French Revolution of 1830

This is a duplicate article, and should be merged with July Revolution

The French Revoltuion of 1830 was a revolt by the middle class against Bourbon King Charles X which forced him out of office and replaced him with the Orleanist King Louis-Phillipe.

When Charles X took the throne in 1824, France was progressing towards reconstruction from the Napoleonic Wars. Charles's predecessor (and brother) Louis XVIII's reign had been peaceful and had the support of most of the population. The government was still quite autocratic, but gave far more freedom than the ancien regime before the revolution. Louis XVIII based many of decisions upon popular opinion and responded to the wishes of the Parisian elite. An elected assembly existed, but had little power.

Charles, however, had a much different idea of how the country should be run. He believed that the only proper way to govern was an absolute monarchy.

Background

Upon the defeat of Napoleon in 1814, France, not to mention all of Europe, was disorganized and political tactics were unclear. The Congress of Vienna met to discuss policy that Europe would have to follow in order to restore peace. Although more then 700 European countries attended the congress, there were only 4 superpowers that controlled the decision making: Great Britain, represented by foreign secretary Lord Castlereagh; Austria, represented by chief minister (and chairman of the congress) Prince Klemens von Metternich; Russia, represented by Czar Alexander I; and Prussia, represented by King Frederick William III. Although he France was not a superpower, another very influential person at the congress was Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, a French diplomat under Napoleon. Although France was considered the enemy, Talleyrand was allowed to attend the congress because he claimed that he did not willfully cooperate with Napoleon but rather that he was forced to cooperate (which may or may not be true as Talleyrand was a master at switching sides). Talleyrand proposed a system that was very well accepted by the congress. He proposed that Europe be restored to its legitimate (pre-Napoleon) borders and governments. And so it was done, France was restored to its 1789 borders and the original ruling family, the Bourbon family, was restored to the thrown. In the eyes of the congress, France was now back to normal. However, Louis XVIII (the new king of France) knew that ideas of nationalism and democracy still lingered, even after the fall of Napoleon.

Louis was happy to be king and he did not want to do anything to further upset the people of France. Because of this, he retained many of the reforms established between 1789 and 1815. He retained the Bank of France, he kept state funded schools, he even accepted a constitution that limited his power over the people. The constitution called for many things including a legislature to assist in governing the country.

Charles X's reign

When Louis XVIII died in 1824 his brother, Charles X, took the thone. Charles was not as concerned with the will of the people as his late brother was. He was anti-democracy, anti-nationalism and pro-absolute monarchy. His goal was to restore as much of the France of 1789 as possible and erase most traces of a democratic government.

Charles introduced a number of controversial polices. He pledged that all of the nobles that fled the country during the French Revolution would be compensated for their lost policy. While a fairly moderate settlement great cotnroversy arose as this meant taxing the public to benefit nobles. For obvious reasons this policy was not popular with the tax-paying public. Charles also removed some of the liberal provisions in the constitution that was set up under his brother’s rule. He imposed new and strict penalties against the sacriledgious. He tried to restore many of the features of the old regime including removing the revolutionary tricoleur, this also aroused popular animosity.

In 1830 there was a revolt in the legislature creating a constitutional monarchy. Charles X abdicated rather than become a limited monarch and departed for England. In his place Louis-Phillipe of the house of Orleans was placed on the throne, and he agreed to rule as a constitutional monarch. This period became known as the July Monarchy.