Louis-Philippe I

“ King Louis-Philippe is shrewd and alert enough, where his own dynastic interests are concerned, not to remain coldly aloof from this struggle, which cannot but end to his disadvantage, whether anarchy triumphs under Isabella II. or Legitimacy carries the day under Don Carlos. This being the case, it would not be advisable to ruffle our other neighbours (for they are neighbours and not allies) by too definite acts of intervention. England alone is allied with us, but, undermined as she is by so many internal wounds, can she still assert herself as she ought in the councils of Europe? ”

“ Everything that has since followed goes to establish the conviction, that France cannot exist as a republic.
There is a love of public splendour in their nature that seems as much born with them as their black eyes; and they must have, as a centre to that splendour, a king and a court, round which they may move, and to which they may do homage in the face of Europe without fearing that their honour or their dignity can be compromised thereby. It has been said (by an Englishman) that the present is the government of the bourgeoisie, and that Louis-Philippe is "un roi bourgeois." ”

“ There, Madame, you see the precarious state of the sham Legitimacy at home; abroad its position is no more assured. If Louis-Philippe's Government had felt that the Revolution of July cancelled the earlier transactions, that a new national constitution entailed a new political right and changed social interests; if it had shown judgment and courage at the outset of its career, it could, without firing a single cartridge, have endowed France with the frontier which has been taken from her, so keen was the assent of the peoples, so great the stupefaction of the kings. ”

“ General politics of the moment—Louis-Philippe—M. Thiers—M. de La Fayette—Armand Carrel—Of some women: the lady from Louisiana—Madame Tastu—Madame Sand—M. de Talleyrand—Death of Charles X.
When, passing from the politics of the Legitimacy to general politics, I re-read what I wrote on those politics in the years 1831, 1832 and 1833, I find that my previsions were fairly correct
Louis-Philippe is a man of intelligence whose tongue is set in movement by a torrent of commonplaces. He pleases Europe, which reproaches us with not knowing his worth ”

“ In a country where the cholera could not escape being caricatured, you will readily imagine that the King has fared no better. The lower part of the face of Louis-Philippe is massive, while his forehead, without being mean, narrows in a way to give the outline a shape not unlike that of a pear. ”

“ The country was in no state to be governed by a child; and what then was left for us, but to take a king from the same race which so for many ages has possessed the throne of France. Louis-Philippe est roi, parcequ'il est Bourbon."
"Pardonnez-moi," replies another, who, if he could manage it without disturbing the tranquillity about him, would take care to have it understood that nothing more legitimate than an elective monarchy could be ever permitted in France,—"Pardonnez-moi, mon ami; Louis-Philippe est roi, quoiqu'il est Bourbon." ”

“ They know well, and are daily reminded of it, that all the power and all the strength that possession can give are vested in the existing dynasty; and though much deeply-rooted feeling exists that is inimical to it, yet so many of all parties are firmly united to prevent farther anarchy and revolution, that the throne of Louis-Philippe perhaps rests on as solid a foundation as that of any monarch in Europe: the fear of renewed tumult acts like the key-stone of an arch, keeping firm, sound, and in good condition, what would certainly fall to pieces without it. ”

“ It must be owned that by the way Louis-Philippe has administered and governed the country he has made it the first power in the world. Reflect on that! Nothing is factitious; our army is a fine army; we have money; all is strong, is real, at this moment. The port of Algiers, just finished, gives us a second Toulon opposite to Gibraltar; we advance towards controlling the Mediterranean. We now have Belgium and Spain with us. [Pg 745] Certainly Louis-Philippe has made great way ”

“ Louis-Philippe's Government abandons itself to a double excess of arbitrariness and obsequiousness which the Government of Charles X. had never dreamt of. This excess is endured; and why? Because the people more easily endure the tyranny of a government which they have created than the lawful strictness of the institutions which are not their work. ”

“ Times were not ripe for a republic, and only a few radicals wanted it. The nation desired a settled government, yet one ruling by the laws which the nation had decreed through its representatives. Louis Philippe swore to everything that was demanded of him, and was in all respects a constitutional monarch, under whom the French expected all the rights and liberties that England enjoyed. All this was a step in advance of the monarchy of Louis XVIII. Louis Philippe was rightly named "the citizen king." ”

“ Popularity, always, and in all countries, an unstable possession, is in France infinitely more so; and Louis-Philippe must have more luck, as well as more wisdom, than falls to the lot of mankind, to retain this fleeting good when the novelty of his reign has worn away. That he is a man of great ability no one seems to entertain a doubt ”

“ Events so rapid have aged us so speedily that, when men remind us of our doings of a past period, it seems to us that they are talking of some other man than ourselves: and besides, to have changed is to have done what everybody does.
Louis-Philippe.
Philip did not think it necessary, as did the Restored Branch, to be the master in every village in order to reign; he considered that it was enough to hold sway in Paris: therefore, if ever he could turn the Capital into a warlike town, with an annual roll of sixty thousand pretorians, he would think himself safe. ”

“ In speaking to the Republicans, they emphasized the declaration that Louis Philippe would be a citizen king. When speaking to the Legitimists, they laid stress upon the fact that the Duke of Orleans would be the legitimate sovereign, should the frail child die who alone stood between him and the throne.
There was a fourth party—the Imperial or Napoleonist. It existed then in rather a latent state, though in a condition to be roused, as subsequent events proved, to marvellous [Pg 245] life by an electric touch. The renown of the great emperor filled the land. ”

“ This quotation, though it sound not very courtier-like, may be uttered before Louis-Philippe without offence; for it is impossible, let one's previous political bias have been what it will, not to perceive in every act of his government a firm determination to support and sustain in honour and in safety the order of things which it has established, or to perish ”

“ But would it be more reasonable to think that the descendants of Philip would have more chances of reigning than the young heir of Henry IV.? It is vain to contrive different combinations of political ideas: the moral verities remain unchangeable. There are inevitable reactions, instructive, magisterial, avenging. The Monarch who initiated us into liberty, Louis XVI., was made to expiate in his own person the despotism of Louis XIV. and the corruption of Louis XV.: and shall it be said that Louis-Philippe, he or his line, shall not pay the debt of the depravity, of the Regency? ”

“ When, several years after, the throne of Louis Philippe was overthrown, an appeal to universal suffrage re-established the Empire, and placed the crown upon the brow of Napoleon III. In this act the voice of the nation was heard. The vote was taken throughout the eighty-six departments of France, in Algiers, in the army, and in the navy. The result was as follows:
The action of the Deputies in choosing Louis Philippe king greatly exasperated the Democrats. ”

“ Exasperated by an act of gross despotism, the deputies from Brittany offered to furnish Louis Philippe with sixty thousand men, completely armed, to overthrow the reigning dynasty, and to establish in its place the House of Orleans. ”

“ The execution of his father in November 1793 had made him duke of Orleans, and he now became the centre of the intrigues of the Orleanist party. In 1795 he was at Hamburg with Dumouriez, who still hoped to make him king. With characteristic caution Louis Philippe refused to commit himself by any overt pretensions, and announced his intention of going to America; but in the hope that something might happen in France to his advantage, he postponed his departure, travelling instead through the Scandinavian countries as far north as Lapland. ”

“ Louis Philippe’s government was far from satisfying his desires for reform, and he persistently urged the “broadening of the bases of the monarchy,” while he protested his loyalty to the dynasty. He was returned to the chamber of deputies for the department of Eure in 1831. The day after the demonstration of June 1832 on the occasion of the funeral of General Lamarque, he made himself indirectly the mouthpiece of the Democrats in an interview with Louis Philippe, which is given at length in his Mémoires. ”

“ Advanced as were the ministers of Louis-Philippe's kingdom, they must either go to war or forswear it: by making war, they would get into trouble with kings; by forswearing it, they would get into trouble with the people. ”

“ If in this matter Louis Philippe had seemed to sacrifice the international position of France to dynastic interests, his attempt to re-establish it by allying himself with the reactionary monarchies against the Liberals of Switzerland finally alienated from him the French Liberal opinion on which his authority was based. When, in February 1848, Paris rose against him, he found that he was practically isolated in France. ”

“ Louis-Philippe's greatest title to glory is that of having prevented such bloodshed. But to show how little such abnegation of self is understood (p. 221) by even the most educated Frenchmen, I must relate a story which was told to me many years afterwards by a French officer who, at that time, had just returned from the Pontifical States, where he had helped to defeat the small army of Garibaldi. ”

“ Had this scene continued a minute longer, I should have missed seeing what I should have been sorry not to have seen, for I certainly could not have left the pastry-cook's shop while the young Frenchman's sufferings lasted. Happily, however, we reached the Boulevard des Italiens in time to see King Louis-Philippe, en simple bourgeois, passing on foot just before Les Bains Chinois, but on the opposite side of the way. ”

“ Society during the Second Empire — The Court at Compiègne — The English element — Their opinion of Louis-Napoléon — The difference between the court of Louis-Philippe and that of Napoléon III. — The luggage of M. Villemain — The hunts in Louis-Philippe's time — Louis-Napoléon's advent — Would have made a better poet than an Emperor — Looks for a La Vallière or Montespan, and finds Mdlle. ”

“ With an eye also to the marine, Louis-Philippe has made some sacrifices to the promotion and extension of foreign commerce, and not without a considerable degree of success.
There is not at present any branch of art, science, or industry, that the French are not making great exertions to encourage, for that object many societies and companies are formed, of which I will state a few [Pg 365] of the most important. There are four societies styled Athenæum, the Royal, which is at the Palais-Royal, No. ”

“ Louis Philippe did so, accepting at the same time the tricolor, and promising a charter which should guarantee Page 27 parliamentary privileges. He soon after appeared at a window of the Hôtel-de-Ville, attended by Lafayette and Laffitte, bearing the tricolored flag between them, and was received with acclamations by the people. But there were men in Paris who still desired a republic, with Lafayette at its head. Lafayette persisted in assuring them that what France wanted was a king surrounded by republican institutions, and he commended Louis Philippe to them as "the best of republics." ”

“ Hold yourself [Pg 350] ready for action. When the time shall come, your friends will not fail you." [AO]
Honors to the memory of Napoleon I.
Every month there seemed to be rising enthusiasm in respect to the Napoleonic name. Louis Philippe had but just taken his seat upon the throne, when a petition was presented to the Chamber of Deputies praying that the remains of the Emperor might be claimed of the British Government, and transferred from St. Helena to Paris. ”

“ They are the finest woodcuts ever produced in this country.
Uneda.
Philadelphia.
Footnote 2: (return)
Burgoyne's State of the Expedition, p. 169. Lieutenant Kingston's Evidence, p. 107.
The Fusion (Vol. ix., p. 323.) .—The Orleans branch, though it derives its eventually hereditary claim to the throne of France from Louis XIII., as stated by E. H. A., have later connexions in blood with Louis XIV. The Regent Duke married Mdlle de Blois, the legitimated daughter of Louis XIV. Louis-Philippe's mother was great-granddaughter of Louis XIV. by another line. ”

“ Confederacies that are called perpetual last only until one of the contending parties finds it is to its interests to break them. It is to prevent the danger to which the colossal power of England subjects us that I would provide such a remedy.' No such vision of the future came to our American statesmen, many of whom bitterly opposed the purchase of the Louisiana Territory. ”

“ The possession of Louisiana by the ambitious ruler of France would give him in the New World the preponderance he has already obtained in the Old. It becomes the United States to show that they do not fear him who is the ruler of all; and it specially behooves the young and growing republic to interpose, in order to revive the energy and resistance of the half-conquered nations of Europe, and to save the expiring liberties of mankind! ”