the Tuileries to which their comrades were invited. And in fairness it should be said, that notwithstanding all the charges hurled against the July Monarchy, no Prince, even under the Old Régime, has been more lamented than was the Duke of Orléans after his tragic death in 1842.
In literature the bourgeois had abandoned the drama of the "Boulevard "to the people and had been shocked from the very first by the invasion of Victor Hugo at the Comédie Française. The favorite authors were Scribe and Musset. They were by no means averse to certain types of gayety; even in the best homes of the bourgeois after a particularly good dinner it was the custom to remain around the table and sing the songs of Béranger, the refrains whereof were sung in a chorus.
The best society attended the masked ball at the Opéra; here everybody danced together, met the leaders of feminine society, and learned the methods of polite intrigue. As the population of Paris grew, the originally modest character of these balls vanished. More and more they were attended by adventurers and strangers. The management began to hire professional dancers; Musard with his brass band, strident and roisterous, with his symphonies of pistol shots and falling chairs, and with his infernal "gallop"; Chicard, with his gauntlets, his helmet, and extravagant plumes, took possession, and one by one the respectable people deserted these heterogeneous fêtes.
The Restoration had retained the State lottery which had been suppressed in 1793 and reëstablished in 1797. It had an enormous fascination for a certain type of people; they attempted to divine the winning numbers, to see them in dreams, to obtain them from fortune-tellers or from clairvoyant mediums. There were five lottery bureaus – respectively at Paris, Bordeaux, Lille, Lyons, and Strasbourg – and there were five "drawings" per month. There was also a system of public gambling which was highly popular. It was played at Paris under the patronage of the State, just as later it went on at Baden or Monte Carlo. Even this, however, did not drive out private gamblinghouses, and during a spasm of public righteousness in 1836 both the private and the public establishments as well were ordered suppressed. In 1839 the lottery was likewise forbidden as "immoral." It has been calculated that these two institutions cost the French nation very nearly four hundred million francs annually ($80,000,000).
Social customs were borrowed wholesale from England in this period, despite the alleged national antagonism. One of the most important and desirable of these usages, introduced following 1814, was that of personal hygiene. People began to pay more attention to cleanliness than they had during the preceding twenty-five years of military campaigns, bivouacs, and nomadic life. "They began to use perfume less and water more." In their homes they devoted less attention to elegance and thought more of "comfort," a word which was English both in spirit and in form. British cooking, which was wholesome and simple, also largely replaced the super-refined dishes of the French chefs. Even in France they came to know thoroughly the meaning of "a good beefsteak."
At first there was a rage for the woven fabrics, for the steel, and for the thousand and one little knick-knacks which England could supply; a passion held in check only by very stringent customs duties. "Coats, shoes, needles, razors, in fact there was nothing that was good, beautiful, or convenient but what came from across the Channel." The word mode was replaced by that of "fashion" and every one prided himself on being "fashionable." People spoke glibly of the courses," "horses," "Irish banquets," "the steeple-chase," the "turf," "jockeys," "starters," and quite after the English fashion, of "bets" with "bookmakers." Horses, and even in fact strictly French songs, were given English names.
The Second Restoration excited the most intense hatred because of the harsh treatment it awarded the leaders of the Napoleonic army, whereas the ruthless slayers in the "Massacres of the Midi" (South Country) were treated with extreme indulgence. The alliance between the Royalists and the invaders was an additional cause for disaffection.
Among the elements which proved most irreconcilable to the Restoration were the officers of Napoleon who had been put on half.- pay, whereas the State had lavished military promotions on the detested "emigrants" who had flocked back with the Monarchy. Some of these unhappy officers had gone to Texas under the leadership of General Lallemand to establish a military colony called the Champ d'Asile (the "Place of Refuge") which was supported in France by a national subscription (1819). It was given the name of the Canton de Marengo and its chief town was Aigleville("Eagle-town"). Other retired half-pay officers, riding-coats buttoned up under their chins and with their hats, ornamented with the rosette or red ribbon, cocked over one eye, contented themselves with assisting in the instruction of recruits on the parade grounds, an act which irritated many of them, however, because of the consciousness of their own inaction and unmerited disgrace. Still others mixed in regular conspiracies and became the chief source of danger to the dynasty.
The Café Valois was the rendezvous of the peaceful Legitimists, the old "emigrants" who were called the voltigeurs of Louis XVIII. The Bonapartists frequented the Café Lamblin. When the bodyguards announced their intention, in 1814, of coming thither to set up a bust of Louis XVIII, three hundred officers of the Empire garrisoned the place to protect it, and even the intervention of the authorities failed to prevent bloodshed.
After the return of the Emperor in 1815 the Café Montansier at the Palaise-Royal became the headquarters of the Imperial officers. They converted the stage of the music hall into a political rostrum, substituted themselves for the actors, and uttered the most abusive tirades against the Bourbons. After the second return of the King the royal musketeers and the bodyguards in their fury for reprisal took this café by storm, shattered the glasses and dishes, and hurled the silver and furniture out of the windows.
In the provinces the old seigneurs of the village, who were very often in league with the parish priests, disturbed the purchasers of "national property," treated the mayor and the municipal council with contempt, and maintained that they still had the right to sit in the old scigneurial pew and to receive the consecrated wafer in church before the rest of the congregation. These pretentious country squires soon became the victims of open satire and caricature, and stock figures for the jests of the Liberals.
It was as if in France two nations, two armies, stood facing each other. Liberals and Bonapartists at this time held common cause. In a thousand ways, some of them quite absurd, the antagonism between them and the Legitimists showed itself. The Royalists punned on the two words libéreauxand libérés (that is, "returned convicts"), they more seriously distributed pious books and "Lelgitimist" pamphlets. The Liberal publisher, Touquet, retaliated by multiplying the editions of Rousseau and Voltaire which were sold in all sizes and at all prices. This same Touquet also sold Liberal snuff-boxes under the cover of which was concealed the text of the Charter. The Royalists adopted this same device, substituting the will of Louis XVI or the portrait of their "martyr king." In 1819 canes were manufactured with adjustable heads, which revealed, when opened, a statue of Napoloen. The fad was also conceived of selling tricolored braces and of manufacturing alcoholic beverages which were called "Liqueur des Braves" or "Larmes [tears] du Général Foy." In 1815 the clergy refused burial in the church of Saint-Roch to an actress, Mlle. Raucourt. Incensed by this insult, the Liberals forced the doors of the church, broke down the gratings, and deposited the coffin before the High Altar. Louis XVIII indulgently dispatched a chaplain to repeat the last rites over the dead and the threatening mob subsided. In 1817 the Liberals and Royalists crowded into the Théâtre-Français for a presentation of "Germanicus" by a mediocre tragedian Arnault who was famous solely because of his wellknown fidelity to Napoleon. On both sides officers drew their swords in the riot which ensued, and it was necessary to call out the gendarmes. The epilogue was a half-dozen of duels on the morrow!
Dueling, indeed, had never been so common as during the first years of the Restoration. Every morning (reports had it) the officers of the old Imperial Guard and the new Royal Guard had their combats.
There were also the parliamentary duels which followed the discussions in the Chambers, such as the duel between General Foy and M. de Corday (1820). In these encounters pistols were ordinarily used. If the first one to fire missed, the other out of courtesy would fire in the air. Of these duels the most celebrated during the July Monarchy was that one in which Emile de Girardin killed a fellow journalist, Armand Carrel; a duel which was much more famous from the uproar it created than were the principals themselves (1836).
Freemasonry, to which nearly all Liberals belonged, was not nearly so active during this period as were some other types of secret societies. On one side was the Congrégation, which was under the supervision of the Jesuits; on the other was the Carbonari(French, Charbonnerie) which was established by Buchez, at that time a medical student. The Carbonari, or, as the Italian word signifies, "Charcoal-burners," were organized in imitation of their fellow members in Italy. They swore over a dagger their "eternal hatred to the King and to Monarchy." Members were charged an assessment of a franc a month. They organized in groups of twenties. When numbers increased, new "twenties" were formed until they enveloped the entire country, and even the army, with a network of organizations. They were modeled like a hierarchy, and at the top was the "Supreme Council" of whose composition the thousands of members themselves, as well as the Bourbon police, were ignorant. "Carbonarism" invaded the army and the results came in the military conspiracies of Saumur and Belfort, the plot of Captain Valle, and the attempted insurrection of Lieutenant- Colonel Caron in Alsace. One of the most celebrated trials occurred at this time and ended in the execution of "the four sergeants of La Rochelle" (1822), on whose tombs the people of Paris placed flowers every year. This redoubtable association disappeared when the hatred for the Bourbons began to wear off.
Under Louis-Philippe there were, however, other societies, more or less secret; such as the "Friends of the People," the "Friends of Equality," the "July Union," the "Rights of Man" (which numbered more than sixty thousand adherents in 1833), "Action," the "Seasons," the "Families," all of which continued to organize riots and insurrections, became the subjects for judicial proceedings, and provoked the restrictive law of 1835.
The new Government, following the Old Régime, had permitted a peculiar type of working-men's associations to survive when it abolished the others. The guilds which did not include "stationary workmen" – that is, laborers who settled in one place – served to gather into groups the "journeymen" who went from one town to another in search of work, or, as the saying went, who made "the tour of France." In every town of this "tour," the guild received any traveler who was a member of the "company." It attempted to secure work for him; he was entertained in their appointed tavern, and he was taken in charge by the "mother of the guild" whose members were called her "children." If he fell ill, he was nursed by the "mother," watched over by his companions, and visited by the "rouleur," one of the dignitaries of the society. If he died, his body was suitably accompanied to the cemetery, where it was buried by the members of the association.
All those who joined the guild were initiated to certain "mysteries." When two workmen encountered each other, they exchanged certain formulas and signs of recognition. A very elaborate ritual accompanied this ceremony, on account of which it became customary for members to carry canes and ribbons during public celebrations, and to hold their drinking-glasses over the table, etc. At the funeral of any member, after the eulogy had been pronounced by one of the company, the rest would utter a groan and would then pass alongside the grave, two by two, placing their canes on the ground in the form of a cross. At the corners of the grave they would place their feet in a certain manner. After the ceremony the attendant members then embraced each other.
These corporations still retained certain of the quaint vices of those of the Old Régime. The title of "journeyman" was purchased only after a long and painful apprenticeship. The apprentices were called the "aspirants," the "youngsters," or "foxes." The journeymen usually took advantage of them and harassed them in a thousand different ways. They always took the best of the work for themselves and sent the apprentices into the broussailles or "brambles" – that is, the suburbs or little villages. They did not allow them to sleep in the same room as they did themselves nor could the novices sit down at the same table with them at the fêtes. " Renard, fetch me my boots," a journeyman would cry and the apprentice was bound to obey. The two most celebrated of these associations at the beginning of the century were the "Children of Solomon" and the "Children of Master James." The former claimed that their society had been established by Hiram, the architect of Solomon, who had been assassinated in the original Temple by three traitors to whom he had refused to reveal the secrets of the guild. The latter prided themselves on being able to trace their society back to their master, James, a Provencal architect who had been a colleague of Hiram, and had been murdered by a jealous enemy after his return to Provence from Jerusalem. The "Children of Solomon," who asserted that they were the older organization, were extremely arrogant. Their rites had been communicated to only four guilds: the stone-masons, the locksmiths, the carpenters, and the joiners. These received workmen into membership without any religious distinctions, and as a result recruited members very largely from among the Protestants. The "Children of Master James" were more hospitable and had confided their mysteries to a large number of guilds, but they received only Catholic journeymen into membership. They styled themselves the "Companions of Duty," or the "Dutiful."
These companies were jealous of one another and treated each other with downright hostility. The locksmiths of "Solomon" would have nothing to do with those of "MasterJames" in the village where they happened to be working. Frequently scrimmages arose between these gavots anddevoirants. At Sens in 1842, a devoirant ("Master James" member) conceived the idea of mounting an ass and riding past the shops of the locksmiths of the rival association crying "Gee-up, Gavot" ("Solomon" member). The result was a bloody quarrel. In 1845 at Nantes the bakers prepared to celebrate the feast of their patron saint with the insignia of the regular "companies" – the canes and ribbons. Infuriated by this usurpation, the journeymen fell upon the procession and a regular riot ensued.
These "associations" very frequently lost sight of their real object. Their affection of the "mysteries," the oppressions of the journeymen over the apprentices, and the constant warfare and bickering naturally prevented mutual assistance. The Old Régime had tried to proscribe the guilds and the Constituent Assembly renewed this proscription by its restrictive law of 1791. Nevertheless, among the laborers of lower capacities and more quarrelsome natures, with whom this system had become entrenched, the companies long survived. In 1823 the apprentices revolted against their masters and established the Société des Independants. In 1839 another revolt produced a new and better type of association. It was at this time that preparations for the expedition to Algeria were under way, and were attracting a large number of working-men to the southern seaport of Toulon. The "mother" of the company proposed that the journeymen allow the apprentices to occupy the same rooms. They refused, and were offended by the proposition, whereupon they deserted the "mother" and ordered the apprentices to follow them. The Juniors, however, refused in turn, threw off their signs of bondage, and established the Société del' Union. They no longer made use of insignia such as the canes and ribbons, had no password, no rallying cry, and no martial hymns. The society had a single purpose, that of mutual aid and succor. This was, of course, the legitimate type of labor organization which in the end prevailed. Little by little the old system of guilds therefore fell into disuse.
The growth of national activities and of national wealth was beginning at this time to be realized in Paris, a growth which Napoleon had succeeded in stimulating only by despoiling the entire world for his own personal "glory." Paris was now developing rapidly. In 1816 it numbered 710,000 inhabitants; in 1826, 800,000; in 1836, 909,000; and in 1846 more than a million (1,053,000).
Under the Restoration the Pont des Invalides, the Pont d'Arcole, and other bridges were built across the Seine. The statue of Louis XIII, by Cortot and Dupaty, was erected in the Place Royale, that of Louis XIV by Bosio, in the Place des Victoires, and in 1818 was set up that of Henry IV by Lemot, made of the bronze in the statues of Napoleon and Desaix. A system of gas lighting was introduced during this period, an omnibus service was developed, and an efficient police system established.
Under the July Monarchy Paris owed a great deal of its development to the efforts of the Prefect of the Seine, Rambuteau. It was he who at this time constructed the bridge of Louis-Philippe and the Pont du Carrousel. The Rue Rambuteau was laid out, and the Place de la Concorde, with the Obélisque de Luxor surrounded by the eight statues representative of the eight principal cities of France, was planned. The column in honor of the July Monarchy (Colonne de Juillet) was also erected, the Are de l'Etoile finished, and the two marvels of mediæval Gothic architecture, Notre Dame and the Sainte- Chapelle were restored. Among other things which were completed, were the Church of the Madeleine, the Panthéon, the Palais Bourbon, and the Palais de Quai d'Orsay. The School of Fine Arts (l'École de Beaux-Arts), the school of medicine (l'École de médecine), and the normal school of the Rue d'Ulm were likewise built. The squares of Louvois and Saint-Sulpice were laid out, the latter with its beautiful fountains of Visconte.
Finally, Thiers and Guizot gave to the capital the system of barriers which surround it, and the detached forts (1841) which the Opposition press denounced at the time as no better than "prisons" the despotism of the Government was arming against Paris, but which were to prove of great value in the siege of 1870.
At this period Paris was far from presenting the appearance which it does to-day. In the center of the capital the most important streets were, as at present, Saint-Denis and Saint-Martin. At this time the Avenue de l'Opéra, the Boulevard Saint-Germain, the Rue des Écoles, and other famous thoroughfares had not been laid out. The wealthy districts lay along the boulevards, Malesherbes, Haussmann, and Pereire, and the Avenues de Villiers and de Courcelles, or along the broad streets which radiate from the Arc de Triomphe. The thickly crowded districts and the slums along the northern and southern boulevards were not yet in existence. Paris included only a dozen arrondissements (wards) instead of as to-day twenty, the last eight having been formed later by including within the city the suburban communes. When vaudeville actors wished to poke fun at illegitimate love-affairs, they spoke of them as the "marriages performed in the town hall of the thirteenth ward!"
There were still a number of inextricable labyrinths of narrow streets in Paris, with high old houses on either side, naturally very damp because the rays of the sun rarely penetrated thither. It was these rows of houses that gave excellent vantage to the barricade fighters, in the various revolutions that racked the city in 1830 and 1848 as well as during the less successful uprisings. One of the most famous of these labyrinths occupied the space which lies between the Arc du Carrousel and the old Louvre. Along these narrow streets were to be found the huts where the dealers in parrots and other exotic birds had set up their shops. Many of these huts almost seemed to hem in the Tuileries. During the Restoration very few of the streets in Paris had sidewalks. In 1830 there were in all only 16 kilometers (about 10 miles) of such footways. The July Monarchy did much to remedy this evil state and increased the sidewalks to a total of 195 kilometers (about 140 miles). At best, however, these sidewalks were narrow and uneven. Pedestrians could protect themselves from passing vehicles only by hugging the walls or by stepping upon the doorsteps of the houses. The dwellings in turn were usually small and narrow although with oftentimes five or six stories, with tiled roofs which were very steep and with gutters which often disgorged rainwater in torrents on the heads of passers-by. Many streets, so far as they were paved at all, were made of limestone blocks, very irregularly and poorly laid, and were so much ready material for the master-builders of the barricades during the insurrections. Macadamized paving, invented by the Scotch engineer, John Loudon MacAdam who died in 1836, was not used in Paris until after 1849. The system of sewerage was likewise very inadequate. In 1806 there were only 24,297 meters (say 75,000 feet) thereof. The Government of Louis-Philippe, especially during the prefectureship of Rambuteau, increased this number to 78,675 meters (over 240,000 feet). Subterranean Paris, however, dates especially from the Second Empire. "Conveniences" were still being installed in the houses of Paris before 1848 precisely in the manner they exist in rural French communities to-day. What wonder that the cholera epidemic of 1832 had so many victims!
The streets, instead of being raised in the center as at present to assure the drainage of water, were deliberately made on two planes with a depression in the center of the street which formed a gutter. To cross from one side of the street to the other after hard rain-storms was like crossing a veritable torrent. On occasions like these, enterprising fellows would place a board across the gutter and would assist pedestrians across dryshod in return for a fee of a sou. Carle Vernet has depicted this popular scene in one of his engravings entitled "Pass, Pay" (Passez, payez). In the middle of the street at regular intervals there also were openings into the sewer. They were covered, indeed, with an iron grating, but clumsy vehicles often shattered them to the great detriment of goods or passengers.
The population of the capital was so congested that there was not a square where people could go for a breath of fresh air even in the heat of summer. To mention another nuisance, the water of the Seine was practically never fit for drinking purposes but provincial visitors who were not so aware of this fact as were the Parisians, often were not sufficiently careful and had to pay the penalty by all sorts of plagues and epidemic diseases. There was no more thought then of having water in the houses than of having gas on every story. Water was drawn either from wells or "water posts," or it was carried into the house by water-carriers. Some of the more prosperous of the latter had a two-wheeled cart drawn by a horse and went from door to door. All Parisians of this period could recall having seen these lusty "auvergers" (so-called because nearly all of the water-carriers came originally from Central France) who climbed the stairs every morning with two buckets of water hanging from a yoke across their shoulders, and from which they served their customers. One bucket cost a sou or even more. Nothing was more astonishing to visitors than to find that in Pariswater like everything else had to be paid for.
Markets and market-places were not very numerous. All the provisions for ordinary households were bought from small merchants who passed from house to house, pushing their hand-carts before them. These were called the "merchants of the Four Seasons" and preserved the tradition of the "criers" of old Paris.
Shop-fronts, which were much less numerous and less elegant than they are to-day, were not closed at night by metal gratings locked by some mechanical device, as is now the case in most European cities. Instead the shopkeeper would have to unlock, one after another, the eight or ten shutters which protected the shop-front, and which were fastened at the top by a hook and at the base by a latch. It was not unusual, after he had unlatched the narrow entrance to his place of business, and was passing along with his shutters on his shoulder, to knock violently against some unsuspecting passer-by. The basements of the shops were reached by means of trap-doors which opened out upon the street and were consequently another source of danger to the pedestrian.
All these things indicated how tenaciously "the good old ways" still hung on the French capital. Nevertheless the period of the restored Monarchy was undoubtedly a time of progress in the aspect of Paris as in so many other things. For example, the lighting of the city streets was vastly improved. In 1848 there were still 2608 old-style lanterns, but there were also no less than 8600 of the far more efficient new-style gas lamps.
Such were some of the social customs and physical conditions of the France and of the capital, which bridged the gap from the Old Régime to the Third Republic we know to-day.