Exile Come Home

   Happy Friday wishes from Chairman Joe

   On this day in 1802, Napoleon signed an amnesty allowing thousands of exiles who had fled the French Revolution to return home to France. The amnesty excluded about a thousand ultra-royalists who the government felt could not be trusted.
   Even before the start of the revolution in 1789, French nobles started leaving the country for Austria, Great Britain, and the United States. The French Revolution was mainly about reducing the power of the king and the nobles. The nobles comprised less than 2% of the population, but controlled 20% of the land in the country. The rest of the people, the bourgeois and the peasants paid all the taxes, and the peasants had to work two weeks every year for the nobles without pay.
   By the time of the Revolution the French treasury was empty. France had spent a fortune supporting the American Revolution. When the king tried to squeeze some tax money out of the nobles, he lost their support. Once the Revolution got started, the nobles started leaving in greater numbers. The new French government suspected, rightly, that these nobles were leaving to join forces with the Austrians to return the old regime to power.
   The nobles who left early were able to make financial provisions, so they could live comfortably in their new homes. Those who left during the Reign of Terror (1793-4) were like our modern refugees who arrive with little more than the shirts on their backs and are often welcomed with resentment by their hosts.
   The most pathetic of all the exiles was the king himself. After the revolution started, he was removed from his palace at Versailles to Paris for his protection. Had he been willing to compromise with the new government, he could have continued to rule as a constitutional monarch like George III over in Britain. But he could not give up his absolute power. In 1791 he decided to escape to Austrian lands to the east where a loyal army waited. He was advised to travel the two hundred miles in a pair of fast, light carriages. This would have meant splitting up the family so Louis insisted on a large, lumbering carriage pulled by six horses.
   The family travelled in disguise, but were recognized anyway and were arrested 31 miles from the border. They were returned to Paris and kept under close watch. Next year the monarchy was abolished. Citizen Louis Capet was executed for treason on January 21, 1793. The queen, Marie Antoinette, followed him to the guillotine nine months later.
   The Austrians did eventually attack France in an attempt to restore the old order. The new government bungled its way along, winning some battles, losing others. There were rebellions and riots within France itself. The government was bankrupt by the time it made Napoleon First Council in 1802. There was a pretense that France was still a republic, but in the emergency, Napoleon was given almost as much power as Louis had had. Unlike Louis, Napoleon knew how to use power.
   One of the first things Napoleon did was to extend an amnesty to the exiled nobles. He needed their support and many went to work in his government. Two years later, in 1804, Napoleon had himself crowned emperor in Notre Dame Cathedral. France entered a glorious period under Napoleon, though it wasn't so glorious for the countries he conquered. Eventually he got carried away, and his great army bled out on the retreat from Moscow. After Waterloo, Napoleon was exiled to a barren island in the South Atlantic.
   The victorious European powers recalled Louis XVI's brother from his 23 years of exile and set him up as King Louis XVIII (Louis XVI's son had died at the age of 10. He would have been the XVIIth).  Louis XVIII was a reasonable king. He realized the past was past and looked to France's prosperity. When he died in 1825, his brother took over as Charles X. Charles was the opposite of his brother. His moves to restore the old ways led to a second revolution in 1830 and Charles was off to Great Britain for his second exile. Charles's cousin Louis Phillippe now became king. He was ok, but after 18 years, the French got tied of him and staged a third revolution. It was exile again for Louis Phillipe.
   The French decided to try a president, like the Americans. Unfortunately they chose Napoleon's nephew, who quickly declared himself president for life and then Emperor Napoleon III. France entered another glorious period until the disastrous Franco-Prussian war of 1870, after which  Napoleon III trudged off to exile.
   France was now divided between those who wanted to restore the monarchy and those who wanted to continue the goals of the revolution. Meanwhile the country drifted into World War I, losing over a million people on the Western Front.  World War II was another nightmare for France. Then came de Gaulle and prosperity. France has done well since the end of the war, but the French never seem quite satisfied.
   To anyone who has read this far, I commend you for your perseverance. Once started down history's road, it's hard to know where to turn off. One more tidbit: this Louis Phillipe mentioned above spent part of his exile living above a restaurant in Boston. He earned his keep by giving French lessons to young women. The restaurant has survived as Ye Olde Union Oyster House, America's oldest continuous restaurant. I know this is an anachronism, but I like to imagine Louis Phillipe popping down to the oyster bar between lessons to share a brandy with the lawyer Danial Webster. John Adams may have wandered in too.

The French never seem entirely happy.