Page:Historyoffranc00yong.djvu/231

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X.] THE CHANGES SINCE THE REVOLUTION. 207 and appointed an executive of nine, of whom Lamartine was one. On June 13th the assembly voted, in opposition to Lamartine, that Louis Napoleo}i Buo}uiparte, the same who had made the disturbances at Strassburg and Bou- logne, and who had been elected a member of the assembly, should be allowed to take his seat. On May 15th there had been a great tumult, and on June 23rd the mob rose again, when the barricades were fiercely defended for three days by the red republicans against the tricoloured, and the good Archbishop Affre of Paris, in the endeavour to calm the fury of his people, was killed by a shot. General Brea was treacherously murdered, but General Cavaignac, an able man trained in the Algerine wars, brought the regular army and the National Guard so to act on the mob that the conquest of order was secured, and peace restored, though not without many deaths and many transportations to Cayenne. Cavaignac became chief of the executive government, and brought things back to order, abolishing the national workshops, and showing the " Reds " that they were no longer to be bribed. In all these revolutions the whole of France helplessly followed the fate of the capital, being, in fact, so entangled by the great net-work of offices, all center- ing in the government, that all were powerless to show any manifestation of their own will. 8. The Presidency, 1848. — In the course of September and October the assembly, after reviewing possible con- stitutions, decided on vesting the executive power in a president, elected for four years by universal suffrage, but without the power of being re-ele:.ted, doing away vvith the Chamber of Peers, and appointing a Legislative Assembly of one chamber, also chosen by universal suffrage. The four years' presidency was seemingly an imitation of the United States of America. The chief candidates for the presidency were General Cavaignac and Louis Napoleon Buonaparte, who now reaped the benefits of the passion for his name which existed in those who were proud of his uncle's glory but were too young to have felt the misery it caused. He was chosen president on the loth of Decem- ber, 1848, and on the 20th he was admitted by the assembly. He swore to be faithful to the democratic republic, and spoke of his mission being to found a republic in the interest of all. Cavaignac now withdrew, with great respect and esteem from all EuroD°. The new president had a ministry like a king, and changed his ministers