It was not until later that legislation was adopted fixing the minimum tax payment constituting the electoral qualification and the procedure for elections. The act of 1831, which was passed after the Revolution, merely lowered the electoral qualification from 30o to 200 francs. This resulted in increasing the number of electors from 87,000 to 166,000; a maximum of 249,00o was reached in One section of opinion in France regarded this reform as insuf ficient, since the large majority of citizens were still excluded from political life. Demands for the extension of the franchise were therefore put forward. At the time when in England the reform movement which had been initiated 6o years earlier was at last achieving success in the Reform Acts of 1832, agitation for the same object in France was only beginning. It is to the movement of 1832-48 that the term "reform" is applied in France.
Neither in France nor in England were the supporters of an extended franchise able to agree on the scope of the desired reform. Universal suffrage, which had been advocated in England as early as 1780, was not at first proposed in France except by a few isolated republicans. The Societe des Droits de l'Hornme, an association consisting mainly of young Parisian students and workmen, referred to universal suffrage in its manifesto of 1833 as an instrument for bringing about social revolution and improv ing the position of the proletariat; this attitude corresponded to that of the English Chartists.
The supporters of a less radical measure of reform put forward their demand for an extended franchise in the form of petitions to parliament, as had been done in England. The movement did not attain real political importance until 1838, when the National Guard of Paris, in which nearly the whole of the lower middle class population was enrolled, organized a petition asking that all members of the National Guard should be given the right to vote. A committee of deputies was formed to direct operations in the provinces; public manifestations were arranged, in which the National Guards marched in procession to greet the deputy with cries of "Vive la Reforme." The same cry was raised on June 14,
I84o at a review of the National Guard by Louis Philippe. The petition obtained about 240,000 signatures.
The opposition accused the Government of corrupting those deputies who were in the Government service by promises of Promotion, and the electors by granting them personal favours. As a remedy for the "corruption" of deputies it demanded "par liamentary reform," i.e., that civil servants should be forbidden to sit in the chamber. As a remedy for "electoral corruption" it demanded "electoral reform." These were the terms which had been employed in England in the time of George III.
Universal suffrage was at no time demanded by more than a very small minority, much less numerous than the Chartists in England. Almost its only champion in the chamber was the law yer Ledru-Rollin, who founded a journal entitled La Reforme in 1843. Ledru-Rollin represented political reform as a necessary condition for social reform. La Reforme did not however have a circulation of more than 2,000.
The campaign for reform was carried on in the chamber prin cipally by the party which was opposed to the dynasty. For some years the question formed the subject of debates which led to no practical result. Guizot, the virtual head of the ministry, always replied that the introduction of reform measures was inexpedient. Louis Philippe himself took part in the dispute. "There will be no reform," he said in Jan. 1848 ; "I will not have it. If the Cham ber of Deputies votes for it, I have the Chamber of Peers to reject it. Even if the Chamber of Peers adopted it, I have my veto." The restrictions imposed on the press by the legislation of 1835 made it difficult for the opposition to state its views in the news papers. A means of expression was found in the organization of a series of public dinners by opposition deputies and journalists; some 7o such dinners were held in 1847 and 1848, and toasts were drunk in honour of Reform. The Government, by prohibiting a public dinner in Paris, provoked the revolt which led to the Paris insurrection of Feb. 23 and the overthrow of the monarchy. The provisional Government, composed of deputies representing the small republican minority, at once introduced universal male suf frage. Thus electoral reform, which was only begun in England after half a century of agitation, was consummated in France in a few days in its most radical form. (C. SE.) BIBLIOGRAPHY.—F. V. A. Aulard, Histoire politique de la Revolution francaise (19°0, Eng. trans. B. Miall, The French Revolution, a political history (Iwo) Histoire de la France contemporaine (ed. E. Lavisse, vols. i. to v., with bibliography.