ABSTRACT
The response of the Orleanists to the demonstrations of the 'popular classes' was military repression. The situation was stabilised mainly by economic recovery, for which the government could claim no more credit than they deserved blame for repeated cyclical crises. Political radicalism was a direct product of disillusion with the absence of political and social reform. The worst nightmare of the resistance was realised with the rapid fusion of elite and popular criticism. The incarceration of four of Charles X's ex-ministers in the Vincennes fortress added another element to artisan demonstrations about wage cuts and price rises. The insistence of liberal politicians that the Four Ordinances caused the July Days led to popular pressure that those responsible should be put to death as retribution for the deaths of so many 'July heroes'. National Guard units and Odilon Barrot, prefect in Paris, seemed more sympathetic to the demonstrators than to the more temporising approach of the government.
