Charles X was the Cause of his own Downfall.

A
ssess the Validity of this Statement (45).
Debatably Charles X was the cause of his own downfall due to
the decisions he made as king and the consequences they
involved. However in many respects it can be said that it was
other factors out of his control which was the real cause of his
downfall.
In terms of Charles X, his retaining of Villele as chief minister
would prove costly. He was unpopular and removed
Chateaubriand who people particularly respected, which was
met with political attacks from Chateaubriand through the
newspaper, who was now an unnecessary opponent.
Furthermore he alienated Charles support, so he now faced
growing opposition from the Left and Right. This would all put
further pressure on Charles, and any future mistakes he would
make were under the cautious eye of his opposition and own
supporters and therefore when he did slip up, they immediately
resented him further which would contribute to his downfall.
Although the fact that Villele was unpopular and removed
Chateaubriand isnt necessarily Charles fault, it was Charles
mistake to retain him as chief minister who would allow all of
these detrimental changes to occur and therefore it was his
fault for his own downfall.
Charles actions with the four ordinances would also be a major
contribution to his downfall. He dissolved the Chamber of
Deputies before it had even met and further reduced the
electorate from 100000 to 25000 of the richest members of
the Pays Legal. As well as this he forbade the publications of
any unauthorised newspaper under 20 pages. Although this
was legal under the charter, Charles opponents saw it as a
coup dtat. Four days after the four ordinances, protests broke
out with printers, journalists and students which resulted in
riots. There were barely any troops in Paris as they were all
abroad or because he disbanded the National Guard and
therefore a larger scale threat was imminent. Because of this,

Charles saw his only choice was to abdicate and did so 2 days
after. This is clearly Charles own errors which caused his own
downfall. He introduced new edicts which inspired revolution
from his opposition and because of his removal of the National
Guard or concentration of foreign affairs; he had no way of
dealing with it. However, it may be unfair to say that the lack of
troops was particularly Charles fault, as he probably wouldnt
have foreseen violent, revolutionary action to occur, but if he
didnt fuel this opposition then it wouldnt have happened
anyway.
Aside from Charles, there are alternative factors which aided
and perhaps caused his downfall that he couldnt have
controlled. In 1827 there was a run of bad harvests and so food
prices were raised and wages appeared to drop. It was 21 sous
for bread and average wage was 26 sous. There was mass
unemployment and underemployment and in the winter of
1828 marches and demonstrations broke out. People a clearly
going to be angry and upset because of living in poverty, and
looking for a scape-goat they turn to the government, creating
further opposition to Charles. Charles clearly cannot control the
weather and how good a harvest will be and therefore in that
respect it wasnt his fault, however it was the actions he took or
didnt take which put himself in a worse position. No action was
taken until the marches in 1828 when the situation was
arguably a lost cause, and the introduction of indirect taxes
paid by the producers of wine, salt and tobacco meant that
their goods were usually selling for less. The government
actually blamed the producers for over-producing and causing
their own problems. This would obviously spark up fury as it
was certainly not the producers fault that a bad harvest
occurred and their king isnt taking any initiative to sort things
out. This further exacerbated tensions against Charles and
contributed to his own downfall.
Another causative factor is religion. Charles coronation was a
demonstration of the wealth of the church and was the
beginning to the Pays Legals worries. Polignac within Charles

government was a strong believer in Catholicism and therefore

it was in his best interest to raise the profile of the church to
what it once was. Charles extended church control in education,
further than Louis XVIII already had, allowing more bishops and
clergy to be responsible for the teaching. He also allowed
religious orders which were banned after the revolution, such
as Jesuits, to return. For the Pays Legal, this was a threat to the
return of the Ancien Regime, which would be an absolute
disaster. Therefore religion was a tenuous subject, because
Charles couldnt alienate the Pays Legal as they were an
essential support, but his Ultras expected the return of the
church to the pre-1789 situation. Despite religion being such a
controversial topic and perhaps the cause to his downfall not
himself, Charles questionably could have avoided making the
situation worse by not displaying his links with the church so
provocatively or by suggesting a return to the Ancien regime
which provided further reason for the Pays Legal to oppose him
and thus, Charles could have prevented this from causing his
downfall, so it was debatably his fault. This upset, along with
the four ordinances would see a build-up of opposition from the
Pays Legal that would eventually see Charles overthrown.
There are also long term factors which may have caused
Charles downfall. The Bourbon reign was already generally
unpopular as they were placed on the throne by the allies and
contrasted pitifully to the flamboyant Napoleon. There was a lot
of tension caused by Louis XVIII as he changed the tricolour to
the Bourbon flag, and abandoned his country during the 100
days of Napoleons return. This allowed Bonapartist ideas to reemerge which had potential to become a lethal opposition
against Charles in the future and also resulted in a long term
animosity towards the bourbons from the French people which
meant that when Charles did anything wrong, like his lack of
control over the economic crisis, or the four ordinances, this
was met with pre-existing opposition which amplified the
situation further. Although this pre-existing opposition was to
no fault of Charles, his later mistakes which were avoidable

meant that they could capitalise on them and build upon their
current resentment and therefore cause Charles downfall.
To conclude, although Charles X faced a few problems which he
couldnt account for like an economic crisis, or religious tension,
or the animosity caused by Louis and the Bourbon reign in
general, it was ultimately the way he dealt with these things
that made him the cause of his own downfall. He lacked
common sense in terms of winning over support, alienating the
Pays Legal through religion and Vilelle, and blamed the ones
who suffered from the depression for their own suffering. And
the accumulation of all these factors meant that the four
ordinances were the final straw, and therefore action needed,
and indeed was taken, in order to see the downfall of Charles X.