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74-606: François Guizot , the French foreign minister, had been a supporter of friendly relations with Britain and had served as France's ambassador in London in 1840. During Guizot's tenure in London, the two countries had been brought to the brink of war on the matter of the Syrian question , before France's king Louis-Philippe intervened to de-escalate the crisis. The second Soult government

148-778: A Central - Eastern European block which once again congregated to suppress the Revolutions of 1848 . The Austro-Russian alliance finally broke up in the Crimean War . Though Russia had helped to suppress the Hungarian Revolution of 1848 , Austria did not take any action to support her ally, declared herself neutral, and even occupied the Danubian Principalities upon the Russian retreat in 1854. Thereafter, Austria remained isolated, which added to

222-585: A bastion against democracy and citizen-nationalism. It also allowed coordinating suppression of Polish efforts to restore an independent state, by Austria in the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria , by Russia in its Congress Poland and by Prussia in the Grand Duchy of Posen and in West Prussia . The Alliance is usually associated with the later Quadruple and Quintuple Alliances, which included

296-729: A close and loving friendship, exchanging over 5000 letters. He was present at her death in Paris in 1856. Her role in supporting and influencing his aims in aristocratic, political and diplomatic circles was considerable, aided by her retaining many contacts in England and her brother being Chief of Secret Police in Russia and a confidant of the Tsar. During the First French Empire , Guizot, entirely devoted to literary pursuits, published

370-791: A co-author with her father and prolific writer herself, and Pauline (1831–1874) and a son, Guillaume (1833–1892), who attained some reputation as a scholar and writer. François Guizot and historian François Mignet invented the concept of the bourgeois revolution . On 15 June 1837, Guizot sat next to the Princess Lieven at a dinner given by the Duc de Broglie. After twenty years as Russian Ambassadress to London, she had separated from her husband and sought refuge in Paris, where from 1835 she had held an increasingly influential salon occasionally attended by Guizot. She had sympathised with him over his son's death earlier in 1837. From 15 June, they formed

444-737: A collection of French synonyms (1809), an essay on the fine arts (1811), and a translation of Edward Gibbon 's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire , with additional notes, in 1812. These works recommended him to the notice of Louis-Marcelin de Fontanes , grand-master of the University of France , who selected Guizot for the chair of modern history at the Sorbonne in 1812. He delivered his first lecture (reprinted in his Memoirs ) on 11 December of that year. He omitted

518-486: A contributor to Suard's journal. Her contributions were interrupted by illness, but immediately resumed and continued by an unknown hand. It was discovered that François Guizot had substituted for her. In 1812 Mademoiselle de Meulan married Guizot. She died in 1827. (An only son, François, born in 1819, died in 1837 of consumption.) In 1828 Guizot married Elisa Dillon, niece of his first wife, and also an author. She died in 1833, leaving two daughters, Henriette (1829–1908),

592-461: A critical assessment of this two-volume history. After having resigned as Prime Minister of France, he left politics. He was aware that the link between himself and public life was broken forever, and he never made the slightest attempt to renew it. The greater part of the year he spent at his residence at Val Richer, a former cistercian monastery near Lisieux in Normandy, which had been sold at

666-505: A journal edited by Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Suard , the Publiciste . This connection introduced him to the literary society of Paris . In October 1809, aged twenty-two, he wrote a series review of François-René de Chateaubriand 's Martyrs , which won Chateaubriand's approbation and thanks, and he continued to contribute largely to the periodical press. At Suard's he had made the acquaintance of Pauline de Meulan (born 2 November 1773 ),

740-601: A la hauteur de mon dédain! ") In 1845 British and French troops fought side by side for the first time in the Anglo-French blockade of the Río de la Plata . The fall of Peel's government in 1846 changed these intimate relations; and the return of Palmerston to the foreign office led Guizot to believe that he was again exposed to the passionate rivalry of the British cabinet. A friendly understanding had been established between

814-473: A stable government was formed, in which Marshal Soult was first minister, Victor, 3rd duc de Broglie took the foreign office, Adolphe Thiers the home department, and Guizot the department of public instruction. Guizot, however, was already unpopular with the more advanced liberal party. He remained unpopular all his life. Yet never were his great abilities more useful to his country than while he filled this office of secondary rank but of primary importance in

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888-441: Is that Marshal Bugeaud should be invested with full power, and ordered to take the necessary military measures, and as your Majesty has at this moment no minister, I am ready to draw up and countersign such an order." The marshal, who was present, undertook the task, saying, "I have never been beaten yet, and I shall not begin to-morrow. The barricades shall be carried before dawn." Adolphe Thiers and Barrot decided to withdraw

962-708: The Carlsbad Decrees of the following year. At the Congress of Troppau in 1820 and the succeeding Congress of Laibach in 1821, Metternich tried to align his allies in the suppression of the Carbonari revolt against King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies . The Quintuple Alliance met for the last time at the Congress of Verona in 1822 to advise against the Greek Revolution and to resolve upon

1036-571: The Chamber of Deputies , and he retained that seat during the whole of his political life. Guizot delivered an address in March 1830 calling for greater political freedom in the Chamber of Deputies. The motion passed 221 against 181. Charles X responded by dissolving the Chamber and called for new elections which only strengthened opposition to the throne. On his return to Paris from Nîmes on 27 July,

1110-638: The Conservative Peel government. Peel and Aberdeen resigned from their posts in 1846 over disputes relating to the Corn Laws , where they were succeeded by a Liberal government led by Lord John Russell , with Lord Palmerston serving as foreign minister. Guizot's relationships with this new government were strained at best – Palmerston had been Britain's foreign minister during the Syrian crisis, and had directed an aggressive strategy to bolster

1184-621: The French invasion of Spain . The last meetings had revealed the rising antagonism between Britain and France, especially on Italian unification , the right to self-determination , and the Eastern Question . The Alliance is conventionally taken to have become defunct with Alexander's death in 1825. France ultimately went her separate way following the July Revolution of 1830, leaving the core of Austria, Prussia, and Russia as

1258-532: The Ottoman Empire . Ostensibly, the alliance was formed to instil the divine right of kings and Christian values in European political life, as pursued by Alexander I under the influence of his spiritual adviser Baroness Barbara von Krüdener . It was written by the Tsar and edited by Ioannis Kapodistrias and Alexandru Sturdza . Under the treaty European rulers would agree to govern as "branches" of

1332-776: The United Kingdom and (from 1818) France with the aim of upholding the European peace settlement and balance of power in the Concert of Europe concluded at the Congress of Vienna. On 29 September 1818, Alexander, Emperor Francis I of Austria and King Frederick William III of Prussia met with the Duke of Wellington , Viscount Castlereagh and the Duc de Richelieu at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle to demand stern measures against university " demagogues ", which would be realized in

1406-489: The entente cordiale . Part of the formation of the entente came about when Guizot secured the transfer of Napoleon's ashes from St. Helena to the French government. The opposition in France denounced Guizot's foreign policy as basely subservient to England. He replied in terms of unmeasured contempt: "You may raise the pile of calumny as high as you will; you will never reach the height of my disdain! ( Vous n'arriverez jamais

1480-559: The 1848 Revolution. Guizot was born at Nîmes to a bourgeois Protestant family. On 8 April 1794, when François Guizot was 6, his father was executed on the scaffold at Nîmes during the Reign of Terror . From then on, the boy's mother was completely responsible for his upbringing. Driven from Nîmes by the Revolution , Madame Guizot and her son went to Geneva , where he was educated. In spite of her decided Calvinistic opinions,

1554-511: The Christian community and offer mutual service. In the first draft Tsar Alexander I made appeals to mysticism through a proposed unified Christian empire that was seen as disconcerting by the other monarchies. Following revision, a more pragmatic version of the alliance was adopted by Russia, Prussia, and Austria. The document was called "an apocalypse of diplomacy" by French diplomat Dominique-Georges-Frédéric Dufour de Pradt . The agreement

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1628-587: The Ottoman Empire in direct contradiction to France's designs. Palmerston's reappointment as foreign minister in 1846 was seen in France as a threat. British fears of a union between the French and Spanish Crowns were long-held; they had been central to the War of the Spanish Succession a century and a half earlier. Guizot, intent on rebuilding relations with Britain and his friend Lord Aberdeen in

1702-406: The absence of entire confidence between the ambassador and the minister of foreign affairs, placed him in an embarrassing and even false position. The warnings he transmitted to Thiers were not believed. The treaty of 15 July was signed without his knowledge and executed against his advice. For some weeks Europe seemed to be on the brink of war, until the king ended the crisis by refusing his assent to

1776-416: The bigotry and absolutism of the court. The Doctrinaires fell out of influence following the July Revolution in 1830. In 1820, when the reaction was at its height after the murder of the Duc de Berry , and the fall of the ministry of the duc Decazes, Guizot was deprived of his offices, and in 1822 even his course of lectures were interdicted. During the succeeding years he played an important part among

1850-460: The cause of parliamentary government in France that the infatuation and ineptitude of Charles X and Prince Polignac rendered a change in the hereditary line of succession inevitable. Once convinced that it was inevitable, he became one of the most ardent supporters of Louis Philippe. In August 1830 Guizot was made minister of the interior, but resigned in November. He had now joined the ranks of

1924-527: The chamber, which was then sitting, and informed him that considering the situation in Paris and elsewhere in the country during the Banquet agitation for electoral reform, and the alarm and division of opinion in the royal family, led him to doubt whether he could retain Guizot as his prime minister. Guizot instantly resigned, returning to the chamber only to announce that the administration was at an end and that

1998-400: The council of state. During his time at the University of Paris his lectures earned him a reputation as a historian of note. These lectures formed the basis of his general Histoire de la civilisation en Europe (1828; Eng. trans. by William Hazlitt , 3 vols., 1846), and of his Histoire de la civilisation en France (4 vols., 1830). In January 1830 he was elected by the town of Lisieux to

2072-429: The customary compliment to the all-powerful emperor, in spite of the hints given him by his patron, but the course which followed marks the beginning of the great revival of historical research in France in the 19th century. He had now acquired a considerable position in Paris society, and the friendship of Royer-Collard and leading members of the liberal party, including the young duc de Broglie . Absent from Paris at

2146-555: The department of public instruction. The duties it imposed on him were entirely congenial to his literary tastes, and he was master of the subjects they concerned. He applied himself in the first instance to carry the law of 28 June 1833, which established and organized primary education in France. The branch of the Institute of France known as the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques , which had been suppressed by Napoleon,

2220-473: The early 1840s, had come to an understanding with his British counterpart that Isabella, the Spanish queen, would marry a Bourbon of the Spanish or Neapolitan branches, rather than a Bourbon of France. Palmerston rejected this understanding which had been made with his predecessor, and instead revived the suggestion of Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha as a suitor. The House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha

2294-560: The establishment of the French Second Republic . He is mentioned in the famous opening paragraph of the Communist Manifesto ("a spectre is haunting Europe...") as a representative of the more liberal faction of the counter-revolutionary forces of Old Europe, contrasted with that of the more reactionary forces, Klemens von Metternich . Marx and Engels published that book just days before Guizot's overthrow in

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2368-399: The fall of Charles X was already imminent. Guizot was called upon by his friends Casimir Perier , Jacques Laffitte , Villemain and Dupin to draw up the protest of the liberal deputies against the royal ordinances of July, while he applied himself with them to control the revolutionary character of the late contest. Personally, Guizot was always of opinion that it was a great misfortune for

2442-567: The fallen statesman with as much distinction and respect as they had shown the king's ambassador in 1840. A professorship at Oxford was spoken of, which he was unable to accept. He stayed in England about a year, devoting himself again to history. Back in Paris in 1850, Guizot published two more volumes on the English revolution -- Pourquoi la Révolution d'Angleterre a-t-elle reussi? and Discours sur l'histoire, de la Révolution d'Angleterre . In February 1850 Karl Marx and Frederick Engels co-wrote

2516-418: The fever of money-getting in the French nation, his own habits retained their primitive simplicity. But he did not disdain to use in others the baser passions from which he was himself free. Some of his instruments were mean; he employed them to deal with meanness after its kind. In 1846, the opposition accused the government of buying the votes of the electorate. Guizot acknowledged that corruption happened but

2590-404: The government could not really prevent it. Non-voters exaggerated the occurrences of corruption to point to their need for enfranchisement. Guizot utterly failed to satisfy the demand for expansion of suffrage. Some scholars point out that corruption, while certainly present, did not have a large effect on the voting records of those in the Chamber of Deputies. The strength of Guizot's oration

2664-471: The great principles of liberty and toleration, they were sternly opposed to the anarchical traditions of the Revolution. They hoped to subdue the elements of anarchy through the power of a limited constitution based on the suffrage of the middle class and promoted by the literary talents of the time. They were opposed alike to the democratic spirit of the age, to the military traditions of the empire, and to

2738-765: The habit of authority led him to forget that in a country like France there was a people outside the chamber elected by a small constituency, to which the minister and the king himself were held responsible. Guizot's view of politics was essentially historical and philosophical. His tastes and his acquirements gave him little insight into the practical business of administrative government. Of finance he knew nothing; trade and commerce were strange to him; military and naval affairs were unfamiliar to him; all these subjects he dealt with by second hand through his friends, Pierre Sylvain Dumon (1797–1870), Charles Marie Tanneguy, Comte Duchâttel (1803–1867), or Marshal Bugeaud . The consequence

2812-587: The king had sent for Louis-Mathieu Molé . Molé failed in the attempt to form a government, and between midnight and one in the morning Guizot, who had according to his custom retired early to rest, was again sent for to the Tuileries . The king asked his advice. "We are no longer the ministers of your Majesty," replied Guizot; "it rests with others to decide on the course to be pursued. But one thing appears to be evident: this street riot must be put down; these barricades must be taken; and for this purpose my opinion

2886-430: The king plunged headlong into a counter-intrigue, wholly inconsistent with their previous engagements to Britain and fatal to the happiness of the queen of Spain. By their influence she was urged into a marriage with a despicable offset of the house of Bourbon , and her sister was at the same time married to the youngest son of the French king, in direct violation of Louis Philippe's promises. This transaction, although it

2960-519: The leaders of the liberal opposition to the government of Charles X , although he had not yet entered parliament, and this was also the time of his greatest literary activity. In 1822, he published his lectures on representative government ( Histoire des origines du gouvernement représentatif, 1821–1822 , 2 vols.; Eng. trans. 1852); also a work on capital punishment for political offences and several important political pamphlets. From 1822 to 1830 he published two important collections of historical sources,

3034-507: The liberal Spanish Constitution of 1812 . In order to protect their political position, the moderados moved to carry out the French-backed marriages, over Palmerston's protestations, who insisted that the marriages were a breach of the 1713 Peace of Utrecht . Palmerston's efforts failed – on 10 October 1846, Isabella's 16th birthday, the Spanish queen was married to her cousin, Francis, Duke of Cádiz , while her sister Luisa Fernanda

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3108-558: The memoirs of the history of England in 26 volumes, and the memoirs of the history of France in 31 volumes, a revised translation, of Shakespeare , and a volume of essays on the history of France. Written from his own pen during this period was the first part of his Histoire de la révolution d'Angleterre depuis Charles I à Charles II (2 vols., 1826–1827; Eng. trans., 2 vols., Oxford, 1838), which he resumed and completed during his exile in England after 1848. The Martignac administration restored Guizot in 1828 to his professor's chair and to

3182-408: The military preparations of Thiers, and by summoning Guizot from London to form a ministry and to aid his Majesty in what he termed " ma lutte tenace contre l'anarchie ." Thus began, under dark and adverse circumstances, on 29 October 1840, the important administration in which Guizot remained the master-spirit for nearly eight years. He himself took the office of minister for foreign affairs, and upon

3256-559: The ministry of the interior, but lost his office with the fall of Decazes in February 1820. During these years Guizot was one of the leaders of the Doctrinaires , a small party strongly attached to the charter and the crown, and advocating a policy which has become associated (especially by Émile Faguet ) with the name of Guizot, that of the juste milieu , a middle path between absolutism and popular government. Adhering to

3330-453: The moderate liberal party by attaching the suffrage to the possession of land in France, but blank resistance was the sole answer of the government to the moderate demands of the opposition. Warning after warning was addressed to them in vain by friends and by foes alike, and they remained profoundly unconscious of their danger till the moment when it overwhelmed them. In the afternoon of 23 February 1848, King Louis-Philippe summoned Guizot from

3404-456: The moderate liberals, and for the next eighteen years was a determined foe of democracy, the unyielding champion of "a monarchy limited by a limited number of bourgeois." In 1831 Casimir Périer formed a more vigorous and compact administration, terminated in May 1832 by his death; the summer of that year was marked by a formidable republican rising in Paris, and it was not until 11 October 1832 that

3478-525: The moment of the fall of Napoleon in 1814, he was at once selected, on the recommendation of Royer-Collard, to serve the government of King Louis XVIII , in the capacity of secretary-general of the ministry of the interior, under the abbé de Montesquiou. Upon the return of Napoleon from Elba he immediately resigned, on 25 March 1815, and returned to his literary pursuits. After the Hundred Days , he returned to Ghent , where he saw Louis XVIII, and in

3552-458: The name of the liberal party pointed out that a frank adoption of a liberal policy could alone secure the duration of the restored monarchy – advice which was ill-received by the king's confidential advisers. This visit to Ghent was brought up by political opponents in later years as unpatriotic. "The Man of Ghent" was one of the terms of insult frequently used against him in the days of his power. The reproach appears to be wholly unfounded. He

3626-443: The possibility of facing a Britain-aligned dynasty on both of France's northern and southern borders if Palmerston succeeded in his enterprise. Guizot therefore determined to adamantly oppose any Coburg marriages. The affair connected also with the chaotic politics of mid-19th-century Spain. The French backed the ruling conservative moderados , while the British backed the opposition liberal progresistas , who desired to reinstate

3700-478: The retirement of Marshal Soult , he became prime minister. His first care was the maintenance of peace and the restoration of amicable relations with the other powers of Europe. His success gave unity and strength to the moderate liberal party, who now felt that they had a great leader at their head. During Guizot's tenure as foreign minister, he and Lord Aberdeen , the foreign secretary to Sir Robert Peel , carried on well, and thus they secured France and Britain in

3774-516: The theories of Jean-Jacques Rousseau influenced Madame Guizot. A strong Liberal , she even adopted the notion inculcated in Emile that every man ought to learn a manual trade or craft. Guizot learnt carpentry, and succeeded in making a table with his own hands, which is still preserved. In 1805, he arrived in Paris and he entered at the age eighteen as tutor into the family of M. Stapfer, formerly Swiss minister in France. He soon began to write in

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3848-425: The three leaders of that alliance took ministerial office, and Guizot was not sorry to accept the post of ambassador in London, which withdrew him for a time from parliamentary contests. This was in the spring of 1840, and Thiers succeeded shortly afterwards to the ministry of foreign affairs. Guizot was received with distinction by Queen Victoria and by London society. His literary works were highly esteemed, and he

3922-506: The time of the first Revolution . His two daughters married two descendants of the patrician family De Witt of Amsterdam , not be confused with the illustrious Dordrecht family De Witt of former Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt . Both where so congenial in faith and manners to the Huguenots of France, kept his house. One of his sons-in-law farmed the estate. Guizot devoted his later years with undiminished energy to literary labour, which

3996-589: The troops. Guizot found a safe refuge in Paris for some days in the lodging of a humble miniature painter whom he had befriended, and shortly afterwards escaped across the Belgian frontier and from there to London, where he arrived on 3 March. His mother and daughters had preceded him, and he was speedily installed in a modest habitation in Pelham Crescent, Brompton . The society of England, though many people disapproved of much of his recent policy, received

4070-562: The two courts with reference to the future marriage of the young queen of Spain . The language of Lord Palmerston and the conduct of Sir Henry Bulwer (afterwards Lord Dalling) at Madrid led Guizot to believe that this understanding was broken, provoking the Affair of the Spanish Marriages after Guizot came to believe that Britain intended to place a Coburg on the throne of Spain. Determined to resist any such intrigue, Guizot and

4144-546: The vote to "enrich yourselves" (enrichissez-vous) through hard work and thrift. As Prime Minister, it was Guizot's ban on the political meetings (called the campagne des banquets or the Paris Banquets, which were held by moderate liberals who wanted a larger extension of the franchise) of an increasingly vigorous opposition in January 1848 that catalyzed the revolution that toppled Louis Philippe in February and saw

4218-590: The wake of the devastating French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars ; it nominally succeeded in this until the Crimean War . Chancellor Otto von Bismarck managed to reunite the Holy Alliance, as League of the Three Emperors , following the unification of Germany in 1871; the alliance again faltered by the 1880s over Austrian and Russian conflicts of interest over the decline of

4292-567: Was a French historian , orator , and statesman . Guizot was a dominant figure in French politics prior to the Revolution of 1848 . A conservative liberal who opposed the attempt by King Charles X to usurp legislative power, he worked to sustain a constitutional monarchy following the July Revolution of 1830. He then served the "citizen king" Louis Philippe , as Minister of Education, 1832–37, ambassador to London, Foreign Minister 1840–1847, and finally Prime Minister of France from 19 September 1847 to 23 February 1848. Guizot's influence

4366-507: Was acting not to preserve the failing empire, but to establish a liberal monarchy and to combat the reactionary ultra-royalists. On the second restoration , Guizot was appointed secretary-general of the ministry of justice under de Barbé-Marbois , but resigned with his chief in 1816. In 1819 he was one of the founders of the Liberal journal Le Courrier français . Again in 1819 he was appointed general director of communes and departments in

4440-559: Was at first secret, and mistrusted by liberals though liberalism was effectively restrained in this political culture until the Revolutions of 1848 . About three months after the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna , the monarchs of Catholic (Austria), Protestant (Prussia), and Orthodox (Russia) confession promised to act on the basis of "justice, love, and peace", both in internal and foreign affairs, for "consolidating human institutions and remedying their imperfections". The Alliance

4514-415: Was closely linked to the British royal house; Queen Victoria 's mother was born Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and her husband since 1840 was Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha . The British had backed the candidature of another Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha as king of Belgium in 1830, and although he had married Louis-Philippe's eldest daughter , the French were confronted with

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4588-467: Was critical in expanding public education, which under his ministry saw the creation of primary schools in every French commune. As a leader of the " Doctrinaires ", committed to supporting the policies of Louis Phillipe and limitations on further expansion of the political franchise, he earned the hatred of more left-leaning liberals and republicans through his unswerving support for restricting suffrage to propertied men and supposedly advised those who wanted

4662-407: Was formed in autumn of 1840 in France with Guizot as foreign minister, and Guizot set himself to the task of restoring friendly relationships with other European powers – including Britain – who had sided with the Ottoman Empire in the crisis. Guizot became a personal friend of the British foreign minister, Lord Aberdeen . Relations between Britain and France warmed significantly during the tenure of

4736-560: Was hailed at the time as a triumph of the policy of France, was in truth as fatal to the monarch as it was discreditable to the minister. It was accomplished by a mixture of secrecy and violence. It was defended by subterfuges. Its immediate effect was to destroy the Anglo-French alliance, and to throw Guizot into closer relations with the reactionary policy of Metternich and the Northern courts. His first object as prime minister

4810-431: Was his straightforward style of speaking. He was essentially a ministerial speaker, far more powerful in defence than in opposition. Nor was he less a master of parliamentary tactics and of those sudden changes and movements in debate which, as in a battle, sometimes change the fortune of the day. His confidence in himself, and in the majority of the chamber which he had moulded to his will, was unbounded; and long success and

4884-690: Was in fact his chief means of subsistence. Holy Alliance The Holy Alliance ( German : Heilige Allianz ; Russian : Священный союз , Svjaščennyj sojuz ), also called the Grand Alliance , was a coalition linking the absolute monarchist great powers of Austria , Prussia , and Russia , which was created after the final defeat of Napoleon at the behest of Emperor (Tsar) Alexander I of Russia and signed in Paris on 26 September 1815. The alliance aimed to restrain liberalism in Europe in

4958-543: Was married to Antoine, Duke of Montpensier , the youngest son of Louis-Philippe of France. Although the French won the day and prevented a British-backed suitor from becoming Spain's king consort, they and their moderado allies in Spain had to pressure the young queen into the marriage, as the Duke of Cádiz was thought to be impotent. The affair was a source of embarrassment for France. The rapprochement between Britain and France

5032-638: Was quickly rejected by the United Kingdom (though George IV declared consent in his capacity as King of Hanover ), the Papal States , and the Ottoman Empire . Lord Castlereagh , the British Foreign Secretary, called it "a piece of sublime mysticism and nonsense". Nonetheless, Britain participated in the Concert of Europe . In practice, the Austrian state chancellor and foreign minister, Prince Klemens von Metternich made it

5106-459: Was revived by Guizot. Some of the old members of this learned body – Talleyrand , Sieyès , Roederer and Lakanal  – again took their seats there, and a host of more recent celebrities were added by election for the free discussion of the great problems of political and social science. The Société de l'histoire de France was founded for the publication of historical works, and a vast publication of medieval chronicles and diplomatic papers

5180-458: Was sincerely attached to the alliance of the two nations and the cause of peace. He also secured the return of Napoleon's ashes to France at the insistence of Thiers. As he himself remarked, he was a stranger to England and a novice in diplomacy; the embroiled state of the Syrian War question, on which the French government had separated itself from the joint policy of Europe, and possibly

5254-464: Was that few measures of practical improvement were carried by his administration. Still less did the government lend an ear to the cry for parliamentary reform. On this subject the king's prejudices were insurmountable, and his ministers had the weakness to give way to them. It was impossible to defend a system which confined the suffrage to 200,000 citizens and returned a chamber of whom half were placemen. Nothing would have been easier than to strengthen

5328-454: Was to unite and discipline the moderate liberal party, which had been broken up by previous dissensions and ministerial changes. In this he entirely succeeded by his courage and eloquence as a parliamentary leader, and by the use of all those means of influence which France supplied to a dominant minister. No one ever doubted the purity and disinterestedness of Guizot's own conduct. He despised money; he lived and died poor; and though he encouraged

5402-418: Was undertaken at the expense of the state. The July Monarchy was threatened in 1839 by Louis-Mathieu Molé , who had formed an intermediate government. Guizot and the leaders of the left centre and the left, Thiers and Odilon Barrot worked together to stop Molé. Victory was secured at the expense of principle, and Guizot's attack on the government gave rise to a crisis and a republican insurrection. None of

5476-584: Was wrecked, and Guizot sought allies instead among the reactionary Northern courts led by Klemens von Metternich . This movement toward conservatism drove liberals from the ruling coalition in France, and contributed to the final end of the Orleanist monarchy in France two years later in the Revolution of 1848 . Both of the marriages proved to be unhappy ones. Fran%C3%A7ois Guizot François Pierre Guillaume Guizot ( French: [fʁɑ̃swa pjɛʁ ɡijom ɡizo] ; 4 October 1787 – 12 September 1874)

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