Affairs of CHAPTER XIII. THE affairs of France during this period were only less interesting to the English than their own; and the proceedFrance. ings of England were commented on by French statesmen of every party from day to day. English Conservatives found cause for apprehension, during the whole struggle for reform, that we were proceeding pari passu with the revolutionists of France; and English Liberals watched with interest whether it was so, while French affairs were undecided. The eyes of the The Duke of world were fixed on Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, Orleans. from the moment when he accepted the office of lieutenant-general of the kingdom, before Charles X. and the Dauphin sent in their abdication, and set forth for exile. This Louis Philippe, whose father had died on the scaffold in the first revolution, who had known the depths of poverty, and been long lost in obscurity, was now at the head of the French nation; and it was a spectacle of eager interest how he would conduct himself there. He had walked, almost barefooted, over the Alps, and had taught mathematics in a school in Switzerland. He had lived humbly on the banks of the Thames; he had been a modest resident in Philadelphia, where he had fallen in love with a lady whose father refused his addresses as a match too inferior for his daughter; and he was now the centre of order in France, and the hope of all who craved the continuance of monarchy, and also of those who desired a safe and firm republic. The abdication of the King was placed in his hands at eleven o'clock of the night of the 2d of August; and, the next day, he opened the session of the Chambers, which met punctually according to the order of the late King, given some months before. His speech declared his disinclination to his present prominent position; but his willingness, as that position was assigned him by the will of the nation, to accept all its consequences, all the consequences of a free government.1 He pointed out to the Chambers the subjects which it was necessary for them to consider first; and especially the fourteenth article of the charter, of which the late ministers had availed themselves to assume that 1 Annuaire Historique, 1830, p. 195. the King had a power beyond the law, when a crisis should render the observance of the law incompatible with legal rule. While delivering this speech, he stood on the platform covered with crimson velvet, strewn over with golden fleurs-de-lis, and the tricolored flag waving over his head. It was observed that he left the royal chair vacant, and took the lower seat on the right of the throne, while his second son took that on the left. His duchess and her daughters were present in a gallery, provided for the purpose; and every one remarked the expression of mournful gravity in the countenance of the anxious wife, the expression which has marked that countenance to this day. The Chambers were not satisfied with considering the fourteenth article of the charter. There was much besides which must be changed; for what was needed now was not the charter with a new executive, but one declaratory of such new principles as would be a better safeguard than the last had been. The preamble, for instance, declared the charter to be a gift from the King to his people; and, if this had ever been true, it was not so now. The whole must be revised. It was revised; and never, perhaps, had a work of so much importance been done so rapidly. The venerable Lafayette, commander-in-chief of the National Guard, kept watch over the deputies to prevent their being disturbed. Vast crowds outside shouted day and night for their various objects, and especially for the abolition of the hereditary peerage; but Lafayette stood between them and the Legislature, and permitted no disturbing influences to penetrate to the chamber of deliberation. On the night of the 6th, the whole was prepared. The throne was declared, by the new preamble, vacant by the forfeiture of the whole elder branch of the Bourbons. By alterations in the charter, all Christian denominations of religion were ordained to be supported by the State; and, in the following December, the Jewish religion was added. The censorship of the press was abolished for ever. The King was declared to have no power to suspend the laws, or to dispense with their execution. No foreign troops were to be taken into the service of the State without an express law. The age of eligibility to the Chamber was fixed at thirty. These were the alterations; and the charter, thus amended, was placed under the protection of the National Guard and the citizens of the empire. By a special provision, the peerages. conferred by the late King were annulled, and the question of a hereditary peerage was reserved for consideration in the session of 1831. Two Peers degraded by this special provision were immmediately re-instated,-Marshal Soult and Admiral Duperre. Several Peers recorded their protest against this act of the The charter. Lower Chamber which concerned them; and the whole peerage-question stood over to the next session. There was not, perhaps, a more anxious mind in France than that of Lafayette, between the 3d and the 9th of August. He was a republican, and he could now have established a republic; but whether France, as a whole, desired it, and whether the French people were fit for it, he could not decide; and the necessity of making a decision was an occasion of great anguish to him. He afterwards believed that he had decided wrong in offering the throne to Louis Philippe; and he never again knew what it was to have an easy mind. His last words, spoken from his pillow, were, "He is a knave; and we are the victims of his knavery," "C'est un fourbe; et nous sommes les victimes de sa fourberie." It was on the night of the 6th of August, as we have seen, that the deputies finished their work. Whether Lafayette hoped or feared delay in the Upper Chamber, there was none. On the 7th, the Peers passed the measure, only ten being dissentient on any part but that relating to their own order.1 The old royalist Chateaubriand objected to the throne being declared vacant while the infant son of the Duke de Berri lived: but these were no times for a child to occupy the throne; and the exclusion of the whole of the elder branch of the Bourbons was a point on which the nation at large was determined. Lafayette's time for deliberation was past. On the lippe accepts 9th he had to assist in offering the Constitution and the Crown. the Crown to Louis Philippe. Louis Phi The time was so short as to place the foreign ambassadors in great difficulty. They could not receive instructions from home; and, at the ceremony, while every other part of the Chamber of Deputies was crowded, their gallery contained only ladies and a few attachés. The golden fleurs-de-lis had disappeared from the drapery about the throne, and four large tricolored flags were disposed behind it. Instead of the anointing of the sovereign, there was to be the solemnity of swearing to the charter. Ninety Peers were present; and those absent were the seventy-six of the creation of the late King, and those who had protested against the new charter. The royalist deputies were all absent. At the opening of the business, the Duke was seated on a chair in front of the throne, his head covered, and his sons standing on either hand. While thus seated, he asked that the declaration of the 7th of August, as agreed to by the Peers, should be read, and then delivered to him; and then said, addressing the Peers and the deputies, "I have read with great attention the declaration of the Chamber of Deputies, and the act of agreement of the Chamber of Peers. I have weighed and meditated all their 1 Annuaire Historique, 1830, p. 245 expressions. I accept, without restriction or reserve, the clauses and engagements which this declaration contains, and the title of King of the French which it confers upon me; and I am ready to swear to their observance." Here he rose, and received in his left hand the form of the oath. The whole assembly rose, in solemn emotion; and the new King, baring his head and raising his right hand, pronounced the oath in a firm, clear, and solemn voice: "In the presence of God, I swear to observe faithfully the constitutional charter, with the modifications expressed in the declaration; to govern only through the laws, and according to the laws; to cause good and exact justice to be rendered to every one according to his right; and to act in all things with a single view to the interest, the happiness, and the glory of the French nation." The diversity of the cries which composed the acclamation that followed was remarked by all, and derided by some who said that the very legislature did not know what to call the new King they had been in such a hurry to make. "Long live the King!" Long live Philippe the Seventh!” Long live Philippe the First!" were the cries, which, however, soon mingled in one great shout of " Long live the King of the French!" Others thought it a good symbol of the absorption of ancient territorial regalities in the chieftainship of a people. 66 66 The man has lived long; the King not so long. There was a picture of this ceremonial-of Louis Philippe swearing to the charter which men thought would remain through many ages as a historical record of a great new era in the history of France. Men thought that their posterity in distant centuries would look upon the central figure of that picture, the bared head, the raised hand, the lettered parchment, and would regard them as the insignia of a new and lofty chieftainship, under which liberty and peace should be established in France. But already that picture has been torn from its frame in the royal palace, and carried out to be draggled in the dust, and cut to shreds. The act which it represented had rottenness in it; and one characteristic of the time which had set in was, as indeed it is of all times since the dark ages, that nothing abides that is not sound and true. Four marshals of France now brought the crown and sceptre, and other insignia of royalty, with which they invested the new King. As he returned with his family to the Palais Royal, escorted by the National Guard, the multitude extended to the remotest points within view; and, of that sea of heads, all eyes were fixed upon the Citizen-king. At the same moment, the displaced family were taking their way, neglected and forlorn, to the coast, the very peasants on the road scarcely looking up at them as they passed. For a while Disquiet. a very little while. all looked gay and bright about the new royal family,- except the countenance of the mournful Queen. She and her daughters visited in the hospitals the wounded of the days of July. The King invited to his table members of the deputations which came to congratulate him on his courage in accepting the crown. Sometimes there were officers of the National Guard, sometimes students from the colleges, sometimes municipal dignitaries from the provinces, sitting down to dinner with the King and his many children, like a large family-party. These children were idolized. Together with caricatures of the exiled family, were handed about prints of the Orleans group, each member of which was made beautiful, noble, or graceful. All this was very natural. A fearful oppression had been removed; the revolution had been nobly conducted, and now there was a bright, new hope, to gladden many hearts. But under all this there were the elements of future trouble; and distress was already existing to a fearful extent. The pains and penalties of revolution were upon the people; and, amidst all the rejoicing, there was stagnation of trade, depression of commercial credit, and hunger among the operative classes. Higher in society, there was a beginning of that conflict between the parties of movement and resistance which is a necessary consequence of political convulsion. Before the end of the year, two administrations had been in power: the first containing originally but one member of the movement party, but being presently rendered a coalition government; and the second being perpetually in collision with the Chamber of Deputies. The executive was kept in continual anxiety by seditious movements which took place, in capital or country, at short intervals. The royal family, besides its share in all these interests, had to endure a great shock in the suicide of the Duke de Bourbon, the last of the Condés. He had de Bourbon. been one of the Bourbon exiles, and retained the prejudices of his party; and, whether his suicide was owing to his grief at the revolution or to domestic miseries, it was most painful to the family of the new King, to one of whose sons he bequeathed the greater part of his wealth, under domestic influences of a dishonorable character. Thus, amidst much gloom and apprehension, closed the year of the revolution, leaving much to be done and endured during the next. Suicide of the Duke In February, a most alarming disturbance took place in Paris, Disturbance which ended in the sacking of a church, and the in Paris. destruction of the Archbishop's palace. The anniversary of the assassination of the Duke de Berri was kept by a religious service, notwithstanding a warning from the Archbishop 1 Annuaire Historique, 1831, p. 81. |