A History of Modern Europe, 1792-1878 Part 37

Thus ended a revolution, which, though greeted with enthusiasm at the time, has lost much of its splendour and importance in the later judgment of mankind. In comparison with the Revolution of 1789, the movement which overthrew the Bourbons in 1830 was a mere flutter on the surface. It was unconnected with any great change in men's ideas, and it left no great social or legislative changes behind it. Occasioned by a breach of the const.i.tution on the part of the Executive Government, it resulted mainly in the transfer of administrative power from one set of politicians to another: the alterations which it introduced into the const.i.tution itself were of no great importance. France neither had an absolute Government before 1830, nor had it a popular Government afterwards. Instead of a representative of divine right, attended by guards of n.o.bles and counselled by Jesuit confessors, there was now a citizen-king, who walked about the streets of Paris with an umbrella under his arm and sent his sons to the public schools, but who had at heart as keen a devotion to dynastic interests as either of his predecessors, and a much greater capacity for personal rule. The bonds which kept the entire local administration of France in dependence upon the central authority were not loosened; officialism remained as strong as ever; the franchise was still limited to a mere fraction of the nation. On the other hand, within the administration itself the change wrought by the July Revolution was real and lasting. It extinguished the political power of the clerical interest. Not only were the Bishops removed from the House of Peers, but throughout all departments of Government the influence of the clergy, which had been so strong under Charles X., vanished away. The State took a distinctly secular colour. The system of public education was regulated with such police-like exclusiveness that priests who insisted upon opening schools of their own for Catholic teaching were enabled to figure as champions of civil liberty and of freedom of opinion against despotic power. The n.o.blesse lost whatever political influence it had regained during the Restoration. The few surviving Regicides who had been banished in 1815 were recalled to France, among them the terrorist Barrere, who was once more returned to the a.s.sembly. But the real winners in the Revolution of 1830 were not the men of extremes, but the middle-cla.s.s of France. This was the cla.s.s which Louis Philippe truly represented; and the force which for eighteen years kept Louis Philippe on the throne was the middle-cla.s.s force of the National Guard of Paris. Against this sober, prosaic, unimaginative power there struggled the hot and restless spirit which had been let loose by the overthrow of the Bourbon dynasty, and which, fired at once with the political ideal of a Republic, with dreams of the regeneration of Europe by French armies, and with the growing antagonism between the labouring cla.s.s and the owners of property, threatened for awhile to overthrow the newly-const.i.tuted monarchy in France, and to plunge Europe into war. The return of the tricolor flag, the long-silenced strains of the Republic and the Empire, the sense of victory with which men on the popular side witnessed the expulsion of the dynasty which had been forced upon France after Waterloo, revived that half-romantic military ardour which had undertaken the liberation of Europe in 1792. France appeared once more in the eyes of enthusiasts as the deliverer of nations. The realities of the past epoch of French military aggression, its robberies, its corruption, the execrations of its victims, were forgotten; and when one people after another took up the shout of liberty that was raised in Paris, and insurrections broke out in every quarter of Europe, it was with difficulty that Louis Philippe and the few men of caution about him could prevent the French nation from rus.h.i.+ng into war.

[Affairs in Belgium.]

The State first affected by the events of July was the kingdom of the Netherlands. The creation of this kingdom, in which the Belgian provinces formerly subject to Austria were united with Holland to serve as an effective barrier against French aggression on the north, had been one of Pitt's most cherished schemes, and it had been carried into effect ten years after his death by the Congress of Vienna. National and religious incongruities had been little considered by the statesmen of that day, and at the very moment of union the Catholic bishops of Belgium had protested against a const.i.tution which gave equal toleration to all religions under the rule of a Protestant King. The Belgians had been uninterruptedly united with France for the twenty years preceding 1814; the French language was not only the language of their literature, but the spoken language of the upper cla.s.ses; and though the Flemish portion of the population was nearly related to the Dutch, this element had not then a.s.serted itself with the distinctness and energy which it has since developed. The antagonism between the northern and the southern Netherlands, though not insuperable, was sufficiently great to make a harmonious union between the two countries a work of difficulty, and the Government of The Hague had not taken the right course to conciliate its opponents. The Belgians, though more numerous, were represented by fewer members in the National a.s.sembly than the Dutch. Offices were filled by strangers from Holland; finance was governed by a regard for Dutch interests; and the Dutch language was made the official language for the whole kingdom. But the chief grievances were undoubtedly connected with the claims of the clerical party in Belgium to a monopoly of spiritual power and the exclusive control of education. The one really irreconcilable enemy of the Protestant House of Orange was the Church; and the governing impulse in the conflicts which preceded the dissolution of the kingdom of the Netherlands in 1830 sprang from the same clerical interest which had thrown Belgium into revolt against the Emperor Joseph forty years before. There was again seen the same strange phenomenon of a combination between the Church and a popular or even revolutionary party. For the sake of an alliance against a const.i.tution distasteful to both, the clergy of Belgium accepted the democratic principles of the political Opposition, and the Opposition consented for a while to desist from their attacks upon the Papacy. The contract was faithfully observed on both sides until the object for which it was made was attained. [388]

[Belgian Revolution, August, 1830.]

For some months before the Revolution of July, 1830, the antagonism between the Belgians and their Government had been so violent that no great shock from outside was necessary to produce an outbreak. The convulsions of Paris were at once felt at Brussels, and on the 25th of August the performance of a revolutionary opera in that city gave the signal for the commencement of insurrection. From the capital the rebellion spread from town to town throughout the southern Netherlands. The King summoned the Estates General, and agreed to the establishment of an administration for Belgium separate from that of Holland: but the storm was not allayed; and the appearance of a body of Dutch troops at Brussels was sufficient to dispel the expectation of a peaceful settlement. Barricades were erected; a conflict took place in the streets; and the troops, unable to carry the city by a.s.sault, retired to the outskirts and kept up a desultory attack for several days. They then withdrew, and a provisional government, which was immediately established, declared the independence of Belgium. For a moment there appeared some possibility that the Crown Prince of Holland, who had from the first a.s.sumed the part of mediator, might be accepted as sovereign of the newly-formed State; but the growing violence of the insurrection, the activity of French emissaries and volunteers, and the bombardment of Antwerp by the Dutch soldiers who garrisoned its citadel, made an end of all such hopes. Belgium had won its independence, and its connection with the House of Orange could be re-established only by force of arms.

[France and the Belgian Revolution.]

[France and England.]

The accomplishment of this revolution in one of the smallest Continental States threatened to involve all Europe in war. Though not actually effected under the auspices of a French army, it was undoubtedly to some extent effected in alliance with the French revolutionary party. It broke up a kingdom established by the European Treaties of 1814; and it was so closely connected with the overthrow of the Bourbon monarchy as to be scarcely distinguishable from those cases in which the European Powers had pledged themselves to call their armies into the field. Louis Philippe, however, had been recognised by most of the European Courts as the only possible alternative to a French Republic; and a general disposition existed to second any sincere effort that should be made by him to prevent the French nation from rus.h.i.+ng into war. This was especially the case with England; and it was to England that Louis Philippe turned for co-operation in the settlement of the Belgian question. Louis Philippe himself had every possible reason for desiring to keep the peace. If war broke out, France would be opposed to all the Continental Powers together. Success was in the last degree improbable; it could only be hoped for by a revival of the revolutionary methods and propaganda of 1793; and failure, even for a moment, would certainly cost him his throne, and possibly his life. His interest no less than his temperament made him the strenuous, though concealed, opponent of the war-party in the a.s.sembly; and he found in the old diplomatist who had served alike under the Bourbons, the Republic, and the Empire, an ally thoroughly capable of pursuing his own wise though unpopular policy of friends.h.i.+p and co-operation with England. Talleyrand, while others were crying for a revenge for Waterloo, saw that the first necessity for France was to rescue it from its isolation; and as at the Congress of Vienna he had detached Austria and England from the two northern Courts, so now, before attempting to gain any extension of territory, he sought to make France safe against the hostility of the Continent by allying it with at least one great Power. Russia had become an enemy instead of a friend. The expulsion of the Bourbons had given mortal offence to the Czar Nicholas, and neither Austria nor Prussia was likely to enter into close relations with a Government founded upon revolution.

England alone seemed a possible ally, and it was to England that the French statesman of peace turned in the Belgian crisis. Talleyrand, now nearly eighty years old, came as amba.s.sador to London, where he had served in 1792. He addressed himself to Wellington and to the new King, William IV., a.s.suring them that, under the Government of Louis Philippe, France would not seek to use the Belgian revolution for its own aggrandis.e.m.e.nt; and, with his old aptness in the invention of general principles to suit a particular case, he laid down the principle of non-intervention as one that ought for the future to govern the policy of Europe. His efforts were successful. So complete an understanding was established between France and England on the Belgian question, that all fear of an armed intervention of the Eastern Courts on behalf of the King of Holland, which would have rendered a war with France inevitable, pa.s.sed away. The regulation of Belgian affairs was submitted to a Conference at London. Hostilities were stopped, and the independence of the new kingdom was recognised in principle by the Conference before the end of the year. A Protocol defining the frontiers of Belgium and Holland, and apportioning to each State its share in the national debt, was signed by the representatives of the Powers in January, 1831. [389]

[Leopold elected King, June 4.]

Thus far, a crisis which threatened the peace of Europe had been surmounted with unexpected ease. But the first stage of the difficulty alone was pa.s.sed; it still remained for the Powers to provide a king for Belgium, and to gain the consent of the Dutch and Belgian Governments to the territorial arrangements drawn up for them. The Belgians themselves, with whom a connection with France was popular, were disposed to elect as their sovereign the Duc de Nemours, second son of Louis Philippe; and although Louis Philippe officially refused his sanction to this scheme, which in the eyes of all Europe would have turned Belgium into a French dependency, he privately encouraged its prosecution after a Bonapartist candidate, the son of Eugene Beauharnais, had appeared in the field. The result was that the Duc de Nemours was elected king on the 3rd of February, 1831. Against this appointment the Conference of the Powers at London had already p.r.o.nounced its veto, and the British Government let it be understood that it would resist any such extension of French influence by force. Louis Philippe now finally refused the crown for his son, and, the Bonapartist candidate being withdrawn, the two rival Powers agreed in recommending Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, on the understanding that, if elected King of Belgium, he should marry a daughter of Louis Philippe. The Belgians fell in with the advice given them, and elected Leopold on the 4th of June. He accepted the crown, subject to the condition that the London Conference should modify in favour of Belgium some of the provisions relating to the frontiers and to the finances of the new State which had been laid down by the Conference, and which the Belgian Government had hitherto refused to accept.

[Settlement of the Belgian frontier.]

The difficulty of arranging the Belgian frontier arose princ.i.p.ally from the position of the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg. This territory, though subject to Austria before the French Revolution, had always been treated as distinct from the body of the Austrian Netherlands. When, at the peace of 1814, it was given to the King of Holland in subst.i.tution for the ancient possessions of his family at Na.s.sau, its old character as a member of the German federal union was restored to it, so that the King of Holland in respect of this portion of his dominions became a German prince, and the fortress of Luxemburg, the strongest in Europe after Gibraltar, was liable to occupation by German troops. The population of the Duchy had, however, joined the Belgians in their revolt, and, with the exception of the fortress itself, the territory had pa.s.sed into possession of the Belgian Government. In spite of this actual overthrow of Dutch rule, the Conference of London had attached such preponderating importance to the military and international relations of Luxemburg that it had excluded the whole of the Duchy from the new Belgian State, and declared it still to form part of the dominions of the King of Holland. The first demand of Leopold was for the reversal or modification of this decision, and the Powers so far gave way as to subst.i.tute for the declaration of January a series of articles, in which the question of Luxemburg was reserved for future settlement. The King of Holland had a.s.sented to the January declaration; on hearing of its abandonment, he took up arms, and threw fifty thousand men into Belgium.

Leopold appealed to France for a.s.sistance, and a French army immediately crossed the frontier. The Dutch now withdrew, and the French in their turn were recalled, after Leopold had signed a treaty undertaking to raze the fortifications of five towns on his southern border. The Conference again took up its work, and produced a third scheme, in which the territory of Luxemburg was divided between Holland and Belgium. This was accepted by Belgium, and rejected by Holland. The consequence was that a treaty was made between Leopold and the Powers; and at the beginning of 1832 the kingdom of Belgium, as defined by the third award of the Conference, was recognised by all the Courts, Lord Palmerston on behalf of England resolutely refusing to France even the slightest addition of territory, on the ground that, if annexations once began, all security for the continuance of peace would be at an end. On this wise and firm policy the concert of Europe in the establishment of the Belgian kingdom was successfully maintained; and it only remained for the Western Powers to overcome the resistance of the King of Holland, who still held the citadel of Antwerp and declined to listen either to reason or authority. A French army corps was charged with the task of besieging the citadel; an English fleet blockaded the river Scheldt. After a severe bombardment the citadel surrendered. Hostilities ceased, and negotiations for a definitive settlement recommenced. As, however, the Belgians were in actual occupation of all Luxemburg with the exception of the fortress, they had no motive to accelerate a settlement which would deprive them of part of their existing possessions; on the other hand, the King of Holland held back through mere obstinacy. Thus the provisional state of affairs was prolonged for year after year, and it was not until April, 1839, that the final Treaty of Peace between Belgium and Holland was executed.

[Affairs of Poland.]

The consent of the Eastern Powers to the overthrow of the kingdom of the United Netherlands, and to the establishment of a State based upon a revolutionary movement, would probably have been harder to gain if in the autumn of 1830 Russia had been free to act with all its strength. But at this moment an outbreak took place in Poland, which required the concentration of all the Czar's forces within his own border. The conflict was rather a war of one armed nation against another than the insurrection of a people against its government. Poland--that is to say, the territory which had formerly const.i.tuted the Grand Duchy of Warsaw--had, by the treaties of 1814, been established as a separate kingdom, subject to the Czar of Russia, but not forming part of the Russian Empire. It possessed an administration and an army of its own, and the meetings of its Diet gave to it a species of parliamentary government to which there was nothing a.n.a.logous within Russia proper. During the reign of Alexander the const.i.tutional system of Poland had, on the whole, been respected; and although the real supremacy of an absolute monarch at St. Petersburg had caused the Diet to act as a body in opposition to the Russian Government, the personal connection existing between Alexander and the Poles had prevented any overt rebellion during his own life-time. But with the accession of Nicholas all such individual sympathy pa.s.sed away, and the hard realities of the actual relation between Poland and the Court of Russia came into full view. In the conspiracies of 1825 a great number of Poles were implicated. Eight of these persons, after a preliminary inquiry, were placed on trial before the Senate at Warsaw, which, in spite of strong evidence of their guilt, acquitted them. Pending the decision, Nicholas declined to convoke the Diet: he also stationed Russian troops in Poland, and violated the const.i.tution by placing Russians in all branches of the administration. Even without these grievances the hostility of the ma.s.s of the Polish n.o.blesse to Russia would probably have led sooner or later to insurrection. The peasantry, ignorant and degraded, were but instruments in the hands of their territorial masters. In so far as Poland had rights of self-government, these rights belonged almost exclusively to the n.o.bles, or landed proprietors, a cla.s.s so numerous that they have usually been mistaken in Western Europe for the Polish nation itself. The so-called emanc.i.p.ation of the serfs, effected by Napoleon after wresting the Grand Duchy of Warsaw from Prussia in 1807, had done little for the ma.s.s of the population; for, while abolis.h.i.+ng the legal condition of servitude, Napoleon had given the peasant no vestige of proprietors.h.i.+p in his holding, and had consequently left him as much at the mercy of his landlord as he was before. The name of freedom appears in fact to have worked actual injury to the peasant; for in the enjoyment of a pretended power of free contract he was left without that protection of the officers of State which, under the Prussian regime from 1795 to 1807, had s.h.i.+elded him from the tyranny of his lord. It has been the fatal, the irremediable bane of Poland that its n.o.blesse, until too late, saw no country, no right, no law, outside itself. The very measures of interference on the part of the Czar which this caste resented as unconst.i.tutional were in part directed against the abuse of its own privileges; and although in 1830 a section of the n.o.bles had learnt the secret of their country's fall, and were prepared to give the serf the real emanc.i.p.ation of proprietors.h.i.+p, no universal impulse worked in this direction, nor could the wrong of ages be undone in the tumult of war and revolution.

[Insurrection at Warsaw, Nov. 29.]

A sharp distinction existed between the narrow circle of the highest aristocracy of Poland and the ma.s.s of the poor and warlike n.o.blesse. The former, represented by men like Czartoryski, the friend of Alexander I. and ex-Minister of Russia, understood the hopelessness of any immediate struggle with the superior power, and advocated the politic development of such national inst.i.tutions as were given to Poland by the const.i.tution of 1815, inst.i.tutions which were certainly sufficient to preserve Poland from absorption by Russia, and to keep alive the idea of the ultimate establishment of its independence. It was among the lesser n.o.bility, among the subordinate officers of the army and the population of Warsaw itself, who jointly formed the so-called democratic party, that the spirit of revolt was strongest. Plans for an outbreak had been made during the Turkish war of 1828; but unhappily this opportunity, which might have been used with fatal effect against Russia, was neglected, and it was left for the French Revolution of 1830 to kindle an untimely and ineffective flame.

The memory of Napoleon's campaigns and the wild voices of French democracy filled the patriots at Warsaw with vain hopes of a military union with western Liberalism, and overpowered the counsels of men who understood the state of Europe better. Revolt broke out on the 29th of November, 1830. The Polish regiments in Warsaw joined the insurrection, and the Russian troops, under the Grand Duke Constantine, withdrew from the capital, where their leader had narrowly escaped with his life. [390]

[Attempted negotiation with the Czar.]

The Government of Poland had up to this time been in the hands of a Council nominated by the Czar as King of Poland, and controlled by instructions from a secretary at St. Petersburg. The chief of the Council was Lubecki, a Pole devoted to the Emperor Nicholas. On the victory of the insurrection at Warsaw, the Council was dissolved and a provisional Government installed.

Though the revolt was the work of the so-called democratic party, the influence of the old governing families of the highest aristocracy was still so great that power was by common consent placed in their hands.

Czartoryski became president, and the policy adopted by himself and his colleagues was that of friendly negotiation with Russia. The insurrection of November was treated not as the beginning of a national revolt, but as a mere disturbance occasioned by unconst.i.tutional acts of the Government. So little did the committee understand the character of the Emperor Nicholas, as to imagine that after the expulsion of his soldiers and the overthrow of his Ministers at Warsaw he would peaceably make the concessions required of him, and undertake for the future faithfully to observe the Polish const.i.tution. Lubecki and a second official were sent to St. Petersburg to present these demands, and further (though this was not seriously intended) to ask that the const.i.tution should be introduced into all the Russian provinces which had once formed part of the Polish State. The reception given to the envoys at the frontier was of an ominous character. They were required to describe themselves as officers about to present a report to the Czar, inasmuch as no representatives of rebels in arms could be received into Russia. Lubecki appears now to have shaken the dust of Poland off his feet; his colleague pursued his mission, and was admitted to the Czar's presence. Nicholas, while expressing himself in language of injured tenderness, and disclaiming all desire to punish the innocent with the guilty, let it be understood that Poland had but two alternatives, unconditional submission or annihilation. The messenger who in the meanwhile carried back to Warsaw the first despatches of the envoy reported that the roads were already filled with Russian regiments moving on their prey.

[Diebitsch invades Poland, Feb. 1831.]

Six weeks of precious time were lost through the illusion of the Polish Government that an accommodation with the Emperor Nicholas was possible.

Had the insurrection at Warsaw been instantly followed by a general levy and the invasion of Lithuania, the resources of this large province might possibly have been thrown into the scale against Russia. Though the ma.s.s of the Lithuanian population, in spite or several centuries of union with Poland, had never been a.s.similated to the dominant race, and remained in language and creed more nearly allied to the Russians than the Poles, the n.o.bles formed an integral part of the Polish nation, and possessed sufficient power over their serfs to drive them into the field to fight for they knew not what. The Russian garrisons in Lithuania were not strong, and might easily have been overpowered by a sudden attack. When once the population of Warsaw had risen in arms against Nicholas, the only possibility of success lay in the extension of the revolt over the whole of the semi-Polish provinces, and in a general call to arms. But beside other considerations which disinclined the higher aristocracy at Warsaw to extreme measures, they were influenced by a belief that the Powers of Europe might intervene on behalf of the const.i.tution of the Polish kingdom as established by the treaty of Vienna; while, if the struggle pa.s.sed beyond the borders of that kingdom, it would become a revolutionary movement to which no Court could lend its support. It was not until the envoy returned from St. Petersburg bearing the answer of the Emperor Nicholas that the democratic party carried all before it, and all hopes of a peaceful compromise vanished away. The Diet then pa.s.sed a resolution declaring that the House of Romanoff had forfeited the Polish crown, and preparations began for a struggle for life or death with Russia. But the first moments when Russia stood unguarded and unready had been lost beyond recall. Troops had thronged westwards into Lithuania; the garrisons in the fortresses had been raised to their full strength; and in February, 1831, Diebitsch took up the offensive, and crossed the Polish frontier with a hundred and twenty thousand men.

[Campaign in Poland, 1831.]

[Capture of Warsaw, Sept. 8, 1831.]

The Polish army, though far inferior in numbers to the enemy which it had to meet, was no contemptible foe. Among its officers there were many who had served in Napoleon's campaigns; it possessed, however, no general habituated to independent command; and the spirit of insubordination and self-will, which had wrought so much ruin in Poland, was still ready to break out when defeat had impaired the authority of the nominal chiefs. In the first encounters the advancing Russian army was gallantly met; and, although the Poles were forced to fall back upon Warsaw, the losses sustained by Diebitsch were so serious that he had to stay his operations and to wait for reinforcements. In March the Poles took up the offensive and surprised several isolated divisions of the enemy; their general, however, failed to push his advantages with the necessary energy and swiftness; the junction of the Russians was at length effected, and on the 26th of May the Poles were defeated after obstinate resistance in a pitched battle at Ostrolenka. Cholera now broke out in the Russian camp. Both Diebitsch and the Grand Duke Constantine were carried off in the midst of the campaign, and some months more were added to the struggle of Poland, hopeless as this had now become. Incursions were made into Lithuania and Podolia, but without result. Paskiewitch, the conqueror of Kars, was called up to take the post left vacant by the death of his rival. New ma.s.ses of Russian troops came in place of those who had perished in battle and in the hospitals; and while the Governments of Western Europe lifted no hand on behalf of Polish independence, Prussia, alarmed lest the revolt should spread into its own Polish provinces, a.s.sisted the operations of the Russian general by supplying stores and munition of war. Blow after blow fell upon the Polish cause. Warsaw itself became the prey of disorder, intrigue, and treachery; and at length the Russian army made its entrance into the capital, and the last soldiers of Poland laid down their arms, or crossed into Prussian or Austrian territory. The revolt had been rashly and unwisely begun: its results were fatal and lamentable. The const.i.tution of Poland was abolished; it ceased to be a separate kingdom, and became a province of the Russian Empire. Its defenders were exiles over the face of Europe or forgotten in Siberia. All that might have been won by the gradual development of its const.i.tutional liberties without breach with the Czar's sovereignty was sacrificed. The future of Poland, like that of Russia itself, now depended on the enlightenment and courage of the Imperial Government, and on that alone. The very existence of a Polish nationality and language seemed for a while to be threatened by the measures of repression that followed the victory of 1831: and if it be true that Russian autocracy has at length done for the Polish peasants what their native masters during centuries of ascendency refused to do, this emanc.i.p.ation would probably not have come the later for the preservation of some relics of political independence, nor would it have had the less value if unaccompanied by the proscription of so great a part of that cla.s.s which had once been held to const.i.tute the Polish nation. [391]

[Insurrection in the Papal States, Feb., 1831.]

During the conflict on the banks of the Vistula, the att.i.tude of the Austrian Government had been one of watchful neutrality. Its own Polish territory was not seriously menaced with disturbance, for in a great part of Galicia the population, being of Ruthenian stock and belonging to the Greek Church, had nothing in common with the Polish and Catholic n.o.blesse of their province, and looked back upon the days of Polish dominion as a time of suffering and wrong. Austria's danger in any period of European convulsion lay as yet rather on the side of Italy than on the East, and the vigour of its policy in that quarter contrasted with the equanimity with which it watched the struggle of its Slavic neighbours. Since the suppression of the Neapolitan const.i.tutional movement in 1821, the Carbonari and other secret societies of Italy had lost nothing of their activity. Their head-quarters had been removed from Southern Italy to the Papal States, and the numerous Italian exiles in France and elsewhere kept up a busy communication at once with French revolutionary leaders like Lafayette and with the enemies of the established governments in Italy itself. The death of Pope Pius VIII., on November 30, 1830, and the consequent paralysis of authority within the Ecclesiastical States, came at an opportune moment; a.s.surances of support arrived from Paris; and the Italian leaders resolved upon a general insurrection throughout the minor Princ.i.p.alities on the 5th of February, 1831. Antic.i.p.ating the signal, Menotti, chief of a band of patriots at Modena, who appears to have been lured on by the Grand Duke himself, a.s.sembled his partisans on February 3.

He was overpowered and imprisoned; but the outbreak of the insurrection in Bologna, and its rapid extension over the northern part of the Papal States, soon caused the Grand Duke to fly to Austrian territory, carrying his prisoner Menotti with him, whom he subsequently put to death. The new Pope, Gregory XVI., had scarcely been elected when the report reached him that Bologna had declared the temporal power of the Papacy to be at an end.

Uncertain of the character of the revolt, he despatched Cardinal Benvenuti northwards, to employ conciliation or force as occasion might require. The Legate fell into the hands of the insurgents; the revolt spread southwards; and Gregory, now hopeless of subduing it by the forces at his own command, called upon Austria for a.s.sistance. [392]

[Att.i.tude of France.]

The principle which, since the Revolution of July, the government of France had repeatedly laid down as the future basis of European politics was that of non-intervention. It had disclaimed any purpose of interfering with the affairs of its neighbours, and had required in return that no foreign intervention should take place in districts which, like Belgium and Savoy, adjoined its own frontier. But there existed no real unity of purpose in the councils of Louis Philippe. The Ministry had one voice for the representatives of foreign powers, another for the Chamber of Deputies, and another for Lafayette and the bands of exiles and conspirators who were under his protection. The head of the government at the beginning of 1831 was Laffitte, a weak politician, dominated by revolutionary sympathies and phrases, but incapable of any sustained or resolute action, and equally incapable of resisting Louis Philippe after the King had concluded his performance of popular leader, and a.s.sumed his real character as the wary and self-seeking chief of a reigning house. Whether the actual course of French policy would be governed by the pa.s.sions of the streets or by the timorousness of Louis Philippe was from day to day a matter of conjecture.

The official answer given to the inquiries of the Austrian amba.s.sador as to the intentions of France in case of an Austrian intervention in Italy was, that such intervention might be tolerated in Parma and Modena, which belonged to sovereigns immediately connected with the Hapsburgs, but that if it was extended to the Papal States war with France would be probable, and if extended to Piedmont, certain. On this reply Metternich, who saw Austria's own dominion in Italy once more menaced by the success of an insurrectionary movement, had to form his decision. He could count on the support of Russia in case of war; he knew well the fears of Louis Philippe, and knew that he could work on these fears both by pointing to the presence of the young Louis Bonaparte and his brother with the Italian insurgents as evidence of the Bonapartist character of the movement, and by hinting that in the last resort he might himself let loose upon France Napoleon's son, the Duke of Reichstadt. now growing to manhood at Vienna, before whom Louis Philippe's throne would have collapsed as speedily as that of Louis XVIII.

in 1814. Where weakness existed, Metternich was quick to divine it and to take advantage of it. He rightly gauged Louis Philippe. Taking at their true value the threats of the French Government, he declared that it was better for Austria to fall, if necessary, by war than by revolution; and, resolving at all hazards to suppress the Roman insurrection, he gave orders to the Austrian troops to enter the Papal States.

[Austrians suppress Roman revolt, March, 1831.]

[Casimir Perier, March, 1831.]

The military resistance which the insurgents could offer to the advance of the Pope's Austrian deliverers was insignificant, and order was soon restored. But all Europe expected the outbreak of war between Austria and France. The French amba.s.sador at Constantinople had gone so far as to offer the Sultan an offensive and defensive alliance, and to urge him to make preparations for an attack upon both Austria and Russia on their southern frontiers. A despatch from the amba.s.sador reached Paris describing the warlike overtures he had made to the Porte. Louis Philippe saw that if this despatch reached the hands of Laffitte and the war party in the Council of Ministers the preservation of peace would be almost impossible. In concert with Sebastiani, the Foreign Minister, he concealed the despatch from Laffitte. The Premier discovered the trick that had been played upon him, and tendered his resignation. It was gladly accepted by Louis Philippe.

Laffitte quitted office, begging pardon of G.o.d and man for the part that he had taken in raising Louis Philippe to the throne. His successor was Casimir Perier, a man of very different mould; resolute, clear-headed, and immovably true to his word; a const.i.tutional statesman of the strictest type, intolerant of any species of disorder, and a despiser of popular movements, but equally proof against royal intrigues, and as keen to maintain the const.i.tutional system of France against the Court on one side and the populace on the other as he was to earn for France the respect of foreign powers by the abandonment of a policy of adventure, and the steady adherence to the principles of international obligation which he had laid down. Under his firm hand the intrigues of the French Government with foreign revolutionists ceased; it was felt throughout Europe that peace was still possible, and that if war was undertaken by France it would be undertaken only under conditions which would make any moral union of all the great Powers against France impossible. The Austrian expedition into the Papal States had already begun, and the revolutionary Government had been suppressed; the most therefore that Casimir Perier could demand was that the evacuation of the occupied territory should take place as soon as possible, and that Austria should add its voice to that of the other Powers in urging the Papal Government to reform its abuses. Both demands were granted. For the first time Austria appeared as the advocate of something like a const.i.tutional system. A Conference held at Rome agreed upon a scheme of reforms to be recommended to the Pope; the prospects of peace grew daily fairer; and in July, 1831, the last Austrian soldiers quitted the Ecclesiastical States. [393]

[Second Austrian intervention, Jan., 1832.]

[French occupy Ancona, February, 1832.]

It now remained to be seen whether Pope Gregory and his cardinals had the intelligence and good-will necessary for carrying out the reforms on the promise of which France had abstained from active intervention. If any such hopes existed they were doomed to speedy disappointment. The apparatus of priestly maladministration was restored in all its ancient deformity. An amnesty which had been promised by the Legate Benvenuti was disregarded, and the Pope set himself to strengthen his authority by enlisting new bands of ruffians and adventurers under the standard of St. Peter. Again insurrection broke out, and again at the Pope's request the Austrians crossed the frontier (January, 1832). Though their appearance was fatal to the cause of liberty, they were actually welcomed as protectors in towns which had been exposed to the tender mercies of the Papal condottieri.

There was no disorder, no severity, where the Austrian commandants held sway; but their mere presence in central Italy was a threat to European peace; and Casimir Perier was not the man to permit Austria to dominate in Italy at its will. Without waiting for negotiations, he despatched a French force to Ancona, and seized this town before the Austrians could approach it. The rival Powers were now face to face in Italy; but Perier had no intention of forcing on war if his opponent was still willing to keep the peace. Austria accepted the situation, and made no attempt to expel the French from the position they had seized. Casimir Perier, now on his death-bed, defended the step that he had taken against the remonstrances of amba.s.sadors and against the protests of the Pope, and declared the presence of the French at Ancona to be no incentive to rebellion, but the mere a.s.sertion of the rights of a Power which had as good a claim to be in central Italy as Austria itself. Had his life been prolonged, he would probably have insisted upon the execution of the reforms which the Powers had urged upon the Papal government, and have made the occupation of Ancona an effectual means for reaching this end. But with his death the wrongs of the Italians themselves and the question of a reformed government in the Papal States gradually pa.s.sed out of sight. France and Austria jealously watched one another on the debatable land; the occupation became a mere incident of the balance of power, and was prolonged for year after year, until, in 1838, the Austrians having finally withdrawn all their troops, the French peacefully handed over the citadel of Ancona to the Holy See.

[Prussia in 1830.]

[The Zollverein, 1828-1836.]

The arena in which we have next to follow the effects of the July Revolution, in action and counter-action, is Germany. It has been seen that in the southern German States an element of representative government, if weak, yet not wholly ineffective, had come into being soon after 1815, and had survived the reactionary measures initiated by the conference of Ministers at Carlsbad. In Prussia the promises of King Frederick William to his people had never been fulfilled. Years had pa.s.sed since exaggerated rumours of conspiracy had served as an excuse for withholding the Const.i.tution. Hardenberg had long been dead; the foreign policy of the country had taken a freer tone; the rigours of the police-system had departed; but the nation remained as completely excluded from any share in the government as it had been before Napoleon's fall. It had in fact become clear that during the lifetime of King Frederick William things must be allowed to remain in their existing condition; and the affection of the people for their sovereign, who had been so long and so closely united with Prussia in its sufferings and in its glories, caused a general willingness to postpone the demand for const.i.tutional reform until the succeeding reign. The substantial merits of the administration might moreover have reconciled a less submissive people than the Prussians to the absolute government under which they lived. Under a wise and enlightened financial policy the country was becoming visibly richer. Obstacles to commercial development were removed, communications opened; and finally, by a series of treaties with the neighbouring German States, the foundations were laid for that Customs-Union which, under the name of the Zollverein, ultimately embraced almost the whole of non-Austrian Germany. As one Princ.i.p.ality after another attached itself to the Prussian system, the products of the various regions of Germany, hitherto blocked by the frontier dues of each petty State, moved freely through the land, while the costs attending the taxation of foreign imports, now concentrated upon the external line of frontier, were enormously diminished. Patient, sagacious, and even liberal in its negotiations with its weaker neighbours, Prussia silently connected with itself through the ties of financial union States which had hitherto looked to Austria as their natural head. The semblance of political union was carefully avoided, but the germs of political union were nevertheless present in the growing community of material interests. The reputation of the Prussian Government, no less than the welfare of the Prussian people, was advanced by each successive step in the extension of the Zollverein; and although the earlier stages alone had been pa.s.sed in the years before 1830, enough had already been done to affect public opinion; and the general sense of material progress combined with other influences to close Prussia to the revolutionary tendencies of that year.

[Insurrections in Brunswick and Ca.s.sel.]

[Const.i.tutions in Hanover and Saxony, 1830-1833.]

There were, however, other States in northern Germany which had all the defects of Prussian autocracy without any of its redeeming qualities. In Brunswick and in Hesse Ca.s.sel despotism existed in its most contemptible form; the violence of a half-crazy youth in the one case, and the caprices of an obstinate dotard in the other, rendering authority a mere nuisance to those who were subject to it. Here accordingly revolution broke out. The threatened princes had made themselves too generally obnoxious or ridiculous for any hand to be raised in their defence. Their disappearance excited no more than the inevitable lament from Metternich; and in both States systems of representative government were introduced by their successors. In Hanover and in Saxony agitation also began in favour of Parliamentary rule. The disturbance that arose was not of a serious character, and it was met by the Courts in a conciliatory spirit.

Const.i.tutions were granted, the liberty of the Press extended, and trial by jury established. On the whole, the movement of 1830, as it affected northern Germany, was rationally directed and salutary in its results.

Changes of real value were accomplished with a sparing employment of revolutionary means, and, in the more important cases, through the friendly co-operation of the sovereigns with their subjects. It was not the fault of those who had asked for the same degree of liberty in northern Germany which the south already possessed, that Germany at large again experienced the miseries of reaction and repression which had afflicted it ten years before.

[Movement in the Palatinate.]

Like Belgium and the Rhenish Provinces, the Bavarian Palatinate had for twenty years been incorporated with France. Its inhabitants had grown accustomed to the French law and French inst.i.tutions, and had caught something of the political animation which returned to France after Napoleon's fall. Accordingly when the government of Munich, alarmed by the July Revolution, showed an inclination towards repressive measures, the Palatinate, severed from the rest of the Bavarian monarchy and in immediate contact with France, became the focus of a revolutionary agitation. The Press had already attained some activity and some influence in this province; and although the leaders of the party of progress were still to a great extent Professors, they had so far advanced upon the patriots of 1818 as to understand that the liberation of the German people was not to be effected by the lecturers and the scholars of the Universities. The design had been formed of enlisting all cla.s.ses of the public on the side of reform, both by the dissemination of political literature and by the establishment of societies not limited, as in 1818, to academic circles, but embracing traders as well as soldiers and professional men. Even the peasant was to be reached and instructed in his interests as a citizen. It was thought that much might be effected by a.s.sociating together all the Oppositions in the numerous German Parliaments; but a more striking feature of the revolutionary movement which began in the Palatinate, and one strongly distinguis.h.i.+ng it from the earlier agitation of Jena and Erfurt, was its cosmopolitan character. France in its triumph and Poland in its death-struggle excited equal interest and sympathy. In each the cause of European liberty appeared to be at stake. The Polish banner was saluted in the Palatinate by the side of that of united Germany; and from that time forward in almost every revolutionary movement of Europe, down to the insurrection of the Commune of Paris in 1871, Polish exiles have been active both in the organisation of revolt and in the field.

[Reaction in Germany.]

Until the fall of Warsaw, in September, 1831, the German governments, uncertain of the course which events might take in Europe, had shown a certain willingness to meet the complaints of their subjects, and had in especial relaxed the supervision exercised over the press. The fall of Warsaw, which quieted so many alarms, and made the Emperor Nicholas once more a power outside his own dominions, inaugurated a period of reaction in Germany. The Diet began the campaign against democracy by suppressing various liberal newspapers, and amongst them the princ.i.p.al journal of the Palatinate. It was against this movement of regression that the agitation in the Palatinate and elsewhere was now directed. A festival, or demonstration, was held at the Castle of Hambach, near Zweibrucken, at which a body of enthusiasts called upon the German people to unite against their oppressors, and some even urged an immediate appeal to arms (May 27, 1832). Similar meetings, though on a smaller scale, were held in other parts of Germany. Wild words abounded, and the connection of the German revolutionists with that body of opponents of all established governments which had its council-chamber at Paris and its head in Lafayette was openly avowed. Weak and insignificant as the German demagogues were, their extravagance gave to Metternich and to the Diet sufficient pretext for revising the reactionary measures of 1819. Once more the subordination of all representative bodies to the sovereign's authority was laid down by the Diet as a binding principle for every German state. The refusal of taxes by any legislature was declared to be an act of rebellion which would be met by the armed intervention of the central Powers. All political meetings and a.s.sociations were forbidden; the Press was silenced; the introduction of German books printed abroad was prohibited, and the Universities were again placed under the watch of the police (July, 1832). [394]