1848, a year of revolutions

Preface

The year 1848 was remarkably eventful. To this country it brought the termination of our war of conquest in Mexico, a change of administration which elevated General Taylor to the Presidency and the Whig Party to power, and, finally, the discovery of the Gold Regions in California, a discovery realizing dreams of the fabled Dorado of the past, and pregnant with mighty consequences for the future.

In Europe, 1848 was emphatically a year of Revolutions. " The social and political convulsions which marked its course, the tottering of thrones and dynasties, the irruption of armed democracy into the council -chambers of kings, the uprisings of oppressed and dormant nationalities, and the consequent ruin of the cumbrous fabrics raised over them by diplomacy, are incidents of that eventful year, which have been watched by contemporary spectators with the lively emotions due to such vast dramatic spectacles, and to which inquiry

VI PREFACE.

will, for many a generation to come, revert as to the starting points of current history."

The foregoing passage is taken from the preface to Mr. Walter K. Kelly's " History of the Year 1848," the work from which, chiefly, the present volume is abridged. Mr. Kelly has been quite successful in the attempt to depict the main features of the period from which his book takes its title, and to lay before the reader a succinct and digested narrative of its great political events and perturbations. " The utility of such a retrospect," he says, " if executed with due care, fidelity, and discretion, will be at once admitted. The most assiduous reader of the public journals must often have felt himself bewildered by the unparalleled multiplicity and complexity of the movements recorded by them during the past year, and must have confessed the necessity of correcting his first vague impressions and questionable conclusions by a reconsideration of the m; facts from which they were derived."

The French Revolution properly claim! largest space in this work. Although event was so sudden and unexpected as to seem premature, the explosive forces which resulted in it had been long accumulating. A condensed account of the causes which led to it has been thought appropriate. The

: main

as* the 1 that

PREFACE. Vll

Reign of Louis Philippe embraced those causes ; and the reader is therefore invited, before entering upon the narrative of their consequences, to take as complete a survey of that reign as our brief limits will allow us to offer.

This volume, it will be seen, traces the stream of events only to the close of the year 1848. It would be interesting to follow its course beyond that point, but the prescribed size of the book forbids. Interesting as it might be, however, it would, in many respects, be painful to record the subsequent history of those revolutionary movements which, last year, inspired the friends of liberal principles, in Europe and throughout the world, with enthusiasm and hope. To say nothing of the sore grief inflicted on our hearts by that latest blow of misfortune beneath which Hungary has fallen, who could behold the present attitude of France without mingled emotions of «e, indignation, and alarm ? Look for one 3nt at her condition as depicted by a las Jerrold : — " All is calm as the sheltered lake on a summer eve. But there is a fearful tempest gathering. The audacious designs of Legitimists and Monarchists — the infamous expedition to Rome — the state of siege — the suspended and muzzled press — the

Viii PREFACE violation of individual liberty — the sweeping away of every political privilege won at the barricades of February — the imprisonment and exile of Republicans — the insolent disregard of the people's wishes — the deplorable state of the public treasury — the impending national bankruptcy — all these are slowly gathering and festering, and will soon break forth with violence so terrific that no human power will be able to check it. And God alone can tell the consequence." The colors, although dark, are not too dark, in this gloomy picture of the worst spectacle of " reaction " in Europe. France, with all her fine qualities of head and heart, is subject to fits of madness. France is a maniac now, and the brighter and more exquisite are her faculties, the more melancholy is their eclipse.

It is only an eclipse. It will pass like a shadow. France will yet be a light to the nations. Heavy as are the clouds of darkness that seem to be enveloping the European C^fe tinent, the word of promise is sure, that " d9 ness cometh before day."

Whatever may be the immediate effects of the convulsions of 1848, their tendency and their ultimate results cannot fail to be good. One thing, at least, has been already gained. It is thus indicated by President Wayland, in

PREFACE. IX

his eloquent discourse on the Recent Revolutions in Europe : — " The rights of man, as an intelligent and responsible being, have been definitely expressed ; and the expression must meet a response from every human heart. Truths like these stand in no need of support from argument; they appeal to every man's consciousness, and they cannot be obliterated from his recollection. Hence, whether sooner or later, they must work out their necessary result. The mist of ages has cleared away, and the haven has been discovered; and though the horizon may again be overcast, and progress for the time be arrested, yet henceforth every movement will be in the right direction, until the nations repose in the enjoyment of peace and soul-liberty."

The following extract, from the same discourse, is at once so admirable and so pertinent to our subject, that it shall conclude this preface. " Important social revolutions rarely advance in straight lines. Obstructions turn the movement, after it has commenced, sometimes to the one side, and sometimes to the other. The course may thus be varied, but the tendency remains the same ; it gains strength by delay, and accumulates momentum by assimilating with itself every analogous impulse, until, having overcome every obstacle,

1*

PREFACE.

it exerts its rightful power over the character of man. There may be, in the case before us, much to obstruct the cause of free opinion. The selfishness of the human heart may engender fierce collision. Ignorance of the principles of our social nature may construct many a system utterly subversive of human happiness. Many things may retard the result which we hope for, but they cannot change the tendency which God himself has impressed on our nature. Thus, when a mighty river issues from its source, the law of gravitation must bring it inevitably to the level of the ocean. It will flow for a thousand miles at the base of the mountains which arrest its course, collecting strength from the streams which are nourished in the summits of the barrier itself, until, swollen to irresistible force, it overcomes every obstacle, and sweeps its triumphant way through a multitude of nations; at last, gathering volume as it proceeds, at the spot marked out by the laws of its being, it pours itself into the ocean bay, bearing on its waters the riches of a continent, and inviting mighty navies to repose upon its bosom."

CAUSES OF THE

THIED FKENCH KEYOLUTION,

Chapter I. France

THE EVE OF A REVOLUTION — THE THREE DAYS — THE ABDICATION AND FLIGHT OF LOUIS PHILIPPE.

The causes of the Revolution of 1848 may be traced back to the Revolution of 1830. The latter was effected by two means — by the organized conspiracy of the republicans, and by the spontaneous indignation of the middle classes at the despotic policy pursued by the Government of the Restoration. Through the influence of the agents whom the wealth of the Duke of Orleans enabled him to secure in the committees of the Carbonari and other secret societies, and through his own cunning management of the good, but too credulous Lafayette, the French people were induced to accept Louis Philippe as their King. They were deluded by the specious title under which this monarchy was offered as " the best of republics." But scarcely had that prince ascended the throne which he promised to surround with republican institutions, when he began, cautiously at first, but with increasing boldness that at length became outright rashness, the traitorous work of rendering it despotic and absolute. The reaction against him, at least in the minds of the republicans, dates from the moment when he took his seat upon a throne which they had fought to destroy. They looked on themselves as deceived, tricked, and ignominiously vanquished.

After a few abortive attempts at revolution on the part of some of the more impatient republicans, their party abandoned for a time the system of physical force, and relied for ultimate victory upon the influence of the pen (that surest of all instruments in the warfare of opinions), and also upon the self-destructive tendencies of the errors of government.

The republicans were not wrong in anticipating errors in the course of government. For a while, indeed, so long as the spirit of insurrection was yet alive, Louis Philippe affected the bearing as well as the title of a citizen king ; but no sooner was this crushed, than he entered upon a series of errors which were sure to prove in the end as ruinous to himself as to the nation. The personal pronoun he is here intentionally used, because the phrase so often applied to Louis Philippe, by way of justification or excuse, — the phrase, le roi regne et ne gouverne pas, — the king reigns, not governs, — is so well known to have involved an idle distinction, that it is not unjust to throw a large share of the responsibility attached to his administration, upon the ex-king himself. His attacks upon the liberty of the press and the right of meeting ; his short-sighted encouragement of financial speculations which would inevitably plunge the nation sooner or later into bankruptcy ; his connivance at a corrupt political system which ruled France by purchased majorities ; his alleged readiness, for the sake of alliance with despotic powers, to sacrifice the national honor, and the interests of liberty, in those countries which looked to France for

SELFISH POLICY OF LOUIS PHILIPPE. 13

sympathy and aid in their resistance to tyranny ; in fine, the apparent avidity with which, throughout his whole policy, domestic and foreign, he sought to enrich and aggrandize himself and his family, tended to hasten the hour which should put a period to his sway.

It may be well to indicate somewhat more particularly, the errors — to call them by so mild a name — which have been summed up in the preceding paragraph.-

Louis Philippe, during his reign, followed, at home and abroad, a selfish policy. At home, all his efforts, were designed to increase the material prosperity of the middle classes, in such a way as to interest a powerful and influential party in his favor, by making them feel that their riches were derived from him. His efforts were for a long time successful. No government can last long at Paris without the support of the National Guard, which is composed principally of citizens belonging to the middle classes. So long as the National Guard remains faithful to the existing power, the army remains faithful: the moment the civic force wavers, then the line gives way. Now for many years the National Guard remained firmly faithful to a king who gave them peace and prosperity, and under whose reign commerce, trade, and the useful arts, made rapid progress. It has been observed that no greater proof is wanting of the blind adherence of the middle classes to the policy of Louis Philippe, than the large sums they allowed him to expend in fortifications, the vast increase of taxation to which they submitted unmurmuringly, and their readiness to second everything like democratic or republican change. Encouraged by impunity, Louis Philippe appeared to forget how far the people had been instrumental in placing him on the throne, and to become wholly intent upon diverting to his own advantage the power with which he had been intrusted. His enormous extension of the civil list, his notorious abuse of permission to cut wood in the national forests, his exorbitant demands for marriage portions in favor of his children, his system of creating numerous unnecessary offices in order to buy votes, and, in short, his grasping at almost every conceivable mode of draining money from the nation, had imposed so crushing a weight upon taxation, that it extorted complaints from all classes of society. What with direct impositions, loans, and floating debt, the taxes in France were much heavier under the reign of Louis Philippe than dming the wars of Napoleon. The evils of this excessive taxation were aggravated by scarcity in 1847, when commerce was at a low ebb, every trade languished, labor was extremely ill-paid, and the whole country groaned under the burden of an oppressive and selfish system. The middle classes themselves had gradually been changed from staunch supporters of the king into lukewarm friends or direct enemies, and, consequently, the National Guard was no longer an impregnable tower of strength.

The foreign policy of Louis Philippe was no less selfish than his domestic policy. The very first act of his ministry was the disavowal of all the insurrectionary tendencies, awakened by the example of France, in the rest of Europe. The design was to conciliate the various reigning powers by this ominous token of the intention of government to deny those principles, as the exponent of which it had been raised to authority. But even after its recognition, Austria and Prussia but coolly received its representatives, and Russia did not hesitate to make the residence of a French ambassador at her court as unpleasant as want of consideration and personal disrespect could render it. England is without doubt, therefore, indebted less to the personal predilections of Louis Philippe than to the necessities of his position, for the apparent good feeling evinced towards her during the earlier portion of his reign.

FOREIGN POLICY OF LOUIS PHILIPPE. 15

In spite of his frequent professions of personal attachment to the Royal Family of England, and of his wish to maintain the entente coi'diale, as it has been called, " a good understanding," between France and Great Britain, it is now clear that his chief desire was to strengthen his throne by alliance with the more absolute monarchies, rather than by promoting sympathies founded on resemblance in the fundamental and constitutional elements of national government. The fear of coming to a positive difference with England before his throne was firmly enough established to sustain the shock, was probably the constraining reason that he did not accept the crown of Belgium for his son the Duke of Nemours. And afterwards, a sense of the necessity of still preserving the English alliance unbroken, was the secret of that peace policy (overpraised in this country because its motives were mistaken or unknown) which transferred the reins of administration from Thiers to Guizot, in consequence of the deception practised by the latter in such a way as to encourage both monarch and minister to play, for their own purposes, into the hands of the war party, at the period when the conflicting interests of Turkey and Egypt in Syria had given reason for an intervention of the greater powers, France was then chagrined to find herself suddenly isolated from the rest of Europe by the decision of England, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, to settle the question without their assistance. Among the various movements to which the subsiding agitation of the Three Days gave an impulse, the Belgian Revolution was the only one in which France took a prominent part.

The reluctant occupation of Ancona, counteracted as it was by the attitude preserved by the French government, was almost valueless in its results. It did not hinder Italy from falling back to her old position, hopeless" of liberty, and cursing the .delusion by which she had been tempted to trust to French support. In concert with Guizot, Louis Philippe had aimed by his defence of the Gallician massacres, by his proffer of support to the Jesuits in Switzerland, to the Sonderbund, and by his refusal of sympathy and aid to the promoters of liberal principles in Italy, to secure the forgiveness of Austria for her sins against legitimacy. He. had sought to reconcile. Russia by his abandonment of the interests of Poland. Confident of the alliance of these Northern powers, he at length ventured to cut the ties by which he had hitherto been bound to England. He had already commenced and carried on a system of nepotism, of family aggrandizement, which had allotted to one son, the Duke de Nemours, the dignity of Regent in case of his own death ; which had appointed another son, the Duke d' Aumale, Governor- General of Algeria ; another, the Prince de Joinville, Admiral of the Navy; and evinced an intention to create for still another, the Duke de Montpensier, the title of Grand Master of the Artillery, — thus violating the spirit of the French military -system that permits every common soldier to aspire to the rank of Marshal ; which, in fine, had seated one daughter of the House of Orleans on the throne of Belgium, and given to one son a royal bride and a vice-royalty : This system of nepotism he now resolved to consummate by wedding another son, in spite of the opposition of Great Britain, with an heiress presumptive to the throne of Spain. This alliance, prompted by a purely dynastic motive, severed the alliance with England which the French nation had supported impatiently, but still supported, on account of the great interests of humanity, the freedom of the seas, commerce, and industry ; but when it was thus suddenly thrown to the winds for the sake of family aggrandizement, France perceived that there was nothing sincere but ambition in the condescension until then shown by Louis Philippe to England. From

POLITICAL CORRUPTION. 17

that day, says Larnartine, who predicted the fata, results of the ambitious and impolitic marriage of the Duke de Montpensier, — from that day, the King, rendered unpopular with the republican party by his throne, and unpopular with the legitimist party by his usurpation, was rendered unpopular with the pacific and government party, by the war with which the Spanish marriage menaced France. Such was the effect of the selfish foreign policy pursued by the King of the French.

Louis Philippe, however, thought himself invincible, because he still retained a ministry, eloquent in parliament and ngreeable at court, and two strong majorities in the chambers. But the very remnant of strength to which he trusted became his destruction. The corrupt means employed in obtaining and holding it began justly to excite popular indignation. Out of a population of 35,400,486 only a few more than 200,000 enjoyed the privileges of electors. The centralization which existed in France left at the disposal of Government more than four hundred thousand offices, great and small. These, with crosses of the Legion of Honor, roads, concessions of mines, loans to companies, and direct purchase of votes by cash, enabled the Guizot administration to ensure itself a majority. But even this majority must needs be secured by making it interested. Out of four hundred and fifty members, therefore, two hundred and four were made placemen, and the chamber was thus crowded by salaried functionaries of Government. The popular complaints of corruption were ratified by judicial decisions, in processes , instituted against public officers and men who had sat on the same benches with Guizot, for the sale of places. The trial of Teste and his associates revealed to an alarming extent the justice of those complaints.

The example of servility and selfishness in high places became the source of wide-spread contagion. Ministers who sold concessions and bargained for tlie price of a law, were imitated by clerks in government offices. Men shamelessly offered their services to government at a fixed price, and ■ cases were not unknown where offices were obtained at the expense of a wife's dishonor. The management of theatres was sold to the highest bidder. In fact, corruption infected every department of public service, and even, at length, the walks of private life. " It would seem," observed, in September, 1847, a French writer (whose survey of the subject, from a strictly religious point of view, is entitled to peculiar consideration) — " it would seem as though our rulers had sought systematically to stifle honorable sentiments, and to excite in men's hearts an immoderate, an insatiable love of money. They have adopted this line of conduct as a means of extinguishing public spirit, of preventing all serious opposition, and of everywhere forming docile instruments. They have preached with effrontery in their journals, and from the parliamentary tribune, the religion of material interests, alleging that it is the great object of human life, and the essential end of society. Alas ! our rulers have been but too successful in this new kind of proselytism. Citizens of all ranks have rushed with phrensied eagerness on the bait so imprudently offered to their avarice. ' Money ! money at any price !' Such has appeared to be the cry alike of the highest and of the lowest in the social scale ; and, amidst the universal ruins of religion and virtue, cupidity has remained standing like a mighty giant !" The records of the French courts of justice during the year 1847, expose the political corruption of ex-ministers like Teste and Cubieres, the licentiousness of many popular authors and journalists, the horrors of the Praslin tragedy (in which government is more than suspected of having connived at the suicide of the Duke de Praslin), the self

RELIGIOUS PERSECUTIONS. 19

murders and crazy attempts at murder on the part of certain diplomatic officers of high rank, like the Counts de Bresson and Mortier ; and are full of other hideous developments of sin and madness in private and public life. They also testify to the religious persecutions endured by the Baptists in the Department of l'Aisne, whose persistence in exercising the right of meeting, guaranteed to them in common with all Frenchmen by the charter, was visited by trials, fines, and imprisonment. M. Odillon Barrot, a principal promoter of the Reform Banquets of 1847, cordially accepted an invitation to become the legal adviser of the Baptists. On one occasion, at a trial where his engagements prevented him from being present as their advocate, his place was supplied by M. Henri Lutteroth, the able conductor of Le Semeur, a leading Parisian journal, who, although not agreeing with their denominational peculiarities, was deeply interested in the principle at stake, and in the constancy with which these humble Christians suffered in order to maintain it. The case was decided against them by the higher courts to which it was successively carried. It was still pending When the Revolution broke forth, the immediate consequence of a struggle for the same principle involved in their case, a struggle provoked by the same absolute law which had been revived in order to interfere with their right of meeting. Thus the heroic resistance of a few obscure Baptists to an odious law, was among the proximate causes of hastening an event which other causes had already rendered inevitable.

That this event had become inevitable, that it was becoming imminent, was indicated by signs that daily multiplied. The circumstance that in the winter of 1847 thousands of spectators were attracted to one of the theatres in Paris by a play entitled la Revolution Frangaise, the French Revolution, caused the writer of these pages (then residing at Paris) to pen the following paragraph : " The Parisians at present content themselves with being amused by minute representations of scenes which were stern and stirring realities for their fathers. In the faubourg St. Antoine, however, slumber fires yet unquenched that will surely burst forth with all their fury in the next French Revolution. For why should there not be another ? The king, with all his tact and his decision of character, cannot live for ever ; and even before the firm hand which now wields the sceptre is palsied in death, the prestige of Louis Philippe's name may have vanished, and scores of contingent causes may excite the ' wliirlwind and storm.' The only infallible security against political disorder, is a degree of civil right and liberty, and of intellectual and moral development, which the masses are far, very far from having attained. And if a revolution should arise, its most fearful element would be, as of old, the rage of the people. Before this terrible power, the monied aristocracy which sixteen years of golden peace have created, would flee as speedily as the nobility and even the royalty of a former day." It may be allowable to have repeated this partial prediction, now that it has since been signally fulfilled.

During the interval, in 1847, between the prorogation of the Chamber of Deputies in July, and its reassembling in December, much more significant exhibitions of public feeling than those which attended the play alluded to, were made at various political dinners, held throughout the provinces. Many of these assemblies were under the direction of M. Duvergier (de Hauranne), a deputy, who, since he cast off allegiance to M. Guizot in 1S39, had been assiduous in his endeavors to promote by speeches and publications, the cause of electoral reform. At all of these Reform Banquets, as they were called — about sixty in number, — the custom universal in monarchical countries of

SOCIALISTIC DOCTRINES. 21

drinking to the sovereign's health, was invariably omitted, for the purpose of testifying the displeasure of the people whose temporary favor had elevated Louis Philippe to the throne. The Banquets were attended by most of the prominent members of the different parties of the opposition ; and the freedom with which the subject of electoral reform was discussed, resulted in a healthy agitation of public sentiment that boded well for the rational progress of constitutional liberty in France.

The steady opposition maintained at these Reform Banquets, at the parliamentary tribune, and through the press, against the selfish policy of Louis Philippe, co-operated with the vices and errors of government, and with the accumulating forces of public opinion, to produce the Revolution of 1848.

Among the forces of public opinion which have just been mentioned, one of the most effectual and important was that communicated by the impulse of what usually pass under the name of Socialistic doctrines. Although this name covers the utmost variety of views, held by as great a variety of parties, yet those who entertain them are often quite indiscriminately classed together as Socialists, whether they are disciples of Saint Simon or Fourier, admirers of Pierre Leroux, of Considerant, or of Proudhon, or belong to the numerous subdivisions under the title of Communistes- £r/alitaires, Communionistes, Communitaires, Communistes-materialistes, CommunauUstes, etc., etc., which compose the party of Communists. Now, the intellectual activity of France had been nowhere more vigorously exercised during late years, than in discussing great Social questions. An incredible number of books and pamphlets had been occasioned by almost eveiy known or alleged evil, and by almost every proposed reform. Texts had alternately been furnished by prison discipline, colonial slavery, legislative and finaucial arrangements, pauperism, public education, and especially by that all-absorbing question from which no political thinker can longer avert his attention — the improvement of the existing relations between what is designated as the laboring portion of the community and their employers, the question known on the European continent under the technical name of the Organization of Labor. The discussion of these great questions had long occupied an increasing number of Socialists of every party and of no party in France.

The writer has elsewhere had occasion to say that the French Socialists " have raised many problems which await future solution. They have sown in the public mind many ideas, which, amidst tares, will yet yield good grain. Without admiring some of the motley peculiarities by which they are distinguished, it is right to recognise in their ranks not a few of the most earnest and devoted friends of humanity. Even the dreams of those among them who are not utterly lost in the darkness of infidelity, reflect, however dimly, the light of the purest and highest truth. The beauty of their best conceptions is, as the Germans might call it, a certain after-shine (iiachskehi) of Christianity/' To introduce the briefest possible explanation of their views, it may be said that they added a new to the old revolutionary principle. The old principle includes the right of self-government and civil and religious liberty — the principles, in feet, that in the first French revolution were so wisely advocated by Vergniaud, Bailey, Eoland, Brissot, and the other Girondins ; and so ferociously contended for by Danton, Camille Desmoulins, Marat, Robespierre, Hebert, and Chaumette ; and which, in the revolution of 1830, found illustrious advocates in Lafayette, Constant, and Lafitte. The o/d principle is only a political principle, and attempts to realize what our own American people have realized under a Republic. Louis Philippe invaded this principle, and he

THE REFORM BANQUETS. 23

fell. But his overthrow was aided by a new principle, which adopts the old one, but goes much further. It insists not only upon civil and religious liberty, and a share in the government through suffrage, for the whole adult population, but also upon the establishment of new Social relations between capital and labor. By a new distribution of wealth, and by the destruction, or at least the modification of individualism, it would show to the world that every man might have more than enough for his wants, and poverty and crime be altogether banished from society. This new principle had gained numerous converts among the uneducated as well as the educated classes. Many of its most active recruits were drawn from the ranks of the workingmen of Paris, large numbers of whom had accepted Louis Blanc as their apostle, as their master and guide in the investigation of the industrial problem. It was these men, in reality, whose strong arms overthrew the monarchy. For a moment the new and the old revolutionary principle struggled together, and struggled successfully against the despotic tendencies of the system of Louis Philippe. To show here how soon and how unfortunately the respective adherents of the two principles began to war against each other, would be to anticipate the course of our narrative. Let us return to the immediate consequences of the Reform Banquets. Here we may enter upon Mr. Kelly's account.