THE JULY REVOLUTION and the PROVINCIAL PRESS Although

APPENDIX A THE JULY REVOLUTION AND THE PROVINCIAL PRESS Although its indirect influences reached as far as Poland and Russia, the Revolution of 1830 has been aptly called "The Paris Revolution". Three days of combat and three more of political maneuvering in Paris had established the new regime as an accomplished fact before any major counterrevolution could have flared up in the provinces. It is of some importance, however, to record the reactions of smaller cities to the news of events in the capital, especially in those areas where political journalism had been active. In most of the provincial capitals, as well as in lesser towns, the National Guard was a more decisive agency of both revolution and order than it had been in Paris. Liberal newspaper editors in the provinces, victims of Polignac's judicial assaults, opposed the press edict in several cases by physical resistance. Some commanders in garrisoned towns were torn between their oaths to the King and the opposition of townspeople and even their own troops. A few prefects tried to assume dictatorial powers and drew the open hostility of citizens. News of the decrees and the Revolution arrived almost simultaneously within three days of the events in most parts of the nation. Reports came by private letters from Paris, as well as from daily dispatch riders who rode a general circuit of France; couriers visiting the same points on successive days. The telegraphe, or hill-to-hill semaphore system, was also employed. In the north and the regions surrounding Paris, the reception of the edicts caused wild disturbances and excitement, but little shedding of blood. In Rambouillet, of course, all was serene. The forest and the Chateau were held by the Royal Guard and the jleur-de-lys waved overhead. At Versailles, the citizens rose, crowds filled the streets, and the local garrison troops retired peacefully to their barracks. 1 Meudon was placed under the National Guard, whose commandant sent to Lafayette for instruc- 1 Joumal du Commerce, 30 July, 1830. APPENDICES 261 tions. 2 Tours experienced no great unrest. Royal troops stationed there· adopted the tricolor on August I, 3 while in Chartres. the National Guard assumed the direction of affairs. 4 Le Havre responded to the emergency with tremendous enthusiasm. The National Guard seized jurisdiction of the seaport and organized for a march into Paris. A great number of residents, joined by a crowd of celebrating American sailors on liberty, swelled the exodus to the capital. An atmosphere of great levity. probably with delays for refreshment, accompanied the journey of this delegation. 5 The populace of Rouen remained calm, but the Journal, the liberal newspaper, pledged Paris the aid of the city's 40,000 able-bodied men. The royalist city council voted to retain the Bourbon flag, but many citizens !lew the tricolor. When the news of the Paris victory reached them. the council members agreed to hoist the national flag, but they draped the royal !lag in mourning. 6 The textile city of Lille was closer to the Brussels revolution of 1830 than to that of Paris. When the decrees arrived. the two royal prosecutors of the city resigned rather than pursue indictments of editors who published in contravention of the press decree. Garrison troops fraternized with the people and there was little violence, although a colonel of Curassiers, who threatened to charge into a crowd of civilians, was nearly stoned to death. 7 In Calais, offices and workshops closed. The local general, commanding the port, polled his aides on the question of loyalty - they voted unanimously to join the revolution. 8 Normandy had been one of the most politically disturbed regions of France under Charles X. In Caen, the editor of the Pilote de Calvados watched the reports from Paris with pleasure. Since 1824. this paper had been especially friendly to the Duke of Orleans, because he had employed, as librarian of the Palais Royal, a local citizen who had been disgraced by Louis XVIII. The Pilote's motto: "Steer your boat with prudence", was taken from an opera about the revolt of Naples in 1647. During the recent elections, Caen had been under heavy royalist pressure, but had voted Left, in tune with the editorials of the Pilote. Two regiments had been dispatched to the city by Polignac, ostensibly to prevent arson activity, but the Minister Guernon-Ranville, a citizen of Caen, had in this case, protested the use of troops. On July 28, the Pilote printed the edicts without comment, and was 2 Ibid. 3 Le Moniteur, 2 August, 1830. 4 Ibid., 4 August, 1830. 5 Ibid., 5 August, 1830. 6 Ibid.; Journal du Commerce, 30 July, 1830. 7 Le Moniteur, 2, 3 August, 1830. 8 Ibid., 4 August, 1830. 262 APPENDICES not suppressed for publishing without authorization. On the thirtieth, a crowd of several hundred gathered in the Place Royale shouting, A bas Charles X! Some one daubed the following words on the statue of the Sun-King, Louis XIV: L'etat, c'est moil Revocation de !'edit de Nantes! Les Dragon nades!9 In the west, the proud cities of Nantes and Angers faced the July Revolution in different ways. In Nantes, the Prefect was baron de Vaussay, an extreme Ultra, while the Mayor was an honest, though reactionary, royalist, and the city council was composed, of Ultras. Military headquarters of the western division was located in Nantes under comte Despinois, another Ultra. The local opposition journal was the Ami de Ia Charte, whose editor had received a six month jail term and a 2000 franc fine only a few days before the July decrees were issued. His crime had been to print a republican testimonial and an anticlerical editorial. Public sentiment was not with the government because of this conviction and because of economic depression. In this city, the unemployment rate was 17 percent and the average laborer earned two francs for a twelve to fifteen hour working day,I 0 comparable to the worst wages in Paris. The edicts were first announced to a theatre audience in Nantes on the evening of July 28. An uprising spread from the theatre to the town and soon, sixteen persons had been arrested and several gendarmes wounded. On the thirtieth, the Mayor ordered all cafes and shops closed in the evening. A mob stole six hundred inferior muskets from an armorer and patrolled menacingly in the central district. One group of 150 men attacked the barracks of the Visitation and were surprised by 120 troops of the line. A terrible fight ensued: Of the demonstrators, ten were killed and thirty-nine wounded, while the army, in this sudden fight, lost six dead and thirteen injured. The city, which always had more than its share of slaughter, was frozen with horror. The heartbroken Prefect released all his prisoners and General Despinois left on a futile mission of Ultra honor to raise the peasants in the Vendee. 11 The Nantais martyrs were given an impressive funeral: Their revolution had been "won", but by a tragic blunder. It was revealed that the royal soldiers only fired on the insurgents because the commandant had assured them reinforcements were being sent from Rennes. 12 Nearby Angers, also a royalist stronghold, lived through the July Days in 9 Henri Prentout, "Caen en 1830", Revue d'Histoire Moderne, VI (1931), 114. 10 Giraud-Mangin, "Nantes in 1830 et les journees de Juillet", Revue d'Histoire Moderne, VI (1931), 459. 11 Ibid. 12 Le Moniteur, 4 August, 1830. APPENDICES 263 near-tranquillity, as contrasted with the bloody day of fighting in Nantes. When the edicts were read in Angers on the afternoon of Wednesday, the twenty-eighth, the Prefect immediately closed the office and press of the Journal de Maine et Loire, for its adherence to constitutional principles. For two days the restless people lived on sporadic rumors from Paris. On August I, the Mayor allowed the formation of the National Guard. The Ultra gendarme commander was seized by the mob but the order-conscious Guard took him into protective custoday. The Prefect at last fled and the Mayor set up a provisional government, while the nearby castle of Saumur was stocked with 1500 guns as a precaution against a new Chouannerie. 13 It was clear that, all over France, both the Ultras and Left had overestimated the possibility of peasant risings. The south and south-central regions received the revolution as a fait accompli since the July edicts were not disseminated there until several days after their issuance. There were, however, a few revolutionary episodes. Throughout Saturday, the great industrial and republican center of Lyon was under a revolutionary anarchy. The previous day, manufacturers had ordered a general lockout, following the example of nearby Grenoble. The National Guard of Lyon organized a force of 8000 armed men in a remarkably short time and the line troops and chasseurs, sent by the Prefect to quell the demonstrations, wisely surrendered to the Guard. 14 In France's second city, the National Guard successfully prevented violence from both Left and Right. The cities of Clermont-Ferrand, Toulouse, Limoges, and Avignon, were shaken only slightly by the eruption at Paris. In Limoges, the two largest porcelain manufacturers proclaimed the lockout and royal prosecutors refused to enforce the decrees against the press. 15 In Toulouse and Clermont, the National Guard moved so swiftly that the soldiers of the King were completely surprised and adopted the tricolor of their compatriots. 16 The A vignonese had suffered greatly in the "White Terror" of 1815, but their actions in 1830 bore no spirit of vengeance.

Load more