As to how this
transformation was to be accomplished, the party was far from being
clear. What, however, was clear as day to it and was openly declared at
the reform banquets during the last days of Louis Philippe's reign, was
its unpopularity with the democratic middle class, especially with the
revolutionary proletariat. These pure republicans, as pure republicans
go, were at first on the very point of contenting themselves with the
regency of the Duchess of Orleans, when the February revolution broke
out, and when it gave their best known representatives a place in the
provisional government. Of course, they enjoyed from the start the
confidence of the bourgeoisie and of the majority of the Constitutional
National Assembly. The Socialist elements of the Provisional Government
were promptly excluded from the Executive Committee which the Assembly
had elected upon its convening, and the party of the "National"
subsequently utilized the outbreak of the June insurrection to dismiss
this Executive Committee also, and thus rid itself of its nearest
rivals--the small traders' class or democratic republicans
(Ledru-Rollin, etc.
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