"Abroad, peace was maintained without any loss to the influence or reputation of France in Europe. At home, from 1830 to 1848, political liberty was great and powerful; from 1840 to 1848, in particular, it was displayed without any new legal limit being imposed. It was this policy that the opposition—all the oppositions, monarchical and dynastic as well as republican—blindly or knowingly attacked, and tried to change. It was to change it that they demanded electoral and parliamentary reforms. In principle, the Government had no absolute or permanent objections whatever to such reforms; the extension of the right of suffrage, and the incompatibility of certain functions with the office of Deputy, might and must be the natural and legitimate consequences of the upward movement of society and political liberty. They did not think the reforms necessary or well-timed, and were therefore justified in delaying them as much as possible, provided they should one day allow to be accomplished by others what they thought themselves still strong enough to refuse." "We have too much and too long maintained a good policy," said Guizot afterward.
A frequent and formidable sign that men's minds are secretly agitated is the anxiety by which they are seized with reference to intrigues and vices which they suppose around them. It would be a serious error to see always a symptom of moral improvement in the clamors against electoral or parliamentary corruption. Immediately after the ministerial success in the general elections of 1846, this precursory indication of storms appeared on the horizon. Guizot raised the question to its proper point of view. "Leave to countries which are not free," said he, "leave to absolute governments, that explanation of great results by small, feeble, or dishonorable human acts. In free countries, when great results are produced it is from great causes that they spring. A great fact has been shown in the elections just completed; the country has given its adhesion, its earnest and free adhesion, to the policy presented before it. Do not attribute this fact to several pretended electoral manoeuvres. You have no right to come to explain, or qualify by wretched suppositions, a grand idea of the country thus grandly and freely manifested." The rumors of electoral corruptions were soon followed by rumors of parliamentary corruptions; but the majority of the Chamber declared themselves "content" with the ministerial explanations. The "Contents" figured in the opposition attacks by the side of the "Pritchardists."
Several improper abuses of long standing existed in certain branches of the Administration; some posts in the Treasury had been the object of pecuniary transactions between those who held the posts and were resigning, and the candidates who presented themselves to replace them. A bill proposed on January 20, 1848, by Hébert, who had become keeper of the seals, formally forbade any such transaction, under assigned penalties. Several months previously (June, 1847) M. Teste, formerly Minister of Public Works, and then president of the Cour de Cassation, was seriously compromised in the scandalous trial of General Cubières and Pellapra. Convicted of having received a large sum of money in connection with the mining concession, he was brought before the Peers, and being led from question to question and from discussion to discussion, soon made a confession of his crime. He, as well as his accomplices, underwent the just penalty.
"It was, on the part of the Cabinet, one of those acts the merit of which is only perceived afterward, and in which the Government bears the weight of the evil at the moment when it is trying most sincerely and courageously to repress it. There were several deplorable incidents—the shocking murder of the Duchess of Praslin, some scandalous trials and violent deaths following hard one upon another, and aggravating the momentary depression and the excited state of the popular imagination. The air seemed infected with moral disorder and unlooked-for misfortunes, coming to join in party attacks and the false accusations which the Cabinet were subjected to. It was one of those unhealthy hurricanes often met in the lives of governments." It was certainly culpable on the part of the opposition to try to take advantage of this disturbed state of men's minds to gain the end they were pursuing. Seven times was parliamentary reform, and three times was electoral reform, refused by the Chambers, from February 20, 1841, to April 8, 1847; the question being then displaced, it changed its ground. The opposition made an appeal to popular passion; and parliamentary discussions were succeeded by the banquets.
From the close of the session of 1847 to the opening of that of 1848 they kept France in a state of constant fever—an artificial and deceptive fever in this sense, that it was not the natural and spontaneous result of the actual wishes and wants of the country; but true and serious in this sense, that the political parties who took the initiative in it found among some of the middle classes and the lower orders a prompt and keen adhesion to their proposals. The first banquet took place in Paris at the Château-Rouge Hôtel on July 9, 1847. Garnier-Pagès has himself told how the Royalist opposition and the Republican opposition concluded their alliance for that purpose. On leaving the house of Odilon Barrot, the Radical members of the meeting walked together for some time. On reaching that part of the Boulevard opposite the Foreign Office, at the moment they were about to separate, Pagnerre said: "Well, really, I did not expect for our proposals so speedy and complete success. Do those gentlemen see what that may lead to? For my part, I confess I do not see it clearly; but it is not for us Radicals to be alarmed about it."
"You see that tree," replied Garnier-Pagès; "engrave on its bark a mark in memory of this day, for what we have just decided upon is a revolution." Garnier-Pagès did not foresee that the Republic of 1848, as well as the monarchy of 1830, should in its turn speedily perish in that revolution, so long big with so many storms.
For six months banquets were renewed in most of the departments—at Colmar, Strasburg, St. Quentin, Lille, Avesnes, Cosne, Châlons, Mâcon, Lyons, Montpellier, Rouen, etc. In many parts there was a great display of feelings and intentions most hostile to royalty and the dynasty. On several occasions—at Lille, for example—the keenest members of the parliamentary opposition, Odilon Barrot and his friends, withdrew, soon after taking their places at table, because the others absolutely refused to dissemble their hostility to the Crown and the King. At other banquets, notably at Dijon, the ideas and passions of 1793 unblushingly reappeared. They defended Robespierre and the Reign of Terror. The "Red Republic" openly flaunted its colors and hopes. The attack upon monarchy and the dynasty ranged itself, it is true, behind the parliamentary opposition, but like Galatea running away:
"Et se cupit ante videri."
It had succeeded well enough in making itself seen. The Government could no longer shut their eyes. They had tolerated the banquets so long as they could believe, or seem to believe, that the parliamentary opposition directed, or at least ruled, the movement. When it became evident that the anarchical impulse was more and more gaining upon the parliamentary opposition, and that the latter was becoming the instrument instead of remaining the master, then only they forbade the banquets. It was their duty.
It was also their right, in the opinion of the most competent legal authorities, as well as according to the recent practice of other free governments, in presence of a situation full of certain danger. This right, however, was disputed by the opposition. The Government, pushing the principle of legality to its furthest limit, arranged with several leading men of the opposition for the purpose of enabling the question of right to be brought speedily and methodically before competent tribunals. Just before the opening of the new session, in order to close the campaign, a new and formal banquet was being prepared in Paris, to which all the Deputies and Peers who had taken part in any of the preceding banquets were to be invited. This manifestation was to take place in the Twelfth Arrondissement of Paris. It was therefore agreed between the opposition delegates and those of the ministerial majority that the Deputies invited should go to the place appointed for the meeting and take their places, so as to avoid any disturbance in the streets or the hall, and that on the police commissary declaring that there was an order against it the guests should protest and withdraw, to lay the question before the tribunals. The agreement thus concluded was communicated by Duchâtel to the council, which approved of it.