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Originally viewed by many as liberal, the July
Monarchy ->increasingly ridiculed and criticized as corrupt, brutal, and repressive.
Collapsed in February of 1848, ->lack of support combined with outright opposition.
Criticism of Louis-Philippe in French publications was part of a burgeoning mass culture.
Increased literacy and publications->political caricatures the idea of the public as a force in politics, which was visible during the French
Revolution, grew.

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Eugene Delacroix,
Liberty Leading the
People
Marianne, French personification of liberty.
Revolutionary
Tricolor
Some of these people do not belong.

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Louis-Philippe aka: “the bourgeois king” and “the citizen king”
Note the bourgeoisie present at this royal event

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Growing literacy in France
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1830: 50% of men and 40% of women
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1848: 66% of men and 50% of women
New technology of lithography made the reproduction of images much easier. Political cartoons and caricatures became important aspects of French political discourse.
Public opinion was an increasingly salient aspect of politics, and the public was increasingly influenced by mass media.

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Ironically entitled
“Reigne de l’egalitie”
(Reign of Equality)
Bourgeois courtiers are announced at a court function. “Mrs.
Potasse, lady of the bedchamber and Mr.
Potasse, gentleman of the [king’s] chamber.”
Published in La Cariacature, 19 July
1832.

Honoré Daumier, Gargantua (1831).
The throne as royal toilet.

Artist unknown, lithograph by Becquet in
Le charivari , November 10, 1833
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"A Poor Father of a Family Who Has an Income of Only a Few Millions.”
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Louis-Phillipe’s family and friends often benefitted from government jobs or government projects

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These insurrections were immortalized in Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables
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“The barricade of Saint Antoine was monstrous; it was three stories high and seven hundred feet long.... It was the collaboration of the pavement, the pebble, the timber, the iron bar, the chip, the broken square, the stripped chair, the cabbage stump, the scrap, the rag.... Its crest was thorny with muskets, with swords, with clubs, with axes, with pikes, and with bayonets; a huge red flag fluttered in the wind; there were heard cries of command, songs of attack, the roll of the drum, the sobs of women, and the dark wild laughter of the starving. ... The spirit of revolution covered ... that summit whereupon growled this voice of the people which is like the voice of God; a strange majesty emanated from that titanic hodful* of refuse. It was a garbage heap and it was Sinai.”
Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
* hod-a trough used for carrying bricks or mortar

Honoré Daumier, Rue Transnonian (July 1834). French troops massacred eleven people in an apartment building located near a street barricade in 1834 uprisings.

La Cariacature, May 1, 1834.
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“ Hercules the Conquerer.
Antique Statue. Found in the ruins of city once rich, flourishing, and populous.
The demi-god is dressed in a lion skin. He seems to be resting after one of his difficult labors.”--C.J. Travies.
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The culotte-clad Hercules is identifiable as Louis-Philippe by the top hat and umbrella, with which the King almost always appeared. These accessories were identified with the bourgeoisie.
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Bomb and the smoldering city may refer to violence in Lyon.

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Drawing from the sedition trial of Charles Philipon.
The pear became the universal and ubiquitous symbol of Louis-Philippe, appearing in published caricatures and in widespread graffiti.
The French word for pear,
poire, is slang for simpleton or fat head.
Louis-Philippe’s face and body were somewhat pear shaped.

Pictures from 1832 issues of La Caricature

The king playing chess with liberty
(Marianne

Checkmated by liberty,
Louis-Philippe abdicated and fled to Britain in
February of 1848