19th Century Politics: France
Internal turmoil caused France to miss out on much of the wealth of the Industrial Revolution.
That means while many of the other nations in Europe were enjoying the Industrial Revolution,
they were developing factories and using the assembly line method of production, they were
being able to produce things much more quickly which means they could sell more products
and become wealthy. France wasn't getting to do all of that because they couldn't keep
one leader long enough. No one leader was staying in a long, stable reign to be able
to develop any of these kinds of Industrial Revolution ideas. After the demise of Napoleon,
Louis XVIII had been restored to the throne by the Congress of Vienna in 1815. So the
Congress of Vienna had come together to decide what to do about Napoleon. They had finally
got rid of him, and they said ok Louis the XVIII you can go back and be king. And so
that was 1815. Napoleon was done. He had kind of wreaked havoc on things because he had
taken over so many other nations and now France was left with just what it had started with
and so Louis the XVIII had to come in and kind of re-situate things. He was succeeded
by the arch conservative Charles X who was very unpopular. And was chased off the throne
in the July Revolution of 1830. So after Louis XVIII in 1815 came Charles X but he didn't
last very long because he was very unpopular and he ended up being chased off the throne
in 1830. So let's go to the next ruler. In Charles X place came Louis Philippe, and Louis
Philippe administered a fairly stable country for eighteen years until he was deposed in
the Revolution of 1848. So he did hold the country for 18 years, and things were pretty
stable, but things were just getting worked out and then he was deposed in another revolution.
So there was all this internal turmoil. The citizens were constantly revolting against
the current ruler which made things very difficult. If you couldn't get a long, stable reign in
there, then the rules that one ruler had made were just going to be overturned by the next
one. People didn't really know what to expect. So next came Napoleon III. And he was elected
by the people the Emperor of France in 1851. So you see there was even a three year gap
where they couldn't one stable leader there during that revolutionary period. But Napoleon
III remained in power until the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. So he
also ruled for 19 years, about the same time a Louis Philippe, but he still didn't get
the Industrial Revolution really kicking in France. Things hadn't really picked up for
them yet. And then from 1870 to 1940, France would be governed by a constitutional and democratic government which was mostly
conservative. So France had so many rulers that kept turning over and you kept getting
a new one before you could really get any stability going, and there were all these
revolutions happening. So without any stability within France, the citizens were never able
to enjoy the benefits of the Industrial Revolution. They didn't really pick up with that while
the rest of the countries were. Now eventually they were getting some more stability. Eighteen
years, nineteen years, this whole long seventy year period where they had the stable constitutional
and democratic government, but the early 1800s were a mess. And so it took France a lot longer
to industrialize because of its internal political revolutions than it did for other European
nations.