15. 19th Century Revolutions and the Crimean War

In 1830 Europe experienced another round of revolutionary unrest, an aftershock of the great Revolution that began in 1789.  And, as in 1789, it began in France. 

         The monarchy of the ultra-royalist Bourbon Charles X (1824 – 1830), reactionary since its inception, issued a series of decrees intended to nullify the Charter of 1814.  These “July Ordinances” dissolved a newly-elected Chamber of Deputies, abolished freedom of the press, and ordered a reduction in the number of qualified voters.  Charles’ intent was to remove from the already limited political nation those voters who earned their wealth through finance, commerce, and manufacturing.  By 1830 France was experiencing the economic, social, and political effects of industrialization.  The bourgeoisie, through its control of industrial capitalism, sought the liberalization of the political process.  Charles, arrogantly defiant of the forces of change affecting his country, resolved to prevent that liberalization.  In response, republican elements among the Parisian population, including university students and workers, took to the streets.  Although there was armed violence between opposing factions, most of the army, divided in its loyalties, refused orders to fire into the demonstrators. Charles X, without the armed support necessary to protect his power, abdicated and fled to Britain.   Visually, this revolution is known through the Romanticist painting by Eugene Delacroix, “Liberty at the Barricades.” 

            The “July Revolution” now moved to create a new government.  Victorious over Charles, the revolutionaries were stalemated in division as to France’s future political identity.  Among radical elements, there was enthusiasm for restoration of a democratic republic, but the memories of the chaos and terror of the Revolution made democracy repugnant to many liberals.  Bourgeois moderates favored a constitutional monarchy under a system similar to the Charter of 1814.   A suitable compromise came from the aging Marquis de Lafayette, who suggested that the crown be passed to Charles’ cousin, Louis Philippe the Duke of Orléans.   Louis Philippe had been a supporter of the Revolution and even had served in the republican army in 1792.  Acceptable to the majority of republicans and moderates, Louis Philippe promised to respect the Charter of 1814.  Known as the “Citizen King,” the popular Louis Philippe would rule until 1848.  His 18-year reign would be known as the “July Monarchy.” He would be the last King of France. 

            Elsewhere, the events in Paris shook – but did not crumble - the foundations of the Metternich system.  Liberal-inspired revolutionary disturbances in Austria, Prussia, the German states, and Italy were easily suppressed.  Spain, Portugal, and even Switzerland experienced liberal unrest with little consequence. 

           We have already seen how nationalist uprisings in 1830 affected the Metternich system in Belgium and Poland.  The Belgians declared their independence from the Netherlands in 1830, but the Concert powers did not see Belgian independence as a threat to Europe’s well being.  International action, including Louis Philippe sending an army to Belgium, compelled the Dutch to withdraw their forces from Belgium.  Reluctantly, the Dutch eventually recognized Belgian independence in 1839.  As was France, the new Belgian government was a constitutional monarchy.  In Poland, Russian armies brutally suppressed Poland’s bid for independence. 

An Echo of 1830: The June Rebellion, 1832

            A legacy of the Revolution of 1830 was the continued dissatisfaction of the radical republicans, reactionary monarchists, and Bonapartists.  The new king Louis Philippe was not then the popular monarch he would later become. An attempt by Bourbon “Legitimists” to kidnap the royal family was foiled in early 1832. A royalist uprising in the Vendee was likewise suppressed. The political climate was exacerbated by continuing economic depression and a severe cholera epidemic.  Over 18,000 people died of the disease in Paris.  There were unfounded allegations that the government had poisoned the city’s wells.  Widespread unemployment and poverty contributed to unrest within the urban working class. On this background, the republicans organized in secret societies and plotted renewed insurrection. A group that called itself the Society for the Rights of Man was the best organized of these, having modeled itself on the Jacobins of the 1790s.

            On June 5, 1832, the funeral of the popular Napoleonic General Jean Maximilien Lamarque provided the spark for a violent uprising in Paris. Lamarque, a republican and victim of the epidemic, had been denied the honor of a state funeral. His funeral, consequently, would become a demonstration of popular protest. As the cortege moved through the streets of Paris, masses of people, calling for the overthrow of Louis Philippe, joined the parade.  Order collapsed when a demonstrator waving a red and black flag emblazoned with the words “Liberty or Death" provoked a riot. Government troops exchanged gunfire with the demonstrators. For the next 48 hours, Paris was a battleground. The insurrectionists took control of the city center and set up defensive barricades. The army was ordered to suppress the revolt. Some 40,000 regular troops reinforced the 20,000 National Guard forces then fighting the some 3000 insurgents.  Louis Philippe, who had been at St. Cloud when the uprising began, returned to the city to show that he was in control. It was over by the evening of June 6.

            In spite of the drama of the events of the June Rebellion, there were less than 200 deaths suffered by both sides. Despite the economic problems, the people of Paris were not supportive of the revolt.  They welcomed the king’s return. The government was remarkably lenient in punishing those responsible for the uprising. None of those convicted of treason were executed. As the 1830s progressed, the economic crisis eased reducing social and political tensions.  

            The June Rebellion of 1832 is the event that has become so familiar through the Broadway musical based on Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables. (“Do you hear the people sing? Singing the song of angry men? It is the music of a people who will not be slaves again!”)  Hugo was a bystander accidentally swept up in the violence, having been caught in the maze of insurrectionist barricades and the troops attacking them.  His Les Misérables was published in 1862, some 30 years afterwards. Hugo’s fictional young revolutionaries Marius and Enjolras of the Friends of the ABC are based on a somewhat romanticized view of students in the Society for the Rights of Man who took to the barricades in 1832.

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The images used in this section are from Wikipedia sources. 

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Sources for the Revolution of 1830

Brinton, Crane et al. A History of Civilization. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1960.

Goubert, Pierre. The Course of French History. New York: Franklin Watts, 1988.

Johnson, Paul. The Birth of the Modern. New York: Harper Collins, 1991.

Knapton, Ernest and Thomas Derry. Europe 1815 – 1914. New York: Scribners, 1965.

Langer, Walter et al. Western Civilization. New York : Harper and Row, 1968.

Merriman, John. A History of Modern Europe. New York: Norton, 1996.

Palmer, Robert R. et al  A History of the Modern World. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2002.