Some say later!

My favorite example of this *so far* was Charles Fabvier in Episode 30 (and guess who makes a cameo again in the upcoming Episode 49??): thesiecle.com/episode30/

Attested as early as 1825, so not impossible!

34/ This thread is adapted most directly from Episode 43 of The Siècle, "The Politicians," but my entire series on the July Revolution begins with Episode 39 (and you'll get a lot of extra backstory by starting with Episode 1, as I recommend).

33/ I'll be exploring the emerging July Monarchy in coming episodes of The Siècle — one coming *very soon*. But the politics of the July Revolution are fascinating, in how opposition leaders almost dithered away their moment, but developed a backbone before events had completely passed them by.

32/ But I don't think we should read backwards into July 1830 the events of the next subsequent months and years, which were not predetermined. The accession of Louis-Philippe was a moment of potentiality, not finality; the key decisions for the fate of the July Monarchy remained in the future.

31/ The popular image of the July Revolution is dominated by what came next — the quick retreat of the July Monarchy into conservatism and "resistance," culminating eventually in its own overthrow in 1848 after refusals to expand the franchise.

30/ What always strikes me about the July Revolution is how *fast* it all was. This wasn't like the American Revolution, where delegates took more than a year after Lexington and Concord to finally build majority support for declaring independence. The July Revolution was over in less than a week.

29/ This brief moment of decisive unity didn't last long. In the coming months the new regime — the July Monarchy — would split into opposing camps, the "Party of Movement" who wanted to continue reforms & the "Party of Resistance" who wanted to freeze things in a new order. But that's another tale.

28/ But while France's opposition politicians were slow to act, they were not, in the end, TOO slow. Before events on the ground completely passed them by, the politicians asserted themselves and arranged for Charles to be replaced by his more liberal cousin, Louis-Philippe, Duc d'Orléans.

27/ The politicians had not been leaders in what was becoming the July Revolution. The journalists of Paris had kicked things off by publicly defying the Four Ordinances, and the people then rose up to violently repel Charles's attempts to enforce his coup. All while the politicians dithered.

26/ And so, as the night ended with no response to the opposition leaders' demands, many of them radicalized. Led by Jacques Laffitte, the banker-politician who had once declared, "Given my wealth, I am clearly interested in order," they began pursuing a change of dynasty.

25/ At this moment Charles could have probably saved his throne if he'd agreed. It would have been humiliating, yes. But these squishy moderates wanted to change the government, not the regime. Some of them tried much harder to save Charles's throne than *he* did. But Charles refused to bend.

24/ This wasn't a huge ask. Firing Polignac was what they had wanted all along, and the Four Ordinances were clearly unacceptable. They weren't asking for any other political concessions, or for Charles to abdicate. But they refused to compromise on these basic demands.