Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 66 No.406, August 1849

The immediate cause of the overthrow of the throne, it is well known, was the fatal order which the delusion of M. Thiers, when called to the ministry, extorted from the weakness of the King, to stop firing – to cease resistance – to succumb to the assailants. Marshal Bugeaud was perfectly firm; the troops were steady; ample military force was at their command; everything promised decisive success to vigorous operations. Marshal Bugeaud's plan was of the simplest but most efficacious kind.

"Marshal Bugeaud, with his military instinct, matured by experience and the habit of handling troops, knew that immobility is the ruin of the morale of soldiers. He changed in a moment the plan of operations submitted to him. He instantly called around him the officers commanding corps. The one was Tiburie Sebastiani, brother of the marshal of the same name, a calm and faithful officer; the other, General Bedeau, whose name, made illustrious by his exploits in Africa, carried respect with it, to his companions in arms in Paris. He ordered them to form two columns of 3500 men each, and to advance into the centre of Paris – the one by the streets which traverse it from the Boulevards to the Hôtel de Ville, the other by streets which cross it from the quays. Each of the columns had artillery, and their instructions were to carry, in their advance, all the barricades, to destroy these fortresses of the insurrection, to cannonade the masses, and concentrate their columns on the Hôtel de Ville, the decisive point of the day. General Lamoricière was to command a reserve of 9000 men, stationed around the palace." – (Vol. i., pp. 136, 137.)

The despair of the troops when compelled to retire before a tumultuous mob – to confess defeat in their own capital, and in the face of Europe, is thus described: —

"At daybreak the two columns of troops set out on their march; their progress was, every ten minutes, reported by staff-officers in disguise. They experienced no serious resistance on their way to the Hôtel de Ville; the crowd opened as they advanced, with cries of 'Vive la Réforme!' they trampled under foot, without firing a shot, the beginnings of the barricades. Nevertheless, the uncertainty of what was passing in the Tuileries paralysed the arms in the hands of the soldiers. The Marshal, at length constrained by the reiterated orders of the King, sent orders to his lieutenants to make the troops fall back. Marshal Bedeau, upon this, made his battalions retire. Some soldiers threw their muskets on the ground, as a sign of despair or fraternisation. Their return across Paris had the appearance of a defection, or of the advanced guard of the revolution marching on the Tuileries. The troops, already vanquished by these orders, took up their position, untouched but powerless, on the Place de la Concorde, in the Champs Elysées, in the Rue de Rivoli. The French troops, when disgraced, are no longer an army. They felt in their hearts the bitterness of that retreat; they feel it still." – (Vol. i., p. 139.)

But it was soon found that these disgraceful concessions to mob violence would avail nothing; that M. Thiers and M. Odillon Barrot were alike unequal to stemming the torrent which they had put in motion; and that the King, as a reward for his humane order to the troops not to fire upon the people, was to be called on to abdicate! In the disgraceful scene of pusillanimity and weakness which ensued, we regret to say the princes of the royal family, and especially the Duke de Montpensier, evinced as much cowardice as the princesses did courage; – exemplifying thus again what Napoleon said of the Bourbons in 1815, that there was only one man in the family, and that man was a woman. The decisive moment is thus described with dramatic power, but, we have no doubt, historic truth, by M. Lamartine: —

"M. Girardin, in a few brief and sad words, which abridged minutes and cut short objections, said to the King with mournful respect, that changes of ministry were no longer in season; that the moment was sweeping away the throne with the councils, and that there was but one word suitable to the urgency of the occasion, and that word was 'abdication.'

"The King was in one of those moments when truths strike without offending. Nevertheless, he let fall, upon hearing these words, from his hands the pen with which he was arranging the names of the new ministry. He was desirous of discussing the question. M. Girardin, pitiless as evidence, pressing as time, would not even admit of discussion. 'Sire!' said he, 'the abdication of the king, or the abdication of the monarchy – there is the alternative. Circumstances will not admit even of a minute to find a third issue from the straits in which we are placed.' While he thus spoke, M. Girardin placed before the King the draft of a proclamation which he had prepared and he wished to have printed. That proclamation, concise as a fact, consisted only of four lines, calculated to attract the eyes of the people.

The abdication of the King.

The regency of the Duchess of Orleans.

The dissolution of the Chamber of Deputies.

A general amnesty.

"The King hesitated. The Duke de Montpensier his son, carried away, doubtless, by the energetic expression in the physiognomy, gesticulations, and words of M. Girardin, pressed his father with more vehemence than rank, age, and misfortunes should have permitted to the respect of a son. The pen was presented, and the crown torn from the monarch by an impatience which could not wait for his full and free conviction. The rudeness of fortune towards the King was forgotten in the precipitance of the council. On the other hand, blood was beginning to flow, the throne was gliding away. The lives even of the King and his family might be endangered. Everything can be explained by the solicitude and the tenderness of the councillors. History should ever take the version which least humiliates and bruises least the human heart." – (Vol. i., p. 127.)

Observe the poetic justice of this consummation. The member of his family, who at the decisive moment failed in his duty, and compelled his infirm and gray-haired father to abdicate, was the Duc de Montpensier – the very prince for whose elevation he had perilled the English alliance, violated his plighted word, endangered the peace of Europe! The heir-presumptive of the crown of Spain was the first to shake the crown of France from his father's head! Vanquished by his personal fears, unworthy of his high rank and higher prospects, a disgrace to his country, he evinced, what is rare in France in any station, not merely moral, but physical pusillanimity. To this end have the intrigues of the Orleans family, from Egalité downwards, ultimately tended. They have not only lost the crown, to win which they forgot their allegiance and violated their oaths, but they have lost it with dishonour and disgrace: they are not only exiles, but they are despised exiles. Such have been the fruits of the Orleans intrigues to gain the crown of France.

As a bright contrast to this woful exhibition, we gladly translate M. Lamartine's account of the memorable scene in the chambers, where the Duchess of Orleans nobly contended with an infuriated and bloodthirsty rabble for the crown, now devolved to her son by his grandfather's abdication. Had such spirited devotion been found in her husband's family, they might have transmitted the honours they had won in the Orleans dynasty.

"The great door opposite the tribune, on a level with the most elevated benches in the hall, opened; a woman appeared dressed in mourning: it was the Duchess of Orleans. Her veil, half raised on her hat, allowed her countenance to be seen, bearing the marks of an emotion and sadness which heightened the interest of youth and beauty. Her pale cheeks bore the traces of the tears of the widow, the anxieties of the mother. No man could look on those features without emotion. At their aspect, all resentment against the monarchy fled from the mind. The blue eyes of the princess wandered over the scene, with which she had been a moment dazzled, as if to implore aid by her looks. Her slender but elegant form bowed at the applause which saluted her. A slight colour – the dawn of hope amidst ruin – of joy amidst sorrow – suffused her cheeks. A smile of gratitude beamed through her tears. She felt herself surrounded by friends. With one hand she held the young king, who stumbled on the steps, with the other the young Duke of Chartres: infants to whom the catastrophe which destroyed them was a subject of amusement. They were both clothed in short black dresses. A white shirt-collar was turned over their dresses, as in the portraits by Vandyke of the children of Charles I.

"The Duke of Nemours walked beside the princess, faithful to the memory of his brother in his nephews; a protector who would ere long stand in need of protection himself. The figure of that prince, ennobled by misfortune, breathed the courageous but modest satisfaction of a duty discharged at the hazard of his life. Some generals in uniform, and officers of the national guard, followed her steps. She bowed with timid grace to the assembly, and sat down motionless at the foot of the tribune, an innocent accused person before a tribunal without appeal, which was about to judge the cause of royalty. At that moment, that cause was gained in the eyes and hearts of all." – (Vol i. p. 177.)

But it was all in vain. The mob on the outside broke into the assembly. The national guard, as usual, failed at the decisive moment, and royalty was lost.

"An unwonted noise was heard at the door on the left of the tribune. Unknown persons, national guards with arms in their hands, common people in their working-dresses, break open the doors, overthrow the officers who surround the tribune, invade the assembly, and, with loud cries, demand the Duke of Nemours. Some deputies rose from their seats to make a rampart with their bodies around the princess. M. Mauguin calmly urged them to retire. General Oudinot addressed them with martial indignation. Finding words unavailing, he hastily traversed the crowd to demand the support of the national guard. He represented to them the inviolability of the assembly, and the respect due to a princess and a woman insulted amidst French bayonets. The national guards heard him, feigned to be indignant, but slowly took up their arms, and ended by doing nothing." – (Vol. i. p. 180.)

In justice to Lamartine also, we must give an abstract of his animated and eloquent account of the most honourable event in his life, and one which should cover a multitude of sins – the moment when he singly contended with the maddened rabble who had triumphed over the throne, and, by the mere force of moral courage and eloquent expression, defeated the Red Republicans, who were desirous to hoist the drapeau rouge, the well-known signal of bloodshed and devastation: —

"In this moment of popular frenzy, Lamartine succeeded in calming the people by a sort of patriotic hymn on their victory – so sudden, so complete, so unlooked-for even by the most ardent friends of liberty. He called God to witness the admirable humanity and religious moderation which the people had hitherto shown alike in the combat and their triumph. He placed prominently forward that sublime instinct which, the evening before, had thrown them, when still armed, but already disciplined and obedient, into the arms of a few men who had submitted themselves to calumny, exhaustion, and death, for the safety of all. 'That,' said Lamartine, 'was what the sun beheld yesterday, and what would he shine upon to-day? He would behold a people the more furious that there was no longer any enemies to combat; distrusting the men whom but yesterday it had intrusted with the lead, – constraining them in their liberty, insulting them in their dignity, disavowing their authority, substituting a revolution of vengeance and punishment for one of unanimity and fraternity, and commanding the government to hoist, in token of concord, the standard of a combat to the death between the citizens of the same country! That red flag, which was sometimes raised as the standard against our enemies when blood was flowing, should be furled after the combat, in token of reconciliation and peace. I would rather see the black flag which they hoist sometimes in a besieged town as a symbol of death, to designate to the bombs the edifices consecrated to humanity, and which even the balls of the enemy respect. Do you wish, then, that the symbol of your republic should be more menacing and more sinister than the colours of a besieged city?' 'No no!' cried some of the crowd, 'Lamartine is right: let us not keep that standard, the symbol of terror, for our citizens.' 'Yes, yes!' cried others, 'it is ours – it is that of the people – it is that with which we have conquered. Why should we not keep, after the conflict, the colours which we have stained with our blood?' – 'Citizens!' said Lamartine, after having exhausted every argument calculated to affect the imagination of the people, 'you may do violence to the government: you may command it to change the colours of the nation and the colours of France. If you are so ill advised and so obstinate in error as to impose on it a republic of party and flag of terror, the government is as decided as myself to die rather than dishonour itself by obeying you: for myself, my hand shall never sign that decree: I will resist even to the death that symbol of blood; and you should repudiate it as well as I; for the red flag which you bring us has never gone beyond the Champ de Mars, dragged red in the blood of the people in '91 and '93; but the tricolor flag has made the tour of the world, with the name, the glory, and the liberty of our country.' At these words, Lamartine, interrupted by the unanimous cries of enthusiasm, fell from the chair which served for his tribune, into the arms stretched out on all sides to receive him. The cause of the new republic was triumphant over the bloody recollections which they wished to substitute for it. The hideous crowd which filled the hall retired, amidst cries of 'Vive Lamartine! – Vive le Drapeau Tricolor!'

"The danger, however, was not over. The crowd which had been carried away by his words was met by another crowd which had not hitherto been able to penetrate into the hall, and which was more vehement in words and gesticulations. Menacing expressions, ardent vociferations, cries of suffocation, threatening gestures, discharges of firearms on the stair, tatters of a red flag waved by naked arms above the sea of heads, rendered this one of the most frightful scenes of the Revolution. 'Down with Lamartine! Death to Lamartine! no Temporising, – the Decree, the Decree, or the Government of Traitors to the lamp-post!' exclaimed the assailants. These cries neither caused Lamartine to hesitate, to retire, nor to turn pale. At the sight of him the fury of the assailants, instead of being appeased, increased tenfold. Muskets were directed at his head, the nearest brandished bayonets in his face, and a savage group of twenty, with brutal drunken visages, charged forward with their heads down, as if to break through with an enormous battering-ram the circle which surrounded him. The foremost appeared bereft of reason. Naked sabres reached the head of the orator, whose hand was slightly wounded. The critical moment had arrived; nothing was yet decided. Hazard determined which should prevail. Lamartine expected momentarily to be thrown down and trampled under foot. At that instant one of the populace sprang from the crowd, a ball discharged from below grazed his face and stained it with blood; while it still flowed, he stretched out his arms to Lamartine – 'Let me see him, let me touch him,' cried he, 'let me kiss his hand! Listen to him, oh, my citizens! follow his councils: you shall strike me before touching him. I will die a thousand times to preserve that good citizen for my country.' With these words he precipitated himself into his arms, and held him convulsively embraced. The people were moved at this scene; and a hundred voices again exclaimed 'Vive le Gouvernement Provisoire! – Vive Lamartine!'" – (Vol. i. pp. 393, 402.)

We purposely close our account of Lamartine's personal career with this splendid passage in his life. His subsequent conduct, it is well known, has ill accorded with this beginning. His popularity in Paris fell as rapidly as it had risen; and on occasion of the terrible revolt of June 1848, he retired from the government, with all his colleagues, from acknowledged inability to meet the crisis which had arisen. We have heard different accounts of the real causes of his mysterious alliance with his former opponent, and the head of the Red Republicans, M. Ledru Rollin, to which this fall was owing. Some of these stories are little to his credit. We forbear to mention them, lest we should unwittingly disseminate falsehood in regard to a man of undoubted genius and great acquirements. Perhaps, in some future "Confidences," he may be able to explain much which undoubtedly at present stands in need of explanation. We gladly leave this dubious subject, to give a place to his dramatic account of the dreadful conflict in June, in the streets of Paris, which is the more entitled to credit, as he was an eyewitness of several of its most terrible scenes: —

"Assemblages of eight or ten thousand persons were already formed on the Place of the Pantheon to attack the Luxembourg. M. Arago harangued them and persuaded them to disperse; but it was only to meet again in the quarters adjoining the Seine, in the Faubourg St Antoine, and on the Boulevards. At the sight of them the faubourgs turned out – the streets were filled – the Ateliers Nationaux turned out their hordes – the populace, excited by some chief, began to raise barricades. These chiefs were, for the most part, brigadiers of the national workshops, the pillars of sedition and of the clubs, irritated at the disbanding of their corps, the wages of which, passing through their hands, had been applied, it is said, to paying the Revolution. From the barriers of Charenton, Fontainebleau, and Menilmontant, to the heart of Paris, the entire capital was in the hands of a few thousand men. The rappel called to their standards 200,000 National Guards, ten times sufficient to overthrow those assemblages of the seditious, and to destroy their fortifications. But it must be said, to the disgrace of that day, and for the instruction of posterity, that the National Guard at that decisive moment did not answer in a body to the appeal of the government. Their tardiness, their disinclination, their inertness, left the streets in some quarters open to sedition. They looked on with calm eyes on the erection of thousands of barricades, which they had afterwards to reconquer with torrents of blood. Soon the government quitted the Luxembourg and took refuge in the National Assembly, where, at the headquarters of General Cavaignac, was established the supreme council of the nation.

"Government had reckoned on the support of the National Guard; but the incessant beating of the rappel failed in bringing it forth to its standards. In several quarters they were imprisoned by the insurgents. In fine, be it tardiness, or be it fatality, the army was far from responding in a body to the imminence and universality of the peril. Its numerical weakness aggravated the danger. General Lamoricière, invincible, though soon besieged by 200,000 men, occupied the whole extent from the Rue du Temple to the Madeleine, from the Rue de Clichy to the Louvre – constantly on horseback, ever foremost in fire, he had two horses shot under him – his countenance black with powder, his forehead running down with sweat, his voice hoarse with giving the word of command, but his eye serene and calm as a soldier in his native element, he restored spirit to his men, confidence to the National Guards. His reports to government breathed the intrepidity of his soul, but he made no concealment of the imminence of the danger, and the insufficiency of the troops at his disposal. He painted the immense multitude of the assailants and the vast network of barricades which stretched between the Bastile and the Chateau d'Eau, between the barriers and the Boulevard. Incessantly he implored reinforcements, which the government as continually summoned to its support by the telegraph, and officers specially despatched. At length the National Guards of the neighbourhood of Paris began to arrive, and, ranging themselves round the Assembly, furnished an example to those of the capital. Then, and not till then, confidence began to be felt in the midst of the chances of the combat." – (Vol. ii., pp. 480-481.)

It was a most fortunate event for the cause of order, and, with it, of real freedom throughout the world, that this great revolt was so completely suppressed, though at the cost of a greater number of lives, particularly in general officers, than fell in many a bloody battle, by the efforts of General Cavaignac and his brave companions in arms. It is said that their measures, at first, were not skilfully taken – that they lost time, and occasioned unnecessary bloodshed at the outset, by neglecting to attack the barricades when they began to be formed; and certainly the easy and bloodless suppression of the late revolt against the government of Prince Louis Napoleon, by General Changarnier, seems to favour this opinion. It must be recollected, however, that the revolt of May 1849 occurred when the memory of the popular overthrow of June 1848 was still fresh in the minds of the people; and it is not easy to overestimate the effect of that decisive defeat in paralysing revolt on the one side, and adding nerve to resistance on the other. It is evident that Louis Napoleon is not a Duc de Montpensier – he will not surrender his authority without a fight. But supposing that there was some tardiness in adopting decisive measures on occasion of the June revolt, that only makes the lesson more complete, by demonstrating the inability of the bravest and most determined populace to contend with a regular military force, when the troops are steady to their duty, and bravely led by their chiefs. The subsequent suppression of the revolts in Prague, Vienna, Madrid, and Rome, have confirmed the same important truth. Henceforth, it is evident, the horrors of revolution may always be averted, when government is firm, and the military are faithful.

And these horrors are in truth such, that it becomes evidently the first of political and social duties for the rulers of men to justify the eminence of their rank by their courage, and the troops to vindicate the trust reposed in them by their fidelity. Passing by the woful exposé of the almost hopeless state of the French finances, with a deficit of above Twelve Millions sterling, despite an addition of forty-five per cent to the direct taxes, made by Prince Louis Napoleon to the National Assembly, we rest on the following curious and important details taken from the Times of July 12, in regard to the effect of the revolution of 1848 upon the comforts and condition of the labouring classes in France: —

"It appears it is the middle class of tradesmen that are now most suffering from the effects of revolution. The funds on which this class had been living, in the hope that better days would soon arrive, and which amongst some of the small tradesmen formed their capital, have become exhausted. Those who had no money had, at all events, some credit; but both money and credit are now gone. The result is, that even in this period of comparative tranquillity more shops are closed than in the days of turbulence.

"The following statement of the fluctuations of the revenues of the city of Paris, occasioned also by revolution, and which goes back to 1826, is taken from the Débats: —

"'The returns of the produce of indirect impost is the unfailing testimony to the progress or decrease of public tranquillity. We proved this truth yesterday in publishing, on the authority of a well-informed journal, the comparative state of the receipts of the Paris octroi for the first six months of the years 1847, 1848, and 1849. It is still further proved by valuable documents which we have at this moment before us. Thus, the produce of the octroi was, in 1847, 34,511,389 francs; and in 1848, only 26,519,627 francs, showing a difference of 7,991,762 francs. This decrease is enormous, in relation to the immense necessities created by the political and social crisis, the works undertaken by the city, and the previous expenses it had to provide for. We could analyse the different chapters of this municipal revenue, which affords life to so many branches of Parisian industry; but it is useless to inquire, for each of these chapters, the particular causes of diminution. With the great event of 1848 before us, all details disappear. One sole cause has produced a decrease in the receipts, and that is the revolution of February; which, at first menacing society itself by the voice of democratic orators and the pens of demagogue writers, frightened away capital and annihilated industry of all kinds. In order to be able to judge of the influence of great political events on the receipts of the Paris octroi, it will be sufficient to recur to the years which preceded and followed the revolution of 1830: —