First Restoration
The First Restoration was a period in French history that saw the return of the House of Bourbon to the throne, between the abdication of Napoleon in the spring of 1814 and the Hundred Days in March 1815. The regime was born following the victory of the Sixth Coalition as part of the campaign of France, while the country was in conflict during the First Empire. While the Allied powers were divided over the person to be placed on the throne of France, a subtle game was established between the Bourbons in exile, the French institutions, and the foreign powers, before the abdication of Napoleon on 6 April opened the way to Louis XVIII, brother of Louis XVI, who returned to Paris at the end of the month and moved to the Tuileries Palace.
As opposed to the pre-Napoleonic Ancien Régime, the new regime was a constitutional monarchy.This was a compromise position the sovereign granted the French through the Charter of 1814. This allowed for the return of the monarchy while preserving some of the major achievements, such as those regarding suffrage and property rights, gained through the French Revolution. During its short existence, the regime focused on attempting reconcile the country. This method disappointed the most extreme monarchists, who hoped for vengeance for the wrongs suffered during the revolutionary period, while the return to power of the Catholic Church and the reduction of the size of armies quickly created enemies to the regime.
It was in this context that Napoleon landed in France on 1 March 1815. With an army initially reduced, it recruited the discontented and walked across the country. Louis XVIII fled Paris on March 19, and the regime fell the next day, at the arrival of Napoleon at the Tuileries. Louis XVIII went into exile in Ghent. It was only after the Hundred Days and the Battle of Waterloo that Louis XVIII was able return to the throne, inaugurating the Second Restoration.
From the Empire to the return of the monarchy
A confused political situation
At the beginning of 1814, France faced the Sixth Coalition, consisting of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia, Sweden, the Austrian Empire, and several German states. The troops of this group of countries were then invading French territory. Although Napoleon I achieved several successes during the campaign of France, his military situation was increasingly precarious, while the population expressed its desire for peace more firmly. More than a monarchical restoration, the coalition initially considered concluding peace with Napoleon and engaged in negotiations to that end. The Emperor, overestimating his chances, caused them to fail by refusing any peace that would remove France's natural borders as they were during the Coup of 18 Brumaire. Thereafter, the coalition signed the Treaty of Chaumont on 1 March, by which they swore not to sign separate peaces until Napoleon's abdication.French public opinion regarding the monarchy was confused and varied by region. On the eastern border, many launched resistance movements against foreign invaders. Conversely, the arrival of the Russians in Paris was hailed as a liberation. War weariness, anger sparked by military levies and taxes, and the desire of nobles—whether from the Ancien Régime or the Empire—to retain their goods and status united much of the population behind the idea of a monarchical restoration. This unity seemed assured until the crisis's outcome.
The allies had divergent interests. The Austria favored abdication in favor of Napoleon's son, with tutelage entrusted to his mother Marie Louise, which could be detrimental to other powers. The Russia, unfavorable to the Bourbons, proposed placing Bernadotte, then Crown Prince of Sweden and Norway, on the throne, but his presence at the head of one of the coalition armies worked against him. The solution of the cadet branch of Orléans had supporters among those fearing a return to absolutism, but the future Louis Philippe I refused it at the time. The Bourbon solution had British support. Concretely, to avoid disputes within the coalition, the allies let internal events decide the final orientation.
Toward the monarchy
While the Count of Provence, brother of Louis XVI and pretender to the throne under the name "Louis XVIII", awaited events at his residence in Hartwell House, his brother, the Count of Artois, followed the allied armies invading eastern France. The Bourbons, fearing the allies might install another dynasty, had to occupy the ground and garner internal support. The Count of Artois's two sons were also ready to intervene. The Duke of Berry was in Jersey, awaiting a Norman uprising. The elder, the Duke of Angoulême, benefited from March 12 from the insurrection led in Bordeaux by the Knights of the Faith of Ferdinand de Bertier de Sauvigny: Mayor Jean-Baptiste Lynch rallied to the Bourbons and welcomed the prince that day, allowing him to form a provisional government. The British invested the city, but with negotiations still ongoing with Napoleon, Wellington held back until the Treaty of Chaumont was concluded. Unrest also broke out in the Midi, and Lyon swung in favor of the Bourbons.The Regency Council had retreated south of the Loire with the rest of the imperial army. Napoleon faced pressure at Fontainebleau from his marshals, who urged him to abdicate. The only Regency Council member remaining in Paris, Talleyrand, was master of the game to begin discussions on March 31 with Tsar Alexander, who had entered the capital at the head of allied troops. But his action was hindered by the Knights of the Faith in Paris, who organized a royalist demonstration in the capital upon the allies' entry. Moreover, they obtained from the Russian emperor the promise that the Count of Provence would be restored to the throne. Indeed, as the emperor passed under Madame de Semallé's windows, wife of Jean René Pierre de Semallé, Knight of the Faith and a key organizer of the demonstration, she said: "Long live Alexandre if he gives us back our Bourbons!", to which he replied "Yes, Madam, you will see them again. Long live your King Louis XVIII and the lovely ladies of Paris!". Talleyrand nevertheless managed to sideline them and maneuvered the Senate and the Legislative Body, which declared the Emperor's forfeiture on April 2 and offered the Count of Provence the French throne.
On 1 April, the General Council's Proclamation, inspired by Nicolas François Bellart, impressed the Parisian bourgeoisie with its legitimism.
Talleyrand had meanwhile convinced the tsar, unfavorable to the Bourbons, that the Restoration was the only way to permanently remove Napoleon. But the Frenchman wanted it on his terms. He obtained the designation of a provisional government of five members he presided over, effectively supplanting the royal commissioners who had obtained significant powers from the Count of Artois, and had a monarchist-spirited Constitution, close to the 1791 Constitution, adopted on April 6. Its article 2 specified: "The French people freely call upon the brother of the last king to ascend to the throne of France." The text was to be submitted to the French people, and Louis XVIII had to swear to observe and enforce it, which displeased royalists who believed the king should rule without popular consent. Some even said a constitution was, by definition, regicidal.
The same day, Napoleon accepted abdication and concluded the Treaty of Fontainebleau, signed on April 14. He became sovereign of the Principality of Elba and was promised a lifetime annuity by France.
The Bourbons' game and the return to peace
On April 12, the Count of Artois was warmly welcomed by the population when he entered Paris displaying the white cockade, royalist symbol, while advocating peace and unity: he was made to say "No more divisions, no more divisions, peace and France; I see it again, and nothing has changed, except that there is one more Frenchman" but this popular enthusiasm was only temporary. The Senate recognized him as lieutenant general of the kingdom, but Talleyrand and Fouché, back in Paris, insisted he accept the constitutional project's principles without conviction, though abstaining from swearing on the text. He kept the government in place, adding rallied marshals and Vitrolles, his personal advisor. Hostile to liberalism, he maintained, alongside this government, a green cabinet, an occult government of émigrés and counter-revolutionaries that aroused fear among rallied Bonapartists. The white flag replaced the tricolor, to the great dismay of soldiers already hurt by defeat.Louis XVIII landed at Calais on April 24. On May 2, the Declaration of Saint-Ouen before senators who came to meet him challenged popular sovereignty and referred the constitutional text to a commission to "improve" it, while expressing the impossibility of a pure return to the Ancien Régime. Thus, while issuing criticisms calling for corrections, Louis XVIII promised preservation of its major principles. He proclaimed himself "Louis, by the grace of God, King of France and Navarre", continuing the title he appropriated upon the death of Louis XVI's son in 1795. This idea of monarchical continuity between Louis XVI, Louis XVII, and Louis XVIII, denying the revolutionary period, was prominent in the king's statements. On May 3, from the Château de Saint-Ouen, he made a solemn entry into Paris via the barrière Saint-Denis and reached the Tuileries Palace after hearing a Te Deum at Notre-Dame de Paris. The new reconciliation government was established on May 13. Former émigrés remained a minority.
Peace was concluded with the Allies on May 30: the first Treaty of Paris restored France to its 1792 borders, with some territorial gains to spare French feelings. However, there were losses regarding the colonies: Tobago, Saint Lucia, and Île de France. France paid no indemnities, suffered no occupation, and was to have representation at the Congress of Vienna. These favorable terms were obtained by Talleyrand and Tsar Alexander. The loss of the imperial conquests, which became a theme of discontent, would long be used by liberals to criticize the monarchy.