In 1848 the stiff-necked opposition of King Louis Philippe and hia ministers to electoral reform led to the erection of barricades and new revolution, iu which the troops eoon fraternised with the people. The king abdicated (February 24) in favour of his grandson, the Count de Paris, son of the Duke of Orleans, who was killed by a fall from his gig in 1842, outside the Barriere-de-Neuilly. The count was not accepted : the republican chiefs then taking the lead appointed a provisional government, and proclaimed a democratic republic. A Con stituent Assembly was convoked, which framed a constitution in form of a republic with a president for chief magistrate. The Red Republican party, dissatisfied with the comparative moderation of the assembly, formed numerous iu which the wildest principles of socialism were advocated, subversive alike of property and society. In further ance of these objects, a vast assemblage of clubbiets, led on by Barb& and others, forced their way into the National Assembly, and proposed "a tax upon the rich to carry on war for Poland." They then seized the Hotel-de-Ville, and proclaimed a provisional government (May 15, 1848); but ultimately the national guard forced their way in, and arrested the leaders of the movement, who were lodged in the Castle of Vincennes. The loss of their leaders however did not discourage the socialists. On the 23rd of June barricades were again thrown up in the streets, and firing continued in most parts of Paris during the night. On the 24th the troops, under generals Cavaignac and Lamori ciere, succeeded with great lees in driving the insurgents from the left bank of the Seine. On the 25th all the positions of the insurgents in the centre of the city were taken, and on the 26th the Faubourg du Temple was swept with cannons and howitzers, and the whole city was in the evening in the hands of the government by which General Cavaignac had been appointed dictator. It was in this bloody insur rection that the noble archbishop of Paris (Denis Affre) lost his life, having been shot down by an unknown band when, during a tem porary cessation of the battle, he mounted a barricade in order to prevent the further effusion of blood, and to make peace between the combatants.
The constitution framed by the assembly was solemnly proclaimed In front of the Tuileriee (November 11, 1848), and Prince Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte elected President of the Republic, who took the oath of office on the 21st of December following in the National Assembly, which still continued its sittings till the meeting of the Legislative Assembly, May 27th, 1849. Under the vigorous administration of the Prince both the mad attempts of the Red Republicans wore suppressed and the intrigues of the Legitimists and Orldanlats baffled. At last the President, in order to put an end to the disquieting hopes of partite, issued a decree, December 2, 1851, dissolving the Legislative Assembly, re-establishing universal suffrage (which had been very considerably narrowed by the assembly), pro posing the election of a president for ten years, and a second chamber, or senate, and declaring Paris In a state of siege. The leaders of the
Orllanist and Republican parties, Thies, Changarnier, Cavaignac, Larroriciire, and others, were arrested and thrown Into the Castle of Vincennes, and Paris was occupied with troops. The result of the Prince's appeal to the people was the maintenance of his authority on the bases ',mewed Su his decree of December 2 by 7,439,216 atIlr usat:Ne votes against 640,737 negative ones. In the course of September in the following year the councils-general of the French departments prayed for the stability of the Prince's power, and the majority of them for the re-establishment of the empire. The necessary prelimi naries for the proposed change in the constitution were taken by the Senate in November 1852, and a `plebiscite' resuscitating the imperial dignity in the person of Louis Napoleon obtained 7,864,189 affirmative votes against 253,145 uegative ones from the electors of France on November 21 and 22. Accordingly Louis Napoleon was proclaimed Emperor from the Hoteede-Ville on December 2, 1852, and took the till° of Napoleon Ill., thus asserting the claim of the Duke of Reich etedt, son of Napoleon I., to be Emperor of the French.
The part of the valley of the Seine in which Paris stands is screened by two chains of hills. On the right bank the aeries sweeps round nearly in a semicircle, forming the hill of Bercy in the south-east, the heights of Charonne, eienihnontant, Belleville (the western part of which is called the bill of Chaumont), La-Villette, and Montmartre. The bill of Montmartre slopes down westward to the plateau of Monceau, where the ground again rises to the hill of Chaillot at the extreme west of the city. The highest points are the hills of Mont, martre, Menihnontant, and Chaumont, which riao from 262 to 295 feet above the valley. On the south Bide the heights that screen the valley are lower. Opposite Bercy the bank of the river is level, but the ground rises slowly to the plateau of Ivry and the hill of Caillea, beyond which runs the Bievre. North of the Bievro the ground rises sensibly, and forms the hill of Sainte-Genevieve, which is covered with bnildings. This bill is joined towards the south-south-west to the plateau of Mont-Souris, to the west of which the down to Petit-Montrouge, and again rises near the barriers of Mont-Paroasse and Maine; thence there ie a slight declivity to Vaugirard, between which and the Seine is the wide plain of Grenelle. At a distance of two and a half to five miles from these heights there is another and higher series of bills, comprising the heights of Villejuif, Runes, Hay, Bagneux, Moudon, Se-Cloud, and Mont-Valerieo, the highest point around Paris, being a few feet higher than Montmartre. A large portion of the southern part of Paris is built over vast caverns formed by quarrying the rock. These old quarries have been converted into catacombs, in which are deposited the bones of the dead collected from the cemeteries that formerly existed within the bounds of the city. The great cemetery of Paris is that of Pere-la-Chaise, to the east of the city, on the slope of the hill of Charonne. There are cemeteries also on the hill of Montmartre.