Louis Philippe / Makers of History Series

by John S. C. Abbott

Support of the journals.

The leading journals had all been won over to the side of the Orleans party. We would not intimate that any unworthy means had been employed to secure their support. Such men as Thiers, Guizot, Mignet, are above suspicion. They doubtless felt, as did Lafayette, that the attempt to establish a Republic would result only in anarchy; that it would be impossible to maintain a Republic in a realm where the large majority of the people were monarchists. Still, it is obvious that the wealth of a party composed of nearly all the moneyed men in the kingdom, and whose leader was the richest noble in France, if not in Europe, was amply sufficient to present very persuasive influences to secure the support of any journalist who might be wavering. The result was, that nearly all the periodicals of the kingdom opened their broadsides against a Republic. They denounced that form of government as the sure precursor of anarchy, pillage, and a reign of terror, and as certain to embroil France in another war with combined Europe.

It was, indeed, greatly to be feared that the foreign dynasties, who would not allow France to lay aside the Bourbons and place Napoleon upon the throne, would resist, through the same devotion to the principles of legitimacy, the "usurpation" of Louis Philippe. To conciliate them it was necessary for the Duke of Orleans to represent that he was in sympathy with the hereditary thrones, co-operating with them in their advocacy of exclusive privilege, and that he was, providentially, a barrier to whom they owed a debt of gratitude, arresting France from rushing over to democracy. But the open avowal of these opinions would rouse the liberal party to desperation against him.

Endeavors to reconcile the democracy.

Notwithstanding all these efforts of the journalists to discredit republicanism in every possible way, there still remained a democratic party in Paris among the populace, led by very bold, impetuous, and determined men. These leaders had great influence with a portion of the people who could be easily roused to insurrection, which, however impotent, might still cause the streets of Paris to run red with blood. It was deemed a matter of much importance to win over these men. A meeting was arranged between them and the Duke of Orleans. M. Boinvilliers, a man who understood himself, and who was entirely unawed in the presence of dignitaries, was the spokesman of the delegation. His scrutinizing interrogatories embarrassed the duke exceedingly.

"To-morrow," said M. Boinvilliers, "you are to be king. What are your ideas upon the treaties of 1815?"

The treaties of 1815.

By the treaties which in that year the conquerors of Waterloo formed at Vienna, Europe was partitioned out among the dynasties, so as to bind the people hand and foot, and render any future uprising in behalf of liberty almost impossible. The River Rhine, since the days of Cæsar, had been regarded as the natural boundary between France and Germany. Large provinces on the French banks of the Rhine were wrested from France and placed in the hands of Prussia, that, in case the French people should again endeavor to overthrow the aristocratic institutions of feudal despotism, the allied dynasties might have an unobstructed march open before them into the heart of France.

Though the Bourbons, replaced by foreign bayonets, had entered into this arrangement for their own protection against democracy, still, the discontent of the French people, in view of the degradation, was so great that even Charles X. was conspiring to regain the lost boundary. According to the testimony of his minister, Viscount Chateaubriand, he was entering into a secret treaty with Russia to aid the czar in his designs upon Turkey, and, in return, Russia was to aid France in regaining her lost Rhenish provinces. In reference to these treaties of 1815 even one of the British quarterlies has said:

"Though the most desperate efforts have been made by the English diplomatists to embalm them as monuments of political wisdom, they should be got under ground with all possible dispatch, for no compacts so worthless, so wicked, so utterly subversive of the rights of humanity, are to be found in the annals of nations."