When people think of the French Revolution, they will nearly always think of the Revolution of 1789, famous for decapitations, terror and the founding of a republic. Yet, the road to lasting freedom was far from swift. It would take 77 years, 2 empires, 3 revolutions, 7 coalition wars, and 9 monarchs before France would see itself free from authoritarian control under Napoleon III in 1870. One of the significant transitions in this power shuffle was the July Revolution, better known as ‘Les Trois Glorieuses’, the second French Revolution to terrorise the nation.
On 18 June 1815, in a desperate attempt to regain an upper hand during the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon committed his last reserves, including his most elite troops, the Old Guard. They marched towards the English centre in hopes of a breakthrough. However, British troops rose from behind bushes and unleashed a devastating onslaught. In one volley, 300 French soldiers fell, including their commanders. Leaderless and overwhelmed, the French troops started retreating. At the sight of the retreating Old Guard, which had been deemed invulnerable, panic spread among the French army, and the retreat quickly turned into a route as men screamed, “La garde recule. Sauve qui peut!“
Victorious, the coalition forced 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 pre-Napoleonic positions and restored the house of Bourbon to the throne in the person of Louis XVIII. Louis chose the white flag as the new flag of France, which remained until the July Revolution. As the new king, he enthusiastically made concessions to the people of France, fearing a similar fate to that of his older brother. 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 made during and after the revolution, crucially including the Napoleonic Code. Louis XVIII’s reign was marked by relative peace and stability, ushering in the beginnings of a French industrial revolution. However, on 16 September 1824, he died childless; the throne passed to his younger brother, Charles. Initially welcomed with popular acclaim, Charles X quickly embodied the worst of the ancien régime.
It started with the choice of his prime minister, Joseph de Villèle, a leader of the ultra-royalist faction. This was quickly followed by extremely unpopular legislation, such as a decision in April 1825 to compensate nobles whose estates had been confiscated during the revolution. This would end up costing close to 1 billion francs, more than half of France’s GDP back then. To add insult to injury, in the same month, the king’s government passed anti-blasphemy laws with punishments ranging from perpetual forced labour to death through decapitation. While the law was more symbolic than anything, it was seen as an attempt to pander to the clergy, and so it was a direct affront to the equality of religious beliefs imposed by the Charte. Additionally, the method of execution employed was not the guillotine but rather the sword, a practice evocative of the grisly executions of the ancien régime. The French populace viewed these laws as efforts to undermine their constitution; consequently, the popularity of the parliament surged, diminishing that of the king and his ministers.
This growing hostility was best illustrated on 16 April 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. In 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 benefit of the liberals, who gained 153. It’s worth noting that these new deputies, although nominally liberal, were ultimately still royalists. Les doctrinaires, as they were called, favoured a constitutional monarchy and were led by Lafayette, who had staunchly opposed the Jacobin Club during the Terror. This was no longer a fight between republicanism and 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 with 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 appointed ‘Prince de Polignac’, causing uproar owing to his infamous lineage and association with Marie Antoinette.
Understandably, many of the king’s adversaries were dissatisfied. In March 1830, the King threatened the opposition in a speech to the assembly. In retaliation, 221 liberal deputies voted in favour of a motion of no-confidence and expressed their discontent. Despite this, Charles X persisted in believing in his popularity, at the very least among the limited electorate. Consequently, he dissolved the assembly, hoping for a pro-ultra-Royalist outcome in the ensuing election.
In 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 seats in 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 I 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 25 July, a Sunday. The first ordinance suspended the freedom of the press. The second dissolved 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.
That very night, the ordinances were sent to the printer of Le Moniteur, the official newspaper of the government, so that they could be published 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. On Monday, Parisians read Le Moniteur. Their initial surprise quickly turned into disgust. It started with the commercial bourgeoisie, who protested by refusing to lend in La Bourse and by shutting down their factories. As a result, unemployment, which had risen throughout the summer, spiked. As historian Philip Mansell puts it, “Large numbers of workers, therefore, had nothing to do but protest.“
Tuesday saw over 50 newspapers defiantly publish material against the King, rejecting the new ordinances. When local police tried to seize their printing presses, they faced resistance from a mob shouting, “À bas les Bourbons! Vive la charte!” Barricades went up, clashes erupted between rioters and soldiers, with Parisians throwing projectiles from rooftops. Warning shots turned into lethal force, with rioters arming themselves, likely from disbanded National Guard armouries. The night’s violence claimed 22 lives, their bodies becoming symbols of outrage, fuelling the revolution.
The next day, 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, was severely outnumbered, as most of his troops were used for the conquest of Algiers. Meanwhile, in the capital, anti-Bourbon settlements turned into calls for the guillotine. At 11am, the King’s ministers, including Polignac, were forced to hide in the Palais des Tuileries along with Marmont, who now informed his king, “Sir. It is no longer a riot. It’s a revolution.” In the narrow streets, the French troops were hopeless as revolutionaries fired down on them and then quickly disappeared. Bolstered by the once-soldiers of the National Guard who had come to join them in their old uniforms, the Parisians captured the Hôtel de Ville. There, they raised the tricolour flag and rung the bell of Paris. Yet, despite all this, the King and his prime minister refused to see anybody.
Thursday saw a rapid escalation of events: within a day and night, 4,000 barricades sprang up across Paris, manned by 30,000 revolutionaries. General Marmont received no orders or reinforcements. By early afternoon, the Louvre fell easily as the Swiss Guard, haunted by memories of their brethren massacred in 1792, fled without resistance. Shortly after, the Tuileries Palace was captured. Paris succumbed. The Liberals installed a provisional government, dispatching Lafayette to pacify the crowds and prevent a descent into chaos akin to 1792.
The cousin of the King, the Duc D’Orléans, was chosen by the provisional government as the new King of France, Louis Philippe I. The new king arrived in Paris on July 31 to popular acclaim. Wisely, he further bolstered that popularity by painting himself as the people’s king. To do so, he renamed himself King of the French, not King of France, and adopted the tricolour flag of the revolution. On August 2nd, Charles X and his son abdicated any rights to the throne of France and fled to England, thus permanently extinguishing the Bourbon dynasty in France. A dynasty that, excluding the revolution and Bonaparte, had reigned since Henry IV, almost 250 years ago. The revolution had finished as quickly as it had started. Nonetheless, it ignited the November uprising in Poland against Russian rule, resulting in the deaths of 40,000 Poles and the complete assimilation of the country by Tsar Nicholas I. However, the August revolution in Brussels proved more successful, culminating in the establishment of Belgium as an independent nation.
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The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica (2018) ‘July Revolution | French history’, Encyclopædia Britannica.
Price, R. and Pinkney, D.H. (1975) ‘Review of The French Revolution of 1830’, The Historical Journal, 18(1), pp. 212–215
Spencer, E.H. (2023) Research Guides: Women in the French Revolution: A Resource Guide: Revolutions in France: 1789, 1830, 1848, guides.loc.gov.
Mansel, Philip (2001). Paris Between Empires. New York: St. Martin’s Press.