1831 and 1832, the two years immediately following the July Revolution, were a most peculiar and astonishing period in history.These two years have appeared like two hills between the years before and the years after.They are of great revolutionary significance.People can see many dangerous cliffs during this period.During this period, the masses of various societies, the foundations of civilization, the strong associations formed by interrelated and interdependent interests, the old face of the old French society, appeared and disappeared at any time under the various institutions, fanaticism and theory. In the turmoil of the storm.This appearance and disappearance has been called resistance and movement.In it one can see truth—the light of the human soul—radiating.
This remarkable period is quite short, and it has begun to be quite far away from us. Looking back early, we can still grasp its main clues.
Let's try it.
Restoration is one of those indefinable middle grounds; there are weariness, murmurs, whispers, slumbers, tumults, which tell only of a great race just finished.Times like that are peculiar and often mislead politicians who want to profit from them.At first, the Chinese only asked for rest!Men have but one desire: peace, and one ambition: to curl up.In other words, it is to live a quiet life.Big business, big opportunity, big risk, big man, thank goodness, enough of it all, can't take it any more.People would rather abandon Caesar for Plycias, and Napoleon for King Iftas. "What a fine little king that is!" People started from dawn, worked hard, trekked for a whole day, until it was dark; followed Mirabeau for the first journey, followed Robespierre Made the second leg, followed Bonaparte the third; all were exhausted.Everyone wants a bed.
Exhausted loyalty, diminished heroism, sated ambition, vested interests, what are they all looking for, asking for, pleading for, and begging for?A comfort zone.Comfort zone, here they are.They find peace, tranquility, leisure, and contentment.But at the same time, certain fait accomplis popped up, demanded recognition, and knocked on the door next to them.These facts are born out of revolutions and wars, they are living, they are supposed to settle in society, and they have settled in society, and these facts are usually the quartermasters and orderlies who prepare the residence for various doctrines.
The situation thus arises before the political philosophers:
At the same time that weary men demand rest, fait accompli demands reassurance.Assurance is to facts what rest is to people.
This is what England demanded of the Stuarts after the Lord Protector; this is what France demanded of the Bourbons after the Empire.
Guarantee is the need of the times.It must be given.Princes "give" assurances, but what actually give assurances is the force of facts themselves.It is a profound truth worth knowing, which the Stuarts had not doubted in 1662, nor the Bourbons in 1814 had bothered to glance at it.
The pre-selected family that returned to France with the fall of Napoleon was hopelessly simple-minded, thinking that everything was given by it, and that everything was given and could be taken back by it; enjoys theocracy, while France enjoys nothing, and the political rights granted in the charter of Louis XVIII are just a branch of this theocracy, picked by the Bourbon family, and given to the people in a grand manner, until one day the king You can take it back whenever you like.In fact, the Bourbon family did not do this gift out of willingness, and it should have realized that there is nothing from it.
It looks sternly at the nineteenth century.Every time the people rejoice, it is angry.We use an unpleasant word, that is, a popular but true word: it keeps gnashing its teeth, and the people have seen it.
It thinks itself strong because the empire is removed before its eyes like a scene on a stage.It didn't realize that it had moved in that way, too.It did not see that it was held in the same hand that carried Napoleon away.
It thinks it has roots because it is the past.It is wrong; it is part of the past, and the whole past is France.The roots of French society are not in the Bourbons, but in the people.What constitutes these vigorous roots deep into the soil is by no means the rights of a family, but the history of a nation.They stick out everywhere, but not under the throne.
The Bourbons, for France a conspicuous and bloody knot in its history, were no longer the chief ingredient of its fortunes and the necessary basis of its politics; Leave it alone for twenty-two years, and there is a way to live on, and they don't see it.How could they see this, who on the 9th of Thermidor still considered Louis XVII the ruler, and on the day of Marengo's victory Louis XVIII was the ruler?Never in history were princes so disregarded this part of the divine right conceived in practical things.Never has this human delusion, which is called kingship, denied the power of the upper world to such a degree.
A great fallacy led the family to withdraw the pledges it had "given" in 1814, the concessions it called.It's amazing!What it calls its concessions are our struggles; what it calls our ravages are our rights.
The Restoration dynasty thought it had won over Bonaparte and had taken root in the country, that is to say, it thought it was strong and deeply rooted, and when it thought the time had come, it made a sudden decision and did not hesitate to throw everything at it.One morning it stood up before France and loudly denied collective and individual rights - the sovereignty of the people and the liberties of the citizens.In other words, it denies that the people are the people and the citizens are the citizens.
Here lies the essence of those famous acts known as the Edict of July.
The Restoration Dynasty collapsed.
It breaks down reasonably.It should be noted, however, that it is not absolutely hostile to all forms of progress.It is present when many great things are accomplished.
Under the rule of the Restoration Dynasty, the people have become accustomed to discussions in a calm atmosphere, which was never before in the republic period; they have become accustomed to being strong in peace, which was never before in the empire.A free and strong France was an arena of inspiration to the rest of Europe.The revolution spoke in the time of Robespierre, the cannon in the time of Bonaparte, it was the turn of the intellect to speak, and that was only under Louis XVIII and Charles XVIII.The wind died down, and the torches were lit again.One sees the pure radiance of thought shining on the summit of tranquility.Splendid, informative and moving spectacle.During these fifteen years, under peaceful circumstances and in full publicity, one has seen such great principles, so old in the eyes of thinkers and new in the minds of statesmen: equality of legal status, Work in accordance with the selection system of freedom of belief, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and meritocracy.This situation continued until 1830.The House of Bourbon is an instrument of civilization crushed at the hands of Destiny.
The fall of the Bourbons was full of grandeur, not on their part but on the part of the people.Swaggeringly, but not majestically, they left the throne.This black-hole resignation of theirs was not the fanfare of which future generations will mourn; it was not the ghostly stillness of Charles I, nor the eagle-like cry of Napoleon.They're gone, that's all.They dropped the crown, but not the halo.They gained face, but lost their prestige.To a certain extent, they lack the dignity to face disaster squarely.Charles X, on his way to Cherbourg, had a round table converted into a square one, and he cared more about this ritual in peril than the crumbling monarchy.This pettiness discouraged both royal loyalists and race-loving serious people.As for the people, they are admirable.The people of the whole country were attacked in one morning by an armed attack of a kind of royal mutiny, but felt their own strength was too strong to be angry.The people defended themselves, restrained themselves, restored order, brought the government into law, exiled the Bourbons, what a pity!Then stopped.They took the old King Charles X from under the canopy that had covered Louis XIV, and laid him gently on the ground.They approached the bodies of those members of the royal family with desolation and prudence.Not one, not several, but France, the whole of France, victorious and dazzled by victory, as if it had remembered and carried out before the eyes of the whole world what Guillaume de Vere had done after the day of the street fighting Serious words spoken: "To those who are accustomed to win the favor of kings, and jump like a bird from branch to branch, from honor in peril to honor in prosperity It is easy for men to show their boldness against kings in rebellion; but to me the honor of my kings is always to be honored, especially those who are in trouble. "
The Bourbon family brought respect, but not regret.As we have just said, their unhappiness is greater than their own.They disappeared over the horizon.
The July Revolution immediately had friends and enemies all over the world.Some are running towards this revolution with joy, others are turning their backs on it, each with a different character.The kings of Europe were at first like owls before the sun, closing their eyes, sad and bewildered, until they opened them again when it was time to threaten.Their fear is understandable and their outrage forgivable.This strange revolution hardly shook, and it did not even give the defeated royal family the honor of treating it as an enemy and shedding its blood.Autocratic governments always like to see internal strife in freedom. In the eyes of those autocratic governments, the July Revolution should not be so violent and moderate.No machinations against the revolution arose.The most dissatisfied, the most indignant, the most terrified have paid homage to it.However great our selfishness and vendettas, there emerges from the events a mystical reverence in which the co-operation of a power higher than human power is felt.
The July Revolution was a victory for human rights that crushed facts.It's a glorious thing.
Human rights crush facts.From here came the light of the Revolution of 1830, and from here also its gentleness.Victorious human rights require no violence.
Human rights are justice and truth.
It is the characteristic of human rights to remain beautiful and pure forever.In fact, even if it is most needed on the surface, even if it is most approved by contemporary people, if it exists only as a fact, if it contains too few human rights or does not contain human rights at all, through the evolution of time, it will inevitably be Inevitably become deformed, corrupt, even absurd.If we want to demonstrate at once how hideous the facts can be, we need only go back a few hundred years to Machiavelli.Machiavelli is by no means a monster, nor is he a devil, nor is he a shameless filthy writer, he is just a fact.And this is not only a fact of Italy, but also a fact of Europe, a fact of the sixteenth century.He seemed vile, and in nineteenth-century morality, he was.
This struggle between human rights and facts has been going on since society existed.To end duels, to combine pure thoughts with human reality, and to use peaceful means to infiltrate human rights into facts, and facts into human rights, this is the work of philosophers.
