The spontaneous rising of the French people to expel their King, Charles X., who had ventured to infringe the Constitution, aroused the enthusiasm of Liberals all over Europe. But the real character of the movement which brought about the downfall of the elder branch of the Bourbons was, at the time, very imperfectly understood. It was not a determination to preserve at all costs the parliamentary system which animated the combatants in the “glorious days of July.” “Long live the Charter” was the watchword of the peaceful bourgeois. “Down with the Bourbons” was the war cry of the men of the barricades.

Outside the limited circle of the old Royalist families the restored monarchy had never been popular. Yet it was unquestionably the best and freest form of government which the country had ever enjoyed. The reason of the unpopularity of the Bourbons lay in the circumstances which had attended their return to France. By the large majority of Frenchmen their restoration was deeply resented, as one of the humiliating conditions imposed upon their country by the allied sovereigns, after Waterloo.

In respect to her frontiers, France in 1815 had been replaced in the position which she had occupied in 1789. Seeing the expenditure of blood and treasure which her wars had entailed upon Europe, these terms cannot be regarded as onerous. Nevertheless, it is not surprising that the treaties of 1815 should have been extremely distasteful to her. They were conceived in a spirit of suspicion and were directed mainly towards securing Europe from a fresh outbreak of her aggressiveness. Nor were the barriers, by which it was hoped to confine her within her boundaries, the only cause of her irritation. Her vanity and love of military glory had been dangerously stimulated by the Republican and Imperial wars, and it was a bitter blow to find that, in the final settlement, France, alone of all the great Powers, was to acquire no increase of territory. Vexation at these conditions was not confined to Republicans and Bonapartists. Hatred for the treaties of 1815 was the one political sentiment which Liberals and Royalists possessed in common.

In 1830, there was no Bonapartist party, but a strong Bonapartist spirit existed throughout the country. Veneration for the memory of “the man”[1] constituted the whole political philosophy of many thousands of Frenchmen. It was to the Bonapartist element that the Liberal party owed its chief strength and influence. Notwithstanding that the Liberals had opposed the Emperor during the Hundred Days, and had insisted upon his abdication after Waterloo, their alliance with the Bonapartists was cemented in the early days of the second Restoration. A common hatred of the Bourbons was the bond of union between them. In the Masonic and Carbonari lodges the bolder spirits of the two parties plotted together against the monarchy. When the reigning dynasty should have been overthrown, the conspirators proposed to proclaim the sovereignty of the people and to declare once more the tricolour the national flag. Then, and not till then, could France regain her “natural frontiers.”[2] It was the practice of these military democrats invariably to assert that the Bourbons were responsible for all the misfortunes of 1814 and 1815. They believed, or professed to believe, that the loss of territory, which France had sustained, was the price which the Bourbons had agreed to pay for their restoration. So long as a Bourbon was upon the throne Waterloo must go unavenged and France must submit to be deprived of her natural boundaries. It was this spirit which had animated the combatants in the Revolution of July. Men who understood and cared nothing for constitutional questions took up arms, believing that a victory over Charles’ guards would be a first defeat inflicted upon the allied sovereigns, and that a successful invasion of the Tuileries would be followed by a great national war upon the Rhine.[3]

The enthronement of the Duc d’OrlÉans was the strange termination of a revolution, carried out mainly by men who were animated by sentiments such as these. Even on the evening of the third day’s fighting, when the Royal troops had been driven from Paris and when the people were in possession of the Tuileries, the Duke’s name was still unmentioned. Most of the Liberal deputies were disposed to make their peace with their lawful king, and to be satisfied with the withdrawal of the unconstitutional ordinances and with the dismissal of the Prince de Polignac and his colleagues in the government. The extreme party, the old soldiers, the members of the former Carbonari lodges, the students of the polytechnique, the men who had borne the burden of the struggle, were not prepared with an immediate solution of the question. Beyond declaring that they would take up arms again, rather than accept any concessions at the hands of Charles X. or the Dauphin, they had no definite plan to bring forward. Louis Philippe was to owe his crown to a skilfully worded placard, the work of Laffitte the Liberal banker, and of Thiers, a clever young journalist, which on the following morning, greeted the Parisians at every street corner. In this proclamation the enthronement of the Duc d’OrlÉans was held up as the one solution which would restore public order without further bloodshed. A republic, it was declared, would entail both internal strife and war abroad, whilst Charles X., the monarch who had shed the blood of the people, must be adjudged unworthy to retain his crown. The Duc d’OrlÉans, on the other hand, was a prince devoted to the cause of the Revolution, who had never borne arms against his own countrymen, but who, on the contrary, had worn the tricolour at Valmy and at Jemappes. Let the people call for him and the Duke would come forward, content to accept the Charter and his crown from their hands.

The prospect of concluding the revolution in this fashion was eagerly adopted by the Liberal deputies and by the middle classes generally. But the more turbulent members of the so-called Hotel de Ville party indignantly repudiated the notion of allowing their glorious achievements to culminate in the enthronement of “another Bourbon.” The allusions in Laffitte’s and Thiers’ placard to the tricolour, to Valmy, and to the crown as the free gift of the people, left them cold. Nor were they to be mollified by a second proclamation, in which it was boldly asserted that the Duc d’OrlÉans was a Valois, not a Bourbon.[4] No sooner was the Duke put forward as a candidate for the throne, than the demagogues began to exhort the people to call upon La Fayette to assume the presidency of the republic. The old man was, as he had been forty years before, in command of the national guards, and was once more the hero of the mob. He was, however, little disposed to undertake the responsibility which his ultra-democratic friends wished him to assume. Under these circumstances, RÉmusat and other of his colleagues in the Chamber, assisted, it is said, by Mr. Rives, the American minister, had little difficulty in persuading him that, were he to play the leading part in founding a Liberal monarchy, it would be accounted, throughout the Old and the New World, the most honourable act of his declining years. Accordingly, on the following day, July 31, 1830, he agreed to receive the Duc d’OrlÉans, the Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom, at the Hotel de Ville. Upon his arrival he led him to the window and, placing the tricolour in his hands, embraced him warmly before the dense crowd upon the Place de GrÈve. When this ceremony had been completed the elect of the people rode back in triumph to the Palais Royal, exchanging enthusiastic handgrips with citizens along the road. For the moment, even the most truculent democrats were willing to accept La Fayette’s assurance that in an Orleans monarchy they had found “the best of republics.” Ten days later, on August 9, 1830, the Duke having sworn fidelity to the Charter was formally invested with sovereign power in the Chamber of Deputies, under the title of Louis Philippe, King of the French.

At the time of the Revolution of July Louis Philippe was in his fifty-third year. He was the son of EgalitÉ, and had been educated according to the Liberal views of his father and of Madame de Genlis. Although in 1794 he had deserted from the national armies along with Dumouriez, his commander-in-chief, he could assert truthfully that, throughout the long years of his subsequent exile, he had never turned his arms against his own country. During his wanderings in America and upon the continent, he had mixed with men of all sorts and all conditions. In Switzerland, indeed, he is said to have earned a livelihood by teaching in a school. In 1814 the idea of conferring the crown upon him, rather than upon Louis XVIII., had found favour in some quarters. But although, from this time forward, there had always existed some kind of a party, to which the name of Orleanist might have been applied, the Duke himself would appear to have been innocent of any participation in the proceedings of his adherents.

After Waterloo the plan of substituting him for Louis XVIII. had an increased number of supporters. Louis, who had never liked him, began from this moment to treat him with great suspicion. Both in England, where he continued to reside in a kind of disgrace till 1817, and at the Palais Royal, after his return to France, he was beset constantly by the spies of the police.[5] Charles X. had no share in his brother’s dislike and distrust of the Duc d’OrlÉans, and one of his first acts, after his accession, was to raise him to the rank of a Royal Highness. But, notwithstanding that, from the beginning of the new reign, more cordial relations were established between the Tuileries and the Palais Royal, there was never any real intimacy between the King and his sagacious relative. Charles was a man of limited intelligence and a bigot in religion. Politically he had not changed since the time when, as the Comte d’Artois, he had emigrated to Coblentz, and had called upon the Powers to assist him with men and with money to re-establish the old rÉgime in France. The Duc d’OrlÉans, on the other hand, was a well-informed man of the world, a Liberal, who was neither a friend nor an enemy of the clergy.

It is clear that during the whole period of the Restoration the Duc d’OrlÉans was at pains to impress upon the public how greatly he differed in all matters, both great and small, from his cousins of the elder branch. When the return of Bonaparte from Elba compelled the Royal family to fly once more from France, he had not joined Louis XVIII. at Ghent, but had gone to England and had resided, throughout the Hundred Days, in complete retirement at Twickenham. Moreover, before quitting Lille he had addressed a farewell letter to the general officers serving under him, bidding them act, after his departure, in whatever manner might appear to them the most calculated to promote the highest interests of their country—an injunction which aroused as much indignation among the “pure Royalists” as it elicited commendation from the majority of Frenchmen. As they grew up, his sons, the young princes, were educated like ordinary citizens at the LycÉe, and at the Palais Royal a simplicity was observed which contrasted strongly with the ceremony maintained, on all occasions, at the Court and in the apartments of the Dauphin. Nor could it fail to attract remark that men whose fidelity to the reigning dynasty was doubtful and prominent members of the Opposition were his habitual guests.

But, although there may be some circumstances of a suspicious nature in Louis Philippe’s conduct under the Restoration, it is improbable that he ever seriously harboured any thoughts of usurping the crown. His general behaviour is capable of a different explanation. He had tasted the bitterness of poverty, and appears to have been haunted constantly by the dread that his children might, some day, be reduced to the straits under which he had suffered in the early years of his exile. He was too clear-sighted a man not to perceive that the restored monarchy had no place in the affections of the people, and that the first serious mistake on Charles’ part would be the signal for his overthrow. It became, therefore, his policy to dissociate himself, as far as possible, from the Court in the hope that, should the Bourbons be expelled, he might escape from the necessity of sharing in their misfortunes. It is scarcely doubtful that the true motives of his somewhat equivocal attitude, at this period, should be ascribed to a keen desire to be allowed to remain in possession of his great estates, whatever political changes might take place, rather than to any deep-laid schemes of personal aggrandizement.[6]

At the time of the promulgation of the famous ordinances of July the Duke was with his family at Neuilly. For the past four months he had viewed Charles’ obstinate determination to retain his ministers, in defiance of the Chamber, with alarm. Nevertheless, the King’s coup d’État seems to have taken him completely by surprise. His chief endeavour, from the moment that it became apparent that the execution of the ordinances would lead to serious trouble, was to avoid committing himself with either party. Between Monday, July 26, the day on which the decrees were published in the Moniteur, and Friday, July 30, when the success of the revolution was assured, he would not appear to have had any communication with either the Court at Saint-Cloud or the Liberal deputies in Paris. Indeed, on Wednesday, July 28, when the fighting in the streets assumed a very serious character, he secretly withdrew from Neuilly and went into hiding at Le Raincy, another of his residences near Paris. Thiers, in consequence, when he visited Neuilly on Friday morning, was unable to see him, and it was only at last, after repeated messages had been sent him by Laffitte and other supporters, that he ventured to emerge from his retreat and to return secretly, and in the dead of night, to the Palais Royal. It is said that in arriving at this decision he was greatly influenced by his sister, henceforward to be generally known as Madame AdelaÏde, to whose opinion in political matters he was accustomed to attach greater weight than to that of his wife, the sweet-natured and dignified Marie AmÉlie.

After a few hours in Paris any doubts and hesitations with which he may have been beset vanished completely. The old King was in full flight from Saint Cloud, his guards even were demoralized and were deserting him. From country towns came the news that the tricolour had been hoisted, amidst the greatest enthusiasm, and that the revolution was spreading rapidly. When, on that Saturday afternoon, the Duc d’OrlÉans mounted his horse to meet La Fayette at the Hotel de Ville, he was fully determined to seize the crown, which his unfortunate kinsman had let fall into the gutter.

Legitimist historians and others, professing to write in a more impartial spirit, have commented most adversely upon his conduct in this, the supreme crisis of his eventful life. It must, however, be admitted by everybody who studies the question with an open mind that France was irrevocably resolved to expel the Bourbons. It has, nevertheless, been contended that, had the Duc d’OrlÉans consented to undertake the regency, no serious objections would have been made to the enthronement of the Duc de Bordeaux,[7] in whose favour Charles and the Dauphin had abdicated on August 2. Unfortunately, however, it was notorious that this young prince was the pupil of the Jesuits, and the prejudice against him, on that account, was unquestionably very strong. Without doubt, had the plan been given a trial, it must have speedily ended in disaster. In addition to the many and great difficulties with which Louis Philippe was confronted, during the whole course of his reign, he must, as Regent, have been perpetually exposed to the suspicion of acting under the inspiration of the young King’s family, and that suspicion would quickly have proved fatal. There were, therefore, but two alternatives, either a republic or an Orleans monarchy. Seeing the dispositions of the continental sovereigns and the condition of France in 1830, the proclamation of a republic, if it had not entailed war, must certainly have produced anarchy and brought untold misery upon the people. On the other hand, the statutory monarchy, at the time when it was set up, had the support of the best elements of the nation, and Louis Philippe, by accepting the crown, can justly claim to have preserved France from the imminent danger of civil and foreign war.

Louis Philippe was a man of more than usual courage. In his early life he had displayed it at a critical moment upon the battlefield. In his middle age, in his famous progress to the Hotel de Ville, he had never hesitated to ride, without a military escort, through an armed and hostile mob. No king has probably been the object of attacks upon his life of so determined a character as Louis Philippe. The ever-present danger of assassination is said to have broken down the nerves of some of the boldest of men. But, throughout his reign, the “citizen king” always confronted this particular peril, to which he was so constantly exposed, with a serene and lofty courage. In the face of political difficulties, however, he was as timid as he was brave when it was a question of meeting physical danger. His attitude towards the Jacobinical spirit, which the “glorious days of July” had so greatly stimulated, is characteristic of his weakness in this respect. It is not improbable that in his heart he was secretly convinced of the ultimate triumph of revolutionary principles. Be that as it may, he appears to have shrunk from attacking Jacobinism openly and boldly. He seems to have looked upon it as a most dangerous monster which it was advisable to coax and to humour, in the hope that, by careful handling, it might be temporarily subjugated.[8]

In the days which intervened between La Fayette’s acceptation of him and his actual enthronement, he lost no opportunity of putting his theory into practice. Youthful Republicans were admitted into his presence, and he submitted to be questioned about his political principles.[9] It is probable that in some of these discussions he was induced to promise far more than he afterwards found it convenient, or even possible, to perform. On many occasions afterwards he was, in consequence, reminded of a more or less mythical Hotel de Ville Programme, with the conditions of which he was accused of having broken faith. But of all the difficulties by which he was confronted in these early days, the demand for a vigorous foreign policy was by far the most serious to deal with. The convinced democrats, who had been so bitterly opposed to his enthronement, were now the most vehement in insisting upon the adoption of a spirited course of action abroad. Without doubt, these men represented only a small minority of the nation, but, when they talked of military glory and of “natural frontiers,”they appealed to sentiments which a “king of the barricades” could not afford to disregard. It was a matter of indifference to the demagogues of the party that the flower of the army was in Algeria, that many of the regiments at home were demoralized by their recent collision with the people, and that France had neither allies nor financial credit. The war for which they clamoured was to be conducted upon strictly revolutionary principles. “Peace with the nations, war with the kings,” the old cry was to be raised once more under cover of which, in former days, France had acquired her coveted boundaries.

Apart from the question as to whether the conditions of France and of Europe, in 1830, were such as to render it probable that a repetition of the methods of 1793 would be attended with success, the fact that the first shot fired on the frontiers would be the signal for the opening of the floodgates of revolutionary propagandism, made it of vital moment to Louis Philippe to avert the outbreak of hostilities. In a war, having for its loudly proclaimed object the destruction of kings, what hope could he have that his throne, resting upon new and untried foundations, would escape the general ruin? But although he was resolved to use every effort to maintain the peace, it was thoroughly in accordance with his habitual practice to cajole and flatter the faction which desired war. Accordingly, in his replies to the numerous patriotic addresses which were presented to him, he would dilate in fulsome language upon the heroic conduct of the citizens in the recent street fighting. All his speeches and his public utterances teemed with references to Valmy and Jemappes. When the band struck up the Marseillaise, he would beat time with his finger, “casting ecstatic glances at the tricolor like one who has found a long-lost mistress.”[10] Yet, whilst he was thus appealing to the revolutionary recollections and flattering the military vanity of the people, all his thoughts were bent upon obtaining his recognition by the great European Courts. No sooner, therefore, was he enthroned, than he sent off emissaries, upon whose discretion he could depend, bearing letters to his brother monarchs announcing his accession. But in these communications, intended only for the eyes of the sovereigns and their confidential advisers, he was careful to speak of the “glorious revolution” as a lamentable catastrophe which he sincerely deplored.[11]