page_title: Paris under Louis-Philippe
section_title: Governing Paris
hierarchical_section_title: Paris under Louis-Philippe / Governing Paris
caption_attribution_description: Claude-Philibert Barthelot, comte de Rambuteau (Mâcon, 9 November 1781 – Château de Rambuteau, 11 April 1869)
context_page_description: Paris during the reign of King Louis-Philippe was the city described in the novels of Honoré de Balzac and Victor Hugo. Its population increased from 785,000 in 1831 to 1,053,000 in 1848, as the city grew to the north and west, while the poorest neighborhoods in the center became even more crowded.
  The heart of the city, around the Île de la Cité, was a maze of narrow, winding streets and crumbling buildings from earlier centuries; it was picturesque, but dark, crowded, unhealthy and dangerous. A cholera outbreak in 1832 killed 20,000 people. Claude-Philibert de Rambuteau, prefect of the Seine for fifteen years under Louis-Philippe, made tentative efforts to improve the center of the city: he paved the quays of the Seine with stone paths and planted trees along the river. He built a new street to connect the Marais district with the markets and began construction of Les Halles, the famous central food market of Paris, finished by Napoleon III.
  Louis-Philippe lived in his old family residence, the Palais-Royal, until 1832, before moving to the Tuileries Palace.
context_section_description: Louis-Philippe had a very different style from previous monarchs; he did not move from his residence in the Palais-Royal to the Tuileries Palace until 1 October 1831. Except on ceremonial occasions, he dressed like a banker or industrialist rather than a king, with a blue coat, white waistcoat and top hat, and carried an umbrella. Formal court dress was no longer required at receptions. The royal guards were replaced by soldiers from the National Guard. His children attended the best Paris schools, rather than having tutors. He spent as little time as possible in Paris, preferring the royal residences at Fontainebleau, Versailles and the Château de Neuilly.
  As soon as he came to power, Louis-Philippe dismissed the old Prefect of the Seine, the Prefect of Police, the mayors of the arrondissements and their deputies, and the 24 members of the General Council of the Seine. On 29 July, he appointed a temporary municipal commission to run the city, under the authority of the Minister of the Interior. The new council was named on 17 September, and was made up mainly of bankers, industrialists, magistrates and senior government officials. The successive French governments since the Ancien Régime had feared the fury of the Parisians, and a repeat of the Reign of Terror. Parisians had not been allowed to elect a city government from 1800 until 1830; it was always directly under the rule of the national government. In 1831, Louis-Philippe organized the first municipal elections, but under conditions that ensured that the Parisians would not get out of control. Under a law of 30 April 1831, the Chamber of Deputies created a new General Council of the Seine, with 36 elected members from Paris, three per arrondissement, and eight from the neighboring arrondissements of Saint-Denis and Sceaux. Only Parisians who paid more than 200 francs a year in direct taxes were allowed to vote, although they numbered less than 15,000 in a city with a population of more than 800,000 persons. A few other selected categories of Parisians were also allowed to vote, including judges, notaries, members of the Institut de France, retired officers who received a pension of at least 1200 francs, and doctors who had practiced in Paris more than ten years. This added another 2000 to the number of eligible voters.
  Even with all these limitations on who could vote, Louis-Philippe's government feared that Paris could run out of control. The president and vice-president of the Council were named by the king from among the members of the Council. Only the Prefect of the Seine, appointed by the king, could bring business before the Council. Furthermore, a new parallel council was created, made up of the mayors and deputy mayors, which served to bypass the Municipal Council when needed. Despite all these efforts, the Council still demonstrated its independence on occasion. It forced the resignation of the first new Prefect of the Seine, Pierre-Marie Taillepied, Comte de Bondy, who rarely consulted the Council and disregarded their opinions. The new prefect, Claude-Philibert Barthelot de Rambuteau, learned the lesson and treated the Council with great courtesy, summoning them for meetings every week.
caption: Claude-Philibert Barthelot de Rambuteau, the Prefect of the Seine under Louis-Philippe
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