Fall of Napoleon
The allies entered the capital of France for the second time and again after them – in their luggage, as they said then, – Louis returned. He immediately appointed new elections to the Chamber of Deputies, on the basis of the Charter of 1814 where an was ordinance issued. The role of prime minister was first appointed to Talleyrand, and in September 1815 – the Duke of Richelieu.
The electoral system, on the basis of which the Chamber of Deputies was elected, was extremely complicated, combining certain principles of the Napoleonic era with a new principle of property qualification. The total number of voters (instead of the 5 million registered under Napoleon I) was throughout the validity of the charter of 1814 which approximated the numbers from around 88,000 to 110,000 voters.
To elect deputies, voters were grouped in district and departmental electoral colleges; the first elected candidates whose lists were supplemented by people with the sole authority of the prefect, and the departmental colleges from these lists elected deputies already. Given the public cast of votes, this system provided the government with a clear-fulfilling Chamber of Deputies. In the elections of 1815, in addition, the fear of revenge to supporters of the fallen regime arose. Many political opponents were betrayed to the military court and executed or subjected to other punishments.
The “white terror” in the south was cruel; but also in Paris, according to the verdict of peers, Marshal Ney was shot for the transition to the side of Napoleon during the Hundred Days. All this contradicted the solemn promise of Louis XVIII not to punish for political crimes.
In January 1816 , when most of the executions were already committed, a law was passed through the chambers on “full and complete amnesty”, however, with the exception of entire categories of people listed in the law, including all that took any position from the “usurper”; were expelled forever from France.
The Rule of Louis XVIII
The king himself was relatively peace-loving and preferred not to aggravate relations between the government and the opposition; but among the returning and dominant emigrants, the party of the ultra-royalists was in the lead, seeking to fully restore the pre-revolutionary order. At the head of this party was Count d’Artois, brother and heir of a childless king. This party overthrew the ministry of Talleyrand, although no one did so much to restore the power of the Bourbons, like him.
However, the new ministry under the presidency of the Duke of Richelieu, with Decaucus as police minister, did not appease them. A complete return to antiquity was unthinkable. The restoration of feudal rights was impossible. It was inconceivable to abolish the Code of Napoleon and other codes with which the population became accustomed; only partial reforms were possible, such as the abolition of divorce, carried out by the Ministry of the Duke of Richelieu in May 1816.
At the same time, the system of annual renewal of the Chamber of Deputies was established for one fifth of its membership. The comparative moderation of the Richelieu Ministry did not prevent them from reestablishing censorship for a year in 1817.
In the elections to the Chamber in 1818, several liberals passed ( Lafayette , Manuel and others), and then their number grew, and in 1819 even the “regicide”, Abbot Gregoire , was elected. The growth of the opposition was explained by the fact that the big bourgeoisie, quite ready to support the government of Louis XVIII , did not want the power to transfer to the old nobility and was afraid that extremes of reaction would lead to new revolutionary explosions.
The Duke of Richelieu was frightened by the manifestations of the opposition spirit and was ready to make concessions to the right, but met opposition and retired at the end of 1818. Before his resignation, he obtained from the powers at the Aachen congress the liberation of France from the occupation army, which occupied it since 1815.
The new ministry of General Dessole, with Dekaz in the post of Minister of the Interior, and then (since 1819 ), after the resignation of Desposol, the Ministry of Decay was in general on the same path as Richelieu. His most important case was the two laws of 1819 on the press and on the crimes of the press. They abolished censorship and prior permission of journals; the latter was replaced by a high security deposit, and very strict punishments were imposed for the crimes of the press-for example, for insulting the king from 6 months to 5 years in prison and a fine of 500 francs to 10,000 francs, for insulting a member of the royal family – up to 3 years in prison and up to 5,000 francs in fine.
On February 13, 1820, the assassination of the Duke of Berry, committed by the fanatic Louvel at his own discretion, that is, without the support or suggestion of any party, gave the ultra-royalists the coveted excuse to overthrow the Ministry of the Depression. The king again appointed the first minister of Richelieu, who took in his cabinet Villel and two more ultra-royalists.
In December 1821 the Ministry of Richelieu gave way to the Ministry of Villel. This ministry tried to clear the composition of the bureaucracy from all elements that were suspicious in the political sense, subordinated the people’s enlightenment to the clergy, created a ministry of spiritual affairs, supported the mandatory celebration of Sunday with severe punishments. In the field of foreign policy, the ministry assisted Ferdinand of Spain in suppressing the Spanish revolution.
In 1823, again, censorship was introduced, and abolished in 1824 .
At the end of 1823, the ministry dissolved the chamber to finally remove the opposition from it. The new chamber, elected under strong administrative pressure, really satisfied all expectations of the ministry; in it were only 17 liberals; it was called Chambre retrouvée. One of her first cases was a law that abolished the partial renewal of the chamber and replaced the 5-year term of deputy powers with 7-year-olds, and the chamber extended the law to itself, although she was elected for 5 years.
Charles X
In 1824, Louis XVIII died and the throne was succeeded by Charles X. Now the chamber, the ministry and the king were in full agreement; it was difficult to expect any conflicts. However, in the midst of it all there was a strong disagreement about the attitude towards the church; they fell apart into clerical and secular royalists. The king was certainly on the side of the clerics.
In the society, the opposition grew. Lafayette, Manuel and other opposition leaders were greeted by enthusiastic supporters everywhere, banquets were held in their honor; the country was covered with a multitude of societies, sometimes legal, but more often secret, pursuing political goals.
Despite the shy laws on the press, public discontent found expression in the press, among which only opposition newspapers had a real distribution and influence; Prisons and fines for editors and authors did not work.
In 1825, Villel passed a law on the remuneration of emigrants to a billion francs; this amount was to be covered by a loan. Many of the extreme found this measure inadequate, demanding the return of the property itself, in whose hands they were. This gift was financed by the state treasury, although the finances were so strengthened by that time that Villel could start to convert 5% of state bonds into three-percent ones. This measure caused discontent among bond owners, that is, precisely in the class that was in power in the country due to the electoral law.
In 1826, a law was passed on the sacrilege, punishable by the death penalty for theft in churches and the desecration of sacred objects. The National Guard was dissolved for demonstrating in favor of the charter.
Downfall
Soon after the elections (January 1828 ), the ministry of Villel was to give way to the ministry of the moderate royalist Martignac. The king loudly expressed regret about the need to resign Villell, said that Villel’s policy was his policy, and reluctantly yielded to Martinjak, who demanded that reforms be promised in the king’s speech. Jean Baptiste Martignac somewhat eased the situation of the press, destroyed the black cabinet (in which the private correspondence was perused) and fished out of Chrales Χ two ordinances, by which the Jesuit schools were subject to state control, and in 1829 Martignac introduced a draft law on local self-government, to which the system of appointing general and municipal councils was replaced by an election system, on the basis of a high property qualification. The royalists rebelled against the law, who saw in local self-government the triumph of the revolutionary principle, but also many liberals, supporters of centralization did the same. The project was rejected by this coalition, which gave the king an excuse to resign office.
In August 1829, the ultra-royalist ministry of Prince Polignac was formed. His appointment caused protests in the country; began to build a society to refuse to pay taxes in the event of the expected abolition of the charter. The trip of Lafayette turned into a triumphal procession. The government launched a series of trials against members of societies and speakers.
In January 1830, a new opposition newspaper, National, arose, headed by Thiers, A. Carrel, and Minier; the program was loyal to the Bourbons, if they followed the charter – and since they did not want the throne, the best candidate for the throne is the Duke of Orleans. The newspaper spoke in an extremely defiant tone at the government’s address and enjoyed tremendous success.
The session of the Chambers of 1830 was opened with a throne speech, which threatened to resort to special measures to maintain public peace. The Chamber of Deputies elected Liberal Royet-Kollar as its President and adopted, by a majority of 221 against 181 votes, an address in which the chamber protested against the mistrust expressed to her by the king, and expressed fear for the liberties of the French people. The king responded with a postponement of the session of parliament, and then the dissolution of the Chamber of Deputies. The outcome of the new elections could only be unfavorable for the ministry, and since the king identified himself with it, his personal interference in the elections could not achieve the goal. Almost all the deputies who voted for the address were re-elected; the total number of supporters of the opposition increased to 272. However, the king did not understand the true state of things here. Without summoning the chambers and foreseeing any serious danger, he signed the Ordinances on July 25, 1830 (the introduction of censorship, the modification of the electoral law in the sense of taking away the electoral rights from owners of movable property and granting them only to landowners, etc.), which caused the July revolution. In the field of foreign policy of restoration, the most outstanding facts are the rapprochement with Russia that occurred in the Ministry of Villele, and the joint participation with her in the liberation of Greece. In 1830, under the pretext of punishing the Algerian bey for insult to the French consul, France began the conquest of Algeria.
Sources:
Encyclopaedic dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron