IV.1.5. WORKERS' FIRST CONSCIOUS REVOLT AND MODERN EUROPE'S FIRST GREAT MASSACRE

MENU: 4.1.5. Workers' first conscious revolt

THE INSURRECTION THAT THE HUMBLE SIMPLY CALLED "JUNE"

June 23, 24 et 26 1848: 

• Killed: rebels, 5000 / soldiers, 1460.
• Wounded: unknown.
• Deported to Algeria or Cayenne, thousands.

  The Barricade of Rue de la Mortellerie, June 1848 by Ernest Meissonnier / zoom

Sketch made on the spot. Notice the red, white and blue of the foreground. 

It led to a regime that was exceptionally autocratic, corrupt and repressive, and to the military transformation of Paris (coming next).

In brief

• A republic for the happy few

• A worker's revolt announces the future

• The right changes too: Provincial nobles answer the call

• Young delinquents joyously join in

• Empathy from a countess alone

• June brings Europe's most authoritarian regime

Main sources

The History of the 1848 revolution (in French; can be read on the web) by Daniel Stern, pen name of Marie d'Agoult and Souvenirs by Alexis de Toqueville. Both were nobles, Toqueville conservative, Stern extraordinarily liberal. 

Memories of a Revolutionary, from June 1848 to the Commune by Gustave Lefrançais, 1886-87, re-ed. 2013 (in French). 

A modern narrative: Red Paris in "A history of the barricade" by Éric Hazan (2015).

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Next,

A republic for the happy few