Part II From June 1848 to 13 June 1849¶
Core Argument¶
Part II: From June 1848 to 13 June 1849¶
Following the June insurrection, the bourgeois republican faction of the National seized exclusive control of the state. Cavaignac became executive head, Marrast president of the Constituent Assembly. The Assembly promptly repealed the ten-hour law, reintroduced imprisonment for debt, restricted the press and association, and excluded illiterates from juries. It set up a commission to prosecute Louis Blanc, Ledru-Rollin, and Caussidière for the February Revolution. The petty bourgeoisie, who had fought for property in June, were immediately ruined: the Assembly rejected amicable debt settlements, handing shopkeepers as debtors over to the big bourgeoisie as creditors. Mass bankruptcy followed. The new constitution replaced hereditary monarchy with an elective presidency and a single sovereign Assembly, but maintained the state of siege. It banned the progressive tax and the right to work, substituting the right to public relief. By refusing concessions to the petty bourgeoisie and peasantry while withdrawing political guarantees from the bourgeoisie, the constitution forced bourgeois rule into democratic conditions that threatened its own foundations.
The bourgeois republicans, having ceased to be indispensable after June, fell from a party to a coterie. They treated the constitution as an intrigue to entrench their own rule. Yet 10 December 1848 was the day of the peasant insurrection: peasants voted for Napoleon as a programme against taxes and the republic of the rich. The proletariat voted Napoleon to depose Cavaignac; the petty bourgeoisie saw him as debtor rule over creditors; the big bourgeoisie sought a monarchist restoration; the army voted for war. Napoleon signified nothing himself but could signify everything to different classes. The votes for Raspail marked the proletariat’s first independent political separation from the democratic party. On 20 December, Louis Napoleon became President; Odilon Barrot, last minister of Louis Philippe, became first minister, restoring the old royalist administration. The Constituent Assembly, now an anachronism, sought to overthrow the ministry but failed to grasp its own redundancy. The real conflict was between the revolutionary bourgeois faction that had founded the republic and the royalist bourgeois mass that now ruled it. The Assembly’s dissolution was demanded through Rateau’s motion and a wave of petitions.
In the conflict between the Assembly and President, the Assembly was forced towards insurrection, while the President and ministry were driven towards a coup. The ministry provoked mutiny by disbanding the Mobile Guard, suppressing clubs, and replacing republican prefects with royalists, but the mutiny remained mute. On 29 January, the Assembly rejected the unconditional rejection of Rateau’s motion, signing its own death warrant. On 21 March, it voted to prohibit clubs, violating Article Eight of the constitution. On 8 May, the Montagne impeached Bonaparte over the expedition to Rome, where the French republic allied with European counter-revolution against the Roman Republic. The Assembly rejected the impeachment on 11 May. It left the stage having rejected amnesty for the June insurgents, leaving a state deficit.
The party of Order formed after the June Days, uniting Orléanists and Legitimists. These two bourgeois factions had alternated power under monarchy; the republic allowed them to rule jointly without conceding to each other. The bourgeois republicans of the National represented no substantial economic faction, only the ideal of bourgeois class rule. The royalists failed to see that their coalition necessarily produced a republic, not a restoration. The party of Order’s election programme proclaimed bourgeois class rule—property, family, religion, order—as the necessary conditions of civilisation. It commanded enormous resources and ideological dominance. Against this counter-revolutionary coalition, the petty bourgeoisie and revolutionary peasants allied with the proletariat. The Montagne united with socialists to form the Social-Democratic party, achieving significant electoral success; Ledru-Rollin was elected by five departments. The Legislative Assembly convened on 28 May; on 11 June, Ledru-Rollin impeached the President for the Rome bombardment. The Assembly rejected it, and the Montagne led a street procession on 13 June—a defeated caricature of June 1848. June 1849 felled the petty bourgeoisie, not the workers.