Introduction

Throughout the nineteenth century, some form of monarchy was the constitutional norm for European states of any significance. Switzerland was an obvious exception to this generalisation, but Switzerland clearly constituted a special case. The other important exception was France, ruled by republican regimes from 1792 to 1804, from 1848 to 1852 and from 1870. France’s experience of revolution and republicanism gave it a unique political culture that helps to explain the character of the French Revolution of 1848. The year 1848 witnessed an explosion of revolutionary and nationalist movements in many European states, with similar causes and with largely similar outcomes. Harvest failures, economic recession, high urban unemployment and a collapse of financial confidence were European-wide phenomena in the years 1846 to 1849. Similarly, the capitulation of illiberal regimes to popular urban revolts, the introduction of liberal and democratic reforms, and the eventual triumph of reaction and re-assertion of traditional authorities through military force characterised the fundamental pattern of events in the European states affected by the revolutionary and nationalist upheavals of 1848-9. Again the exception was France and again the explanation, it is argued, lay in France’s revolutionary and republican tradition and in her unique political culture. This book therefore attempts to situate the 1848 revolution in France in the context of France’s revolutionary and republican tradition and to relate the events of 1848 in France to France’s political culture. The themes of monarchy, revolution and republicanism in France before 1848 are explored, while, for the events of 1848, extensive use is made of published writings by contemporaries and of the contemporary newspaper press, both Parisian and provincial. It is argued that the institution of monarchy became fatally undermined in France, arguably to a much greater degree than in any other nineteenthcentury European state. At the same time, as a result of the experience of the 1790s, revolution and republicanism came to be associated with popular violence, anticlericalism, foreign wars, high inflation and taxation, centralised dictatorship and State terror. Another important consequence of the revolution of 1789 was, through the extensive sales of confiscated property, the consolidation of a large land-owning peasant class, which, at least in 1848, tended to be politically conservative. In addition, the Napoleonic period bequeathed France with a legacy of glorious military victories, French domination of most of Continental Europe, and sustained conflict with Britain and with the conservative European powers. The French could also cherish the memory of efficient, centralised and meritocratic administration and the legend of a charismatic leader and of his extraordinary achievements. Whereas revolution and republicanism continued to have unpleasant associations for many French people, the less attractive features and consequences of Napoleonic rule became largely forgotten so that Bonapartism could exercise a widespread emotional and irrational attraction. All this encouraged political instability in France and militated against the achievement of a national political consensus. In February 1848 the permanent overthrow of the July monarchy arguably owed as much to France’s unique political culture as to any other

factor. Once the Second Republic had been proclaimed, France’s revolutionary and republican tradition provided inspiration for some but provoked fear among others. The reality and threat of popular violence, evidence of dictatorial government tendencies, and continuing economic difficulties and uncertainties exacerbated those fears. In this situation, a new political conservatism and a new political consensus emerged. Divorced from monarchy, this new conservatism found political expression in what contemporaries often referred to as the Party of Order. By claiming to defend ‘order’, peace, property, religion and the family, the Party of Order could pose as the upholder of a national and moral consensus which could embrace all but left-wing republicans and socialists. The popular appeal of this new conservatism was not surprising, given the extreme rhetoric of some elements of the French Left, the apparent radicalism of some government policies, the explosions of popular violence, particularly in Paris, and the massive increase in the property tax. When, in the autumn of 1848, the Party of Order largely aligned itself with Bonapartism and with the presidential candidature of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, the outcome was one of the most decisive electoral victories in French history.