formed, the Left was being mobilized, and all the while the Orleanists were waiting in the
wings. A new liberal newspaper financed by Lafitte and inspired by Talleyrand, the
National began to appear. Polignac’s cabinet was composed entirely of new and
inexperienced men, and on 21 March 1830 the Chamber of Deputies was dissolved and
new elections called. In June Constant was re-elected deputy for Strasbourg, despite
attempts at the usual tripotages, or electoral chicanery. The King issued a plea to all
electors to support his government’s candidates, but to no avail: Polignac’s ministry was
defeated very decisively. Electoral defeat coincided with Charles X and Polignac’s
flexing France’s military muscles in North Africa and the founding of a French colony in
Algeria. Word of a military victory in Algiers reached Paris on 9 July 1830: the King and
Polignac believed they were in a strong enough position to be able to ignore the
unwelcome election result. On 25 July 1830 Polignac issued the so-called Four
Ordinances: no journal or pamphlet could be published without official authorization; the
newly elected Chamber was dissolved; only the richest 25 per cent of the existing
electorate were henceforth allowed the franchise; and new elections to the Chamber were
called for mid-September.
Such measures were widely seen as outrageous and amounting in fact to a coup d’état.
The National, edited by the liberal historian Adolphe Thiers (1797–1877), called for civil
resistance. Discontent with the King’s unpopular minister soon turned into a revolution.
On 26 July 1830 shops and workshops in Paris remained closed. On 28 July there were
riots in the streets, and by 29 July, after 1,800 rioters and 200 soldiers had been killed in
the fighting, deputies were already forming a provisional govern-ment. Both the King and
Polignac had distinguished themselves during the ‘Trois Glorieuses’—the ‘Three
Glorious Days’ of what would come to be known as the July Revolution—by almost
unbelievable fecklessness. For example, their victory in Algiers had meant that their best
troops were still on the other side of the Mediterranean and unable to be of any assistance
when they needed them. There was no question of a Republic being created: such an idea
was anathema to the well-to-do conservative supporters of the uprising. Instead, the
deputies invited the Duke of Orléans to become king, and on 1 August 1830 temporary
ministers were appointed. Charles X now abdicated in favour of his grandson, but
Orléans was already on the throne. The legitimate Bourbon line had been replaced by the
Orleanist line.
Constant’s direct role in these dramatic events was minimal: in late July he had been
out in the country at Bagneux and suffering again with his leg. On 29 July, at Lafayette’s
invitation, he arrived back in the capital. The following day he drew up a declaration in
favour of the new king, Louis-Philippe, with Count Sébastiani and, carried in a litter,
accompanied the King to the Hôtel de Ville, the town hall of Paris. The editor of Le
Temps, Coste, had written inviting him to ‘bring his head as his stake in the revolutionary
game’. Despite his frailty, it was not the kind of challenge or excitement that an
inveterate gambler like Constant was likely to ignore, nor, given his immense popularity
with young liberals, would he have been allowed to. When Charles X had gone back on
the Charte in his Ordinances, depriving much of the commercial class of the franchise
and reimposing censorship, the intransigent monarch had finally forfeited Constant’s
support. Constant now pledged allegiance to Louis-Philippe, the deposed king’s cousin,
who offered him the post of President of the Legislative Committee of the Council of
State. According to Louis de Loménie, a contemporary observer, the King also made him
Apotheosis 259