England and the Orléans Monarchy

by John Hall

The Germanic Confederation had been formed with the object of protecting Germany from external and internal dangers. The thirty-eight States and the four free cities of which it was composed were debarred from entering into any alliance with foreign governments against another member of the Confederation and, in case of need, were pledged to furnish contingents to the federal army. Austria and Prussia, however, in order to preserve the independence of their foreign policy, brought portions only of their territories into the Confederation, which, in consequence, was not committed to the defence of Hungary, Gallicia, Lombardy and Venetia, on behalf of Austria, or to the protection of the Polish provinces of Prussia. Each State was represented at the federal Diet at Frankfort, which assembly was in no sense a federal parliament, but resembled rather a conference of diplomatists, the ministers attending it being strictly bound by the instructions furnished them by their respective Courts. Austria and Prussia had only one vote apiece, Austria, however, held the perpetual presidency.

Prussia in 1815 had been regarded as the champion of Liberalism. The Constitutionalists, however, soon discovered that the hopes which they placed in her were not destined to be realized. In the counsels of Frederick William, the influence of Wittgenstein, the leader of the reactionary party, and the friend of Metternich, soon superseded that of Stein, Hardenburg and the heroes of the War of Liberation. The conditions of the country, it must be admitted, were hardly suitable to the immediate establishment of representative institutions. The inhabitants of the nine provinces which, it had been decreed at the Congress of Vienna, were to constitute the Kingdom of Prussia, were not agreed as to the form of government under which they desired to live. Until they had become Prussians, the Poles of the Duchy of Posen, the Westphaliand, the Saxons, and the Rhinelanders had existed under different codes of law and of administration. The imposition of a uniform system upon the kingdom was a matter of urgent necessity, and it was to administrative measures that the Prussian government devoted its attention exclusively in the years which followed Waterloo. It is clear that there was no strong demand for a constitution among the mass of the people, and Frederick William III. could listen, in consequence, without much danger, to Metternich’s warning that representative institutions must prove incompatible with military strength.

Successful as he had been in persuading Frederick William to withhold a constitution from Prussia, Metternich could not prevent certain rulers of the minor States from complying with Article XIII. of the Federal Act, and from establishing representative government within their dominions. In 1816, the Liberal Duke of Saxe-Weimar granted a constitution, and his example was followed by the Kings of Bavaria and of Wurtemburg and the Duke of Baden. A wave of Liberalism swept over Northern Germany. The universities were affected profoundly by the new ideas. In their lecture-rooms, professors denounced existing governments and harangued their pupils in the language of demagogues. The agitation culminated, on March 23, 1819, in the murder of the dramatist and publicist Kotzebue, who was said to be in the pay of Russia, by Karl Sand, a student of Jena University and a lecturer to the Burschenschaft. This crime and an attempt to assassinate Ibell, the minister of Nassau, gave Metternich the opportunity for which he had been waiting. In the month of July of this same year he had an interview with Frederick William at Teplitz, in the course of which the King promised never to give Prussia a constitution, to place his confidence only in ministers of the type of Bernstorff and Wittgenstein, and to sanction such repressive measures as the Austrian Chancellor might see fit to suggest. After a conference of the ministers of the different States at Carlsbad, Metternich’s decrees were submitted to the Frankfort Diet, on September 20, 1819, and adopted forthwith.

Under the provisions of the celebrated Carlsbad decrees, the ruler of every German State was bound to appoint commissioners to regulate the universities and to impose a censorship upon all newspapers and matter printed within his dominions. Furthermore, a central tribunal was established at Mainz to inquire into the doings of the secret societies, and upon the members of this court was conferred the power of arresting the subjects of any German sovereign, and of demanding from any law court the production of documents. These decrees, however, did not constitute the sum total of Metternich’s measures of precaution. In November, 1819, he convened a council of German ministers at Vienna, when, under the pretext of defining the functions of the Diet, sixty-five new articles of a repressive character were introduced into the Federal Act. The general effect of the Vienna resolutions, as these measures were termed, was to impose upon the Federation the duty of defending absolutism by force of arms in small States in which the sovereigns might prove incapable themselves of maintaining a despotic form of government.

Metternich’s manipulation of the Diet was the great triumph of his home policy. By converting the Federation from a combination of States into a league of sovereigns against their own subjects, he averted the danger that it might promote the cause of Liberalism or of national unity. From this time forward Metternich, to all appearance, dominated the Court and the Cabinet of Berlin, and held in leading strings the minor princes of the Confederation. Nevertheless, the position of Austria as a German Power was weakening steadily. At the Congress of Vienna he had craftily withdrawn the empire from the post of danger, and had thrust upon Prussia the task of protecting the western flank of Germany. To his secret satisfaction, he saw her pour out her treasure to defend the frontier from which Austria had recoiled. He believed that by his Carlsbad decrees and his Vienna resolutions he had rendered national unity impossible, and had condemned Northern Germany to the political stagnation in which the empire appeared contented to repose. But the enlightened bureaucratic system of Prussia was incomparably superior to that of Austria. In educational matters she was the foremost State in Europe, and already she was drawing the minor States into her system of internal free trade—the famous Zollverein which was to prove so important a factor in the struggle for Prussian hegemony and national unity. Even in 1830, acute observers could perceive that the people were stifling within the narrow confines of their duchies, and that, when the day of Germany’s awakening should come, it would be to the Power standing on guard upon the Rhine that they would look for leadership.[20] But that hour had not yet struck, and, in the question of the attitude to be observed towards France, after the Revolution of July, Prussia, as was her wont, shaped her policy upon that of Austria. The Emperor’s acknowledgment of Louis Philippe carried with it, accordingly, Frederick William’s recognition of the King of the French.

At St. Petersburg it was not until August 19 that any mention of the Revolution of July was allowed to appear in the newspapers. Two days earlier a new levy of two men in five hundred had been called up for service in the army, all Russians had been ordered to leave France, Frenchmen had been refused admission to Russia, and any display of the tricolour had been forbidden. But Lord Heytesbury,[21] the British ambassador, was informed that this increase of military strength had no reference to French affairs, and that the recall of Russian subjects from France was a simple measure of precaution.[22] In the eyes of Nicholas any rising of the people against their lawful sovereign was necessarily a highly offensive proceeding, and in this instance it had the additional disadvantage of disturbing a condition of affairs, the continued duration of which was very favourable to the national policy of Russia. Under the different governments of the Restoration an excellent understanding had been established between the Courts of the Tuileries and of St. Petersburg. The Eastern question, which had brought Russia to the verge of war with England and which had interrupted the smooth course of her relations with Vienna, had, on the contrary, drawn France towards her. When, in the campaign of the previous year, Constantinople had appeared to lie at the mercy of General Diebitsch, politicians as opposed as Chateaubriand and Polignac had been disposed to look upon the situation complacently, in the hope that the disruption of the Turkish Empire might lead to a readjustment of the map of Europe, which might enable France to rectify in her favour the treaties of 1815. Furthermore, since the intervention in Spain, in 1823, there had been little cordiality between the Cabinets of London and Paris. This estrangement had been intensified by the French occupation of Algiers, the one important measure of foreign policy of the last government of the Restoration. These circumstances rendered it very improbable that Russia in the near future would have to confront a coalition of the maritime Powers. But now that a new régime had been set up in France, the possibility of that dreaded contingency would have to be seriously considered.

In spite of the Tsar’s military preparations, Lord Heytesbury had no fears that he proposed to attack France. Nicholas informed him that he had directed his ambassador “to remain in Paris, but to remove immediately from the house furnished to the Russian embassy by the government of France.” He was constantly to hold himself in readiness to quit Paris at an hour’s notice, and to leave at once, should the English, the Prussian, the Austrian or the Dutch ambassadors be compelled to depart. “En âme et en conscience he never would consider the Duc d’Orléans in any light except that of a usurper.” Nevertheless he had no intention of intervening, unless France were to attempt to disseminate revolutionary doctrines in other countries or to carry her arms beyond her frontiers.[23] In due course Baron Atthalin arrived at St. Petersburg, bringing with him a letter from Louis Philippe to the Tsar, and, on September 8, was received in private audience by Nicholas. On this occasion the question of the acknowledgment of the King of the French was avoided, the Emperor being resolved to reserve the matter for further consideration. But at Tsarskoye Selo, a week later, Nicholas, whilst regretting that the British government should have so hastily decided to recognize Louis Philippe, gave Lord Heytesbury to understand that his own acknowledgment of the King of the French would not be deferred much longer.[24]

In the meantime, an event had occurred which threatened seriously to aggravate the embarrassments of the situation. The creation of the Kingdom of the Netherlands occupied a most important place in the territorial settlement following the overthrow of Bonaparte. British statesmanship had been largely responsible for the union of Belgium with Holland, and for the formation of a strong State of secondary rank which was to act as a barrier against France. Under Wellington’s advice the great Powers, at their own expense, erected a line of fortresses, connected with Prussian territory upon the left bank of the Rhine, to protect the southern frontier of the new kingdom. From a purely military point of view the plan may have been sound, but to propose to mould the Belgians and the Dutch into a nation was to treat as of no account the differences of race and of religion which divided the two peoples. The Belgians soon began to complain that they were very inadequately represented in all branches of the public service. Questions relating to education, taxation, and the freedom of the press increased their discontent. The Dutch, who could look back proudly upon two centuries of independence, despised them as having been constantly under the dominion of a foreign Power. In 1830 it was generally recognized that the attempt to fuse the two peoples into one nationality had failed. The Belgians, however, still remained loyal to the House of Nassau and desired only administrative separation under the reigning dynasty.

The Revolution of July in Paris created an immense excitement at Brussels. The town was the favourite place of refuge for the political offenders of all countries. Yet in spite of the prevailing unrest the authorities neglected to take the most ordinary precautions against a popular rising. A performance of Scribe’s opera, La Muette de Portici, which treats of the insurrection of the Neapolitans against the Spaniards, furnished the spark which was to cause the explosion. Serious rioting began on the night of August 25, and continued throughout the following day. The military commander appears to have acted with a strange irresolution, and on the 28th, the insurgents being complete masters of the town, a deputation of notables carried a respectful address to the Hague praying for the redress of their grievances. The next three weeks were spent in fruitless attempts to arrange a compromise. The Prince of Orange, who was personally popular, visited Brussels, but his efforts to solve the question met with no success. After the failure of his eldest son’s mission the King consented to dismiss van Maanen, the unpopular governor of Brussels. But this concession was made too late. Encouraged by emissaries of the revolutionary clubs in Paris, and emboldened by the weakness of the government, the advocates of complete separation pressed their demands with increasing violence. At last the King ordered Prince Frederick of Orange to advance from the camp of Vilvorde against the town. On September 23 the attack began. The troops penetrated into the park, but failed to carry the barricades which obstructed the streets beyond. After three days’ fighting the Prince abandoned the struggle and withdrew from the neighbourhood of Brussels. The discomfiture of his army left King William no alternative but to appeal for assistance to the Powers, whilst at Brussels a provisional government declared Belgium independent, and convened a national congress.

This attempt on the part of a neighbouring people to imitate “the glorious days of July” was exceedingly gratifying to the republicans and the military democratic party in Paris. Their orators and journalists loudly declared that the revolt of the Belgians was an opportunity both for extending the French frontiers, and for effecting a breach in the treaties of 1815. Louis Philippe, however, was resolved not to be drawn into an adventure of this kind. He knew that the powers would never tolerate an invasion of the Low Countries, and he realized that the French army was in no condition to oppose a European coalition. Accordingly, as it was not in his power to silence the cries for intervention or to repress the noisy sympathy for the Belgians indulged in by a large section of the press, he determined to give to foreign governments a practical proof of his pacific intentions by despatching to London, as his ambassador, the aged statesman who, sixteen years before, had figured so conspicuously at the Congress of Vienna.