215. The second French

republic is proclaimed (February

26, 1848)

216. Decrees of the

The formal proclamation of the second French republic is very characteristic of the momentary situation.

In the name of the French people:

Citizens: royalty, under whatever form, is abolished; no more legitimism, no more Bonapartism, no regency.

The provisional government has taken all the measures necessary to render impossible the return of the former dynasty or the advent of a new dynasty.

The republic is proclaimed.

The people are united.

All the forts which surround the capital are ours.

The brave garrison of Vincennes is a garrison of brothers. Let us retain that old republican flag whose three colors made with our fathers the circuit of the globe.

Let us show that this symbol of equality, of liberty, and of fraternity is at the same time the symbol of order,— of order the more real, the more durable, since justice is its foundation and the whole people its instrument.

The people have already realized that the provisioning of Paris requires a freer circulation in the streets, and those who have erected the barricades have already in several places made openings large enough for the passage of wagons and carts. Let this example be imitated everywhere. Let Paris reassume its accustomed appearance and trade its activity and confidence.

The workingmen and their leaders played an important part in the February revolution. This fact is emprovisional government phasized by the decrees in the interest of the laboring relating to the working-classes which were issued by the provisional government on the day following its creation.

men (February 25, 1848)

The provisional government of the French republic decrees that the Tuileries shall serve hereafter as a home for the veterans of labor.

The provisional government of the French republic pledges itself to guarantee the means of subsistence of the workingman by labor.

It pledges itself to guarantee labor to all citizens.

It recognizes that workingmen ought to enter into associa- Labor unions tions among themselves in order to enjoy the advantage of sanctioned their labor.

The provisional government returns to the workingmen, to Suppression whom it rightfully belongs, the million which was about to fall of the civil due upon the civil list.

list

articles

The provisional government of the French republic decrees Return of that all articles pledged at the pawn shops since the first of Feb- pawned ruary, consisting of linen, garments, clothes, etc., upon which the loan does not exceed ten francs, shall be given back to those who pledged them. The minister of finance is ordered to meet the payments incidental to the execution of the present edict. The provisional government of the republic decrees the Establishimmediate establishment of national workshops. The minister ment of of public works is charged with the execution of the present workshops decree. (February 26)

On account of the financial crisis that accompanied the Revolution, the provisional government found it necessary to provide employment for idle workmen in order to keep them contented during the crucial period of reorganization. Furthermore, owing to the assistance which the workingmen had rendered in carrying out the actual insurrection in February, it was also found necessary to permit them to be represented on the provisional government. However, the republican members of that government wanted no labor reforms. So, while they appointed the two labor representatives, Louis Blanc and Albert, a committee to meet at the Luxemburg palace to deliberate upon labor's demands, they appropriated no money to establish workshops in order to give employment to the idle in accordance with Blanc's plan. The only thing that was seriously attempted by the provisional government itself was the employment of the idle in breaking stones

national

217. Louis Blanc's

version of

the work

and building roads and fortresses. It has been so often stated that Louis Blanc's scheme was tested in 1848, that it seems worth while to give at some length his own account of the matter.

The situation of Paris immediately after the great shock of February is well known. The immediate consequences of so violent and unforeseen a crisis were, of course, a disturbance shops experi- of industrial operations, a panic among capitalists, and a conment of 1848 siderable multitude of workingmen thrown upon the streets, (condensed) starving for want of work, and armed. Such a state of things could not but cause uneasiness to the government. Consequently, on the twenty-seventh of February, 1848, during the first days of the Revolution, before the experiment of the Luxemburg was thought of, the provisional government decreed the establishment of national workshops, and the minister of public works, M. Marie, was charged with the execution of the decree.

An opponent of Louis Blanc's

national workshops

But what were these national workshops to be? A mere hazardous expedient, or a noble and vigorous experiment in the scheme put in organization of labor; a temporary resource to meet the sericharge of the ous problem of the unemployed, or a starting point for social regeneration? M. Marie knew my opinions better than any one else; for only a few days before the Revolution of February, in a rather numerous gathering of deputies and journalists in his own house, I had clearly explained them; and I may add, they had encountered no more decided opponent than M. Marie himself. And yet it was to him, who totally misunderstood and dreaded socialism, who had sworn in his heart to resist it, à l'outrance, that the organization of the national workshops was to be committed. The actual direction of the workshops, moreover, was intrusted to M. Émile Thomas, whom I did not even know by sight; and one of the claims which recommended that person was his ardent, indefatigable opposition to my doctrines. Later he officially testified, "I have never spoken to M. Louis Blanc in my life; I don't know him." Again, "While I was at the head of the workshops I saw M. Marie daily, sometimes twice a day; never once M. Ledru Rollin, M. Louis Blanc, nor M. Albert."

the national

Nor let it be objected that, though these national workshops Blanc were not organized with my concurrence, they were, at all distinguishes events, in conformity with my principles. The truth is pre- workshops cisely the reverse. In point of fact, it is monstrous to com- from his found the industrial system developed in my Organization of Labor with the system of the national workshops managed by M. Émile Thomas, under the sanction of M. Marie.

The social workshops, such as I had suggested, were each of them to consist of workmen belonging to the same trade. The national workshops, as put in operation by M. Marie, consisted in a collection of workmen got together pellmell, and yet absurd as it was! all put to the same kind of work. In the social workshops, as suggested by me, the workmen were to pursue their business, the State lending them capital, to be repaid according to certain stipulations; they, working exclusively for their own profit, with a view to a joint benefit, that is to say, with all the stimulus of personal interest, combined with the esprit de corps engendered by the pursuit of a common object.

In the national workshops, as managed by M. Marie, the State interfered simply as a contractor; the operatives worked only as paid instruments. Now, as the kind of labor in these workshops was utterly unproductive and absurd, besides being such as the greater part of the men were unaccustomed to, the State was simply squandering the public funds; its subsidies were a premium upon idleness; its wages, alms in disguise. The social workshops, as suggested by me, consisted of groups of workingmen, united by the most intimate ties and identity of interest; groups, therefore, seriously concerned in being industrious and in the highest degree productive. The national workshops, as managed by M. Marie, were nothing more than a rabble of paupers, whom it was enough to feed, since no one knew how to employ them, and who had to live together without any other ties than a military organization, and under chiefs who bore the name, at once so strange and yet so characteristic, of sergeant majors.

The national workshops emptied the exchequer at a dead loss; they humiliated the workingman, who was reduced to

plan

Blanc con- accept the bread which he desired to earn; they discredited demns the State interference in industrial matters. In the place of associprovisional ations of workmen they got together battalions of paid idlers,— government's workshops" a strange army, sooner or later to be disbanded at the risk of civil war! The believers in the doctrine of laissez faire had, of course, every reason for attempting to fix upon us the responsibility for all this mischief. What luck for the disciples of the old political economy, if they could succeed in playing a trick on public opinion; if they could contrive to pass off as the highest practical form of the organization of labor those "national workshops," which were nothing more than its ignoble travesties !

218. Louis Napoleon's view of Napoleon I's ideals

Section 59. Louis Napoleon and the Second

French Empire

After the National Assembly, called by the revolutionary government in 1848, completed the republican constitution, and it became necessary to choose a president, public attention centered on Louis Napoleon, a nephew of Napoleon I. For some years he had been preparing the mind of the French people for his establishment in power by writing on social questions and especially about his distinguished uncle. In a work entitled Napoleonic Ideas, published in 1839, he represented Napoleon I as the savior of France against European tyrants, the champion of the people, the Messiah of the Revolution, the friend of the poor.

Napoleon, advancing upon the stage of the world, saw that it was his part to be the testamentary executor of the Revolution. The destructive fire of parties was extinct; and when the Revolution, dying but not vanquished, bequeathed to Napoleon the accomplishment of its last wishes, it should have addressed him as follows: Establish upon solid foundations the results of my efforts; reunite the divided people of France; repulse feudal Europe, leagued against me; heal my wounds;