Printers Destroy Printing Machines at the Imprimerie Royale; Odilon Barrot Urges that Presses be Protected

In Paris, on July 29, 1830, during the three-day July Revolution, also called the Second French Revolution or Trois Glorieuses, in which the Bourbon monarch Charles X was overthrown, and replaced by his cousin Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, thirty printers broke into the Imprimerie royale, and destroyed or damaged the five printing printing machines that had been installed at the end of 1829. This was both a political statement and an act of resistance against mechanization. Printers felt threatened by the installation of printing machines. Typographers opposed the introduction of stereotyping to which they attributed loss of employment.

The following day, July 30, by which the Trois Glorieuses was complete, French politician Camille Hyacinthe Odilon Barrot, active in this three-day revolution, implored the public not to destroy or damage any other printing presses. A poster that he had printed, for posting on the streets of Paris, came into my collection December 2018. It may be translated as follows:

"RESIDENTS OF PARIS!

"The conquest of our liberty has cost us blood, some very precious blood, since it was the blood of our friends, but thank God it has not been defiled by any disorder so far. It is our honor to all who have fought for the most beautiful and just cause, to prevent any property from being violated. But of all the properties which we hold most sacred those which we must protect most effectively are the Presses, which were the first instruments of our deliverance and on which despotism first exerted its violence. Shame on us if, imitating despotism in this way, a single one of our presses is damaged! The Commission Muncipale de Paris places under the safeguard of all the citizens all the presses, public and private.

Made at City Hall, this 30 July 1830.

For the Municipal Commission,

Odilon-Barrot"