For three days - les trois glorieuses - at the end of July 1830, Paris was in turmoil. The attempt by Charles X and his ultra-royalist first minister, the Prince de Polignac, to stamp out liberal discontent with a set of repressive ordinances had backfired. By 28 July, insurgents had raised barricades, taken the Hôtel de Ville, and driven royalist troops out of Paris. Charles fled into exile.

Not surprisingly, these events were followed closely throughout Europe. When the news reached Weimar on 2 August, Frédéric Soret, a visitor from Geneva, recorded that it 'set everyone in a commotion'. That afternoon, Soret visited Goethe, who was by then in his eighties:

LRB 17 March 2005 | PDF Download