ABSTRACT
The outbreak of revolution in Paris in February 1848 was an accident. To suppose that it took place because of Louis Philippe's unsuccessful foreign policy is, of course, wildly absurd; and only the most credulous will suppose that those who thronged the streets of Paris in 1848 were annoyed at the failure of Louis Philippe to offer them 'La Gloire'. The violence of the outburst in the streets caught the 'bored' professional classes off their guard, and they found themselves landed with a revolution they did not want but which they were powerless to resist until they had themselves captured control of the police and the army. The Assembly was unable to find one partly because the Bourbons were impossibly demanding a return to the dead day of Charles X, and partly because the Orleans dynasty was unable to free itself from the charge of dereliction of duty in the crisis of February.
