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Bourbon Restoration
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Following the ousting of Napoleon I of France in 1814, the Allies restored the Bourbon Dynasty to the French throne. The ensuing period is called the Restoration, following French usage, and is characterized by a sharp conservative reaction and the re-establishment of the Roman Catholic Church as a power in French politics.
n lang="fr">Louis XVIII's restoration to the throne in 1814 was effected largely through the support of Napoleon's former foreign minister Talleyrand who convinced the victorious Allied Powers of the desirability of a Bourbon restoration.
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Following the ousting of Napoleon I of France in 1814, the Allies restored the Bourbon Dynasty to the French throne. The ensuing period is called the Restoration, following French usage, and is characterized by a sharp conservative reaction and the re-establishment of the Roman Catholic Church as a power in French politics.
Louis XVIII, 1814-1824
Louis XVIII's restoration to the throne in 1814 was effected largely through the support of Napoleon's former foreign minister Talleyrand who convinced the victorious Allied Powers of the desirability of a Bourbon restoration. Louis was forced to grant a written constitution, the Charter of 1814, which guaranteed a bicameral legislature, with a hereditary/appointive Chamber of Peers and an elected Chamber of Deputies. The franchise was limited to men with considerable property holdings. Many of the legal, administrative, and economic reforms of the revolutionary period were left intact; the Napoleonic Code, the land reforms that helped the peasants, and the new system of dividing the country into departments were not undone by the new King. Relations between church and state remained regulated by the Concordat of 1801.
After a first sentimental flush of popularity, Louis's gestures towards reversing the results of the French Revolution quickly lost him public support among the disenfranchised majority. Within a year, he fled Paris to Ghent on the news of the return of Napoleon from Elba, but returned after the Battle of Waterloo ended Napoleon's rule of the Hundred Days. This Second Restoration saw the atrocities of The White Terror, largely in the south, when supporters of the monarchy murdered many who had supported Napoleon's return. Although the King and his ministers opposed the violence, they were ineffectual in taking active steps to stop it.
Louis's chief ministers were at first moderate, including Talleyrand, the Duc de Richelieu, Élie Decazes, and Louis himself, followed a cautious policy. The Chambre introuvable elected in 1815, dominated by ultraroyalists, or Ultras, was dissolved by Richelieu as being impossible to work with, and electoral manipulation resulted in a more liberal chamber in 1816. Prohibition of divorce was re-established this year. However, the liberals ultimately proved just as unmanageable, and by 1820 Decazes and the King were looking for ways to revise the electoral laws again, to ensure a more tractable conservative majority. However, the assassination of the Duc de Berry, the ultrareactionary son of Louis's ultrareactionary brother (and heir-presumptive) the future Charles X, in February 1820, caused Decazes's fall from power and the triumph of the Ultras. After an interval in which Richelieu returned to power from 1820 to 1821, a new Ultra ministry was formed, headed by the Comte de Villèle, a leading Ultra. Soon, however, Villèle proved himself to be nearly as cautious as his master, and, so long as Louis lived, overtly reactionary policies were kept to a minimum.
Louis XVIII died on September 16, 1824, and was succeeded by his brother, the comte d'Artois, who took the title of Charles X.
Charles X, 1824-1830
During his brother's reign the comte d'Artois headed the ultra-royalist opposition, which took power after the traumatic assassination of the duc du Berry, with the ministry of the comte de Villèle, who continued as chief minister after Charles became king. Emotionally, Charles never really recovered from his son's murder. The Villèle government voted the Anti-Sacrilege Act in January 1825, which punished by death the theft of consecrated hosts.
The Villèle cabinet resigned in 1827 under pressure from the liberal press, including the Journal des débats, which hosted Chateaubriand's articles. Villèle's successor, the vicomte de Martignac, tried to steer a middle course, but in 1829 Charles appointed Prince Jules Armand de Polignac (the nephew of Louise de Polastron), an ultra-reactionary, as chief minister. Polignac initiated French colonization in Algeria. His dissolution of the chamber of deputies, his July Ordinances, which set up rigid control of the press, and his restriction of suffrage resulted in the July Revolution of 1830. The major cause of his downfall, however, was that, while he managed to keep the support of the aristocracy, the Catholic Church and even much of the peasantry, he was deeply unpopular with industrial workers and the bourgeoisie.
Charles abdicated in favor of his grandson, the Comte de Chambord, and left for England. However, the liberal, bourgeois-controlled Chamber of Deputies refused to confirm the Comte de Chambord as Henri V. In a vote largely boycotted by conservative deputies, the body declared the French throne vacant, and elevated Louis-Philippe, duc d'Orleans, to power.
The Fall of the Restoration, 1827–1830
There is still considerable debate among historians as to the actual cause of the downfall of Charles X. What is generally conceded, though, is that between 1820 and 1830, a series of economic downturns combined with the rise of a liberal opposition within the Chamber of Deputies ultimately felled the conservative Bourbons.
Between 1827 and 1830, France faced an economic downturn, industrial and agricultural, that was possibly worse than the one that sparked the Revolution of 1789. A series of progressively worsening grain harvests pushed up the prices on various staple foods and cash crops. In response, the rural peasantry throughout France lobbied for the relaxation of protective tariffs on grain in order to lower prices and ease their economic situation. However, Charles X, bowing to pressure from wealthier landowners, kept the tariffs in place. He did so based upon the Bourbon response to 1816-1817, during which Louis XVIII relaxed tariffs during a series of famines, caused a downturn in prices, and incurred the ire of wealthy landowners, the traditional source of Bourbon legitimacy. Thus, peasants throughout France between 1827 and 1830 faced a period of relative economic hardship and rising prices.
At the same time, international pressures combined with weakened purchasing power from the provinces led to decreased economic activity in urban centers. This industrial downturn contributed to rising poverty levels among Parisian artisans. By 1830, then, multiple demographics had suffered from the economic policies of Charles X.
While the French economy faltered, a series of elections brought a relatively powerful liberal bloc into the Chamber of Deputies. The 17-strong liberal bloc of 1824 grew to 180 in 1827, and 274 in 1830. This liberal majority grew increasingly dissatisfied with the policies of the centrist Martignac and the Ultra-Royalist Polignac, seeking to protect the limited protections of the Charter of 1814. They sought the expansion of the franchise, and more liberal economic policies. They also demanded the right, as the majority bloc, to appoint the Prime Minister and the Cabinet.
Also, the growth of the liberal bloc within the Chamber of Deputies corresponded roughly with the rise of a liberal press within France. Generally centered around Paris, this press provided a counterpoint to the government's journalistic services, and to the newspapers of the right. It grew increasingly important in conveying political opinions and the political situation to the Parisian public, and can thus be seen as a crucial link between the rise of the liberals and the increasingly agitated and economically suffering French masses.
Thus, by 1830, the Restoration government of Charles X faced difficulties on all sides. The new liberal majority clearly had no intention of budging in the face of Polignac's aggressive policies. The rise of a liberal press within Paris that outsold the official government newspaper indicated a general shift in Parisian politics towards the left. And yet, Charles' base of power was certainly toward the right of the political spectrum, as were his own views. He simply could not yield to the growing demands from within the Chamber of Deputies. The situation would soon come to a head.
The Four Ordinances
Technically, the Charter of 1814 made France a constitutional monarchy. While the King retained extensive power over policy-making as well as the sole power of the Executive, he was nonetheless reliant upon the Parliament to accept and pass his legal decrees. The Charter also fixed the method of election of the Deputies, their rights within the Chamber of Deputies, and the rights of the majority bloc. Thus, Charles X in 1830 faced a significant problem. He could not overstep his constitutional bounds, and yet, he could not preserve his policies with a liberal majority within the Chamber of Deputies. Stark action was required. A final no-confidence vote by the liberals in March of 1830 spurred the king into action, and he set about to alter the Charter of 1814 by decree. These decrees, known as the Four Ordinances, or the Ordinances of St Cloud, included:
- Dissolution of the Chamber of Deputies
- Restriction of the Press Laws
- Restriction of the franchise to only the wealthiest within France
- Immediate new elections based upon the new electorate.
Word spread quickly of the king's intent. On July 10, 1830, before the King had even made his declarations, a group of wealthy, liberal journalists and newspaper proprietors, led by Adolphe Thiers, met in Paris to decide upon a strategy to counter Charles X. It was decided then, nearly three weeks before the Revolution, that in the event of Charles' expected proclamations, the journalistic establishment of Paris would publish vitriolic criticisms of the King’s policies in an attempt to mobilize the masses (this is the assertion of H.A.C. Collingham, and may require more explanation or elaboration). Thus, when Charles X made his declarations on the July 25, 1830, the liberal journalism machine mobilized, publishing articles and complaints decrying the despotism of the King’s actions.
The urban mobs of Paris also mobilized, driven by patriotic fervor and economic hardship, assembling barricades and attacking the infrastructure of Charles X. Within days, the situation escalated beyond the ability of the monarchy to control it. As the Crown moved to shut down liberal periodicals, the radical Parisian masses defended those publications. They also launched attacks against pro-Bourbon presses, and paralyzed the coercive apparatus of the monarchy. Seizing the opportunity, the liberals in Parliament began drafting resolutions, complaints, and censures against the King.
The king finally abdicated on July 30. Twenty minutes later, his son, Le Duc d'Angouleme, also abdicated. The Crown nominally fell upon Charles X's grandson, the would-be Henri V. Instead, the newly-empowered Chamber of Deputies declared the throne vacant, and elevated Louis-Philippe, Duc de Orleans, to power. Thus, the July Monarchy began.
Louis-Philippe and the House of Orléans
Louis-Philippe ascended the throne on the strength of the July Revolution of 1830, and ruled, not as "King of France" but as "King of the French," marking the shift to national sovereignty. The Orleanists were thereafter in power, defeating the Legitimists.
Following the ousting of the last king to rule France during the February 1848 Revolution, the Second Republic was formed after the election of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte as President (1848–1852), who subsequently made a coup in 1851 and had himself declared Emperor Napoleon III of the Second Empire from 1852–1870.
Political parties under Restoration
Political parties saw substantial changes of alignment and membership under the Restoration. The Chamber of Deputies oscillated between recessive ultra-royalist phases and progressive liberal phases. Opponents of the monarchy were absent from the political scene because of the repression of the White Terror. Individuals of influence who had different visions of the French constitutional monarchy clashed.
All parties remained fearful of the common people, whom Adolphe Thiers later referred to by the term "cheap multitude". Their political sights were set on a favoritism of class. Political changes in the Chamber were due to abuse by the majority tendency (involving a dissolution and then an inversion of the majority) or critical events (for example, the assassination of the Duc de Berry in 1820).
Disputes were a power struggle between the powerful (royalty against deputies) rather than a fight between royal tyranny and noble defenders of the interests of the people. Although the deputies claimed to defend the interests of the people, most had an important fear of common people, of innovations, of socialism and even of simple measures such as the extension of voting rights.
The principal political parties during the Restoration were:
Constitutionnels
Constitutionnels were mostly rich and educated middle-class men: lawyers, senior officials of the Empire and academics. They feared the triumph of the aristocracy as much as that of the democrats. They accepted the charter because it guaranteed freedom and civil equality and created a barrier to the popular masses who were considered unable, because of their ignorance, to be involved in the management of public affairs. Important personalities were Pierre-Paul Royer-Collard, François Guizot and the count of Serre. Their newspapers were Le Courrier Français and Le Censeur.
Doctrinaires
Doctrinaires promoted a return to a moderate monarchy and were opposed to the extremists in the early period of the Restoration.
Independents
Independents were mostly lower middle class: doctors and lawyers, bourgeouisie, men of law and, in rural constituencies, traders of national goods. They rejected the charter, considering it too conservative. They rejected the treaties of 1815, the white flag and the pre-eminence of clergy and of nobility. Important personalities were parliamentary monarchist Benjamin Constant, officer of the Empire General Foy, republican lawyer Jacques Antoine Manuel and Fayette. Their newspapers were La Minerve, Le Constitutionnel and Le Globe.
Liberal royalists
Liberals appeared as a party in the last years of the Restoration. Liberal royalists preached movement towards more liberty and openness. They wished to lower the taxable quota to support the middle-class as a whole, to the detriment of the aristocracy. Liberals had profited from the emergence of a new middle-class elite, due to the industrial revolution, which upset the aristocratic order.
Republicans
Facing the representatives of the middle class, the Republicans, then situated on the extreme left, addressed the miserable world of the worker. Workers were not represented, nor listened to. Their demonstrations were repressed or diverted, causing at most a reinforcement of parliamentarism, which did not mean democratic evolution, only wider taxation. For some such as Blanqui, revolution seemed the only solution.
Ultra-royalists
Ultra-royalists wished for a return to the Ancien Régime, such as before 1789, with a view toward absolutism: domination by the nobility and "other devoted Christians". They were anti-Republican, anti-Democratic, and preached Government on High, by a marked noble elite. They tolerated vote censitaire: a form of democracy limited to taxpayers. Ultra-royalists were interested in preserving aristocracy and promoting absolutism. They found the charter of 1814 to be too revolutionary. The ultra-royalists wanted a return to absolute monarchy, the re-establishment of privileges and a king: Charles X.
Prominent ultra-royalists theorists were Louis de Bonald and Joseph de Maistre. Their parliamentary leaders were François of Bourdonnaye, baron de Vitrolles and, in 1829, Jules de Polignac. Their newspapers were La Quotidienne and La Gazette.
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