616 Ch. 16 • The Revolutions of 1848
macy and republicans demanding a regime based on popular sovereignty
Republicans had begun to campaign for electoral reform in 1840-1841, a;
the country reeled from a disastrous harvest. France had also suffered inter
national humiliation in 1840 after King Louis-Philippe seemed to back th<
Ottoman governor of Egypt, Mehmet Ali, who rebelled, with the support ol
Russia, against the Turkish sultan with the hope of establishing an Egyptiar
empire. When the other European powers, particularly Britain, opposec
Mehmet Ali, fearing that his autonomy and recent conquests threatened the
stability of the Ottoman Empire, France had to back down to avoid war.
Republicans mounted another campaign for electoral reform in the midsi
of another cyclical economic crisis that began with the disastrous harvest ol
- Workers demanded the right to vote and state assistance for theii
trades. The electoral reform campaign was to culminate in a giant reforn
banquet on February 22, 1848, in Paris. Francois Guizot, the premier
banned the event. In protest, demonstrators marched through the streets ol
central Paris. The next day, large crowds assembled in the pouring rain. Th<
Paris National Guard, drawn from the middle class, refused to disperse th<
demonstrators by force. Louis-Philippe dismissed Guizot. But that evening
amid continuing boisterous protests, troops panicked and fired on a crowd
killing forty people. The crowds carried the bodies through the streets, anc
workers (primarily craftsmen) began to construct barricades. King Louis
Philippe abdicated, hoping that the Chamber of Deputies would crown hi;