1773-1850.
THE CITIZEN KING.
A new phase in the development of French revolutionary history took place on the accession of Louis Philippe to the throne. He became King of the French instead of King of France.
Louis XVIII., upon his coming to the throne at Napoleon's downfall, would not consent to reign except by divine right, on principles of legitimacy, as the brother of Louis XVI. He felt that the throne was his by all the laws of succession. He would not, therefore, accept it as the gift of the French nation, or of foreign Powers. He consented to be fettered by a Constitution, as his brother had done; but that any power could legally give to him what he deemed was already his own, was in his eyes an absurdity.
This was not the case with Louis Philippe, for he was not the legitimate heir. He belonged to a younger branch of the Bourbons, and could not be the legitimate king until all the male heirs of the elder branch were extinct; and yet both branches of the royal family were the lineal descendants of Henry IV. This circumstance pointed him out as the proper person to ascend the throne on the expulsion of the elder branch; but he was virtually an elective sovereign, chosen by the will of the nation. So he became king, not "by divine right," but by receiving the throne as the gift of the people.
There were other reasons why Louis Philippe was raised to the throne. He was Duke of Orléans,--the richest man in France, son of that Égalité who took part in the revolution, avowing all its principles; therefore he was supposed to be liberal in his sentiments. The popular leaders who expelled Charles X., among the rest Lafayette,--that idol of the United States, that "Grandison Cromwell," as Carlyle called him,--viewed the Duke of Orléans as the most available person to preserve order and law, to gain the confidence of the country, and to preserve the Constitution,--which guaranteed personal liberty, the freedom of the Press, the inviolability of the judiciary, and the rights of electors to the Chamber of Deputies, in which was vested the power of granting supplies to the executive government. Times were not ripe for a republic, and only a few radicals wanted it. The nation desired a settled government, yet one ruling by the laws which the nation had decreed through its representatives. Louis Philippe swore to everything that was demanded of him, and was in all respects a constitutional monarch, under whom the French expected all the rights and liberties that England enjoyed. All this was a step in advance of the monarchy of Louis XVIII. Louis Philippe was rightly named "the citizen king."
This monarch was also a wise, popular, and talented man. He had passed through great vicissitudes of fortune. At one time he taught a school in Switzerland. He was an exile and a wanderer from country to country. He had learned much from his misfortunes; he had had great experiences, and was well read in the history of thrones and empires. He was affable in his manners, and interesting in conversation; a polished gentleman, with considerable native ability,--the intellectual equal of the statesmen who surrounded him. His morals were unstained, and his tastes were domestic. His happiest hours were spent in the bosom of his family; and his family was harmonious and respectable. He was the idol of the middle class; bankers, merchants, lawyers, and wealthy shopkeepers were his strongest supporters. All classes acquiesced in the rule of a worthy man, as he seemed to all,--moderate, peace-loving, benignant, good-natured. They did not see that he was selfish, crafty, money-loving, bound up in family interests. This plain-looking, respectable, middle-aged man, as he walked under the colonnade of the Rue de Rivoli, with an umbrella under his arm, looked more like a plain citizen than a king. The leading journals were all won over to his side. The Chamber of Deputies by a large majority voted for him, and the eighty-three Departments, representing thirty-five millions of people, by a still larger majority elected him king. The two Chambers prepared a Constitution, which he unhesitatingly accepted and swore to maintain. He was not chosen by universal suffrage, but by one hundred and fifty thousand voters. The Republicans were not satisfied, but submitted; so also did the ultra-Royalists. It was at first feared that the allied Powers, under the influence of Metternich, would be unfriendly; yet one after another recognized the new government, feeling that it was the best, under the circumstances, that could be established.
The man who had the most to do with the elevation of Louis Philippe was the Marquis de Lafayette, who as far back as the first revolution was the commander of the National Guards; and they, as the representatives of the middle classes, sustained the throne during this reign. Lafayette had won a great reputation for his magnanimous and chivalrous assistance to the United States, when, at twenty years of age, he escaped from official hindrances at home and tendered his unpaid voluntary services to Washington. This was in the darkest period of the American Revolution, when Washington had a pitifully small army, and when the American treasury was empty. Lafayette was the friend and admirer of Washington, whose whole confidence he possessed; and he not only performed distinguished military duty, but within a year returned to France and secured a French fleet, land forces, clothing and ammunition for the struggling patriots, as the result of French recognition of American independence, and of a treaty of alliance with the new American nation,--both largely due to his efforts and influence.
When Lafayette departed, on his return to France, he was laden with honors and with the lasting gratitude of the American people. He returned burning with enthusiasm for liberty, and for American institutions; and this passion for liberty was never quenched, under whatever form of government existed in France. He was from first to last the consistent friend of struggling patriots,--sincere, honest, incorruptible, with horror of revolutionary excesses, as sentimental as Lamartine, yet as firm as Carnot.