on of 1848 was the act of bourgeois liberals. All over the continent, from 1815 to 1848, they sought to defend the privileges they had acquired under the French Revolution and the Empire against a reactionary nobility bent on recovering its former position. These advantages did, of course, vary in importance from country to country. In France equality before the law was no longer an issue; the struggle now centered on property qualifications. Although large-scale industry did not yet exist, progress in production and exchange had been great enough to create a national market. Books and ideas traveled along with the merchandise and united the bourgeois and the artisans from one end of the country to the other....
