July Revolution of 1830 took place in Paris when the French people revolted against King Charles X and brought Louis Philippe to the throne. Charles had tried to move France toward the absolute monarchy it had been before the French Revolution began in 1789.
In the elections of 1830, the liberals had won a large majority in the Chamber of Deputies, France’s legislature. King Charles, who opposed the liberals, then issued the July Ordinances. They called for strict censorship of the press, dissolved the newly elected Chamber of Deputies before it had met, set a date for new elections, and reduced the number of voters.
Several important urban groups revolted. Journalists and other middle-class professionals called for demonstrations. Workers set up barricades in the streets of Paris and controlled the city center for three days. Charles X soon gave up the throne and fled to England.
The workers favored a republican form of government. But the Marquis de Lafayette threw his great influence behind a limited monarchy under Louis Philippe, the Duke of Orleans, who then became king. Louis Philippe was seen as a bourgeois (middle-class) king rather than an aristocratic king such as Charles X had been. A new French constitution was drawn up that was the most liberal constitution in Europe.
A wave of revolutions swept through Europe following the July Revolution in France. In one of them, Belgians won their independence from the Dutch. In France, urban unrest continued. Workers sought greater control over the economy but were denied it. Louis Philippe became steadily more conservative during his reign, known as the July Monarchy. In 1848, he was overthrown by another revolution.
