Even the king's speeches are distorted The press influence the Parliament when they are not entirely fictitious, do not come to the knowledge of several millions of readers, except mutilated and disfigured in the most odious manner. A thick cloud, raised by the journals, conceals the truth, and in some manner intercepts the light between the government and the people. The kings, your predecessors, sire, always loved to communicate with their subjects; this is a satisfaction which the press has not thought fit that your Majesty should. enjoy. A license which has passed all bounds has, in fact, not respected, even on the most solemn occasions, either the express will of the king or the words pronounced from the throne. Some have been misunderstood and misinterpreted; others have been the subject of perfidious commentaries, or of bitter derision. This is not all. The press tends to nothing short of subjuendeavors to gating the sovereignty and invading the powers of the State. The alleged organ of public opinion, it aspires to direct the debates of the two chambers; it is incontestable that it brings to bear upon them an influence no less fatal than decisive. This domination has assumed in the Chamber of Deputies, especially within these two or three years, a manifest character of oppression and tyranny. In this interval of time we have seen the newspapers pursue with their insults and their outrages the members whose votes appeared to them uncertain or suspected. Too often, sire, the freedom of debate in that chamber has sunk under the reiterated blows of the press. the news papers ... Religion is The periodical press has not displayed less ardor in pursuing, not spared by with its poisoned darts, religion and its priests. Its object is, and always will be, to root out of the heart of the people the very last germ of religious sentiments. Sire, do not doubt that it will succeed in this, by attacking the foundations of the press, by poisoning the sources of public morals, and by covering the ministers of the altars with derision and contempt. Upright men look to the king for relief Give ear, sire, to the prolonged cry of indignation and of terror which rises from all points of your kingdom. All peaceable men, the upright, the friends of order, stretch out their suppliant hands to your Majesty. All implore you to preserve them from the return of those calamities which so grievously afflicted their fathers or themselves. These apprehensions are too real not to be attended to; these wishes are too legitimate to be disregarded. . . . act alone The right as well as the duty of assuring its own maintenance The kin is the inseparable attribute of sovereignty. No government on has pow earth would remain standing, if it had not the right to provide for its own security. This power takes precedence of the laws, because it is in the nature of things. These, sire, are maxims which have in their favor the sanction of time and the assent of all the publicists of Europe. But these maxims have another sanction still more positive, that of the Charter itself. The fourteenth article has invested your Majesty with a sufficient power, not undoubtedly to change our institutions but to strengthen them and render them more stable. Circumstances of imperious necessity do not permit the exercise of this supreme power to be longer deferred. The moment has come to have recourse to measures which are in the spirit of the Charter, but which are beyond the limits of the existing laws, the resources of which have been exhausted in vain. Sire, your ministers, who are to secure the success of these measures, do not hesitate to propose them to you, convinced as they are that right will prevail. We are, with the most profound respect, sire, your Majesty's most humble and most faithful subjects. Sunday, July 25, 1830 X's ordi In response to the recommendations of his minis- 189. Cha ters, Charles X, on July 25, 1830, issued three important against ordinances: one (given below) against the press, another press dissolving the newly elected Chamber of Deputies before it could hold its first session, and a third altering the qualifications of voters in favor of the more conservative classes. These decrees were the signal for the Revolution of 1830. Charles, &c. To all to whom these presents shall come, greeting. On the report of our Council of Ministers, we have ordained and ordain as follows: ARTICLE I. The liberty of the periodical press is suspended. 2. The provisions of articles 1, 2, and 9 of the first section of the law of the 21st of October, 1814, are again put in force, in consequence of which no journal, or periodical, or semiperiodical work, regardless of the character of the matters therein treated, established, or about to be established, shall appear either in Paris or in the departments, except by virtue of an authorization first obtained from us by the authors and the printer respectively. This authorization shall be renewed every three months. It may also be revoked. 3. The authorization shall be provisionally granted and provisionally withdrawn by the prefects from newspapers and periodicals, or semiperiodical works, published or about to be published in their departments. 4. Newspapers and writings published in contravention of article 2 shall be immediately seized. The presses and types used in the printing of them shall be placed in a public warehouse under seals, or rendered unfit for use. 5. No work of less than twenty printed pages shall appear, except with the authority of our Minister-Secretary of State for the Interior, at Paris, and of the prefects in the departments. Every work of more than twenty printed pages, which shall not constitute one single publication, must be likewise issued under authorization only. Writings published without authorization shall be immediately seized; the presses and types used in printing them shall be placed in a public warehouse, and under seals, or rendered unfit for use. 6. Reports of legal proceedings and transactions of scientific and literary societies must be previously authorized if they treat in whole or in part of political matters, in which case the measures prescribed by article 5 shall be applicable. Given at Chateau St. Cloud, the 25th of July, of the year of grace 1830, and the sixth of our reign. This ordinance against the press was immediately met by a protest from the Paris journalists, who declared that they would attempt to print their papers without the royal authorization required in the decree. The Paris deputies to the Chamber, which had been dissolved, likewise denounced the king's arbitrary action, and in a short time an uprising in the capital overthrew Charles X. Thereupon the Chamber of Deputies declared the throne vacant and offered the crown to Louis Philippe. Chambe The Chamber of Deputies, in view of the imperative neces- 190. Th зity resulting from the events of July 26, 27, 28, and 29, and Deputie the following days, and the general situation of France due to summor the violation of the Constitutional Charter; Louis the thr In view also of the fact that, in consequence of this violation and of the heroic resistance of the citizens of Paris, his Majesty Charles X and his Royal Highness Louis Antoine, the dauphin, and all the members of the older branch of the royal house The thr are at this moment leaving French territory, declares that the declared throne is vacant in fact and of right, and that it is indispensable to provide therefor. The Chamber of Deputies declares, secondly, that, in accordance with the wish and in the interest of the French people, the preamble of the Constitutional Charter1 is suppressed as wounding the national dignity, since it appears to grant to Frenchmen the rights which are inherently theirs, and that the following articles of the same character must be suppressed or modified in the manner below indicated. [Here follows a series of modifications in the Charter intended to preclude the illiberal construction which Charles X had placed upon it.] vacant invited, On condition of the acceptance of these arrangements and Louis propositions, the Chamber of Deputies declares that the general Philipp and pressing interest of the French people summons to the certain throne his Royal Highness Louis Philippe of Orleans, duke of ditions, Orleans, lieutenant general of the kingdom, and his descend- become ants forever, from male to male, in order of primogeniture, to 1 See above, p. 3 of Fran 191. Rea sons which led to the creation of the kingdom of Belgium Grievances of the Belgian provinces against Holland the perpetual exclusion of women and their descendants. Accordingly his Royal Highness Louis Philippe of Orleans shall be invited to accept and swear to the clauses and engagements above enumerated, and to the observation of the Constitutional Charter including the modifications indicated, and, after having done this in the presence of the assembled chambers, to take the title of King of the French. Section 50. Establishment of the Kingdom of Belgium In the general European settlement of 1815 the old Austrian Netherlands had been united with the Dutch provinces under the kingship of the prince of Orange, who took the title of William I. From the very outset the inhabitants of the southern districts chafed under this forced union with Holland, and shortly after the overthrow of Charles X a revolution was started in Brussels with the cry, "Let us do as the French have done." A provisional government was later set up, independence declared, and a national congress called to draft a constitution for the new state. At the opening of this congress, October 10, 1830, the causes for the separation from Holland were stated by the provisional government in the following address. In the name of the Belgian people, the provisional government opens an assembly of the representatives of the nation. The nation has confided to these representatives the august mission of founding, on the broad and solid basis of liberty, the edifice of the new social order which will be the beginning and the guarantee of durable happiness to Belgium. You are aware, gentlemen, that at the time of our union with Holland a Fundamental Law was presented to an assembly of notables, chosen by the government, not to examine, discuss, modify, and finally to accept it and make it the condition of a compact between the people and the head of the State, but |