The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

As Karl Marx suggests, France had been in a state of revolutionary change since 1789, when the French Revolution began. At first, the French Revolution had forced the king of France, King Louis XVI, to relinquish some of his power. The monarchy became a constitutional monarchy, which means that the monarchy’s political power was restrained by a strong elected legislative representative body (in France, this was called the National Assembly) and a written constitution. However, by 1792, King Louis XVI was put on trial and executed, with the monarchy abolished. It was replaced by a republican government, known to historians today as the First Republic of France.

By 1799, the republic came under the control of a general, Napoleon Bonaparte. Soon, Napoleon abolished the republic and made himself the Emperor of the French, Napoleon I. After Napoleon was defeated and overthrown for the last time in 1815, the Bourbons, Louis XVI’s family, were brought back to power. The new king, Louis XVIII, was placed at the head of a new constitutional monarchy. Louis XVIII’s government was based on a constitution called the Charter of 1814, which guaranteed rights such as press freedoms, religious rights, and due process.