Nobody and nothing dared to
assume the right of permanent existence and of an actual fact. All
the elements that had prepared or determined the revolution--dynastic
opposition, republican bourgeoisie, democratic-republican small traders'
class, social-democratic labor element-all found "provisionally" their
place in the February government.
It could not be otherwise. The February days contemplated originally
a reform of the suffrage laws, whereby the area of the politically
privileged among the property-holding class was to be extended, while
the exclusive rule of the aristocracy of finance was to be overthrown.
When however, it came to a real conflict, when the people mounted the
barricades, when the National Guard stood passive, when the army offered
no serious resistance, and the kingdom ran away, then the republic
seemed self-understood. Each party interpreted it in its own sense. Won,
arms in hand, by the proletariat, they put upon it the stamp of their
own class, and proclaimed the social republic.
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