Chapter XVII, of Cassells Illustrated History of England, Volume 7 page 3

had long since struck reflecting minds; it has lately become still more evident. To satisfy the wants which caused its institution, the repression ought to be prompt and strong; it has been slow, weak, and almost null When it interferes, the mischief is already done, and the punishment, far from repairing it, only adds the scandal of discussion. The judicial prosecution is wearied out, but the seditious press is never weary. The one stops because there is too much to prosecute; the other multiplies its strength by multiplying its transgressions. At different times prosecutions have had their different appearances of activity or relaxation. But what does the press care for zeal or lukewarmness in the public prosecutor? It seeks in the multiplication of its excesses the certainty of their impunity."

This report was published in the Moniteur on the morning of Monday, July 26th. On the same day, and in the same paper, appeared the famous ordonnances, signed by the king, and countersigned by his ministers. By the first the liberty of the press was abolished, and thenceforth no journal could be published without the authority of the government. By the second the chamber of deputies, which was to meet in the ensuing month, was dissolved. By the third a new scheme of election was introduced which destroyed the franchise of three-fourths of the electors, and reduced the number of deputies to little more than one half. Thus the whole constitution was swept away by a stroke of the royal pen. As soon as these ordonnances became generally known through the city, the public mind was thrown into-a state of violent agitation. The editors and proprietors of twelve journals assembled, and having resolved that the ordonnances were illegal, they determined to publish their papers on the following day. A statement of their case, signed by thirty-eight persons, was published in the Nationale. They said: u In the situation in which we are placed, obedience ceases to be a duty. We are dispensed from obeying. We resist the government in what concerns ourselves. It is for France to determine how far her resistance ought to extend." In pursuance of this announcement, the journalists were preparing to issue their papers, when the police entered the offices, and began to scatter the types and break the presses. In some of the offices the workmen resisted, and the locks of the doors had to be picked; but no smith could be got to do the work except one whose business it was to rivet the manacles on galley slaves. There was a meeting of the electors of Paris, who quickly decided upon a plan of operations. Deputations were appointed to wait on the manufacturers, printers, builders, and other extensive employers, requesting them to discharge their workpeople, which was done, and on the 27th 50,000 men were assembled in different parts of the town, in groups, crying, " Vive la charte/" About thirty deputies, who had arrived in town, met at the house of M. Casimir Perier, and resolved to encourage the rising of the people. The troops were under arms; and it is stated that without any provocation from the people except their cries, the military began to sabre the unarmed multitude. The first shot seems to have been fired out of a house, by an Englishman, named Foulkes, who was fired on by the military, and killed. Alarming reports spread through the city that the blood of the people was being wantonly shed, and that women were not spared. The black flag was raised in various quarters, ominous of the desperate nature of the struggle. The night of the 27th was spent in preparation. The shops of the armourers were visited, and the citizens armed themselves with all sorts of weapons - pistols, sabres, bayonets, &c. In every street men were employed digging up the pavements, and carrying stones to the tops of the houses, or piling them behind the barricades, which were being constructed of omnibuses and fiacres at successive distances of about fifty paces. The fine trees of the Boulevards were cut down, and used for the same purpose. The garrison of Paris was commanded by general Marmont. It consisted altogether of 11,500 men. At daybreak on the 28th the citizens were nearly ready for battle. Early in the morning national guards were seen hastening to the Hotel de Ville, amidst the cheers of the people. Parties of cavalry galloped up and down, and occasionally a horseman, shot from a window, fell back out of his saddle. At ten o'clock Marmont formed six columns of attack, preceded by cannon, which were to concentrate round the Hotel de Ville. The insurgents retired before the artillery, and the troops, abandoning the open places, took shelter in the houses and behind barriers. In the meantime a desperate fight raged at the Hotel de Ville, which was taken possession of, and bravely defended by the national guards. Their fire from the top of the building was unceasing, while the artillery thundered below. It was taken and re-taken several times. It appears that hitherto the government had no idea of the nature of the contest. Early in the day marshal Marmont wrote to the king, who was at the palace of St. Cloud: "It is no longer a riot, it is a revolution. It is urgent your majesty should take the means of pacification." Charles sent a verbal answer by an aide-de-camp, urging him emphatically "to be firm, to unite his forces in the Carrousel and on the Place Louis XV., and to act with masses." M, Arago thought that the marsh, l's heart was never in the cause for which he was fighting, though as a soldier he felt bound to obey. The testimony, however, is conflicting as to the nature of the preparations made by the government to defend the violent course that had been adopted. The natural impression in England was, that those preparations were of the most complete and formidable kind; but the author of a pamphlet on " The Military Events of the late French Revolution," and other French writers supported by the Quarterly Review, represent the government as having been wholly unprepared. The journals had proclaimed open war. They declared that the social contract being torn, they were bound and authorised to use every possible mode of resistance, and that between right and violence the struggle could not be protracted. This was on the 26th; but at four o'clock p.m., on the 27th, the troops had received no orders; and when they were called out of barracks shortly after, many officers were absent, not having been apprised that any duty whatever was expected. The night offered leisure to arrange and opportunity to execute all necessary precautions. The circumstances were urgent, the danger obvious and imminent; yet nothing at all was done. It is stated that all the circumstances were duly represented to the proper authorities, but nothing was attended to. " Blindness, folly, and fatuity were triumphant. At last, as had been promised on the 26th, ushered by acclamations of 1 Vive la charteappeared the tri-coloured flag. The attack and disarming of the detached guard-houses, the capture of the arsenal and of the powder magazine, the disarming of the companies of fusiliers, all took place in a moment. The mob assembled early in thePlace delaG-rève, in front of the Hotel de Ville, and took possession of it; and all this was done without the slightest opposition, and was all over by eight o'clock, while the troops were still in their barracks." The contest lasted for three days with varying fortunes. Twice the palace of the Tuileries was taken and abandoned; but on the third day the citizens were finally victorious, and thô tri-coloured flag was placed on the central pavilion. Marmont, seeing that all was lost, withdrew his troops; and on the afternoon of the 29th Paris was left entirely at the command of the triumphant population. The national guard was organised, and general Lafayette, "the veteran of patriotic revolutions," took the command. Notwithstanding the severity of the fighting, the casualties were not very great. About 700 citizens lost their lives, and about 2,000 were wounded. It was stated that the troops were encouraged to fight by a lavish distribution of money, about a million francs having been distributed amongst them, for the purpose of stimulating their loyalty. The deputies met on the 31st, and resolved to invite Louis Philippe, duke of Orleans, to be lieutenant-general of the kingdom. He accepted the office, and issued a proclamation which stated that the charter would thenceforth be a truth. The chambers were opened on the 3rd of August; 200 deputies were present; the galleries were crowded with peers, general officers of the old army, the diplomatic body, and other distinguished persons. The duke, in his opening speech, dwelt upon the violations of the charter, and stated that he was attached by conviction to the principles of free government. At a subsequent meeting the chamber conferred upon him the title of the king of the French. He took the oath to observe the charter, which had been revised in several particulars. On the 17th of August Charles X. arrived in England; and by a curious coincidence there was a meeting that day in the London Tavern, at which an address to the citizens of Paris, written by Dr. Bowring, congratulating them on the revolution of July, was unanimously adopted. Meetings of a similar kind were held in many of the cities and towns of the United Kingdom. Feelings of delight and admiration pervaded the public mind in this country: delight that the cause of constitutional freedom had so signally triumphed, and admiration of the heroism of the citizens, and the order and self-control with which they conducted themselves in the hour of victory. Thus ended the revolution of July, 1830. It was short and decisive, but it had been the finale of a long struggle. The battle had been fought in courts and chambers by constitutional lawyers and patriotic orators. It had been fought with the pen in newspapers, pamphlets, songs, plays, poems, novels, histories. It had been fought with the pencil in caricatures of all sorts. It was the triumph of public opinion over military despotism. To commemorate the three days of July, it was determined to erect a column on the Place de la Bastille, which was completed in 1840.

The effect of the issue upon the state of parties in England was tremendous. The Morning Chronicle, then the organ of the whig party, said, " The battle of English liberty has really been fought and won at Paris." The Times thundered the great fact, with startling reverberation, throughout thé United Kingdom. Mr. Brougham, in the house of commons, spoke of it as that revolution which in his conscience he believed to be " the most glorious " in the annals of mankind, and he expressed his heartfelt admiration, his cordial gratitude to the patriots of that great nation, for the illustrious struggle they were making. This language expresses the feelings which prevailed through all classes of the people of this country, and it may be easily supposed that the effect was most favourable to the liberal party, and most damaging to the tories, especially as the exciting events occurred at the time of the general election; and prince Polignac being considered the particular friend of the duke of Wellington, his ministry was called in France the Wellington administration. All these things were against the premier; the hostility of the anti-catholic party, the alienation of the whigs, the accession of a liberal monarch, and the odium of the supposed intimate relationship with the vanquished despotism of France.

Mr. Roebuck remarks, that " no great move has hitherto been made in England of a political character, unless under the aid and guidance of some portion, and a large portion, of the aristocracy. Whether in 1660, or 1688, or 1830, the popular chiefs belonged to this class, and by their countenance maintained, increased, and directed the popular enthusiasm or feeling which at each epoch they found already existing, but which had been brought about by circumstances to which they had but little if at all contributed." They contributed very little indeed to the rapid growth of wealth and intelligence among the middle classes, or to the spirit of inquiry which animated a large portion of the mechanics and operatives. The love of freedom burns long in the hearts of the lower ranks of the people before it reaches the aristocratic class; and it never reaches it before great and unsuccessful efforts have been made to extinguish its flames. Some members of the aristocracy, no doubt, naturally sympathise with popular movements and social progress; but it is contrary to the instinct of their order, and it has been found in all ages that, with rare exceptions, aristocratic tribunes wield the power of the democracy as a means of gratifying personal ambition, or promoting the interests of the political parties with which they happen to be identified. Unless Mr. Roebuck misrepresents the party whose history he has studied so well, the whigs, in 1830, finding the people in England discontented with the government, and roused to enthusiasm by the happy result of the great revolution in France, took advantage of this state of things, and at once assumed the office of leaders of the people, " hoping to turn the popular feeling to their own party benefit." They evidently, he says, knew little of the popular feeling which they sought to lead, and little suspected the strength of the current to which they were about to commit themselves. Not aware of the highly excitable state of the people, they, when they began the contest of the elections, employed language most inflammatory and unguarded, supposing that it would fall on the dull ears of ordinary constituencies. They were startled by the response they received, and began very quickly to be alarmed by their own success. The aristocratic whig leaders judged of the state of feeling among the masses by the opinions of the narrow circles in which they were accustomed to live - of their own sets and coteries, and especially of the house of commons. Residing most of their time in London, in the midst of the bustle and gaiety of high life; carelessly glancing through the morning papers, in order to catch up the topics of the day, they had formed a very inadequate conception of the intense earnestness, sound sense, and practical intelligence of the middle classes. The progress that the electors had made in liberality of sentiment was evinced, especially by two of the elections. Mr. Hume, the radical reformer, the cold, calculating economist, the honest, plain-speaking man of the people, was returned for the county of Middlesex without opposition; and Mr. Brougham, a barrister, who owed nothing to family connections - who, by the steadiness of his industry, the force of his character, the extent of his learning, and the splendour of his eloquence, devoted perseveringly for years to the popular cause, had won for himself, at the same time, the highest place in his profession, and the foremost position in the senate - was returned for Yorkshire. These counties had hitherto been the preserves of the great landed proprietors. Lord Fitzwilliam, though the personal friend of Mr. Brougham, did not like this intrusion of a foreigner into that great county.. Indeed, it had been sufficiently guarded against all but very wealthy men, by the enormous expense of a contest. In 1826, when a contest was only threatened, and the election ended with a nomination, Mr. John Marshall's expenses amounted to £17,000; and, on a previous occasion, it was rumoured that Lord Milton had spent £70,000 in a contest. Mr. Brougham had good reason, personally, to be a friend of parliamentary reform. It must have been galling, in a man of his spirit and sympathies, to have been, during the whole lengthened period of his political career, the nominee of a whig borough proprietor. After his defeat in Liverpool, in 1812, he was out of parliament for three sessions but, at the request of earl Grey, lord Darlington brought him in for the borough of Winchelsea. The elections, which began in the end of August, took place in the midst of an excitement such as never before moved - so generally and profoundly - the constituencies of England. The enthusiasm excited by the French revolution was unbounded and universal. The English mind, sympathetic with freedom all over the world, intensely admired the heroism displayed by the Parisians during "the glorious three days," unstained by a single act of cruelty or of pillage. The press of this country exulted in the fact that it was the literary men of Paris that invoked the spirit of revolution among the people, and restrained it within the bounds of the constitution in the moment of its triumph; and that some of the most distinguished members of the press became ministers of state under a citizen king. It was to. be expected that all this excitement should tell decisively on the results of the elections; but the gains of the liberals were more important from the character of the constituencies that came over to their cause than from their number. The greatest of the constituencies, those of them which carried most moral weight, returned the opposition candidates by overwhelming majorities; while not one cabinet minister obtained a seat by anything like a popular election.