He took an active part in the Revolutionary Government of 1848, and got an edict passed abolishing the punishment of death for political offences.
In 1848 he got the National Workshops founded. These failed; but their failure was not necessarily due to anything wrong in Louis Blanc’s conception, 228 imperfect as it was: but to the fact that Bethmont, the Minister of Trade and Agriculture, had intentionally organised them for failure, inasmuch as it was not articles of real and prime necessity, or even those for which there was a genuine demand which were allowed to be produced in them, but merely articles outside the true commercial market; the object being, as in our prisons, not to interfere with the “legitimate” trade and industry of the country. Under such circumstances they naturally caused a heavy drain on the resources of the Republic. Loud demands were made by the middle classes for their suppression, to which the Government at last listened, and their imminent abolition was one of. the causes which led to the insurrection of June 1848.
In consequence of the events of June, Louis Blanc was compelled to flee from France to England, where he wrote his History of the French Revolution. He returned to France in 1869, was elected to the legislative body, but played only a subordinate part in the 229 stirring times that followed. It remains, indeed, an indelible stain on his character that he deserted the cause of the people in the days of March, 1871, leaving Paris to sit amongst the “Liberals” in the reactionary Chamber at Versailles.
He died in 1882, having outlived his reputation and his influence.
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