In the spring of 1844, the Wallachian government approved the request of the Russian engineer
Alexander Trandafiloff, to be allowed to administer the country's mines (which were subject to private ownership). Moreover, if any mine owner did not begin extracting from their mines within 18 months, the Russian company was to take over the administration of the mines for 12 years, by paying 10% of the income to the owner and 10% to the Wallachian state. Bibescu approved the contract, but the Public Assembly protested against it: the deputies saw it as an intervention of the
protecting power in local politics. The contract was eventually cancelled, but, caught between the Assembly's position and the Russian authorities, on 4 March 1844, Bibescu dissolved the Public Assembly with the approval of
Russian Emperor Nicholas I. A clear separation between him and
Romantic nationalists occurred when he ordered the refoundation of the
Saint Sava College as a
French-language school — based on his view that
Romanian was incompatible with
modernization. Two and a half years after that, Bibescu passed laws for
public works and public administration. In the summer of 1844, he took a long trip through the country in order to inspect the public institutions and local authorities in the major cities.
On the eve of the Revolution of 1848 ''' In December 1846, he was advised by Kiseleff to call for new Public Assembly elections. The elections brought a new Assembly dominated by politicians loyal to the hospodar. With this legislature, Bibescu passed several important laws, such as a new law on the
Eastern Orthodox clergy, one that allowed the hospodar to approve the church budget, and a law freeing all the
Gypsy slaves who belonged to the church and to the public authorities. Gheorghe Bibescu worked for better relations with
Moldavia (the other
Danubian Principality under Russian supervision), and, starting 1847, the two countries established a
customs union, after an agreement with
Mihail Sturdza, the Moldavian
hospodar. This was the culmination of his attempt to remove Wallachia's traders and
guilds from foreign competition (
see Sudiți), first manifested in his project to increase taxes on foreign goods. Bibescu also convinced the Russian government to allow him to impose some taxes on those
monasteries that had been
dedicated to various Orthodox centers of worship outside the Danubian Principalities' territories (the ownership issue, stringent ever since the end of the
Phanariote epoch, implied that church property eluded state intervention, channelling income towards places such as
Mount Athos; it was to be settled through
secularization under the rule of
Alexandru Ioan Cuza). In the summer of 1848, the revolution broke out. Initially, Wallachian radicals had unsuccessfully attempted to attract Bibescu to their side. They then issued the
Islaz Proclamation of 9 June 1848. On 11 June Gheorghe Bibescu accepted the proclamation; two days later he
abdicated and left the country, leaving it to be ruled by a Provisoral Government which succumbed to
Ottoman intervention in September. In 1859, Bibescu was presented as candidate to the throne by the conservatives who opposed Wallachia's union with Moldavia. He died in Paris. ==Personal life==