Part 18

"That is true," said the King, as Louis XVI had formerly said to Malesherbes; "I am more unfortunate than the ministers, I cannot resign." The ministers then in King Louis Philippe's Cabinet had not resigned. The King, having made his decision, said, "It is with the keenest regret that I separate myself from you, but necessity and the safety of the monarchy demand this sacrifice. My will gives way; much time will be needed to regain the ground I am about to lose." There were tears in many eyes. The King sent for Molé, and Guizot himself announced to the Chamber of Deputies the change of the Ministry.

There was much of astonishment and sorrow in the parliamentary majority, always strongly attached to the leaders they had so long followed in spite of occasional vagaries and good-natured weakness. The imminence of a great danger engrossed their minds, together with the consciousness of a great defeat. The anxiety of the Chambers was reechoed in the Tuileries; and for the last time the ministers assembled there, anxious at that last moment of their power to maintain order, now everywhere threatened. Count Molé was laboriously occupied in the formation of a cabinet. "To think that this resolution was formed in a quarter of an hour!" exclaimed the King when engaged with Jayr in some administrative details.

The excitement was great in the palace, but still greater in the streets, being skilfully kept up by several insurrectionist leaders, and spontaneously arising among the reckless portion of the populace, who are easily influenced by revolutionary clamors. Increased by those assembling from curiosity or idleness, the crowds in the squares and boulevards assumed alarming proportions. All at once, opposite the Foreign Office, there was heard, about nine o'clock in the evening, one of those fatal explosions, whether accidental or premeditated, which history often records as the origin of great popular risings.

The soldiers, who till then had remained motionless and patient, thought they were attacked, and fired in their turn. Several persons fell, some dead, others wounded, and some were knocked down and trodden under foot. The greatest disorder, caused both by alarm and indignation, broke out in the whole neighborhood. Then was the moment of action for the keen and determined insurgents. A cart which happened to be there was immediately loaded with the corpses and drawn through the streets, from one newspaper office to another, in the most populous quarters, with shouts of "Vengeance! To arms! Down with Guizot! The head of Guizot!" By daybreak Paris was covered with barricades.

Molé having failed in his efforts to form a Cabinet, the King sent for Thiers. For the last time he claimed the devotion of his old ministers. "I must have immediately a military chief--an experienced chief," he said. "I have sent for Bugeaud, but I wish M. Thiers to find him appointed. Will you grant me this further service?" Duchâtel, and General Trézel, on the previous evening still Minister of War, signed without hesitation Marshal Bugeaud's appointment as Commander-in-Chief of the National Guard and the Army. It was three o'clock in the morning. "It is somewhat late to set to work," said the Marshal; "but I have never been beaten, and shall not make a beginning to-morrow. Let me act, and fire the cannon; there will be some bloodshed, but to-morrow evening the strength will be on the side of law, and the factious will have had their account settled."

The day had not yet dawned when the Marshal was reviewing his forces. He found them demoralized, having for sixty hours remained motionless before the mob, with their feet in the mud, and their knapsacks on their backs, allowing the rioters to attack the Municipal Guard, burn the sentry-boxes, cut down the trees, break the street-lamps, and harangue the soldiers. They were moreover badly supplied with provisions and ammunition. The energetic language of their new commander, and the precise orders which he gave for the march of the columns, inspired the soldiers with fresh life and courage. The movements indicated had already begun to be executed, and the troops were taking position; but the crowds again filled the streets, and at several points the soldiers were prevented from marching. One of the generals at the head of a column sent to tell Bugeaud that he was face to face with an enormous body of men, badly armed, who made no attack upon him, but only shouted, "Long live reform! Long live the army! Down with Guizot!" "Order them to disperse," replied the Marshal; "if they do not obey, use force, and act with resolution."

There was no fighting on either side. The staff were besieged by the entreaties of a crowd of respectable men, who in terror and consternation conjured Bugeaud to withdraw the troops because they excited the anger of the populace, and leave to the National Guard the duty of appeasing the insurrection. The danger of such counsel was obvious, and the Marshal paid no attention to it, till Thiers and Odilon Barrot, who had just accepted office, came to the staff with the same advice, and it therefore became an order. The Marshal at first refused the ministers as he had done the citizens, and then the same order was sent by the King. "I must have a government," the Marshal had recently said; and, as he was now without the government, which thus relaxed the resistance agreed upon, he in his turn gave way. His instructions for retreat were thus given to his officers: "By order of the King and ministers, you will fall back upon the Tuileries. Make your retreat with an imposing attitude, and if you are attacked, turn round, take the offensive, and act according to my instructions given this morning."

Meanwhile the formation of the Ministry was posted up everywhere. A mixed crowd carried Odilon Barrot in triumph to the Home Office, which Guizot and Duchâtel had just left. Those round him shouted, "Long live the father of the people!" but most of the notices posted up were torn. At the moment when the new ministers were about to leave Bugeaud's staff on horseback in order to pass through the city, Horace Vernet, the artist, arrived out of breath. "Don't let M. Thiers go," said he to the Marshal. "I have just passed through the mob, and they are so furious against him that I am certain they would cut him in pieces!" Odilon Barrot presented himself alone to the crowd, but was powerless to calm the fury he had assisted in unchaining. "Thiers is no longer possible, and I am scarcely so," said he on his return to the staff. The King on one occasion showed himself in the court of the Tuileries, when reviewing several battalions of the National Guard. There were some shouts of "Long live the King!" but the most numerous were "Long live reform! Down with Guizot!"

"You have the reform; and M. Guizot is no longer a minister!" said the King; and on the shouts being again repeated, he returned to the palace. The palace also was thronged with a confused crowd, animated by various feelings and agitated by evident fears or secret hopes. Some urged the King to abdicate in favor of the Comte de Paris; others vigorously opposed such a relinquishment of power in presence of the insurrection. The great mind of Queen Marie-Amélie was displayed in all the simplicity of its heroism. "Mount on horseback, sire," said she, "and I shall give you my blessing." She had recently urged the King to change his Cabinet; a very kind message, intrusted for Guizot to one of his most intimate friends, at the same time proved her regret.

The King sat at his writing-table, agitated and perplexed. He had begun to write his abdication, when Marshal Bugeaud entered, having just learned what was taking place in the Tuileries, and excited by the sound of some shooting which had already begun. "It is too late, sire," said he; "your abdication would complete the demoralization of the troops. Your Majesty can hear the shooting. There is nothing left but to fight." The Queen seconded this advice, and Piscatory and several others were of the same opinion. The King rose without finishing his writing, and then other voices were raised to insist upon the King's promise. He sat down again, wrote and signed his abdication. By this time the troops had received orders to fall back, and Marshal Gérard took the place of Bugeaud as commandant-general. The columns were marched toward the barracks, and there was no detachment around the Palais-Bourbon, where the same disorder reigned, and the same efforts were made in vain.

The Duchesse d'Orléans presented herself before the Chamber of Deputies as soon as the abdication of the King was known. The Duc de Nemours accompanied her, leading the Comte de Paris by the hand; and the Duc de Chartres, who was weak and ill, was wrapped up in a mantle and leaned on Ary Scheffer's arm. Before joining the Princess at the gate of the Chamber the Duc de Nemours had, with his brother the Duc de Montpensier, seen the King, their father, take his melancholy departure, to escape the insurrection, against which he could not make up his mind to use force.

The Duchesse d'Orléans already knew that depriving the King of the crown was not giving it to her son. Her natural courage, however, and her maternal affection induced her to make every effort to secure the throne for the prince of nine years whom the nation had already intrusted to her keeping. She had seen the Tuileries invaded before leaving that hall where her husband's portrait by Ingres seemed to preside over her son's destinies. "It is here one ought to die," she said, when Dupin and Grammont came to conduct her to the Chamber. Odilon Barret had gone to bring her, and succeeded in finding her in the Palais-Bourbon. The crowd showed sympathy for her, and made room respectfully, though she and her small retinue had difficulty in getting within the palace, every passage being crowded. The Duchess stood near the tribune holding her two boys close to her. After Dupin announced the King's abdication, Barrot, after presenting the legal instrument, asked the Chamber to proclaim at once the young King and the regency of Madame la Duchesse d'Orléans.

Shouts of protest were heard on several benches. "It is too late!" exclaimed Lamartine, as he went to the tribune, eager to urge this difficulty, reject the regency, and demand a provisional government so that the bloodshed might be stopped. Some others were already mentioning the word "Republic." The crowd were gradually pouring into the Chamber from the corriders, and Sauzet, the President, requested strangers to withdraw, and made a special appeal to the Duchess herself. "Sir, this is a royal sitting!" she replied; and when her friends urged her, "If I leave this Chamber, my son will no more return to it." A few minutes before her arrival, Thiers had entered the Chamber in the greatest agitation. "The tide is rising, rising, rising!" he said to those who crowded round him, and then disappeared. Several voices were heard together in confusion; among the speakers were La Rochejacquelein, Ledru-Rollin, Marie, and Berryer.

The Duchess had been conducted to a gallery, on account of the threats of the insurgent battalions, who burst open the doors after General Gourgaud had in vain tried to stop them. Armand Marrast, one of the editors of the National, after looking at the invaders, said: "These are the sham public; I shall call the real!" A few minutes afterward shots were heard in the court of the palace; the posts in the hands of the National Guard opened before the triumphant mob, who, after sacking the Tuileries, hurried up against the expiring remnants of the monarchy. The Duchesse d'Orléans had already twice offered to speak, but her voice was drowned in the tumult. The newcomers, stained with blood and blackened with gunpowder, with dishevelled hair and bare arms, climbed on the benches, stairs, and galleries; and in every part were shouts of "Down with the regency! Long live the Republic! Turn out the 'Contents'!" Sauzet put on his hat, but a workman knocked it off, and then the President disappeared.

Several of the Deputies rushed to the gallery, where the Duchess was still exposed to the looks and threats of the insurgents. "There is nothing more to be done here, madam," they urged: "we must go to the President's house, to form a new chamber." She took the arm of Jules de Lasteyrie; and on her sons being separated from her in the narrow passages, she showed the greatest anxiety, crying, "My boys! my boys!" At one time the Comte de Paris was seized by a workman in a blouse; but one of the National Guard took him out of his hands, and the child was passed from one to another till he rejoined his mother. No one knew what had become of the Duc de Chartres; but he was brought to the Invalides, where the Princess went for refuge; and in the evening, after nightfall, the mother and sons withdrew from Paris, and soon after from France. "To-morrow, or ten years hence," said the Duchesse d'Orléans as she left the Invalides, "a word, a sign will bring me back." Afterward in exile she frequently said, "When the thought crosses my mind that I may never again see France, I feel my heart breaking."

Wanderers and fugitives across their kingdom, after kneeling for the last time beside the tomb of their children at Dreux, and asking the hospitality of some friends who were still faithful, and without a single attempt to recover the crown they had lost, King Louis Philippe and Queen Marie-Amélie at last reached the seacoast, and set sail toward England, that safe and well-known refuge of unfortunate princes.

Thunderstruck like them, and at their wits' end, the most faithful of their servants and partisans waited for some sign authorizing them to protest against the unparalleled surprise to which France had been subjected. The fugitive King made no protest. His sons quietly followed him into exile. Those who were serving France abroad learned at the same time the news of their fall and the rise of a new power, and thought it their duty to bow to the national will, resolving that not a single drop of French blood should be shed in their cause.

(1848) REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS IN GERMANY, C. Edmund Maurice

Popular demonstrations in various parts of Germany in the great revolutionary year 1848 were no doubt partly due to the outbreaks in France and elsewhere, but it is also apparent that discontent at home had been long turning the people toward revolt. The agitation that began in March--the month following the "February Revolution" and the declaration of a republic in France--was the work of a patriotic party that cherished not only aspirations for extending popular rights in the several States, but also a prophetic desire for German unity.

The Congress of Vienna (1815) attempted to adjust the balance of power in Europe. Some sort of union for the States was imperatively required by the general situation, but there was fear of making Germany too strong. The Congress created the German Confederation, constituted by a union of independent States, under the hegemony or political headship of Austria. This confederation (bund) lacked strength in the Central Government, and although it reduced the number of States from more than three hundred to thirty-nine, it still perpetuated elements of unwieldiness and discord. At the head of the Austrian Government, as chief minister of the Emperor Ferdinand I, was Metternich, who for many years had been the great reactionary leader of Europe. He was compelled now to face conditions such as, in his long and varied career of statecraft and diplomacy, he never had confronted. Ferdinand himself, always a weak ruler, succumbed to the revolution provoked by his minister, whose downfall was followed by the Emperor's abdication (December 2, 1848) in favor of his nephew, Francis Joseph, the present ruler of Austria.

The most interesting of the German struggles of 1848 was that in Saxony. Robert Blum [Footnote: Blum, born at Cologne in 1807, was a writer and an agitator, leader of the Liberal party in Saxony. He was executed in November, 1848.--ED.] was present at a ball in Leipsic when the news arrived of the French revolution. He at once hastened to consult his friends; and they agreed to act through the Town Council of Leipsic, and sketched out the demands that they desired should be laid before the King. These were: "A reorganization of the constitution of the German Bund in the spirit and in accordance with the needs of the times, for which the way is to be prepared by the unfettering of the press, and the summoning of representatives of all German peoples to the Assembly of the Bund." The Town Council adopted this address on March 1st, and sent a deputation with it to Dresden; and, on the 3d, the people gathered to meet the deputation on its return. The following is the account given by the son of Robert Blum:

"By anonymous placards on the wall the population of Leipsic was summoned on the evening of March 3d to meet at the railway station the deputation returning from Dresden. Since the space was too narrow in this place, the innumerable mass marched to the market-place, which, as well as the neighboring streets, they completely filled. In perfect silence the thousands awaited here the arrival of the deputation, which, at last, toward nine o'clock, arrived and was greeted with unceasing applause. Town Councillor Seeburg spoke first of the deep emotion of the King; after him spoke Biedermann. But the crowd uproariously demanded Robert Blum.

"At last Blum appeared on the balcony of the Town Council House. His voice alone controlled the whole market-place, and was even heard in the neighboring streets. He too sought, by trying to quiet them, to turn them away from the subject of the address and of the King's answer. But the people broke uproariously into his speech with the demand, 'The answer! The answer!' It could no longer be concealed that the petitions of the town had received harsh rejection. Then came a loud and passionate murmur. The masses had firmly hoped that the deputation would bring with them from Dresden the news of the dismissal of the hated ministers.

"But Blum continued his speech, and they renewed their attention to him. 'In constitutional countries,' said he, 'it is not the King, but the ministers who are responsible. They, too, bear the responsibility of the rejection of the Leipsic proposals. The people must press for their removal.' He added that he would bring forward in the next meeting of the town representatives the proposal that the King should dismiss the Ministry, 'which does not possess the confidence of the people.' Amid shouts of exultation and applause, the appeased assembly dispersed."

Blum was as successful with his colleagues as with the crowd; and the Town Council now demanded from the King the dismissal of his ministers, the meeting of the Assembly, and freedom of the press. The King tried to resist the last of these three proposals, pleading his duty to the Bund. But even the Bundestag had felt the spirit of the times, and on March 1st had passed a resolution giving leave to every government to abolish the censorship of the press. The King seemed to yield, and promised to fulfil all that was wished; but the reactionary party in Dresden had become alarmed at the action of the men of Leipsic; and so, on March 11th, when the men of Leipsic supposed that all was granted, General von Carlowitz entered their city at the head of a strong force, and demanded that the Town Council should abstain from exciting speeches; that the Elocution Union should give up all political discussion; that the processions of people should cease; and above all, that the march from Leipsic to Dresden, which was believed to be then intended, should be given up.

These demands were met by Blum with an indignant protest. "Five men," said he, "who manage the army cannot understand that, though their bullets may kill men, they cannot make a single hole in the idea that rules the world." The town councillors of Leipsic were equally firm. Carlowitz abandoned his attempt as hopeless; and on March 13th the King summoned a Liberal Ministry which abolished press censorship, granted publicity of legal proceedings, trial by jury, and a wider basis for the Saxon Parliament, and promised to assist in the reform of the Bund.

In the mean time the success of the French revolution had awakened new hopes in Vienna. Soon after the arrival of the news, a placard appeared on one of the city gates bearing the words: "In a month Prince Metternich will be overthrown! Long live Constitutional Austria!" Metternich himself was greatly alarmed, and began to listen to proposals for extending the power of the Lower Austrian Estates. Yet he still hoped by talking over and discussing these matters to delay the execution of reforms till a more favorable turn in affairs should render them either harmless or unnecessary.

But great as was the alarm caused by the South German risings, and great as were the hopes which they kindled in the Viennese, the word that was to give definiteness and importance to the impulses that were stirring in Vienna could not come from Bavaria or Saxony. Much as they might wish to connect themselves with a German movement, the Viennese could not get rid of the fact that they were, for the present, bound up with a different political system. Nor was it wholly clear that the German movement was as yet completely successful. The King of Prussia seemed to be meditating a reactionary policy and had even threatened to despatch troops to put down the Saxon Liberals; and the King of Hanover also was disposed to resist the movement for a German Parliament. It was from a country more closely bound up with the Viennese Government, and yet enjoying traditions of more deeply rooted liberty, that the utterance was to come which was eventually to rouse the Viennese to action.