Revolutionary Mobilization 617young grandson, the count of Paris. It was too late. The victorious crowd
proclaimed the Second French Republic at the town hall.
The Chamber of Deputies selected a provisional government, headed by
nine republicans. A crowd at the town hall pressed for the addition of two
well-known socialists supported by the radicals: the socialist Louis Blanc
and a worker. The provisional government immediately proclaimed univer
sal male suffrage and abolished slavery in the French colonies.
The revolution spread to the provinces. Enthusiastic crowds planted “lib
erty trees/’ intended to commemorate a new era, a ritual borrowed from the
French Revolution. Legitimists wanted a Bourbon Restoration. Nor could
the Orleanists be counted out, for Louis-Philippe had several able sons in
exile. Both shades of monarchists could count on the support of local nota
bles (nobles or wealthy bourgeois). Furthermore, Napoleon Bonaparte’s
nephew, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte (1808-1873), had a coterie of support
ers who honored his uncle’s memory. At a time when the prominent poet
Alphonse de Lamartine (1790-1869) complained that “France is bored,’’ the
legend of Napoleon remained strong among many former soldiers, peasants,
and students.
Republicans were themselves divided between staunch republicans, who
had opposed the Orleanist regime all along, and moderates, who accepted
|he republic only after its proclamation. Socialists hoped that the republic
would be but the first step toward a “democratic and social republic.” Louis
Blanc and other socialists were committed to the “right to work,” as they put
it, believing that the government should assume responsibility for providing
employment in times of economic crisis, as well as encouraging or even sub
sidizing workers’ associations.
Because of France’s revolutionary tradition, the fledgling republic had to
reassure the other powers of Europe that the French would not try to export
their revolution, as had occurred in the 1790s. The other powers feared
that the new regime might publicly support Polish independence or Italian
or German nationalism, spurred on by the presence in Paris of political
exiles advocating these causes. Some French nationalists called for the
annexation of Savoy and Nice (parts of the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia),
which France had claimed off and on for centuries. Volunteers formed a rag
tag army with this acquisition of territory in mind. But Lamartine, the new
republic’s minister of foreign affairs, assured the European powers that the
French had only peaceful intentions.
With elections for a constituent assembly approaching, political interest
was widespread among people previously excluded from political life. In
Paris, more than 200 political clubs, mostly republican and republican
socialist, began to meet, and almost that many newspapers began publica
tion, joined by others in the provinces. When George Sand (the pen name of
Amandine Dudevant; 1804-1876), a writer and activist for women’s rights,
was locked out of her apartment, she discovered that all three of the
neighborhood locksmiths were at club meetings. Representatives from the