Bourbon Restoration in France
The Bourbon Restoration was the period of French history during which the House of Bourbon returned to power after the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1814 and 1815. Exiled supporters of the monarchy returned to France, which had been profoundly changed by the French Revolution. Exhausted by the Napoleonic Wars, the kingdom experienced a period of internal and external peace, stable economic prosperity and the preliminaries of industrialisation. The July Revolution of 1830 effectively ended the restoration during the reign of Charles X, brother of the late King Louis XVI, leading to the July Monarchy and eventually the French Second Republic.
Background
Following the collapse of the Directory in the Coup of 18 Brumaire, Napoleon Bonaparte became ruler of France as leader of the Consulate. By the Consulate's end with the creation of the First French Empire on 18 May 1804, Napoleon had consolidated his power into an authoritarian personal rule. After Napoleon spent the next ten years expanding his empire by successive military victories, a coalition of European powers defeated him in the War of the Sixth Coalition, ended the First Empire in 1814, and restored the monarchy to the brothers of Louis XVI. The first Bourbon Restoration lasted from 6 April 1814 to 20 March 1815, when Napoleon managed to escape from exile on the island of Elba and seized power once more. Following Napoleon's final defeat at Waterloo, he was exiled to Saint Helena for the rest of his life. On 8 July 1815 the kingdom was restored, existing until 2 August 1830, after the July Revolution.At the Congress of Vienna, the Bourbons were treated politely by the victorious monarchies, but had to give up most of the territorial gains made by Revolutionary and Napoleonic France after 1789.
Constitutional monarchy
Unlike the absolutist Ancien Régime, the Restoration government was a constitutional monarchy, which limited the King's power. The new King, Louis XVIII, had been sober enough to realize during two decades in exile that France would not tolerate an attempt to resurrect the 18th century. He accepted the vast majority of reforms instituted from 1792 to 1814. Continuity was his basic policy. He did not try to recover land and property taken from the émigrés. He continued in peaceful fashion the main objectives of Napoleon's foreign policy, such as the limitation of Austrian influence. He reversed Napoleon's actions regarding Spain and the Ottoman Empire, restoring the friendships that had prevailed until 1792.Politically, the period was characterised by a conservative reaction, and consequent minor but persistent civil unrest and disturbances. Otherwise, the political establishment was stable until the subsequent reign of Charles X. It also saw the reestablishment of the Catholic Church as a major power in French politics. Throughout the Bourbon Restoration, France experienced a period of stable economic prosperity and the preliminaries of industrialisation.
Permanent changes in French society
The eras of the French Revolution and Empire brought a series of major changes to France which the Bourbon Restoration did not reverse.Administration: First, France was now highly centralised, with all important decisions made in Paris. The political geography was completely reorganised and made uniform, dividing the country into more than 80 départements which have endured into the 21st century. Each department had an identical administrative structure, and was tightly controlled by a prefect appointed by the government in Paris. The thicket of overlapping legal jurisdictions of the pre-Revolutionary regime had all been abolished, and there was now one standardised legal code, administered by judges appointed by Paris, and supported by police under national control.
The Church: The Revolutionary governments had confiscated all the lands and buildings of the Catholic Church, selling them to innumerable buyers, and it was politically impossible to restore them. The bishop still ruled his diocese and communicated with the Pope through the government. Bishops, priests, nuns, and other religious, once severely persecuted, were paid state salaries.
All the old religious rites and ceremonies were retained, and the government maintained France's religious buildings. The Church was allowed to operate its own seminaries and to some extent local schools as well, although this became a central political issue into the 20th century. Bishops were much less powerful than before, and had no political voice. The Catholic Church refocused on a new emphasis on personal piety, influencing the faithful.
Education: Public education was centralised, with the Grand Master of the University of France controlling every element of the national educational system from Paris. New technical universities were opened in Paris which to this day have a critical role in training the elite.
The aristocracy: Conservatism was bitterly split into the returning ancient aristocracy and the new elite arising under Napoleon after 1796. The new elite, the 'noblesse d'empire', ridiculed the older group as an outdated remnant of a discredited regime that had led the nation to disaster. Both groups shared a fear of social disorder, but the level of distrust as well as the cultural differences were too great for political cooperation to be possible.
The returning old aristocracy recovered much of the land they had owned directly. However, they lost all their old seigneurial rights to the rest of the farmland, and the peasants were no longer under their control. The pre-Revolutionary aristocracy had dallied with the ideas of the Enlightenment, but now was much more conservative and supportive of the Catholic Church. For the best jobs, meritocracy was the new policy, and aristocrats had to compete directly with the growing business and professional class.
Citizens' rights: Public anti-clerical sentiment in Paris became stronger, but was now based in certain elements of the middle class and even the peasantry; the greatest masses of French people, who were peasants in the countryside, supported the Church. Citizens gained new rights and a new sense of possibilities. Although relieved of many of the old burdens, controls, and taxes, the peasantry was still highly traditional in its social and economic behaviour. Many eagerly took on mortgages to buy as much land as possible for their children, so debt was an important factor in their calculations. The working class in the cities was a small element, freed of many restrictions imposed by mediaeval guilds. However, France was very slow to industrialise, and much of the work remained drudgery without machinery or technology to help. France was still split into localities, especially in terms of language, but now there was an emerging French nationalism that focused on national pride in the army and foreign affairs.
Political overview
In April 1814, the Armies of the Sixth Coalition restored Louis XVIII to the throne, the brother and heir of the late Louis XVI. A popular constitution was granted by the King: the Charter of 1814. It presented all Frenchmen as equal before the law while retaining substantial prerogatives for the King and nobility and limited voting to those paying at least 300 francs a year in direct taxes.The King was the supreme head of the state. He commanded the land and sea forces, declared war, made treaties of peace, alliance, and commerce, appointed all public officials, and made the necessary regulations and ordinances for the execution of the laws and the security of the state. Louis XVIII was relatively liberal and willing to compromise, choosing many centrist cabinets.
Louis XVIII died in September 1824 and was succeeded by his brother, who reigned as Charles X. The new King pursued a more conservative form of governance than Louis XVIII. His laws included the Anti-Sacrilege Act. Exasperated by Parisian resistance and disrespect, the King and his ministers attempted to curb liberalism by intervening in the general election of 1830 through the July Ordinances. This sparked a revolution in the streets of Paris, Charles X abdicated along with his son the Dauphin in favour of Henri, Duke of Bordeaux, appointing Louis Philippe, Duke of Orléans regent. Instead, Louis Philippe hid the King's request and allowed the Chamber of Deputies to proclaim him 'King of the French', ushering in the July Monarchy, which would collapse in 1848.
Louis XVIII, 1814–1824
First Restoration (1814)
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. The Allies had initially split on the best candidate for the throne: Britain favoured the Bourbons, the Austrian Habsburgs considered a regency for Napoleon's son, and the Russians were open to either the Duke of Orléans, Louis Philippe, or Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, Napoleon's former Marshal, who was heir-presumptive to the Swedish throne. Napoleon was offered to keep the throne in February 1814, on the condition that France return to its 1792 frontiers, but he refused. The feasibility of the Restoration was in doubt, but the allure of peace to a war-weary French public, and demonstrations of support for the Bourbons in Paris, Bordeaux, Marseille, and Lyon, helped reassure the Allies.Louis, in accordance with the Declaration of Saint-Ouen, granted 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 – their role was consultative, as only the King had the power to propose or sanction laws, and appoint or recall ministers. The franchise was limited to men with considerable property holdings, and just 1% of people could vote. Many of the legal, administrative, and economic reforms of the Revolutionary period were left intact; the Napoleonic Code, which guaranteed legal equality and civil liberties, the peasants' biens nationaux, and the new system of dividing the country into départments were not undone by the King. Relations between Church and state remained regulated by the Concordat of 1801. The constitution was not imposed on the King, the preamble declaring it to be a 'concession and grant', given 'by the free exercise of our royal authority'.