The Revolution of 1830 and the July Monarchy: the Heroines of Liberty

Abstract

The first major occasion for female protest in the nineteenth century was the July Revolution of 1830. This presents a paradox, in that the combatants were overwhelmingly Parisian artisans but few were convinced republicans; the bourgeois politicians and journalists who incited resistance were quick to seize the political initiative to prevent monarchy and limited representation giving way to democracy.¹ What roused the masses to violence in Paris in 1830 cannot be easily ascertained; as Clive Church has remarked, ‘People did not always participate in revolution with clearly defined expectations of what might result’, and ‘Sources are poor and often give little indication of who was involved.’² It is, however, clear that economic depression and mounting unemployment, combined with a revival of sporadic violent protest and carefully orchestrated resistance to the policies of Charles X and Polignac had given the Parisian working class the impression that their economic troubles were associated with political misrule. In 1828 market riots had revived in the face of food shortages, and strikes followed cuts in working hours and the lowering of wages.³ Soup kitchens in the Faubourg St Antoine did not assuage the wrath of the local population; in October 1828 a police report noted a handwritten placard put up on the corner of the Rue St Nicolas, which declared, `Long live Napoleon! War to the death against Charles X and the priests who are starving us to death!’ Workers of the neighbourhood talked of marching on the Tuileries to demand work and bread.⁴