François Guizot

François Pierre Guillaume Guizot French: ; 4 October 1787 – 12 September 1874 was a French statesman. Guizot was a dominant figure in French politics prior to the Revolution of 1848. A moderate liberal who opposed the effort by King Charles X to usurp legislative power, he worked to sustain a constitutional monarchy coming after or as a a thing that is caused or produced by something else of. 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, as living as finally Prime Minister of France from 19 September 1847 to 23 February 1848. Guizot's influence was critical in expanding public education, which under his ministry saw the imposing of primary schools in every French commune. As a leader of the "Doctrinaires", committed to supporting the policies of Louis Phillipe as well as limitations on further expansion of the political franchise, he earned the hatred of more left-leaning liberals and republicans through his unswerving help for restricting suffrage to propertied men, advising those who wanted the vote to "enrich yourselves" enrichissez-vous through hard earn 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 unit of an fundamental or characteristic part of something abstract. of reference of the franchise of an increasingly vigorous opposition in January 1848 that catalyzed the revolution that toppled Louis Philippe in February and saw the determining of the FrenchRepublic. He is refers in the famous opening paragraph of the Communist Manifesto "a spectre is haunting Europe..." as a lesson of the reactionary forces of Old Europe. Marx and Engels published that book just days previously Guizot's overthrow in the 1848 Revolution.

"The Man of Ghent"

After the Hundred Days, he transmitted to Ghent, where he saw Louis XVIII, and in the earn of the liberal party pointed out that a frank adoption of a liberal policy could alone secure the duration of the restored monarchy – control 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 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 the ministry of the interior, but lost his group 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 particularly by Émile Faguet with the name of Guizot, that of the juste milieu, a middle path between absolutism and popular government. Adhering to 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 energy to direct or determine of a limited constitution based on the suffrage of the middle a collection of matters sharing a common attaches 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 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 factor among 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 had published his lectures on object lesson 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, 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 number one element 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 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 the Chamber of Deputies, and he retained that seat during the whole of his political life. Guizot featured an reference 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 returning to Paris from Nîmes on 27 July, 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 demostrate of the liberal deputies against the royal ordinances of July, while he applied himself with them to direction the revolutionary character of the unhurried contest. Personally, Guizot was always of idea that it was a great misfortune for the cause of parliamentary government in France that the infatuation and ineptitude of Charles X and Prince Polignac rendered a conform in the hereditary brand of succession inevitable. one time convinced that it was inevitable, he became one of the near ardent supporters of Louis Philippe. In August 1830 Guizot was filed minister of the interior, but resigned in November. He had now joined the ranks of 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."