Opposition to Louis Philippe

1
Opposition to Louis Philippe

• www.educationforum.co.uk

2
How Secure was LP in 1830?

• Not very!
• LP neither appealed to old elites or to the new
  working class he had a very narrow base of
  support
• His first 2 years were very troubled marked by
  riots and disturbances
• Especially in Lyons where silk weavers rioted in
  31 and 34 demanding a minimum wage
• LP crushed the silk weavers with the National
  Guard

3
Industrialisation

• Industrial revolution came relatively lately to
  France but by 1830 problems of factory
  conditions, low pay, long hours population
  growth, poor living conditions were creating a
  discontented urban working class
• A new ideology started to emerge in response to
  these conditions which directly criticised
  capitalism the ideology of socialism

4
French Socialists

• Saint Simon the pioneer socialist who died in
  1825 came up with the slogan from each
  according to his abilities to each according to
  his needs as an alternative to capitalism
• Charles Fourier proposed workers cooperatives
  sharing profits as an alternative to capitalist
  production
• PJ Proudhon famously declared property is
  theft calling for common ownership of the means
  of production, distribution and exchange
• Louis Blanc The Organisation of Labour 1840 in
  which he declared everyone had a right to work
  and that this right should be guaranteed by the
  state by setting up socialist workshops

5
Working Class Agitation

• Socialist ideas (especially those of Blanc)
  clearly evident in disturbances in Paris 1832, 34
  and 39 and in Lille, Clermont and Toulouse in
  1840, and in the wave of strikes which hit France
  1844-46
• On every occasion LPs response was to repress
  with troops, National Guard and law (trade unions
  made illegal)

6
Bonapartism

• Whilst the Bonapartist party remained small
  during LPs reign there was a discernible rise in
  support for the Napoleonic legend especially
  when it was compared to LPs rather tame and
  subservient foreign policy
• As the memory of military defeats faded Napoleon
  was increasingly seen by many as a man who
  brought law and order, glory, prosperity,
  efficiency, modernity and a great empire

7
Louis Napoleon

• The heir to the Bonaparte legacy initially a
  rather ridiculous figure
• Exiled to Britain in the 1830s where he wrote 2
  books outlining his ideas Reveries Politiques
  and Manuel dArtillerie
• In 1836 he made his first rather comical attempt
  to seize power where attempting to enter France
  at Strasbourg he made a terrible speech and was
  arrested and deported
• In 1840 he made a second attempt at a Coup D'état
  by hiring a Thames paddle steamer and crossing
  the Channel with 50 supporters who were roundly
  crushed by the National Guard in Boulogne Louis
  Napoleon himself tried to escape in a small boat
  which started to sink and had to be rescued from
  drowning
• He was duly arrested and sentenced to life
  imprisonment at Ham near the Somme in northern
  France
• Whilst he was imprison who wrote LExtinction de
  Pauperisme which won him support from socialists
  and their followers
• Louis Napoleon escaped Ham in 1846 and returned
  to England where he created a series of scandals
  with a series of ballet girls
• In 1848 he was a special constable during the
  Chartist demonstration at Kennington Common and
  there was no indication that here was a man who
  would be very soon president of France and then
  Emperor of France