The Mountain (1849)

After 1848, the Odilon Barrot's Party of Order-backed government sought to repress protests against alcohol excises and the 45 centime land tax as well as demand for cheap credit and other grievances.

The Mountain's broader strategy was to prepare for the 1852 legislative and presidential elections by continuing to espouse its 'utopian' Christian socialist message alongside attempts to politicize the three million voters who had been disenfranchised in 1850 despite the Republic's constitution proclaiming universal manhood suffrage.

Ted Margadant, Peter McPhee and John M. Merriman have argued that the peasant vote signalled an acceptance of modernization whilst Max Weber, Peter M. Jones and Alain Corbin have argued that peasant support was typical, even if the provincial rivalries and support for negative demands such as low taxation present were cloaked in urban political lexicon.

France sustained steady economic growth during the latter part of the Restoration and the July Monarchy, although the late 1840s witnessed a downturn, which was one of the factors behind the 1848 Revolution.

Friedrich Engels and later Marx attributed the relative lack of support for The Mountain in the urban proletariat to distrust engendered by Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin's involvement in and refusal to condemn the suppression of the June Days uprising.