XLVI. to their aid and engineers was indeed due the comple- CHAP. tion of the first great railroad-that to Rouen. The parliamentary session of 1840, which opened during the Christmas of the preceding year, did not display at first any spirit hostile to the ministry which Marshal Soult had put together. The opposition of the Left put forward the necessity of parliamentary reform, by at least conferring the franchise upon all citizens included in the second list of the jury. This included the whole educated class, as well as all members of municipalities. That so small and reasonable a demand should be resisted appears marvellous. M. Dupin makes a distinction between electoral and parliamentary reform, and declares the former as requisite and just, whilst the latter, aiming at the expulsion of all functionaries, including ministers from the Chamber, he denounces as fanatic and impracticable demagogy. The reform question was not, however, as yet made even the subject of a motion; the Liberals, in fact, merely opened the breaches for that eventually formidable attack. But whatever might menace government or dynasty for the future seemed so little imminent for the present that M. Guizot at this time accepted the embassy to London, in order to direct his attention and talent to the negotiations respecting the East, regarding which there seemed to be little difference between parties in France, however ill accordant all were with the views of England. At the same time was announced to the Chamber the marriage of the Duc de Nemours to the Princess of Saxe-Coburg-Cohary. For the maintenance of the Prince the government no longer proposed Rambouillet or any hereditary appanage. It merely asked 20,000l. a year, with 12,000l. a year for the Princess if she survived her husband. The demand was referred to a commission, and the required documents furnished to it, and it concluded for the grant of the annuity demanded. Opposition was not idle. M. de Cormenin .CHAP. came out with one of his virulent pamphlets. One of the members of the commission complained that the documents furnished were not complete. And when it was proposed to render these documents public, and thus reveal the entire state of the King's fortune, the government opposed the demand, and publicity was not granted. This was ill-judged. The whole truth, as it afterwards came out, would have shown the King by no means so overflowing with wealth as the public supposed and his foes asserted. But the general opinion was that, with his large private fortune added to the public domains, and his 500,000l. sterling of civil list, the King possessed means sufficient to endow his children, numerous as they were. Subsequent accounts attempt to prove rather too much, viz. that the public domain occasioned more expense than it brought in receipts, whilst the private property of the Orleans family came to be estimated at only 40,000l. a year. Had such facts been fully and openly established in 1840 the Chamber could not have refused the dotation demanded for the Duc de Nemours. Certain incidents that marked the debate made a most unfavourable impression. One was a declaration of Laffitte, that the annual income, set down as accruing from the forest of Breteuil, which the King had purchased from him, was egregiously underrated. No sufficient answer was made to this assertion of Laffitte. So that in the division which immediately followed there appeared 226 votes negativing the dotation, against 200 that approved. The vote of February 20th, 1940, which the ministry had brought on themselves by their want of truth and foresight, completely prostrated them. Marshal Soult resigned. Public and parliamentary opinion pointed out Thiers as his successor. And the recent settlement of the Spanish question removed the chief obstacle to his appointment. In the fractioned state of the Chamber, M. Thiers was far from grasping at office. And he at first proposed taking the foreign department himself, and leaving the presidency of the council still in the hands of the Marshal. On Soult's refusal, he made a similar proposal to the Duc de Broglie; the chief cause of M. Thiers' hesitation was due to the evident displeasure and dislike of the King, who could not but feel that the vote negativing his son's dotation, in which Thiers and the coalition had joined, was a personal outrage, and who felt, moreover, that M. Thiers was far too warlike and too spirited. His acceptance of the new cabinet he styled his humiliation,* and he had no sooner done so than he looked towards M. Guizot to have a more agreeable ministry ready in case Thiers should stumble. Yet the new premier introduced into his cabinet two staunch friends of the Doctrinaires, Rémusat and Jaubert, the former, too, occupying the important position of home minister. M. Thiers promised the Doctrinaires that, however desirous of gaining the adhesion of the Left, he would at all events refuse two things they demanded, viz. electoral reform and the dissolution. The other colleagues of M. Thiers belonged to the Left Centre. Vivien became minister of justice, Cousin minister of public instruction, Cubières and Roussin ministers of war and marine. Pelet took the finances, and Ganneron commerce. Billault became one of the under-secretaries. Such was the ministry which had for its chief task to negotiate with England and the other powers of Europe the settlement of the Eastern question, which at the moment absorbed the interests of all. * Guizot's Memoirs. CHAP. XLVI. XLVII. CHAPTER XLVII. LOUIS-PHILIPPE TO HIS FALL. 1840-1848. CHAP. THE first half of Louis-Philippe's reign, which we have just concluded, was marked on the whole by rare prudence and signal success, the result of political sagacity, as well as good fortune. Much, or indeed all of this, was at the time attributed to the wisdom of the monarch, who was likened, not unaptly, to Ulysses. And yet, during the first years of his reign, which were those of his success, the will of Louis-Philippe was continually crossed and frequently overborne by his statesmen or his Chambers. In the last half of his reign, on the contrary, Louis-Philippe made his ideas more completely prevail, by setting aside inexorably the views and the men which displeased him. Yet this period, during which he was entirely master, was no longer marked by the same success or the same dignity. Enemies and obstacles gathered and rose against his throne, without his being able to either remove or conciliate them. The basis, too, on which his throne and his influence were founded grew narrower as years rolled on. The entire middle class at first supported him, all of the lower ranks of life, save a few, remaining indifferent. As his reign advanced, adherents everywhere, save in the official world, fell off, and began to dislike and to mistrust, when they did not rebel. Speculative writers* have described the Restoration *Louis Blanc. as a struggle of the middle class against a government which attempted to restore the aristocracy, and was supported by the class which pretended to form it. The reign of Louis-Philippe is thus characterised as a struggle between the victorious middle class, or bourgeoisie, and the labouring ranks beneath them. Nothing can be more incorrect or calculated to lead to more error than such classifications. Charles the Tenth was overthrown by the resistance of the Chamber of Deputies, elected by the highest tax-payers. He was in fact abandoned by that very class which is represented as having upheld him. In the same way the people, which until the 27th of July, 1830, took little part in the overthrow of the elder Bourbons, were almost as uninfluential in the ejection of the Orleans. Every attempt based upon popular insurrection had been put down. From 1840 to 1847, Louis-Philippe, whilst he continued to keep true to him the majority of a Chamber elected by the highest tax-payers, contrived to array in enmity almost all parliamentary and press talent. The bourgeoisie split into as many opinions as the nation, its wealthy capitalists still upholding the policy of resistance, whilst poorer and professional citizens, constituting the majority of the bourgeoisie, repudiated it. In this, far from being antagonistic with the people or the labouring class, the middle ranks completely sympathised with them, or at least with those limited numbers which formed the thinking portion of the people. All theories which here draw marked and definite lines between classes, and ascribe separate interests and action to each, are mistaken. The great divisions and antagonism of the time were in no wise between aristocracy, bourgeoisie, and people, but between those who conferred or held place and those who were without any such power or privilege. The non-official world, necessarily the larger number, became more and more hostile. The alternative rise CHAP XLVII. |