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After Napoleon’s defeats in 1813, Louis issued a manifesto in which he promised to recognize some of the results of the Revolution in a restored Bourbon regime. When the Allied armies entered Paris in March 1814, the brilliant diplomatist Talleyrand was able to negotiate the restoration, and on May 3, 1814, Louis was received with jubilation by the war-weary Parisians.

On May 2, Louis XVIII officially promised a constitutional monarchy, with a bicameral parliament, religious toleration, and constitutional rights for all citizens.

Louis XVIII’s reign saw France’s first experiment in parliamentary government since the Revolution. The King was invested with executive powers and had “legislative initiative,”

After 1820, however, the ultras exercised increasing control and thwarted most of Louis’s attempts to heal the wounds of the Revolution. At his death he was succeeded by his brother, the comte d’Artois, as Charles X.

Spain had been in a state of quasi-civil war since 1820, when a revolt by the so-called liberal faction in the army had forced King Ferdinand VII to grant a constitution and to authorize the election of a parliament. The European powers, disturbed at the state of semianarchy in Spain, accepted a French offer to restore Ferdinand’s authority by forcible intervention.

In the elections of 1824 the ultras increased their grip on the Chamber and won a further victory in September 1824 when the aged Louis XVIII died, leaving the throne to a new king who was the very embodiment of the ultra spirit.

Charles X, the younger brother of Louis XVIII, had spent the Revolutionary years in exile and had returned embittered rather than chastened by the experience.

a return to the unsullied principle of divine right, buttressed by the restored authority of the established church.

King and ministers prepared a set of decrees that dissolved the newly elected Chamber, further restricted the already narrow suffrage, and stripped away the remaining liberty of the press. These July Ordinances, made public on the 26th, completed the polarization process and ensured that the confrontation would be violent.

Charles X threw himself enthusiastically into the campaign for Catholic revival. The anticlericals of the liberal left were outraged,

King Charles and his ultra ministers might nevertheless have remained in solid control if they had been shrewd and sensitive men, aware of the rise of public discontent and flexible enough to appease it. Instead, they forged stubbornly ahead on the road to disaster.

the republicans of Paris began to organize; an Orleanist faction emerged, looking to a constitutional monarchy headed by the king’s cousin, Louis-Philippe-Joseph, duc d’Orléans.

Some of Polignac’s ministers urged a royal coup d’état at once, before the rejuvenated opposition could grow too strong.

Under the Bourbons several new missionary orders and lay organizations were founded in an effort to revive the faith and to engage in good works.

The king retaliated by dissolving the Chamber and ordering new elections in July.

The July Revolution of 1830 brought Louis-Philippe and the Orleanists into power.

The Orleanists supported Louis-Philippe’s grandson and heir, Louis-Philippe-Albert, count de Paris, after the fall of the July Monarchy in 1848 and during the Second Republic and Second Empire. The demise of the Second Empire, in 1870, offered another chance for a restoration of the monarchy, but the Third Republic was born while the Orleanists and Legitimists were still arguing over a candidate. After the direct male line of the elder Bourbons died out in 1883, most of the Legitimists joined the Orleanists in fruitlessly supporting the count de Paris for the throne.

The head of the Church, the Pope, had been the most august witness of the coronation of the usurper; and Pius VII retained, to his dying day, a weakness for Bonaparte.

Hence, the attempts to restore what was left of confiscated church property, to endow the Church and not merely carry its expenses on the budget; hence the unsuccessful effort to replace the Concordat of 1802 by that which Francis I had made in 1517

Neither Louis XVIII nor Charles X fell into the fatal mistake made by Louis XV and Louis XVI, of barring promotion to roturiers—no commoner bishop was appointed after Massillon down to 1789. But efforts were made to “décrasser l'épiscopat”; and, by 1830, most bishops were nobles and legitimists

The great problem of the restored Church of France was the pastoral clergy. All through the years of the Consulate and Empire, the old priests, ordained before 1789

In some regions, faith was lively. But in others the thread of Christian life had been cut; a generation had grown up that knew little of the old faith. Churches had been pillaged, destroyed, secularized

There might seem few follies left to commit; but Charles X was a true kinsman of James II.

Yet Louis XIV and even Bossuet were irrelevant to the new situation of the Church of France. The parallel with James II was close. High church and Dissenters were alike alienated. So were less serious bodies of opinion. The zealous Sosthene de la Rochefoucauld was busy putting fig leaves on statues and lengthening the skirts of ballet dancers and, belatedly, the Prefect of Police was suppressing illegal brothels. Both measures alienated the studious youth of Paris, as did the attack on the Empire promenade in London their kin some half-century ago

the House of France now had an heir; for the birth of the enfant du miracle, the posthumous child of the Due de Berry, cut out the hated Due d’Orléans, on whose accession so many “liberal” hopes had been quietly placed. The birth of the Due de Bordeaux, better known as the Comte de Chambord, repeated the history of the English restoration

But the easy, legal transition from the elder to the younger branch, from the Bourbons who had learned nothing to the Bourbons who had come to terms with the modern world of the Revolution, was made impossible

Charles X, to universal surprise, showed in the first few months of his reign a talent for winning popularity that had been hidden while he was a chief of a political faction. Chateaubriand, Scott, Byron himself, and the efflorescence of new literary taste that we call the romantic movement, all worked to reconcile the young to the traditional monarchy

But, even in 1825, the ritual of the anointing aroused anti-clerical suspicions, as the royal mourning for Louis XVIII had aroused absurd suspicions that the new king was a “secret bishop” because he wore violet, the mourning colour of the House of France. Worse still was the impression made by Charles X’s walking in a jubilee procession, submissive to the clergy.

The conquest of Algiers, with all its immense and, at this moment, undecided consequences, is a great event in French history, even if the successful intervention in Spain is only remembered because the storming of the Troca-dero brought a new name into the nomenclature of French architecture

The faults and follies of the Restoration, serious enough even under Louis XVIII, were intolerable for the intelligent observer under Charles X. But, under these kings, France had a government that was “digne et probe.” Not many French governments since then have been able to claim as much.

Thus the new King passed under the sullen eyes of the Old Guard, who were forced to salute the chief representative of the cause against which they had fought. It was necessary to disband many imperial regiments, but a mistake to create new guard regiments in which, in the bad style of the old regime, all the privates had the rank of officers

When Louis XVIII entered his capital again, it was to preside over a Restoration really imposed by the bayonets of the victors, in a country where it was impossible to believe, any longer, in the fiction of a people cured of its follies and returning gladly to the obedience due to its rightful king

When, in 1830, that did not pay, Charles X proposed to alter the rules again and, in so doing, lost his throne

Probably Louis XVIII has gained more than his deserts by contrast with Charles X. He was selfish, a Voltairean who yet believed in the divine right of kings, at any rate of the King of France and Navarre

The Princes had spent most of their exile in England. Far more consistently than Austria, Russia or Prussia, England had resisted both the Revolution and Bonaparte. British troops had shown far better discipline than had those of the other allies; indeed, the most serious complaint made against them was their too open scorn for Louis XVIII

Since both the republican and imperial models were discredited and unacceptable to the victorious Allies, a royal restoration was inevitable; Wellington warned that there would be no peace in Europe unless the Bourbons mounted the throne again. The Congress of Vienna, held to define European frontiers after two decades of war, reversed Napoleon's conquests but was otherwise generous to France

The new monarch, Louis XVIII, had made a poor fist of it on his first return from exile in Britain in May 1814. He surrounded himself with appointees who had been out of government business for more than two decades and the first restoration was brought to an abrupt end by the Hundred Days. Louis fled once more, to return three weeks after Waterloo

Louis Stanislas Xavier Bourbon, grandson of Louis XV and brother of Louis XVI, became heir to the throne when Louis' son died in prison in 1795

If France is still France, it is thanks to the Russians

Ignoring the king's desire for national unity, royalists in various parts of the country exacted their revenge for events since the Revolution of 1789

The Allies imposed financial indemnities on an economy that had been weakened by the demands of Napoleon's constant war-making and the effects of the British naval blockade

At the end of November 1815 a white-faced Richelieu signed the definitive peace agreement dictated by the Allies, lamenting that 'all is finished (by) this fatal treaty'

Russia, Prussia and Austria proclaimed their Holy Alliance and Britain joined them in the Quadruple Alliance

Then came 15 years wandering around Europe, including two in remote Courland in the Baltic, after which he came to rest for seven years in England

France was on its way to being re-integrated into the European system. This reflected the country's continental importance; Europe could not function without it. The path to national recovery was faster than might have been expected in the summer of 1815

the Hexagon between the Alps and the Atlantic, the Mediterranean and the Channel could no longer aspire to dominate Europe as it had sought to do under Louis XIV and Bonaparte

the power of the first consul was so well established that there was no hope of intervening in France. Instead, the house of Orléans became reconciled with the elder branch of the Bourbon family. Even so, Louis-Philippe never took up arms to fight with émigré forces for the royalist cause against other Frenchmen

On November 25 he married Marie-Amélie, a daughter of King Ferdinand IV of Naples and Maria Carolina of Austria. About this time there was some suggestion that Louis-Philippe should join the English forces in the Peninsular War. Maria Carolina—who held the real power in Naples and whose sister Marie-Antoinette had been executed by the French Revolutionary government—had long backed the campaign against the Revolutionary armies and Napoleon. She certainly would have supported such a move by her son-in-law, but nothing came of it, probably because Louis XVIII again feared any activity that might further the Orleanist cause.

Louis-Philippe returned to France at the First Restoration (1814). Although Louis XVIII refused to grant Louis-Philippe the style of royal highness (later allowed to him by Charles X), the king did grant Louis-Philippe the dignities traditionally held by the head of his family. More important perhaps, Louis-Philippe regained possession of the family estates and forests that had not been sold after his own emigration and his father’s execution. During the Hundred Days (1815) he returned to England instead of following the court to Ghent.

Under the second Restoration the duc d’Orléans was a steady and more or less open adherent of the liberal opposition

when Louis-Philippe had become king and his eldest son, Ferdinand-Louis-Philippe, was heir to the royal domain, he could reserve the Orléans inheritance for his other sons instead of merging it with the crown lands.

In 1830 Charles X’s attempt to enforce repressive ordinances touched off a rebellion (July 27–30) that gave Louis-Philippe his long-awaited opportunity to gain power.

The revolution that brought Louis-Philippe to power constituted a victory for the upper bourgeoisie over the aristocracy. The new ruler was titled Louis-Philippe, king of the French, instead of Philip VII, king of France. He consolidated his power by steering a middle course between the right-wing extreme monarchists (the Legitimists) on the one side and the socialists and other republicans (including the Bonapartists) on the other. The July Monarchy, with its “Citizen King,” could never command the support of all the factions, however. Its opponents resorted to political intrigue, insurrection, and even assassination plots. In July 1835 an attempt on the king’s life by Giuseppe Fieschi resulted in the deaths of 18 people and the wounding of many more, but the royal family escaped injury. Throughout Louis-Philippe’s reign, it was said that “for shooting kings there is no close[d] season.”

before abdicating in favour of his 10-year-old grandson, Henri Dieudonné d’Artois, comte de Chambord. On August 7 the provisional government of deputies and peers present in Paris declared the throne vacant. Following the terminology of the Constitution of 1791, Louis-Philippe was on August 9 proclaimed “king of the French by the grace of God and the will of the people.” A modified version of the Charter of 1814 was issued, which the new king was obliged to accept.

The death of the popular duc d’Orléans in a carriage accident in July 1842 not only grieved Louis-Philippe very deeply but also seriously weakened the dynasty. The new heir to the throne, the duke’s son Philippe d’Orléans, comte de Paris, was an infant for whom a regency had to be prearranged.

The marriage (August 1832) of his daughter Marie-Louise to Queen Victoria’s uncle Leopold I, king of the Belgians, established an excellent relationship between Paris and London, almost foreshadowing the Entente Cordiale.

The British were finally alienated by Louis-Philippe’s policy on the “Spanish marriages.” In an attempt to revive the traditional family alliance between the French and Spanish Bourbons, he had at first wanted his sons Henri d’Orléans, duc d’Aumale, and Antoine, duc de Montpensier, to marry Spanish Queen Isabella II and her sister and heiress presumptive, the infanta Luisa Fernanda, respectively. The British objected to this obvious threat of French predominance in Spain, and in 1843 Louis-Philippe agreed that Isabella should marry neither Henri nor the British nominee, Prince Albert’s cousin Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, but rather some Spanish Bourbon instead.

French opposition to the regime had become much more embittered. The industrial and agricultural depression of 1846 aroused widespread popular discontent, and Louis-Philippe’s constant refusal of any electoral reform meant that many members of the lower middle class—from whom he might still have drawn support—remained without the vote. Finally, his narrow-minded conservatism and his unwillingness to seek any solution for pressing political and social problems drove many divergent interests into union against him.

The July Monarchy was but one casualty of the great revolutionary movement that swept through Europe in 1848. In any case, a change had come to seem unavoidable in France.

The July Monarchy was really an anachronism. To the French people—for whom, whether or not they favoured the institution, monarchy meant the splendours and absolutism of the ancien régime

In power Louis-Philippe strove to implement his desire to rule as well as to reign. The political difficulties with which he was faced revealed in him the weaknesses of an obstinate man; increasingly, his only response to crises was words and theories, and ultimately inaction lost him his crown.

Napoleon summoned Ferdinand to the frontier and obliged him to return the crown to his father, who granted it to Napoleon. Napoleon made his brother Joseph Bonaparte king of Spain and held Ferdinand in France for the duration of the war.

in December 1813 Napoleon released Ferdinand expressly to overthrow it. When Ferdinand returned to Spain in 1814 he was urged by reactionaries to abolish the Cortes of Cádiz and all its works, which he did almost immediately. He resumed his obsolete powers and attempted to recover control of Spanish America, now partly independent.

1820 a liberal revolution restored the Constitution of 1812, which Ferdinand accepted, but in 1823 Louis XVIII of France sent the duc d’Angoulême at the head of a large army to release Ferdinand from his radical ministers. Ferdinand’s new government arrested the radicals or drove them into exile.

During Ferdinand’s illness, Don Carlos tried to persuade the queen to recognize his rights, but Ferdinand recovered, banished Don Carlos, and looked for moderate liberal support for his young daughter. When Ferdinand died in September 1833, Isabella was recognized as the sovereign, but his widow was obliged to lean on the liberals as Don Carlos asserted his claims from Portugal and thus began the First Carlist War.

Charles's political awakening began in 1786, when an indebted France struggled to implement fiscal reform

In January 1814, Charles traveled to southern France to join the pro-monarchy coalition force.

with Charles as his regent

Charles remained staunchly conservative

Louis XVIII died in September 1824, and his brother succeeded him to the throne as King Charles X of France. In the first few months of his reign, Charles's government passed a series of laws that bolstered the power of the nobility and clergy. Charles's government attempted to re-establish male primogeniture and successfully extended France's imperial power by conquering Algeria

Charles was already unpopular when he dissolved much of the government in 1830.

Charles and his ministers suspended the constitution.

In August, Charles X abdicated in favor of his young grandson Henry, Duke of Bordeaux

Fearing bodily harm, Charles X and his family fled France and settled in England

The Bourbons moved to Prague in the winter of 1832, residing at the Hradschin Palace at the invitation of Emperor Francis I of Austria

Louis-Philippe disappointed the country, and many of his supporters, when he began to govern as an autocrat

As he had taken power after the July Revolution, his reign was known as the July Monarchy

those who felt he was an illegitimate king (Charles X had abdicated in favor of his grandson, so "Legitimists" considered Louis-Philippe a usurper

During his reign, Louis-Philippe escaped from eight assassination attempts

in 1848. Louis-Philippe abdicated the throne on February 24, fleeing to England as "Mr. Smith."

After his abdication, France set up its Second Republic, while Louis-Philippe spent the remainder of his life in England

On April 6, 1814, Napoleon, then in his mid-40s, was forced to abdicate the throne. With the Treaty of Fontainebleau, he was exiled to Elba, a Mediterranean island off the coast of Italy.

The new king, Louis XVIII, fled, and Napoleon embarked on what came to be known as his Hundred Days campaign.

Upon Napoleon’s return to France, a coalition of allies—the Austrians, British, Prussians and Russians—who considered the French emperor an enemy began to prepare for war. Napoleon raised a new army and planned to strike preemptively, defeating the allied forces one by one before they could launch a united attack against him.

Two days later, on June 18, Napoleon led his army of some 72,000 troops against the 68,000-man British army, which had taken up a position south of Brussels near the village of Waterloo.

Although Napoleon’s troops mounted a strong attack against the British, the arrival of the Prussians turned the tide against the French. The French emperor’s outnumbered army retreated in chaos.

Ultimately, the Battle of Waterloo marked the end of Napoleon’s storied military career. He reportedly rode away from the battle in tears.

Did you know? Today, the expression that someone has “met his Waterloo” means the person has suffered a decisive or final defeat or setback.

On June 22, 1815, Napoleon once again abdicated. That October, he was exiled to the remote, British-held island of Saint Helena, in the South Atlantic Ocean. He died there on May 5, 1821, at age 51, most likely from stomach cancer.

But even before 1814, when Napoleon’s defeats in Spain, Russia and Germany presented the Marshals with besetting and complex conflicts between their duty as Frenchmen, their loyalty to the Emperor and their self-respect as professional soldiers, Bernadotte had been able to rely on what might be called his excellent political health which he had preserved in sixteen years of successful evasive action against encroachments by his Chief’s all-devouring authority

His independence as a Swedish Prince reflected and expressed an inner independence of mind and outlook

The other relevant item is that twice during those ten years Bernadotte fell dangerously ill, and that during his second illness he was given up for dead. He recovered and lived to be eighty. His father and brother had died at an early age, as had his sister; yet after him the Kings of Sweden became famous for longevity

The future Marshal and King was born at Pau in Navarre in January 1763

under the shadow of the historic castle of Henri IV.” When the restored Bourbon Kings poured ridicule and contempt on his origins, Bernadotte might have reminded them that at least he was from Navarre

It was not until 1788 that he was promoted sergeant-major, the highest rank normally open to a man of his background during the reign of Henri IV’s great-great- great-great-great-grandson Louis XVI

I can accuse Bernadotte of ingratitude, but not of treachery.” In his heart, le roi Jean, as he preferred calling himself after his coronation as Charles XIV John of Sweden and Norway, remained a son of the Revolution and the Empire. “What misfortunes,” he said nostalgically, “Napoleon would have avoided, if he had only listened to me

Louis XVIII may be on the throne before a fortnight is up

The army of reinforcement, commanded by Bernadotte, Is composed of an efficient corps of fine young troops. The soldiers march gaily, without any appearance of fatigue... without causing any trouble or making any depradation. Everything is done with a good discipline, which is very surprising

These events mark the point at which the paths of Bonaparte and Bernadotte begin to separate

The history of capitals, as well as countries, confirms the importance of courts. The rise of Berlin, Vienna, Madrid (often called Corte), St Petersburg and Istanbul cannot be understood except as court cities, apparent in the appearance of their streets and squares or, in Istanbul, mosques. A final, fatal expression of that role occurred in July 1914. Thousands, eager for war, gathered in front of palaces in London, Berlin, Munich (where, in a photograph, the young Hitler can be seen in the crowd) and St Petersburg, to wave hands, flags and hats, cheer and sing the national anthem as their monarch appeared on the palace balcony

The Louvre was a royal palace before it became an art gallery, founded by Francis I and principal residence of Louis XIV from 1652 to 1671. After the Revolution Paris again became a court city and remained one from 1804 to 1870.

The development of constitutions also owed much to courts. The rise of the House of Commons was helped by disputed royal successions – no monarchy had more of them than England – as well as the needs of royal finances. The founding document of constitutional monarchy in 19th-century Europe was the Charte constitutionelle des francais, promulgated by Louis XVIII (who was one of its authors) on June 4th, 1814. The Charte became the principal model for other constitutions in Europe, including those of Bavaria (1818), Belgium (1831), Spain (1834), Prussia (1850), Piedmont(1848) and the Ottoman Empire (1876). Britain could not have a comparable influence, since it did not have a written constitution to copy

A constitution was a royal life insurance policy: when Louis XVIII’s brother Charles X violated it in July 1830 the dynasty was deposed. Nevertheless France finally became a republic, after 1870, only after three dynasties – the Bourbons, Orléans and Bonapartes  – had been tried and found wanting

Having helped to finance the struggle against the French Empire, the Rothschilds became financiers to the Holy Alliance. They financed Louis XVIII’s return to France in 1814, Charles X’s departure in 1830, the Neapolitan Bourbons both before and after their exile in 1861 and the Austrian monarchy. As one Rothschild wrote to another, on February 8th, 1816: ‘A court is always a court and it always leads to something.

Under Edward VII public ceremonial increased in splendour, the court entertained more frequently than before and there were more royal warrant-holders

He wrote admiringly about monarchs, from Henri IV and Louis XIV to Charles XII. In the 19th century Walter Scott was an admirer of George IV, whose visit to Edinburgh he arranged; Chateaubriand was a brilliant royalist pamphleteer and memorialist; Stendhal and Mérimée were convinced Bonapartists

Court history also subverts national boundaries. The Tudors came to power with French help: Henry VII, after 14 years of exile in Brittany and France, had French as well as English troops in his victorious army at Bosworth. One aspect of Anne Boleyn’s appeal to Henry VIII was her French education and the skills she had acquired while serving at the French court. The House of Orange was both German and Dutch (and partly English), the Bourbons acquired Spanish, Neapolitan and Parmesan branches. The Habsburgs were  able to switch nationalities and capitals between Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Brussels, Barcelona, Madrid, Lisbon and, in the brief reign of Philip I, London

Through the prism of courts and monarchy, Cortes could communicate with Montezuma. The Sunni-Shi’a struggle now destroying Syria and Iraq is another war of succession. It began as a dynastic dispute, between the prophet Muhammad’s Umayyad cousins and his son-in-law Ali over succession to the caliphate: from the start Islam was a state as well as a religion. In 680 the struggle culminated in the murder of Ali’s son, the Imam Hussein, in Kerbela in Iraq. Every year, on the Day of Ashura, this murder is commemorated by Shi’a in mournful flagellatory processions

Above all, courts subvert boundaries between the sexes. Because of a European consort’s role in assuring the succession and enhancing dynastic prestige, her household and apartments could rival in size and splendour those of the monarch. Sometimes she controlled her own finances. The court of France was called ‘a paradise of women’. A court was therefore the only arena where women could compete with men, on near equal terms, for power and influence. Hence the decisive impact on national and international politics of, to name only a few consorts, Anne Boleyn, Catherine the Great and Marie Antoinette. Or, among rulers’ mothers: Catherine de’ Medici and Anne of Austria in France; 17th-century Valide Sultans in the Ottoman Empire; and the Empress Dowager in China

His eldest son, Louis-Philippe (created duc de Chartres in 1785) was left with no party to inherit and a lot to live down

Events after the Bourbon Restoration in 1814-15 showed that Orleanism and constitutionalism were still seen as different sides of the same coin by dynasts and liberals throughout Europe

Louis-Philippe was an obvious target for criticism from the Ultras, no matter how hard he tried not to embarrass Louis XVIII

The succession of the comte d'Artois, Louis XVIII's younger brother, as Charles X in 1824 ought to have eased Orleans' position still further.

Charles X's policies denied Orleans a decent obscurity for, as criticism of the king mounted in the late 1820s, Louis-Philippe found himself the darling of the opposition groups in the Chamber and outside. The virtues of Orleanism were rediscovered (or freshly invented) by those intent on checking the policies of the Bourbons and their ministers.

Louis-Philippe I turned out to be the first and last Orleanist king, for this experiment in limited monarchy based on the revised Charter of 1830 lasted only eighteen years. By the time of the 1848 Revolution, his regime stood condemned by its diverse critics as a self-satisfied, bourgeois polity, and the genius of cartoonists like Philipon and Daumier at distorting the features of the king (which, admittedly, readily lent themselves to caricature as he grew older) have created an enduring image of Orleanist monarchy that does it no credit

Instead of making new friends, the July Monarchy simply added to the numbers of those who felt cheated by its inauguration

By the 1840s, the basis of Orleanist monarchy had been effectively reduced to a defence of the status quo