Paris by Andrew Hussey

Author:Andrew Hussey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 1999-12-31T05:00:00+00:00

28. The Bourgeois World of Louis-Philippe

Despite the ferocity of the rioting during the events of the trois glorieuses, there had been relatively few casualties in comparison with previous conflicts in the city (the death toll amounted finally to some 600 rioters and 150 troops). Most importantly, the insurrection had not led, as some commentators thought it would, to a Bonapartist restoration or a full-blown republic. Rather, a third way had been found which was to install a new monarch, who was from the house of Orléans rather than the by now thoroughly discredited house of Bourbon (the rivalry between the two contesting families for the throne had not really diminished despite the Revolution).

Charles X was thus succeeded by a new king, Louis-Philippe, the last king of France and an Orléanist. Although he had in fact been nominated to the post by Charles, in a manoeuvre to save the monarchy if not his own throne, Louis-Philippe did all that he could over the next eighteen years of his reign to distance himself from the ultra-conservative excesses of his predecessor. This was a constitutional monarchy with none of the trappings of the mysticism of absolutism, which had repulsed liberals and extremists alike during the reign of Charles. To this extent, Louis-Philippe cultivated the image of a plain and honest middle-class businessman. It followed from this that the reign of Louis-Philippe announced an era during which the values of bourgeois individualism held sway as the supreme form of public morality.

Louis-Philippe was indeed a banker by trade and even as king was often to be seen walking in the Tuileries gardens in a frock coat and with a green umbrella like any bourgeois gentleman of the day. He had served with distinction in the republican army of the 1790s and was keen to disassociate himself from the pairing of Crown and clergy that had been the mark of the last Bourbon restoration. The philosophy of his government was defined in the words his first minister and chief adviser, François Guizot, an Anglophile and a shrewd political operator, whose maxim was ‘Enrichissez-vous (make yourself rich) and leave the politics to me’. Despite his nonchalant appearance, Louis-Philippe lacked faith in those who claimed to support him and accordingly held on to power with a tight rein. The authority of the police was increased and he kept a watchful eye on political movements and the mood of the press.

Louis-Philippe’s Paris was, for all his attempts at public order, still a violent place. A cholera epidemic in 1832, which claimed the lives of several thousands, provided a temporary hiatus in the long-running battles between the forces of order and the so-called ‘dangerous classes’ of Paris. These included not only underpaid or unemployed workers but also itinerants, drinkers, beggars, thieves and whores: all those who had no connection whatsoever to Louis-Philippe’s ideal bourgeois state. Riots and mutinies were never far away, all too often culminating in the slaughter of innocent bystanders (which is what happened in 1834 in the

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