French Revolution of 1848

The 1848 Revolution in France, sometimes

French Revolution of 1848
known as the February Revolution (révolution
de Février), was one of a wave of revolutions in Part of Revolution of 1848
1848 in Europe. In France the revolutionary
events ended the July Monarchy (1830–1848) and
led to the creation of the French Second
Republic.

Following the overthrow of King Louis Philippe

in February 1848, the elected government of the
Second Republic ruled France. In the months that
Lamartine in front of the Town Hall of Paris rejects
followed, this government steered a course that
the red flag on 25 February 1848 by Henri Félix
became more conservative. On 23 June 1848, the
Emmanuel Philippoteaux
people of Paris rose in insurrection,[1] which
became known as June Days uprising – a bloody Date 22 February – 2 December 1848
but unsuccessful rebellion by the Paris workers Location Paris, France
against a conservative turn in the Republic's Result
course. On 2 December 1848, Louis Napoléon Abdication of Louis Philippe I
Bonaparte was elected president of the Second Monarchy Abolished
Republic, largely on peasant support. Exactly Establishment of the Second
three years later he suspended the elected Republic
assembly, establishing the Second French
Belligerents
Empire, which lasted until 1870. Louis Napoléon
went on to become the de facto last French Kingdom of French citizens
monarch. France
Republicans
The February revolution established the principle French Armed Forces liberals
of the "right to work" (droit au travail), and its Republicans
newly established government created "National socialists
Workshops" for the unemployed. At the same
time a sort of industrial parliament was Commanders and leaders
established at the Luxembourg Palace, under the Louis Philippe I
presidency of Louis Blanc, with the object of • Thomas-Robert Bugeaud
preparing a scheme for the organization of labor. Strength
These tensions between liberal Orléanist and
70,000 men
Radical Republicans and Socialists led to the
June Days Uprising. Casualties and losses
350 dead
at least 500 wounded
The National Guard arose as arbitrator between the army
Contents and the people.
Background
Economic and international influences
 Events of February
Second Republic
Rise of conservatism within the
Second Republic
Class struggles within the revolution
End of the Revolution in France
In literature
See also
Further reading
Sources
References
External links

Background
Under the Charter of 1814, Louis XVIII ruled France as the head of a constitutional monarchy. Upon
Louis XVIII's death, his brother, the Count of Artois, ascended to the throne in 1824, as Charles X.
Supported by the ultra-royalists, Charles X was an extremely unpopular reactionary monarch whose
aspirations were far more grand than those of his deceased brother. He had no desire to rule as a
constitutional monarch, taking various steps to strengthen his own authority as monarch and weaken that
of the lower house.

In 1830, Charles X of France, presumably instigated by one of his chief advisers Jules, Prince de
Polignac, issued the Four Ordinances of St. Cloud. These ordinances abolished freedom of the press,
reduced the electorate by 75%, and dissolved the lower house.[2] This action provoked an immediate
reaction from the citizenry, who revolted against the monarchy during the Three Glorious Days of 26–29
July 1830.[3] Charles was forced to abdicate the throne and to flee Paris for the United Kingdom. As a
result, Louis Philippe, of the Orléanist branch, rose to power, replacing the old Charter by the Charter of
1830, and his rule became known as the July Monarchy.

Nicknamed the "Bourgeois Monarch", Louis Philippe sat at the head of a moderately liberal state
controlled mainly by educated elites. Supported by the Orléanists, he was opposed on his right by the
Legitimists (former ultra-royalists) and on his left by the Republicans and Socialists. Louis Philippe was
an expert businessman and, by means of his businesses, he had become one of the richest men in
France.[4] Still Louis Philippe saw himself as the successful embodiment of a "small businessman"
(petite bourgeoisie). Consequently, he and his government did not look with favor on the big business
(bourgeoisie), especially the industrial section of the French bourgeoisie. Louis Philippe did, however,
support the bankers, large and small. Indeed, at the beginning of his reign in 1830, Jaques Laffitte, a
banker and liberal politician who supported Louis Philippe's rise to the throne, said "From now on, the
bankers will rule."[5] Accordingly, during the reign of Louis Philippe, the privileged "financial
aristocracy", i.e. bankers, stock exchange magnates, railroad barons, owners of coal mines, iron ore
mines, and forests and all landowners associated with them, tended to support him, while the industrial
section of the bourgeoisie, which may have owned the land their factories sat on but not much more,
were disfavoured by Louis Philippe and actually tended to side with the middle class and laboring class
in opposition to Louis Philippe in the Chamber of Deputies.[5]
Naturally, land-ownership was favored, and this elitism resulted
in the disenfranchisement of much of the middle and working
classes.

By 1848 only about one percent of the population held the

franchise. Even though France had a free press and trial by jury,
only landholders were permitted to vote, which alienated the
petty bourgeoisie and even the industrial bourgeoisie from the
government. Louis Philippe was viewed as generally indifferent
to the needs of society, especially to those members of the middle
class who were excluded from the political arena. Early in 1848,
some Orléanist liberals, such as Adolphe Thiers, had turned
against Louis Philippe, disappointed by his opposition to
parliamentarism. A Reform Movement developed in France
which urged the government to expand the electoral franchise,
just as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland had done
with the Reform Act 1832. The more radical democrats of the Louis Philippe I, the last King of the
Reform Movement coalesced around the newspaper, La French
Réforme; [6] the more moderate republicans and the liberal
opposition rallied around the Le National newspaper.[7] Starting
in July 1847 the Reformists of all shades began to hold "banquets" at which toasts were drunk to
"République française" (the French Republic), "Liberté, égalité, fraternité", etc.[8] Louis Philippe turned
a deaf ear to the Reform Movement, and discontent among wide sections of the French people continued
to grow. Social and political discontent sparked revolutions in France in 1830 and 1848, which in turn
inspired revolts in other parts of Europe. Workers lost their jobs, bread prices rose, and people accused
the government of corruption. The French revolted and set up a republic. French successes led to other
revolts including those who wanted relief from the suffering caused by the Industrial Revolution and
nationalism sprang up hoping for independence from foreign rulers.

Alexis de Tocqueville observed, "We are sleeping together in a volcano. ... A wind of revolution blows,
the storm is on the horizon." Lacking the property qualifications to vote, the lower classes were about to
erupt in revolt.[9]

Economic and international influences

The French middle class watched changes in Britain with interest. When Britain's Reform Act 1832
extended enfranchisement to any man paying taxes of £10 or more per year (previously the vote was
restricted to landholders), France's free press took interest. Meanwhile, economically, the French working
class may perhaps have been slightly better off than Britain's working class. Still, unemployment in
France threw skilled workers down to the level of the proletariat. The only nominally social law of the
July Monarchy was passed in 1841. This law prohibited the use of labor of those children under eight
years of age, and the employment of children less than 13 years old for night-time work. This law was
routinely flouted.

The year 1846 saw a financial crisis and bad harvests, and the following year saw an economic
depression. A poor railway system hindered aid efforts, and the peasant rebellions that resulted were
forcefully crushed. According to French economist Frédéric Bastiat, the poor condition of the railway
system can largely be attributed to French efforts to promote
other systems of transport, such as carriages.[10] Perhaps a third
of Paris was on social welfare. Writers such as Louis Blanc ("The
right to work") and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon ("Property is theft!")
proliferated.

Bastiat, who was one of

the most famous political
writers of the 1840s, had
written countless works
concerning the economic
situation before 1848, and
provided a different
explanation of why the Frédéric Bastiat, one of the most
French people were popular political writers of the time,
forced to rise in the who took part in the Revolution
revolt. He believed that
the main reasons were
primarily the political corruption, along with its very complex
system of monopolies, permits, and bureaucracy, which made
those who were able to obtain political favors unjustly privileged
and able to dictate the market conditions and caused a myriad of
Louis Blanc, one of the two workers'
businesses to collapse, as well as protectionism which was the
representatives in the Assembly of
the Second Republic basis for the French foreign trade at the time, and which caused
businesses along the Atlantic Coast to file for bankruptcy, along
with the one owned by Bastiat's family. Indeed, most of Bastiat's
early works concern the situation in Bayonne and Bordeaux, two large merchant harbors before the
Napoleonic Wars, gradually devastated first by Napoleon I's continental blockade, and later by the
protectionist legislation of the nineteenth century. According to Bastiat's biographer, G.C. Roche, just
prior to the revolution, 100,000 citizens of Lyon were described as "indigent" and by 1840 there were at
least 130,000 abandoned children in France. International markets were not similarly troubled at the time,
which Bastiat attributed to the freedom of trade. Indeed, a large part of French economic problems in the
1830s and 1840s were caused by the shortage and unnaturally high prices of different products which
could have easily been imported from other countries, such as textiles, machines, tools, and ores, but
doing so was either outright illegal at the time or unprofitable due to the system of punitive tariffs.

Bastiat has also noted that the French legislators were entirely unaware of the reality and the effects of
their radical policies. One of the members of the French Chamber of Deputies reportedly received a
standing ovation when he proposed that the depression of 1847 was due primarily to "external weakness"
and "idle pacifism". Nationalist tendencies caused France to severely restrict all international contacts
with the United Kingdom, including the ban on importing tea, perceived as destructive to the French
national spirit.[11] As the United Kingdom was the largest economy in the world in the nineteenth
century, France deprived itself of its most important economic partner, one that could have supplied
France with what it lacked and bought surplus French goods.

Such governmental policies and obliviousness to the real reasons of economic troubles were, according
to Bastiat, the main causes of the French Revolution of the 1848 and the rise of socialists and anarchists
in the years preceding the revolution itself.
Events of February
Because political gatherings and demonstrations were outlawed
in France, activists of the largely middle class opposition to the
government began to hold a series of fund-raising banquets. This
campaign of banquets (Campagne des banquets), was intended to
circumvent the governmental restriction on political meetings and
provide a legal outlet for popular criticism of the regime. The
campaign began in July 1847. Friedrich Engels was in Paris
dating from October 1847 and was able to observe and attend
some of these banquets.[12] He wrote a series of articles on them, Barricade fighting in 1848
including "The Reform Movement in France" which was
published in La Rèforme on 20 November 1847; "Split in the
Camp—the Rèforme and the National—March of Democracy"
published in The Northern Star on 4 December 1847; "Reform
Banquet at Lille—Speech of LeDru-Rollin" published in The
Northern Star on 16 December 1847; "Reform Movement in
France—Banquet of Dijon" published in The Northern Star on 18
December 1847; "The Réforme and the National" published in
the Deutsche-Brüsseler-Zeitung on 30 December 1847; and The defenders of the barricades in
"Louis Blanc's Speech at the Dijon Banquet" published in the Paris
Deutsche-Brusseler-Zeitung on 30 December 1847. [13] The
banquet campaign lasted until all political banquets were
outlawed by the French government in February 1848. As a result, the people revolted, helping to unite
the efforts of the popular Republicans and the liberal Orléanists, who turned their back on Louis-
Philippe.

Anger over the outlawing of the political banquets brought crowds of Parisians flooding out onto the
streets at noon on 22 February 1848. They directed their anger against the Citizen King Louis Philippe
and his chief minister for foreign and domestic policy, François Pierre Guillaume Guizot. Shouting
"Down with Guizot" ("À bas Guizot") and "Long Live the Reform" ("Vive la réforme") the crowds
marched past Guizot's residence.[14] They erected barricades in the streets of Paris, and fighting broke
out between the citizens and the Parisian municipal guards.

At 2 pm the next day, 23 February, Prime Minister Guizot resigned. Upon hearing the news of Guizot's
resignation, a large crowd gathered outside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. An officer ordered the crowd
not to pass, but people in the front of the crowd were being pushed by the rear. The officer ordered his
men to fix bayonets, probably wishing to avoid shooting, but in what is widely regarded as an accident, a
soldier discharged his musket and the rest of the soldiers then fired into the crowd. Fifty-two people were
killed.[15]

Paris was soon a barricaded city. Omnibuses were turned into barricades, and thousands of trees were
felled. Fires were set, and angry citizens began converging on the royal palace. Louis-Philippe, fearing
for his life, abdicated in favor of his nine-year-old grandson Philippe, Comte de Paris and fled to England
in disguise. A strong undercurrent of republican sentiment prevented Philippe from taking his place as
king.
Frédéric Bastiat witnessed the Revolution, and reportedly rescued several workers under police fire,
describing it as a "frightful, fratricidal war" and further described revolting workers as "organized,
armed, and masters of the terrain, at the mercy of the most fiery demagogues".[16] Bastiat believed that
the revolution was carried out by a very large group of desperate people, who were able to organize
themselves and arm quickly due to both experience from the countless riots and previous revolutions, but
at the same time were almost instantly manipulated by a small group of demagogues who assumed
command, which is the reason why the protesters' demands were largely incompatible with one another;
e.g., a drastic reduction of taxes and greater social benefits, with the latter requiring higher taxes hence
contradicting the first demand.

During and soon after the events of February, Bastiat's pamphlets were reportedly plastered throughout
Paris and published in both conservative and socialist newspapers.[17] In them, he urged the French
people not to listen to the demagogs and argued that their demands were both incompatible with each
other aimed at fooling them and aimed to use their sentiments for the demagogs’ own political gain. He
also wrote many articles in response to the socialist demands to abolish private property, which were also
very popular at the time, and received response from chief socialist leaders such as Pierre Proudhon.
Indeed, they exchanged letters which were published in socialist newspapers such as La Voix du Peuple.

Second Republic
On 26 February 1848, the liberal opposition came together to
organize a provisional government, called the Second Republic.
The poet Alphonse de Lamartine was appointed president of the
provisional government. Lamartine served as a virtual dictator of
France for the next three months.[18] Elections for a Constituent
Assembly were scheduled for 23 April 1848. The Constituent
Assembly was to establish a new republican government for
France. In preparation for these elections, two major goals of the
provisional government were universal suffrage and
unemployment relief. Universal male suffrage was enacted on 2
March 1848, giving France nine million new voters. As in all
other European nations, women did not have the right to vote.
However, during this time a proliferation of political clubs
emerged, including women's organizations. Relief for the
unemployed was achieved by the provisional government through
enactment of the National Workshops, which guaranteed French "Messieurs Victor Hugo and Émile de
citizens' "right to work". The "right" of a citizen to work and Girardin try to raise Prince Louis
upon a shield [in the heroic Roman
indeed the National Workshops themselves had been the idea of
fashion]: not too steady!" Honoré
Jean Joseph Louis Blanc. By May 1848 the National Workshops
Daumier's satirical lithograph
were employing 100,000 workers and paying out daily wages of published in Le Charivari, 11
70,000 livres.[19] Full employment proved far from workable, as December 1848.
unemployment may have peaked at around 800,000 people, with
much under-employment on top of that.[20] On May 31, 15,000
jobless French rioted as rising xenophobia persecuted Belgian workers in the north.[20] In 1848, 479
newspapers were founded alongside a 54% decline in the number of businesses in Paris, as most wealth
had evacuated the city. There was a corresponding decline in the luxury trade and credit became
expensive.[21]
Rise of conservatism within the Second Republic
Naturally, the provisional government was disorganized as it attempted to deal with France's economic
problems. The conservative elements of French society were wasting no time in organizing against the
provisional government. After roughly a month, conservatives began to openly oppose the new
government, using the rallying cry "order", which the new republic lacked.

Additionally, there was a major split between the citizens of Paris and those citizens of the more rural
areas of France. The provisional government set out to establish deeper government control of the
economy and guarantee a more equal distribution of resources. To deal with the unemployment problem,
the provisional government established National Workshops. The unemployed were given jobs building
roads and planting trees without regard for the demand for these tasks. The population of Paris ballooned
as job seekers from all over France came to Paris to work in the newly formed National Workshops. To
pay for the new National Workshops and the other social programmes, the provisional government
placed new taxes on land. These taxes alienated the "landed classes"—especially the small farmers and
the peasantry of the rural areas of France—from the provisional government. Hardworking rural farmers
were resistant to paying for the unemployed city people and their new "Right to Work" National
Workshops. The taxes were widely disobeyed in the rural areas and, thus, the government remained
strapped for cash. Popular uncertainty about the liberal foundations of the provisional government
became apparent in the 23 April 1848 elections. Despite agitation from the left, voters elected a
constituent assembly which was primarily moderate and conservative. In May, Jacques-Charles Dupont
de l'Eure, chairman of the provisional government, made way for the Executive Commission, a body of
state acting as Head of State with five co-presidents.

The results of the 23 April 1848 election were a disappointment to the radicals in Paris except for the
election of one candidate popular among urban workers, François-Vincent Raspail.[22] Many radicals felt
the elections were a sign of the slowing down of the revolutionary movement. These radicals in Paris
pressured the government to head an international "crusade" for democracy. Independence of other
European states such as Poland was urged by the Paris radicals. In 1848, Poland did not exist as a nation
state. The nation of Poland had been gradually "partitioned" or divided between foreign powers of
Prussia, Russia, and Austria in 1773 and 1793.[23] Finally in 1795, all of the Polish nation was absorbed
by the three powers.[24] It was an opportune time to raise the issue of Polish independence as Poles were
also undergoing their own period of revolt in 1848 starting with the uprising in Poznań on 20 March
1848.[25]

The government of the National Constituent Assembly continued to resist the radicals. The radicals
began to protest against the National Constituent Assembly government. On 15 May 1848, Parisian
workmen, feeling their democratic and social republic was slipping away, invaded the Assembly en
masse and proclaimed a new Provisional Government.[1] This attempted revolution on the part of the
working classes was quickly suppressed by the National Guard.[26] The leaders of this revolt—Louis
Auguste Blanqui, Armand Barbès, François Vincent Raspail and others—were arrested.[27] The trial of
these leaders was held in Bourges, France, from March 7 to April 3, 1849.[28]

The conservative classes of society were becoming increasingly fearful of the power of the working
classes in Paris. They felt a strong need for organization and organized themselves around the need for
"order"—the so-called "Party of Order". For the Party of Order the term "order" meant a rollback of
society to the days of Louis Philippe. The Party of Order was now the dominant member of the
government. As the main force of reaction against revolution, the Party of Order forced the closure of the
hated Right to Work National Workshops on 21 June 1848. On 23 June 1848, the working class of Paris
rose in protest over the closure of the National Workshops. On that day 170,000 citizens of Paris came
out into the streets to erect barricades.[29] To meet this challenge, the government appointed General
Louis-Eugène Cavaignac to lead the military forces suppressing the uprising of the working classes.
General Cavaignac had been serving in the Army in Algeria. Cavaignac had returned from Algeria and in
the elections of 23 April 1848, he was elected to the National Constituent Assembly. Cavaignac arrived
in Paris only on 17 May 1848 to take his seat in the National Assembly.

Between 23 June and 26 June 1848, this battle between the

working class and Cavaignac came to be known as the June Days
uprising. Cavaignac's forces started out on 23 June 1848 with an
army composed of from 20,000 to 30,000 soldiers of the Paris
garrison of the French Army.[29] Cavaignac began a systematic
assault against the revolutionary Parisian citizenry, targeting the
blockaded areas of the city.[30] He was not able to break the stiff
opposition put up by the armed workers on the barricades on 23
June 1848. Accordingly, Cavaignac's forces were reinforced with
another 20,000–25,000 soldiers from the mobile guard, some Barricades on rue Saint-Maur during
[31] the uprising
additional 60,000 to 80,000 from the national guard. Even
with this force of 120,000 to 125,000 soldiers, Cavaignac still
required two days to complete the suppression of the working-class uprising.

In February 1848, the workers and petite bourgeoisie had fought together, but now, in June 1848, the
lines were drawn differently. The working classes had been abandoned by the bourgeois politicians who
founded the provisional government. This would prove fatal to the Second Republic, which, without the
support of the working classes, could not continue. Although the governmental regime of the Second
Republic continued to survive until December 1852, the generous, idealistic Republic to which the
February Days had given birth, ended with the suppression of the "June Days".[1]

The "Party of Order" moved quickly to consolidate the forces of reaction in the government and on 28
June 1848, the government appointed Louis Eugène Cavaignac as the head of the French state.[32] On 10
December 1848 a presidential election was held between four candidates. Cavaignac, was the candidate
of the Party of Order. Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin was also a candidate in that presidential election.
Ledru-Rollin was the editor of the La Réforme newspaper and as such was the leader of the radical
democrats among the petty bourgeoisie. François-Vincent Raspail was the candidate of the revolutionary
working classes. Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte was the fourth presidential candidate. Napoleon III won the
presidential election of 10 December 1848 with 5,587,759 votes as opposed to 1,474,687 votes for
Cavaignac and 370,000 votes for Ledru-Rollin. Raspail ended up a distant fourth in the balloting.

Class struggles within the revolution

Karl Marx saw the "June Days" uprising as strong evidence of class conflict. Marx saw the 1848
Revolution as being directed by the desires of the middle-class.[33] While the bourgeoisie agitated for
"proper participation", workers had other concerns. Many of the participants in the revolution were of the
so-called petite (petty) bourgeoisie (small business owners). In 1848, the petty bourgeoisie outnumbered
the working classes (unskilled laborers in mines, factories and stores, paid to perform manual labor and
other work rather than for their expertise) by about two to one. The petty bourgeoisie had significant debt
due to the economic recession of 1846–1847. By 1848, overdue business debt was 21,000,000 francs in
Paris and 11,000,000 francs in the provinces.[22] The February Revolution united all classes against
Louis Philippe. The bourgeoisie joined with the working classes to fight for "proper participation" in the
government for all sections and classes in society. But after the revolution, the working classes were
disillusioned by their small share of that participation, and revolted in the streets. This frightened the
bourgeoisie and they repressed the uprising during the June Days. The petit bourgeoisie worked the
hardest to suppress the revolt. Its financial condition had deteriorated even further due to slow sales and
economic dislocations of the Revolution. As of June 1848, over 7,000 shopkeepers and merchants in
Paris had not paid their rent since February.[22] During the June Days, their creditors and landlords (the
finance bourgeoisie), forestalled most attempts to collect on those debts.[34] But once the worker revolt
was put down, they began to assert their claims in court. Thus, the financial bourgeoisie turned their back
on the petty bourgeoisie.[35] Bankruptcies and foreclosures rose dramatically. The petty bourgeoisie
staged a large demonstration at the National Assembly to demand that the government inquire into the
problem of foreclosures and for debt to be extended for businessmen who could prove that their
insolvency was caused by the Revolution.[22] Such a plan was introduced in the National Assembly but
was rejected. The petty bourgeoisie was pauperized and many small merchants became part of the
working class.

Accordingly, the provisional government, supposedly created to address the concerns of all the classes of
French society, had little support among the working classes and petit bourgeoisie. Therefore, it tended to
address only the concerns of the liberal bourgeoisie. Support for the provisional government was
especially weak in the countryside, which was predominantly agricultural and more conservative, and
had its own concerns, such as food shortages due to bad harvests. The concerns of the bourgeoisie were
very different from those of the lower classes. Support for the provisional government was also
undermined by the memory of the French Revolution.

The "Thermidorian reaction" and the ascent of Napoleon III to the throne are evidence that the people
preferred the safety of an able dictatorship to the uncertainty of revolution. Louis Napoleon portrayed
himself as "rising above politics". Each class in France saw Louis Napoleon as a return of the "great
days" of Napoleon Bonaparte, but had its own vision of such a return. Karl Marx was referring to this
phenomenon when he said "History repeats itself: the first time as a tragedy, the second time as a
farce."[36] Thus, the various classes and political groupings had different reasons for supporting
Napoleon in the election of December 10, 1848. Napoleon himself encouraged this by "being all things to
all people". Legitimists (Bourbons) and Orleans (Citizen King Louis-Philippe) monarchists saw Louis
Napoleon as the beginning of a royalist restoration in France.[37] The army believed Napoleon would
have a foreign policy of war. (By contrast, the Mobile Guard supported Cavaignac in that election.)[37]
The industrial bourgeoisie felt that Napoleon would suppress further revolutionary activity.[38] The petty
bourgeoisie saw Napoleon as the rule of the debtor over the creditor, and as their savior against the large
finance capitalists.[38] Even some of the proletariat supported Louis Napoleon (over the petty bourgeoisie
socialist Alexandre Ledru-Rollin) in order to remove the hated Cavaignac and the bourgeoisie
republicanism of the National Assembly which had betrayed the proletarian interests in the recent June
Days.[38]

Peasants overwhelmingly supported Napoleon. Their support was so strong that the election has been
seen as a coup d'état by the peasantry.[38] Thus, one might argue, without the support of these large lower
classes, the revolution of 1848 would not carry through, despite the hopes of the liberal bourgeoisie.

End of the Revolution in France

Following the repression of the June Days, the French Revolution of 1848 was basically over. Politics in
France continued to tilt to the right, as the era of revolution in France came to an end. The Party of Order
and the Cavaignac dictatorship were still fearful of another popular uprising in the streets, so on 2
September 1848, the government continued the state of siege that had been in place since the June
Days.[39] Also on 2 September 1848, the National Constituent Assembly vowed not to dissolve itself
until they had written a new constitution and enacted all the organic laws necessary to implement that
new constitution.[40] Although the National Constituent Assembly had attempted to write a constitution
before the June Days, only a "first draft" of that constitution had been written before the repression in
June 1848.[39] This first draft still contained the phrase "Right to Work" and contained several provisions
dealing with the demands of the working classes.[41] In the eyes of the Party of Order, these provisions
were now entirely unacceptable, especially in the new conservative political environment after the June
Days. Accordingly, on 4 September 1848, the National Constituent Assembly, now controlled by the
Party of Order, set about writing a new constitution.[40] "

The new constitution was finished on 23 October 1848 and presidential elections were scheduled for 10
December 1848.[40] Louis Napoleon won the presidential election by a wide margin over the current
dictator Louis Cavaignac and the petty bourgeoisie socialist Alexandre Ledru-Rollin. Louis Napoleon's
family name rallied support to his cause. Elected with Louis Napoleon was a National Assembly which
was filled with monarchists—of both the Legitimist (Bourbon) variety or the Orleanist (Louis-Philippe)
variety. The Bourbons tended to support the landed aristocracy while the Orleanist tended to support the
banking and finance bourgeoisie. One of those elected to the National Assembly was Adolphe Thiers
who was the leader of the Orleanist party. As such, Thiers became the chief spokesman of the finance
bourgeoisie, and as time went by he was tending to speak for the whole bourgeoisie, including the rising
industrial bourgeoisie. After sweeping the elections, Louis Napoleon tried to return France to the old
order.

Although Napoleon purged republicans and returned the "vile multitude" (including Adolphe Thiers) to
its former place, Napoleon III was unable to totally turn the clock back. Indeed, the presidency of Louis
Napoleon, followed by the Second Empire, would be a time of great industrialization and great economic
expansion of railways and banking. By the time of the December 2, 1851 coup, Louis Napoleon had
dissolved the National Assembly without having the constitutional right to do so, and became the sole
ruler of France. Cells of resistance surfaced, but were put down, and the Second Republic was officially
over. He re-established universal suffrage, feared by the Republicans at the time who correctly expected
the countryside to vote against the Republic, Louis Napoleon took the title Emperor Napoleon III, and
the Second Empire began.

In literature
Gustave Flaubert's novel L'éducation sentimentale uses the 1848 revolution as a backdrop
for its story.
Laura Kalpakian's novel Cosette uses the 1848 revolution as a primary part of the plot.
Sylvia Townsend Warner's novel Summer Will Show uses the 1848 revolution as a primary
part of the plot.
Kurt Andersen's novel Heyday begins with one of the protagonists witnessing and
unintentionally participating in the 1848 revolution.
The character of Piotr Alejandrovitch Miusov, uncle and tutor of Dmitri Fyodorovich
Karamazov in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov, hinted that he himself
had almost taken part in the fighting on the barricades in the 1848 revolution.
 L'Autre Dumas (English: The Other Dumas), a 2010 French film directed by Safy Nebbou,
depicts Alexandre Dumas in a fictitious involvement with a young female revolutionary.
Rachel Field's novel All This And Heaven Too (1938) uses unrest leading up to the 1848
revolution as a backdrop for its story.
Alexis de Tocqueville's Recollections (also known as Souvenirs) provides primary insight
from a moderate liberal in the Constituent Assembly, as he saw events unfold.[42]
Rudin, the protagonist of Ivan Turgenev's novel of the same name, dies at the barricades of
the revolution in the epilog.
Choses vues, by Victor Hugo includes passages concerning the author's actions during the
time of the revolution in Paris.

See also
Charles de Choiseul-Praslin
France in the nineteenth century
French demonstration of 15 May 1848
Paris under Louis-Philippe
History of socialism
History of the French Left
Revolutions of 1848 in the Austrian Empire

Further reading
Agulhon, Maurice. The Republican Experiment, 1848–1852 (The Cambridge History of
Modern France) (1983) excerpt and text search (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521289882/)

Sources
Sylvie Aprile, la Deuxième République et le Second Empire, Pygmalion, 2000.
Arnaud Coutant, 1848, Quand la République combattait la Démocratie, Mare et Martin,
2009.
Inès Murat, La Deuxième République, Fayard, 1987.
George Rudé, The Crowd in History, Chapter 11, "The French Revolution of 1848",
pp. 164–179. (London: Serif, 2005).
Philippe Vigier, La Seconde République, PUF, collection Que Sais-Je?

References
1. Albert Guèrard, France, A Modern History, p. 301.
2. Albert Guèrard, France: A Modern History, p. 286.
3. Agnes de Stoeckl, King of the French: A Portrait of Louis Philippe, 1773–1850 (New York:
G.P. Putnam & Sons, 1957) pp. 146–160.
4. Albert Guèrard, France: A Modern History p. 289.
5. "Class Struggles in France" in Collected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Volume
10, p. 48.
6. "The Reform Movement in France" in Collected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels:
Volume 6 p. 380.
7. Georges Duveau, 1848: The Making of a Revolution (New York: Vintage Books, 1968) p. 7.
 8. "Class Struggles in France" in the Collected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels:
Volume 10, p. 54.
9. See Arnaud Coutant, Tocqueville et la Constitution démocratique, Mare et Martin, 2008.
10. F. Bastiat, A Negative Railroad, 1845
11. G.C. Roche, Frederic Bastiat, A Man Alone, p. 63
12. Heinrich Gemkow et al., Frederick Engels: A Biography (Dresden: Verlag Zeitim Bild, 1972)
p. 131.
13. These articles are contained at pp. 375, 385, 393, 396, 406 and 409, respectively in
Collected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Volume 6.
14. "Revolution in Paris" in Collected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Volume 6, p.
556.
15. See the first-hand account of Percy St. John:
https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/1848johnson.asp
16. F. Bastiat, "A letter to a Group of Supporters"
17. G.C. Roche, Frederic Bastiat, A Man Alone, ch. "Bastiat Stands Against the Tide"
18. Albert Guèrard, France: A Modern History p. 300.
19. "Glossary of Events: Fr" (https://www.marxists.org/glossary/events/f/r.htm).
www.marxists.org.
20. "Employment and the Revolution of 1848 in France" (http://www.ohio.edu/chastain/dh/franc
emp.htm). Ohio.edu. 15 April 1998. Retrieved 3 March 2014.
21. Gérard Unger, Lamartine. Poète et homme d'Etat, Paris: Flammarion, 1998, p. 329.
22. "Class Struggles in France" in Collected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Volume
10, p. 75.
23. Norman Davies, God's Playground: A History of Poland: Volume 1 (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1982,) pp. 511–46.
24. Norman Davies, God's Playground: A History of Poland: Volume 2, pp. 81–162.
25. Norman Davies, God's Playground: A History of Poland: Volume 2, p. 341.
26. Note 117 in the Collected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Volume 8, p. 552.
27. "Class Struggles in France" in Collected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Volume
10, p. 88.
28. Note 53 in Collected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Volume 10, p. 650.
29. "The 23rd of June" in Collected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Volume 7, p. 130.
30. "The June Revolution: The Course of the Paris Uprising" in Collected Works of Karl Marx
and Frederick Engels, pp. 160–164.
31. "The June Revolution: The Course of the Paris Uprising" in Collected Works of Karl Marx
and Frederick Engels: Volume 7, p. 161.
32. "The June Revolution" in Collected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Volume 7, p.
160.
33. For a non-Marxist analysis, see Arnaud Coutant, Tocqueville et la Constitution
democratique, Mare et Martin, 2008.
34. "Class Struggles in France" in Collected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Volume
10, pp. 75–76.
35. "Class Struggles in France" in Collected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Volume
10, p. 74.
36. "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon" in Collected Works of Karl Marx and
Frederick Engels: Volume 11, p. 103.
37. "Class Struggles in France" in Collected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Volume
10, p. 81.
38. "Class Struggles in France" in Collected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Volume
10, p. 80.
39. "Class Struggles in France" contained in the Collected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick
Engels: Volume 10, p. 77.
40. "Class Struggles in France" contained in the Collected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick
Engels: Volume 10, p. 79
41. "Class Struggles in France" contained in the Collected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick
Engels: Volume 10, pp. 77–78.
42. Tocqueville, Alexis de. "Recollections: the French Revolution of 1848" (https://books.google.
co.uk/books?id=k-LW_9WhwMEC&redir_esc=y&hl=en). Transaction Publishers – via
Google Books.

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