When people think of the French Revolution they think of this one, the 1789 one.
They assume that us French just cut our King's head, among a few thousand more, and presto!
We now had a republic. But that is far from true.
In fact, it would take 77 years, 2 empires, 3 revolutions, 7 coalition wars and
9 monarchs before France got rid of its last one, Napoleon III in 1870.
As a point of comparison, the 20th century started just thirty years later.
So us French truly had to fight for their Republic and one of those fights was the July revolution,
also known as little "Les Trois Glorieuses."
This video is part of a multi-channel collaboration called "Project Revolution".
If you enjoyed this video and wish to learn more about the cultural, economic,
technological and political revolutions of our history then make sure to check out the playlist in the description.
On June 18th, 1815,
in a desperate attempt to regain an upper hand during the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon commits his last reserves,
which includes his most elite troops, the Old Guard. They marched towards the English center in hopes of a breakthrough.
However, British troops rise from behind bushes and release a devastating onslaught. In one volley,
300 French soldiers fall, including their commanders.
Leaderless and overwhelmed, the French troops start retreating. At the view of the retreating Old Guard, which had been deemed
invulnerable until then, panic spread among the French army and the retreat quickly turns it to a route as men scream:
"La garde recule. Sauve qui peut!"
Victorious, the coalition forces Napoleon into exile on the island of Saint Helena, where he would die six years later, and
imposed on France the terms of the Treaty of Vienna.
This brought France's borders back to their 1791 position and restored the house of Bourbon on the throne in the person of Louis XVIII.
Fun fact, Louis XVIII picked the white flag as the new flag of France and it will remain as such until the July revolution.
At this point, us French make it way too easy to make unoriginal surrender jokes.
As the new king, Louis XVIII was rather keen when it came to making concessions to the people of France,
likely seeing how badly it had turned out for his older brother who had failed to do so.
He accepted "La Charte Constitutionnelle" (The Constitutional Charter),
which guaranteed the rights gained during the revolution and maintained most of the reforms that had been done during and after the
revolution including the Napoleonic Code. And so his reign was marked by relative peace and stability,
which ushered in the beginnings of a French industrial revolution.
However, on September 16th, 1824,
he died at 68 childless.
And so the throne was given to his younger brother, Charles X. On the 27th, the new king arrived at Paris to popular acclaim.
But that would quickly change as he soon embodied the worst of the ancien régime.
It started with the choice of his Prime Minister, a leader of the ultra-royalist faction named Joseph de Villèle.
This was quickly followed by extremely unpopular
legislation such as this decision in April 1825 of compensating nobles whose estate had been confiscated
during the revolution.
This would end up costing close to 1 billion francs or more than half of France's GDP back then. To add insult to injury,
on the same month, the King's government pass anti-blasphemy laws with punishments ranging from perpetual forced labor
up to death through decapitation. And while the law was more symbolic than anything,
it was seen as an attempt to pander to the clergy and so was a direct affront to the equality of religious beliefs
imposed by the Charte. Furthermore, the method of execution wasn't even done by guillotine
but by sword. A method that reminded everyone all too much the gruesome
executions of the ancien régime. The French didn't take lightly these attempts at undermining their constitution
and as a result, the popularity of the parliament soared at the expense of the King and his ministers.
This growing hostility was best illustrated on April 16th, 1827,
when the King decided to review the National Guard on the Champ de Mars.
There, he was greeted by a cold silence with many spectators going as far as refusing to remove their hats.
Finally, some members of the National Guard started screaming, "Down with Villèle! Down with the ministers!"
Outraged, the King disbanded the National Guard the following day
but he failed to disarm them. A mistake that would later cost him dearly. On November of the same year,
Legislative elections occurred. These were a huge blow against the King as the ultra-royalists lost
228 deputies to the benefits of liberals who gained 153.
It's worth noting that these liberals weren't really that liberal and were actually royalists.
Les doctrinaires, as they were called, favored a constitutional monarchy
and were led by Lafayette, who had staunchly opposed the Jacobin Club during the reign of terror.
This wasn't a fight of republicanism versus royalism,
but rather on the appropriate degree of royal power.
Following this devastating defeat, the King attempted to introduce new laws to tighten censorship,
especially against the press in order to curb growing violent criticism against the government and church.
However, the deputies objected so violently that the humiliated government had no choice
but to redraw the proposal. In response, Villèle gave his resignation to the King who
replaced him by a more moderate minister, le Vicomte de Martignac, in hopes of bridging the gap between the two royalist factions.
However, under attacks from both left and right wing extremists
and with little support from the King who disliked his policies, de Martignac was soon deposed following a defeat on one of his proposals.
The King then replaced him with the "Prince de Polignac" and oh boy, if that didn't cause an uproar.
You see, he was the son of "La Duchesse de Polignac" aka the most hated woman of the revolution.
She was the favorite of Marie Antoinette to the point of being accused of being her mistress and embodied everything
that was wrong with the aristocracy:
nepotism, decadence, and idleness.
So understandably many of the King's opponents weren't too happy about that. On March 1830, in an attempt to be ever
so unpopular, the King threatened the opposition in a speech to the assembly.
In retaliation, 221 liberal deputies voted in favor of a motion of no-confidence.
The motion began in a delightfully sarcastic manner, "Sir,
It is with deep gratitude
that your loyal subjects, together around your throne, heard from your prestigious mouth the flattering
testimony to the confidence that you granted them. Happy to inspire such feelings, sir."
Despite all this, however, Charles X somehow believed
he was still popular among the French people or at least a few who had the right to vote,
which is all that matters after all.
And so he dissolved the assembly in hopes that a new election would restore the balance in favor of the ultra-Royalists. It did not.
On July 1830, these new elections occurred and to the surprise of the King
it was a devastating defeat as the Liberals obtained 274 of the 428 chairs of the assembly.
The King, however, was persuaded that no compromise could be made without threatening his throne. As a result,
he remained determined to keep his ministers stating, " If yield to their demands they would treat me like my poor brother.
His first retreat was the signal of his loss."
Finally, bolstered by the news of the recent capture of Algiers, Charles X decided to further strengthen his power by releasing the
infamous Saint-Cloud Ordinances on the 25th of July. A Sunday.
The first ordinance suspended the freedom of press. The second dissolve the assembly,
even though it had been elected less than a week before. The third reduced the number of deputies from
428 to 258 but mostly removed the right to vote of the commercial bourgeoisie, which tended to be much more liberal than other electors.
This reduced the electoral body from under 100,000 to a mere 40,000.
Keep in mind, France's population in 1831 was close to 33.6 million.
Democracy at play.
That very night, the ordinances were sent to the printer of "Le Moniteur",
the official newspaper of the government so that it could be published on the following day. The whole affair was done in the utmost secrecy.
So much so that the military forces weren't informed of it and were therefore unable to strengthen security within the capital.
Smart.
Monday. The Parisians read '"Le Moniteur". At first, they are surprised but that surprised quickly turns it to disgust.
Like vigilantes in the night waiting for their call, they quickly respond to the clamors of revolt.
It starts with the commercial bourgeoisie who protest by refusing to lend in La Bourse and by shutting down their factories.
As a result, unemployment, which had risen throughout the summer, spikes. As historians, Philip Mansell puts it,
"Large numbers of workers, therefore, had nothing to do but protest."
That evening Paris went to sleep in a deceiving calmness as Le Préfet de Poice (The Police Prefect) writes,
"The most perfect tranquility continues to reign in all parts of the capital."
Tuesday. Over 50 newspapers refuse to submit to the new ordinances as they publish inflammatory material
against the King. When the local police attempt to seize their presses, they are attacked by a vicious mob screaming, "À bas les Bourbons! Vive la charte!"
By 5PM, the first barricades are risen and soon after, the first altercations between
rioters and soldiers begin. From the rooftops, Parisians through rocks, roof tiles and more to the patrolling troops.
At first, the soldiers fire in the air to scare them up but soon, they aim to kill.
Little by little, weapons emerge among the protesting crowd likely coming from the National Guard
that had been dismissed just three years prior. With these weapons, the rioters gather even more by pillaging armors and barracks.
The fighting continues long into the night and by the end, 22 rioters are dead.
One of their bodies is picked up and dragged around the city to incite further outrage. The revolution has finally started.
Wednesday.
From the safety of his Saint-Cloud Palace, where he had emitted his ordinances, the King attempts to quell the rebellion by sending General Marmont to Paris.
Marmont, however, is severely outnumbered as most of his troops were used for the conquest of Algiers.
Meanwhile, in the capital, anti-Bourbon settlements turn into calls for the guillotine.
And at 11AM, the King's ministers, including Polignac,
are forced to hide in the Palais des Tuileries along with Marmont, who now informs his king,
"Sir. It is no longer a riot. It's a revolution."
In the narrow streets,
the French troops are hopeless as
revolutionaries fire down on them and then quickly disappear.
Bolstered by the once soldiers of the National Guard who had come to join them in their old uniforms,
the Parisians capture the Hôtel de Ville (Town Hall). There, they raise the tricolor flag and ring the bell of Paris.
Yet, despite all this, the King and his prime minister refuses to see anybody.
Thursday.
Poet Alfred de Vigny writes, They do not come to Paris. People are dying for them.
Not one prince has appeared. The poor man of the Guard abandoned without orders, without bread for two days.
Hunted everywhere and fighting."
In just one day and night, 4,000 barricades have been erected across Paris and are now manned by 30,000 revolutionaries.
Marmont receives no orders nor reinforcements.
In the early afternoon,
the Louvre is easily captured as the Swiss Guard flees without fighting. The memory of their brothers who had stood their ground in
1792 only to be torn to pieces by the mob is all too vivid. Quickly after, the Tuileries Palace is captured.
Paris has fallen. The Liberals impose a provisional government and Lafayette is sent to calm the mobs before the whole affair
degenerates like in 1792. God forbid the revolutionary succeed in creating another republic.
The cousin of the King, the Duc D'Orléans, is chosen by the provisional government as the new King of France,
Louis Philippe I. The new King arrives at Paris on July 31st to popular acclaim.
Wisely, he further bolsters that popularity by painting himself as the people's King. To do so,
he renames himself as King of the French, and not King of France, and adopts the tricolor flag of the revolution.
On August 2nd, Charles X and his son abdicate any rights to the throne of France and flee to England
thus extinguishing forever the Bourbon dynasty in France. A dynasty which,
excluding the revolution and Bonaparte, had reigned since Henri IV, almost
250 years ago. Like teenage intercourse, the revolution had finished as quickly as it had started.
Nevertheless, it sparked the November rising in Poland against the rule of Russia,
which led to nothing more than the death of
40,000 poles and the total assimilation of the country by Tsar Nicholas I.
More successful, however, was the August revolution that occurred in Brussels and would end up creating a little country
you may know as Belgium. Which my endless love for french fries, comic strips, and silly accents will always be thankful for.
And this my friend is the story of the July revolution, better known as "Les Trois Glorieuses".
And while it may not be the most significant historical event in France,
it helped cement the idea that the ideas of the revolution were a permanent thing
and that anybody who tried to change that would soon be overwhelmed by barricades!
So stay tuned till next time as France goes through yet another revolution.
But until then, make sure to check out my friend at Ancient Accounts accounts as he discusses the much more violent first French revolution
and if you want an overall timeline of every French revolution,
then make sure to check out my friend at Useful Charts who has produced an excellent video on the subject.
As usual, every link is in the description.
Well, this was Barris. I will see you soon. But it's until then my friends,
Merde!