The Awful Events at Paris

The King of the Belgians to Queen Victoria

Laeken, 26th February 1848

My dearest Victoria,—I am very unwell in consequence of the awful events at Paris. How will this end? Poor Louise is in a state of despair which is pitiful to behold. What will soon become of us God alone knows; great efforts will be made to revolutionise [sic] this country; as there are poor and wicked people in all countries it may succeed.

Against France we, of course, have a right to claim protection from England and the other Powers. I can write no more. God bless you. Ever your devoted Uncle,

Leopold R.

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(No, not the cover of a Coldplay album: a scene from the 1848 revolution in France.  Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This letter comes at the beginning of an incredibly eventful year for all of Europe, particularly on the Continent.  In a wave similar to that of the recent Arab Spring in the Middle East (a movement that actually draws its name from the 1848 revolutions), political unrest in multiple European nations arose, sparking widespread protests by the working classes over government representation, working conditions, food prices, and absolute rule, among other issues.  Leopold’s letter is especially significant as the revolutions began in France, the homeland of his wife Louise. 

Louise’s father, Louis-Philippe, had come to the throne as a result of the abdication of Charles X in 1830.  Charles had abdicated amid growing resentment of the French people due to his growing interest in returning France from a constitutional monarchy to an absolute one.  Louis-Philippe had no interest in absolute rule, but he also did not seem to understand that his policies tended to favor the wealthiest French landowners almost exclusively.  These landowners – about 1% of the population – held all the voting rights and naturally voted according to their own needs.  Louis-Philippe seemed perfectly pleased with this arrangement. 

Naturally this set up made most everyone else in France want to spit nails. The considerably wealthy but land-poor merchants and factory owners were incensed that their voices were not heard, despite providing sizeable tax income to the state.  This French upper middle class began holding banquets that were more or less a cover for the political rallies that had been outlawed after the French Revolution.  This group also became interested in recent suffrage successes in Britain, which increased the number of eligible voters – not all of them landowners – by about 40%. 

But the “banquets” couldn’t last for long without someone catching onto their true meaning.  By February 1848, the banquets had also been declared illegal, which provided the spark for the riots that took place that year.  On February 22, four days before Leopold’s letter was written, mobs began to pack the streets of Paris.   The French prime minister resigned the following day, and on February 24, Louis-Philippe abdicated as well.  Louise-Philippe was obviously panicked at the crowds forming near the palace; as the Capetian monarchy had fallen to a bloody end just fifty years before, Louis-Philippe wisely assumed common clothes as a disguise and hightailed it out of Paris.  Louise’s mother, Maria Amalia, accompanied him. 

It is doubtful that Leopold or Victoria knew the whereabouts of Louis-Philippe and his family at the time this letter was written.  Leopold was naturally concerned for the safety of his in-laws, but likely uneasy about the security of his throne.  Belgium was a brand new country that had been formed in protest.  Who was to say that the unrest in nearby France could not spread across the borders? 

Leopold’s wife Louise was a somewhat fragile person.  She disliked Belgium and often cried when writing letters home to her family.  Her shy personality did not make her particularly suited to life as a queen, although she was liked at court for her kindness, sweet nature, and concern for the poor.  Leopold did not enjoy quite the love match in his second marriage that he had had with Charlotte, nor did Louise seem to cure his sometime intense sexual passions.  Louise seemed to dislike sex, more or less withdrawing from it after the birth of her last child in 1840.

But Leopold did have affection for her and was concerned by how the bad news from Paris frightened Louise.  The plights of her parents, Leopold said, put his wife in “a state of despair which is pitiful to behold.”  What was more, Louise was still in intense mourning for her paternal aunt Adelaide who had died in January (the two had been very close), making her emotionally overwrought.  Louise clung to her deep Catholic faith, praying when she was not writing letters to determine the whereabouts of her family.    

On February 27, a relieved Louise found out that her parents had made it to Britain.  She wrote to Victoria in relief, asking her to pass on letters and thanks for their survival.  Louise wrote to her niece of what she felt upon hearing of her parents’ safety:

In the hours of agony we have gone through I asked God only to spare the lives, and I will ask still nothing else…What has happened is unaccountable, incomprehensible, it appears to us like a fearful dream.

Meanwhile, Victoria continued to field letters from other monarchs concerned about their positions.  Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia sent Victoria a long letter urging her to join him in supporting the new France as it had the monarchy – while simultaneously assuring their own people that they knew how to rule appropriately, of course.  (Friedrich Wilhelm and Prussia had their own problems during the 1848 revolution.)  Victoria also continued to receive and send notes to her advisors with more information on the situation in France as it became available.

But Louise grew nearly inconsolable in the meantime, as she was unable to find out exactly where her parents had landed.  Indeed Victoria herself didn’t seem to know as of March 1, although she believed they were in Britain.  Victoria had received word that her cousin Victoire (married to one of Louis-Philippe’s sons) had made it to Jersey, and she assured Louise and Leopold that she was doing everything she could to find Louis-Philippe and Maria Amalia.  On March 3, Viscount Palmerston (then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs) confirmed that the former French King and Queen had arrived in Britain that morning.  They had spent the preceding week and a half slowly making their way to the coastal city of Le Havre, hiding along the way. 

Although British-French relations had had their ebbs and flows over the years, the British (with the help of the Belgians) welcomed their French guests with open arms.  Leopold arranged for Maria Amalia and Louis-Philippe to occupy Claremont, his home in Britain.  Victoria and her family visited Louis-Philippe and Maria Amalia periodically.  The couple was fairly content for the most part, and both Louis-Philippe and Maria Amalia spent the rest of their lives at Claremont, dying in 1850 and 1866 respectively. 

Louise, driven to exhaustion over her parents’ situation, fell into ill health after the fall of the Orleanist monarchy.  The distance between Louise and her husband grew greater, and Leopold began more or less openly living with his chief mistress during this time.  Louise developed tuberculosis in 1849, and her father’s death the following year seemed to sap her spirits and will to live.  Louise died on October 11, 1850, at the age of 38. 

Of all of the countries affected by the 1848 revolutions, France was one of most affected.  Some victories were claimed by the lower classes in Austria-Hungary, and constitutional monarchy began in Denmark.  Germany also saw some temporary changes to its monarchy, and protests in Italy drove out the Bourbon monarchy for a short time.  Britain saw some small, localized riots that did not amount to a larger movement.  Britain instead became the oasis for one of its former rivals, moving fully into the Industrial Age, increasing its power as a future empire.  And at its head: Victoria.