Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/657

 LOUIS PHILIPPE S REIGN.] FRANCE 621 16-40. ies 10 ern -. when he showed himself and read a proclamation to the soldiers, many replied with shouts of &quot; Vive 1 Empereur,&quot; the bulk of the troops refused to listen, and he was arrested with his companion, a M. Persigny, and sent on to Paris. The Government treated him leniently, and allowed him to leave France for New York. In 1838 Count Mold, finding the state of parties very uneasy, dissolved the chambers, and fresh elections followed. There had been four chief parties in the Assembly, the Right, led by the famous conservative lawyer Berryer; the Right Centre, under guidance of Guizot ; the Left Centre, headed by Tliiers ; and the Left, led by Odillon-Barrot, formerly president of the society &quot;Aide toi, le ciel t aidera,&quot; an association formed to advance purity and freedom of elections, and a chief motive-power in the revolution of July. This last party, till 1840, was in con stant opposition to Government. It was felt that the king, who was obstinate in his opinions, and not very scrupulous, had for some time past been interfering more than was whole some in electioneering matters ; the system of help to official candidates, the snare of French politics, took large develop ment under him. The elections resulted in a majority for Mole and the Government. The other parties, however, made a coalition against him, which, under the leading of Thiers and Guizot, overthrew the ministry in 1839. The parties, however, did not agree well after their victory ; the king was not cordial with them, and chose his ministers so as to exclude the three victorious leaders. In 1840 the king s friends were again defeated. Thiers again became chief minister, and Guizot was sent as ambassador to St James s, where lie had a very difficult part to play, in consequence of the state of the Eastern question. The rebellion of Mehemet Ali, the able viceroy of Egypt, against the sultan had aroused no small excitement in Europe. Mehemet was well known in France, where his adventurous career had at tracted much attention. Though the French and their allies had destroyed his fleet at Navarino in 1827, he had since (1831-1833) acquired the government of Syria as well as that of Egypt, by the energy of his son Ibrahim Pasha. When the sultan in 1837 endeavoured to reduce his power, he again declared war against him, and Ibrahim once more defeated the Turks, securing Syria for his father. Now arose a great differance between France and England. The French Government wished that both Egypt and Syria should be finally guaranteed to Mehemet ; the English Government, declaring that such a step would be fatal to the Turkish empire, insisted that Syria should be, with some small exceptions, restored to the Porte. In July 1840 England formed a quadruple alliance with Russia, Austria, and Prussia, without communicating at all with Guizot till after the treaty had been actually signed. Napier speedily bombarded and took Beyrout, while Stopford blockade:! Alexandria. In one short campaign the Egyptians were easily cleared out of Syria, and Mehemet Ali acquiescing in the power of the stronger, secured his position in Egypt, while he finally restored Syria to the Porte. In France tho irritation was extreme. The nation had watched Mehernet s regeneration of Egypt, a country in which, ever since Bonaparte s expedition, France had seemed to have a special interest ; it was a great shock to her to see her diplomacy rudely foiled, her sympathies neglected, her strength unemployed. The restoration to France in 1840 of the ashes of Napoleon, a rash act due to Louis Philippe himself, woke many a slumbering echo of the old national pride ; Napoleon, it was Tirged, had never let his country fall, as the present Government had done, out of the foremost place in the councils of Europe. The second attempt of Louis Bonaparte to win over the garrison of Boulogne, in spite of the absurdities of the tame eagle, and the utter failure of the venture, added not a little to the popular uneasiness. By shutting up the adventurer in the castle of Ham, the Government made him a martyr, and 1841-48. roused much dormant sympathy for him. The ministry accordingly fell, and Guizot, under the nominal presidency of Marshal Soult, became the real head of the new Govern ment. The step was far from allaying the strong feeling in France ; men accused Guizot of having played the country false while in London ; his bitter antagonism to Thiers seemed to them to be the cause of the humiliation of France. Fortifi- For the moment, however, the only result was the fortifica- p ation of tion of Paris, which was begun in 1841. The annals of France were now tranquil, under the cold administration of Guizot; party spirit seemed to have died down ; the &quot; Pritchard affair,&quot; arising out of the occupation ThePrit- by France of Otaheite, in accordance with a treaty in 1842, chard aroused again the slumbering irritation between France and affuir&amp;gt; England. The English Government had not objected to the treaty between Queen Pomare of Otaheite and the French Government; Mr Pritchard, however, consul, missionary and medical man to the queen, believing that the treaty was bad for the natives, had succeeded in persuading Queen Pomare to repudiate it, and to call on England to support her. Thereon in 1844 the French arrested him, sent him back to England, and occupied the island as its protector. The success of the French arms in Africa also angered the English ; Marshal Bugeaud had vigorously attacked and punished the emperor of Morocco for giving refuge and sup port to Abd-el-Kader, and the defeated emperor was obliged to sue for peace (September 184G). In 1847 Lamoriciere succeeded in capturing the picturesque chieftain who had caused France so much trouble, and sent him as a prisoner to France. Lastly, the vexed question of the Spanish marriages, in 184G, in which Louis Philippe succeeded in re-allying the Bourbons of France and Spain by a double marriage, caused very strong feeling in England ; it was felt that Guizot had broken his word in the matter, and that France was taking unfair means of avenging herself for the affront of the quadruple alliance of 1840. So things stood when 1847 opened with gloomy aspects The for the French Government : irritation, want, the feeling gl that the Government had done little to lessen the commer- ? u cial and agricultural distress; the desire of a more popular and perhaps more brilliant rule ; the distrust of Guizot s policy, as shown in the risks of the Spanish marriages, by which he had endangered the peace of France for the sake of illu sory dynastic advantages ; the consciousness that the king s feelings were not friendly to the people, that his govern ment was selfish, and that he did not hesitate to use corrup tion and influence in elections, these things all made affairs seem unsettled and precarious. Guizot s policy in the affair of the marriages, in his support of the Swiss Sonder- bund, which was the resistance of reactionary against popu lar principles in Switzerland, his appeals to the treaties of 1815, his friendly attitude towards Metternich and Austria, his divergence from the liberal views of Lord Palmerston, his dislike for the patriots of Italy, shocked and alienated all liberal opinion in France, and made the minister completely Guizot s unpopular. The role of prudence at home and peace abroad, &quot;Pr u - never an heroic one, had been abandoned by Guizot for a system which endangered peace with the neighbours of France and irritated the passions of party at home. Trickery and subterfuge seemed to rule in high places. VIII. THE SECOND REVOLUTION. The agitation of the country at first was seen chiefly in speeches made at fervid banquets. When the session of 1848 opened, the opposition, led by Odillon-Barrot, showed itself strong and resolute ; the interference of Government against a popular banquet in Paris led to the outbreak of the Revolution (22d February 1848). On the 23d the