The new majority of the National Assembly…

The new majority of the National Assembly shows little patience or caution when it convenes in May; it is determined to cut costs and end risky experiments.

Achille Fould, a member of an important Parisian banking family, achieves notice with his pamphlet Observations on the Financial Question Addressed to the National Assembly.

Defeated in the election, the workers organize a monster procession, invade the Assembly, overthrow the government, and, on May 15, set up a new provisional government.

This soon collapses, but the alarmed conservatives move to close the national workshops, now with more than one hundred thousand members.

In spite of Lamartine's efforts to maintain broad republican unity and avert a sharp turn to the right, the assembly abolishes the Luxembourg Commission and the ateliers nationaux and refuses to substitute a more useful program of public works to provide for the unemployed.