French demonstration of 15 May 1848
Encyclopedia
The French demonstration of 15 May 1848 was an event played out, mostly, in the streets of Paris. It was intended to reverse the results of a Second-Republic
election of deputies to the Constituent Assembly. It is difficult to say, with any precision, whether this phenomenon should be called a demonstration, a riot, an invasion, or an attempted coup d'état. Nonetheless, it seems to have been largely unplanned, not particularly bloody, and indisputably a failure.
. Universal male suffrage, applied for the first time since 1792, resulted in the election of an Assembly with a majority composed of a group calling themselves "tomorrow's republicans". A new government was elected by the Assembly, called the Commission exécutive de la République française (Executive Committee of the French Republic), which was composed largely of moderate Republicans who were opposed to the socialistic agenda enacted by the provisional government that had been in place since the February 1848 revolution.
Once assembled, the deputies tried to insulate themselves from the inevitable popular pressure engendered by meeting in Paris. Nonetheless, on 10 May, the new assembly spurned the proposal of Louis Blanc
concerning the establishment of a "Ministry of Labor and Progress", a bold measure that aimed to implement Blanc's socialist agenda. Blanc was opposed to the free markets and market competition and wanted the "Ministry of Labor and Progress" to establish communal "workshops" in various industries that all supported each other. The goal was to have government backed labor "workshops" so everyone could have a job and make government the "supreme regulator of production". Blanc claimed that "in destroying competition we strangle at the same time the evils which it brings forth", to which Blanc believed would lead to the downfall of capitalism. The urban laborers behind Blanc were unnerved by the measures taken against him. On 12 May, the Assembly banned political parties and special-interest groups from sending delegations to read petitions to the Assembly, an old practice from revolutionary Paris (1792–1794) and the so-called Sans-culottes
, which had been resumed in February 1848. This action was seen by Parisians as undemocratic.
The progressives in the Assembly were also unhappy about the inaction of the Department of Foreign Affairs and its provisional minister, Jules Bastide
, who refused to help the Poles then under the occupation of Prussian and Austrian troops. The newly-elected government, it seemed, was only continuing the foreign policy of the provisional government, a timid and feckless platform, which, under the leadership of Alphonse de Lamartine
, had, on 4 March, passed a resolution denying support to all popular revolutions (in Italy, Poland, Germany, and elsewhere in Europe.) The progressive Republicans had difficulty in understanding this passivity when, within human memory, France had been a "great nation" which marched to the aid of those "oppressed by their rulers." This was the standard of greatness established by the Revolution of 1792, and many 1848 progressives found France's current passivity painfully disconcerting.
to participate in the ceremony. Delegates from Poland
(specifically, Poznań
and Lemberg, now known as Lviv
) prevailed upon a sympathetic deputy from the department of the Seine, a naturalized Pole, Louis Wolowski
, to have the Assembly discuss the Polish question on 15 May. Also on 15 May, Parisian militants, mostly progressive Republicans and socialists, held a demonstration in support of the Polish cause. This happened despite the reluctance of Republican leaders, such as François-Vincent Raspail
, Armand Barbès
, and Louis Auguste Blanqui
, to support it.
The event started at the Bastille and headed through the boulevards toward the Place de la Concorde
, at the western end of the Tuileries Gardens. Many foreign delegations (Irish, Italian, Polish) participated. Provocative behavior by fiery old revolutionaries, like Aloysius Huber, and a general failure by Courtois, the commander of the National Guard, to respond appropriately caused the situation to degenerate.
Protesters headed for the Palais Bourbon
, where the Assembly was meeting, and forced their way into the chamber. In the hubbub, someone read the petition in favor of Poland. Then Aloysius Huber exclaimed: "The National Assembly is dissolved." The crowd then marched to the City Hall of Paris, where it proclaimed an "insurrectionary government" with Blanqui
, Ledru-Rollin
, Albert L'Ouvrier
, Louis Blanc
, Aloysius Huber, Thoré
, Pierre Leroux
, and Raspail
to serve as ministers. However, elements of the National Guard, joined by Lamartine, Ledru-Rollin, and members of the five-day-old Executive Committee, besieged the city hall and dislodged the protesters.
was dismissed from his position as prefect of police, and he was replaced by a banker from Le Mans
, Ariste Jacques Trouvé-Chauvel. General de Courtois, commandant of the National Guard of Paris, who had shown some sympathy for the protesters, was arrested and replaced by General Clément Thomas. Jules Favre
tried in vain to get the Assembly to indict Louis Blanc. Philippe Buchez
, who had shown no reaction to the demonstrators, lost the presidency of the Assembly, and he was succeeded by the former attorney, Antoine Sénard. The Conservatives were, after these events, free to carry on the offensive against their great nemesis: the national workshops of Louis Blanc.
French Second Republic
The French Second Republic was the republican government of France between the 1848 Revolution and the coup by Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte which initiated the Second Empire. It officially adopted the motto Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité...
election of deputies to the Constituent Assembly. It is difficult to say, with any precision, whether this phenomenon should be called a demonstration, a riot, an invasion, or an attempted coup d'état. Nonetheless, it seems to have been largely unplanned, not particularly bloody, and indisputably a failure.
Context
The election results of 23 April 1848, which chose deputies to serve in the national Constituent Assembly, were very unfavorable to republican progressives, a party that held strong socialistic/marxist views such as wanting the government to be the "supreme regulator of production" and led by the "utopian socialist" Louis BlancLouis Blanc
Louis Jean Joseph Charles Blanc was a French politician and historian. A socialist who favored reforms, he called for the creation of cooperatives in order to guarantee employment for the urban poor....
. Universal male suffrage, applied for the first time since 1792, resulted in the election of an Assembly with a majority composed of a group calling themselves "tomorrow's republicans". A new government was elected by the Assembly, called the Commission exécutive de la République française (Executive Committee of the French Republic), which was composed largely of moderate Republicans who were opposed to the socialistic agenda enacted by the provisional government that had been in place since the February 1848 revolution.
Once assembled, the deputies tried to insulate themselves from the inevitable popular pressure engendered by meeting in Paris. Nonetheless, on 10 May, the new assembly spurned the proposal of Louis Blanc
Louis Blanc
Louis Jean Joseph Charles Blanc was a French politician and historian. A socialist who favored reforms, he called for the creation of cooperatives in order to guarantee employment for the urban poor....
concerning the establishment of a "Ministry of Labor and Progress", a bold measure that aimed to implement Blanc's socialist agenda. Blanc was opposed to the free markets and market competition and wanted the "Ministry of Labor and Progress" to establish communal "workshops" in various industries that all supported each other. The goal was to have government backed labor "workshops" so everyone could have a job and make government the "supreme regulator of production". Blanc claimed that "in destroying competition we strangle at the same time the evils which it brings forth", to which Blanc believed would lead to the downfall of capitalism. The urban laborers behind Blanc were unnerved by the measures taken against him. On 12 May, the Assembly banned political parties and special-interest groups from sending delegations to read petitions to the Assembly, an old practice from revolutionary Paris (1792–1794) and the so-called Sans-culottes
Sans-culottes
In the French Revolution, the sans-culottes were the radical militants of the lower classes, typically urban laborers. Though ill-clad and ill-equipped, they made up the bulk of the Revolutionary army during the early years of the French Revolutionary Wars...
, which had been resumed in February 1848. This action was seen by Parisians as undemocratic.
The progressives in the Assembly were also unhappy about the inaction of the Department of Foreign Affairs and its provisional minister, Jules Bastide
Jules Bastide
Jules Bastide was a French politician.He studied law for a time, and was afterward engaged in business as a timber merchant. In 1821, he became a member of the French la Charbonnerie, modelled on that of the Italian Carbonari, and took a prominent part in the Revolution of 1830...
, who refused to help the Poles then under the occupation of Prussian and Austrian troops. The newly-elected government, it seemed, was only continuing the foreign policy of the provisional government, a timid and feckless platform, which, under the leadership of Alphonse de Lamartine
Alphonse de Lamartine
Alphonse Marie Louis de Prat de Lamartine was a French writer, poet and politician who was instrumental in the foundation of the Second Republic.-Career:...
, had, on 4 March, passed a resolution denying support to all popular revolutions (in Italy, Poland, Germany, and elsewhere in Europe.) The progressive Republicans had difficulty in understanding this passivity when, within human memory, France had been a "great nation" which marched to the aid of those "oppressed by their rulers." This was the standard of greatness established by the Revolution of 1792, and many 1848 progressives found France's current passivity painfully disconcerting.
The demonstration of 15 May
A ceremony of flags had been scheduled for 14 May 1848, and Paris was full of National Guards, many from the provinces. The ceremony had been suddenly canceled because of the refusal of the delegation of workers sitting in the Luxembourg PalaceLuxembourg Palace
The Luxembourg Palace in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, north of the Luxembourg Garden , is the seat of the French Senate.The formal Luxembourg Garden presents a 25-hectare green parterre of gravel and lawn populated with statues and provided with large basins of water where children sail model...
to participate in the ceremony. Delegates from Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
(specifically, Poznań
Poznan
Poznań is a city on the Warta river in west-central Poland, with a population of 556,022 in June 2009. It is among the oldest cities in Poland, and was one of the most important centres in the early Polish state, whose first rulers were buried at Poznań's cathedral. It is sometimes claimed to be...
and Lemberg, now known as Lviv
Lviv
Lviv is a city in western Ukraine. The city is regarded as one of the main cultural centres of today's Ukraine and historically has also been a major Polish and Jewish cultural center, as Poles and Jews were the two main ethnicities of the city until the outbreak of World War II and the following...
) prevailed upon a sympathetic deputy from the department of the Seine, a naturalized Pole, Louis Wolowski
Louis Wolowski
Louis-François-Michel-Reymond Wolowski was a Polish writer on economics and politician, naturalised in France.-Life:...
, to have the Assembly discuss the Polish question on 15 May. Also on 15 May, Parisian militants, mostly progressive Republicans and socialists, held a demonstration in support of the Polish cause. This happened despite the reluctance of Republican leaders, such as François-Vincent Raspail
François-Vincent Raspail
François-Vincent Raspail was a French chemist, naturalist, physiologist, and socialist politician.-Biography:...
, Armand Barbès
Armand Barbès
Armand Barbès , was a French Republican revolutionary and a fierce and steadfast opponent of the July monarchy . He is remembered as a man whose life centers on two days:...
, and Louis Auguste Blanqui
Louis Auguste Blanqui
Louis Auguste Blanqui was a French political activist, notable for the revolutionary theory of Blanquism, attributed to him....
, to support it.
The event started at the Bastille and headed through the boulevards toward the Place de la Concorde
Place de la Concorde
The Place de la Concorde in area, it is the largest square in the French capital. It is located in the city's eighth arrondissement, at the eastern end of the Champs-Élysées.- History :...
, at the western end of the Tuileries Gardens. Many foreign delegations (Irish, Italian, Polish) participated. Provocative behavior by fiery old revolutionaries, like Aloysius Huber, and a general failure by Courtois, the commander of the National Guard, to respond appropriately caused the situation to degenerate.
Protesters headed for the Palais Bourbon
Palais Bourbon
The Palais Bourbon, , a palace located on the left bank of the Seine, across from the Place de la Concorde, Paris , is the seat of the French National Assembly, the lower legislative chamber of the French government.-History:...
, where the Assembly was meeting, and forced their way into the chamber. In the hubbub, someone read the petition in favor of Poland. Then Aloysius Huber exclaimed: "The National Assembly is dissolved." The crowd then marched to the City Hall of Paris, where it proclaimed an "insurrectionary government" with Blanqui
Louis Auguste Blanqui
Louis Auguste Blanqui was a French political activist, notable for the revolutionary theory of Blanquism, attributed to him....
, Ledru-Rollin
Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin
Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin was a French politician.The grandson of Nicolas Philippe Ledru, the celebrated quack doctor known as "Comus" under Louis XV and Louis XVI, Ledru-Rollin was born in a house that had once been Paul Scarron's, at Fontenay-aux-Roses...
, Albert L'Ouvrier
Albert L'Ouvrier
Albert l'Ouvrier , born Alexandre Martin , was a French socialist statesman of the French Second Republic. He was the first member of the industrial working class to be in French government....
, Louis Blanc
Louis Blanc
Louis Jean Joseph Charles Blanc was a French politician and historian. A socialist who favored reforms, he called for the creation of cooperatives in order to guarantee employment for the urban poor....
, Aloysius Huber, Thoré
Théophile Thoré-Bürger
Étienne-Joseph-Théophile Thoré was a French journalist and art critic. He is best known today for his rediscovery of the work of painter Johannes Vermeer.-Biography:...
, Pierre Leroux
Pierre Leroux
Pierre Henri Leroux , French philosopher and political economist, was born at Bercy, now a part of Paris, the son of an artisan.- Life :...
, and Raspail
François-Vincent Raspail
François-Vincent Raspail was a French chemist, naturalist, physiologist, and socialist politician.-Biography:...
to serve as ministers. However, elements of the National Guard, joined by Lamartine, Ledru-Rollin, and members of the five-day-old Executive Committee, besieged the city hall and dislodged the protesters.
Consequences of the event
The Assembly and the Executive Committee resumed control of the situation. The Republican leaders were arrested. They were brought before the High Court of Justice of Bourges on 7 March to 3 April 1849. Marc CaussidièreMarc Caussidière
Marc Caussidière was born in Geneva in 1808 and died in Paris in 1861. He was a significant personality of the French republican movement of the first half of the nineteenth century.-Biography:...
was dismissed from his position as prefect of police, and he was replaced by a banker from Le Mans
Le Mans
Le Mans is a city in France, located on the Sarthe River. Traditionally the capital of the province of Maine, it is now the capital of the Sarthe department and the seat of the Roman Catholic diocese of Le Mans. Le Mans is a part of the Pays de la Loire region.Its inhabitants are called Manceaux...
, Ariste Jacques Trouvé-Chauvel. General de Courtois, commandant of the National Guard of Paris, who had shown some sympathy for the protesters, was arrested and replaced by General Clément Thomas. Jules Favre
Jules Favre
Jules Claude Gabriel Favre was a French statesman. After the establishment of the Third Republic in September 1870, he became one of the leaders of the Opportunist Republicans faction.- Early life :...
tried in vain to get the Assembly to indict Louis Blanc. Philippe Buchez
Philippe Buchez
Philippe-Joseph-Benjamin Buchez , more commonly called Philippe Buchez, was a French historian, sociologist, and politician. He was the founder of the newspaper, L'Atelier, and he served briefly, in 1848, as the president of the Constituent National Assembly, which was then meeting at the Palais...
, who had shown no reaction to the demonstrators, lost the presidency of the Assembly, and he was succeeded by the former attorney, Antoine Sénard. The Conservatives were, after these events, free to carry on the offensive against their great nemesis: the national workshops of Louis Blanc.