France: Royalism, Reform, and the Birth of Modern France

Royalism, Reform, and the Birth of Modern France

The French Revolution and Napoleon established a uniform, modern administrative system, gave land tenure to the peasants, and left to the bourgeoisie a political heritage that they quickly reclaimed. The Congress of Vienna (1814–15; see Vienna, Congress of) restored the borders of 1790 and recognized Louis XVIII as France's legitimate sovereign. The king granted a moderately liberal charter but took France into the reactionary Holy Alliance. His successor, Charles X (1824–30), was the champion of the ultraroyalists.

Charles's efforts to restore absolutism led to the July Revolution of 1830, which enthroned Louis Philippe. The July Monarchy was a frank plutocracy run by the upper bourgeoisie. Under the “citizen king,” France conquered Algeria (1830–38). The regime became increasingly autocratic, disregarding the plight of the new urban proletariat. Brought low by the unpopularity of the ministry of Guizot and by economic depression (1846–47), it fell in the February Revolution of 1848. The revolution was at first distinctly radical, but the bourgeoisie triumphed in the June Days.

In Dec., 1848, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, nephew of Napoleon I, was elected president of the Second Republic. In 1852, by a coup, he extended his term and then proclaimed himself emperor as Napoleon III. He emulated his uncle's autocratic regime at home and carried on a confused foreign policy with unrewarding wars (in Russia, Italy, and Mexico). The Second Empire was, however, a period of colonial expansion (in Senegal and Indochina) and of material prosperity. In 1869, Napoleon instituted a more liberal regime with a parliamentary government. But the empire ended disastrously in the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71), in which Alsace and Lorraine were lost to Germany until 1918.

The Third Republic (1870–1940) was proclaimed after Napoleon III was captured by the Prussians. After the bloody suppression of the Commune of Paris (1871) by the right-wing provisional government under Adolphe Thiers, Marshal MacMahon, a royalist sympathizer, was elected president (1873). But for the intransigence of Henri, comte de Chambord (the legitimist pretender), France might again have become a monarchy. A republican constitution was finally adopted in 1875. As the various parties combined, separated, and recombined into political blocs, new cabinets followed in quick succession.

The 1880s witnessed the expansion of railroads and public education; the latter revived the age-old quarrel in France between church and state. In 1905, after other issues had been added to the dispute, church and state were separated by law. After the rapid rise and fall (1888–89) of General Boulanger, the stability of France was once more shaken by the Dreyfus Affair (begun 1894), which discredited monarchists and reactionaries and brought anticlerical, moderate leftists to power. Socialism, led by Guesde and Jaurès, was now a major political force but was weakened by internal dissensions. In foreign policy the years before 1914 were marked by continued colonial expansion in Africa (Morocco, Tunisia, West Africa, Madagascar) and Indochina, bringing conflict with Great Britain (see Fashoda Incident) and with Germany (see Morocco). Eventually, France, England, and Russia allied themselves to balance the German-Austrian-Italian combination (see Triple Alliance and Triple Entente).

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