ABSTRACT
The lack of stability in French political life throughout the nineteenth century was the direct result of the many strong currents of thought – liberal, socialist and imperialist – which had been awakened by the French Revolution. Traditions had been absorbed differently by the many and contrasting regions of France. While a republican and left-wing tradition prevailed and developed in Paris, a monarchical and clerical tradition died hard elsewhere. The Vendeé, and to a less extent other provincial areas, remained devoutly Catholic. Thus when Napoleon III was losing the sympathy of radical Paris in the second half of his reign, he was acquiring support from the remote fringes of the country, where clerical sentiment was abandoning hope of a Bourbon restoration and adopting the Empire as its favoured régime. But the spirit of the ancien régime had not readily accepted defeat. Although the Bourbon dynasty left the French throne for ever in 1830, its supporters continued a rearguard action for many years. But in 1830 Charles X, the last of the Bourbons, was removed with surprising ease. The appointment of Prince Jules de Polignac as chief minister was a grave error which united the opposition, constitutional and unconstitutional, against the regime. Polignac’s experience had been only diplomatic and his knowledge of the domestic politics of France was inadequate. His faith in prayer and revelation alarmed the hard-headed business men and journalists of Paris. The assembly which met in March 1830 at once made it clear to their sovereign that they had no confidence in his new ministers. Whether the king had the right to appoint an executive government without reference to the majority in the legislature was now seen, not for the last time, to be the issue which underlay the whole constitutional struggle in France. Charles’s immediate answer to the problem was to dissolve the assembly. The new assembly, elected in July 1830, provided the opposition with an even stronger majority. On 26 July Charles put into force Article XIV of the charter which empowered him to issue emergency decrees, apparently without sanction from the assembly. The next day he issued four ordinances which gagged the press, dissolved the assembly, reduced an already small electorate to about one-quarter of its former size, and announced that new elections would be held under these changed regulations. A consideration of the text of the ordinances suggests that Charles had decided to destroy the constitution, yet, if so, his policy was very rash, for he had kept few royal troops at hand to deal with any resistance.
