By means of their secret societies, analogous to the clubs of the Revolution, the latter provoked numerous riots at various intervals between 1830 and 1840, but these were easily repressed.
The clericals and legitimists, on their side, did not cease their intrigues. The Duchess de Berry, the mother of Henry V., tried in vain to raise the Vendee. As to the clergy, their demands finally made them so intolerable that an insurrection broke out, in the course of which the palace of the archbishop of Paris was sacked.
The republicans as a party were not very dangerous, as the Chamber sided with the king in the struggle against them. The minister Guizot, who advocated a strong central power, declared that two things were indispensable to government—``reason and cannon.'' The famous statesman was surely somewhat deluded as to the necessity or efficacy of reason.
Despite this strong central power, which in reality was not strong, the republicans, and above all the Socialists, continued to agitate. One of the most influential, Louis Blanc, claimed that it was the duty of the Government to procure work for every citizen. The Catholic party, led by Lacordaire and Montalembert, united with the Socialists—as to-day in Belgium—to oppose the Government.
A campaign in favour of electoral reform ended in 1848 in a fresh riot, which unexpectedly overthrew Louis-Philippe.
His fall was far less justifiable than that of Charles X. There was little with which he could be reproached. Doubtless he was suspicious of universal suffrage, but the French Revolution had more than once been quite suspicious of it. Louis-Philippe not being, like the Directory, an absolute ruler, could not, as the latter had done, annul unfavourable elections.
A provisional Government was installed in the Hotel de Ville, to replace the fallen monarchy. It proclaimed the Republic, established universal suffrage, and decreed that the people should proceed to the election of a National Assembly of nine hundred members.
From the first days of its existence the new Government found itself the victim of socialistic manoeuvres and riots.
The psychological phenomena observed during the first Revolution were now to be witnessed again. Clubs were formed, whose leaders sent the people from time to time against the Assembly, for reasons which were generally quite devoid of common sense—for example, to force the Government to support an insurrection in Poland, &c.
In the hope of satisfying the Socialists, every day more noisy and exigent, the Assembly organised national workshops, in which the workers were occupied in various forms of labour. In these 100,000 men cost the State more than L40,000 weekly. Their claim to receive pay without working for it forced the Assembly to close the workshops.