This chapter explores and interprets the long revolution of the 1860s (1862–1875): a ‘context-breaking liberal moment’ that featured a revolution, a Constituent Assembly, a change of dynasty, a new constitutional system and a crisis over defining the scope of parliamentary jurisdiction. During and after this moment political institutions were reconfigured and the monarchy was put on a new institutional footing. In short, the way of ‘doing’ politics was radically transformed. By paying due attention to ideas as drivers of political change and to the role of the jurists in forming these ideas, the chapter demonstrates that what ultimately made this crisis a legitimacy crisis – and indeed, gave the revolution its language – was the way in which the king’s rule increasingly came to be seen as a de facto usurpation of power that had unsettled the balance of the constitution and was breaking the contract with the nation. In other words, the critics of the monarchy were essentially building on the moderate liberal ideas that had developed in the preceding years.

The declaration of a Jewish state in May 1948 was said not to violate existing rights because a sovereignty vacuum obtained. That view was opposed by an argument that Palestine was a state, and that its territory could not be divided against the will of its population. The declaration recited that it was based on historical rights of the Jewish people in Palestine, and on the General Assembly’s resolution recommending partition of Palestine. The historical rights basis was opposed on an argument that no such rights could prevail over the rights of the existing population. The General Assembly resolution argument was opposed on the grounds that the resolution was outside the powers of the General Assembly, that the resolution was in any event only a recommendation, that the resolution had been superseded by the General Assembly’s effort toward a United Nations trusteeship, and that the declaration violated the terms of the General Assembly’s resolution by failing to ensure nationality to the population and by failing to commit to respecting Palestine’s existing treaties.

This chapter argues that Lamartine’s role in 1848 is best understood with reference not to his shallow and hastily written History of 1848 but to his earlier History of the Girondins. Lamartine’s goal was the creation of a moderate republic. His History of the Girondins was not a celebration but a critique of the Girondins whom he saw as revolutionary rhetoricians for whom politics was a matter of public gesture and private intrigue. By contrast with the Girondins’ failures, Lamartine indicated the steps to be taken by the leader of a future moderate revolution. What is remarkable is that for three months Lamartine did play the role for which he had prepared himself. His apotheosis came on April 23 when he received 1.3 million votes in the elections for the National Assembly. But he failed to understand that he owed his success to the fears of conservatives who regarded him as a restraining influence on radicals. These fears were greatly reduced by the overall conservative victory. After April 23 conservatives no longer needed Lamartine, whose fall was as rapid as his rise had been. While he tried to present himself as a conservative in his History of 1848, he was attacked by the right as “the man who taught revolution to France.”