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French Revolution of 1848; The Three Days of February 1848
French Revolution of 1848 The Three Days of February 1848 Author:Percy Bolingbroke St. John General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1848 Original Publisher: R. Bentley Subjects: France History / Europe / France Travel / Europe / France Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of ... more »this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER III. THE OPENING OF THE CHAMBERS. The last Session of the Parliament of the French monarchy was opened by King Louis Philippe in person, on the 28th of December, 1847. For some time previous, the weather had been of the most gloomy and threatening description, and seemed somewhat to accord with the sentiments which had lately occupied the minds of a large portion of the French people. All was anxiety to hear the King's speech, as it was expected that some notice would be taken of the various Banquets, which had been held in different parts of the provinces, for the purpose of obtaining the Electoral Reform, so much agitated for by the opposition. In fact, the tone of the ministerial journals was threatening. On the 27th of December, the Debats seemed to denote that strong measures would be takento stay the Reform movement; for it said speaking of the agitation : " Marchez sur le fantdme, il s'evanouira; fuyez, il grandira jusqn'au del." Like everything in this journal, this is smart, but unfortunately it was not true. The state of the King's health also gave additional interest to the opening of the Session. An influenza of a severe and troublesome character -- the well-known grippe -- had attacked a great portion of the Parisians, and reports were everywhere in circulation, that the King, already enfeebled by age and natural infirmity, had been much affected by the prevailing malady. It was even said, that did he proceed to the Chamber of Deputies, the state of his voice was such as to render...« less