France - France, 1815-1940 | Britannica.com - 0 views
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King Louis XVIII’s second return from exile was far from glorious. Neither the victorious powers nor Louis’s French subjects viewed his restoration with much enthusiasm, yet there seemed to be no ready alternative to Bourbon rule.
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Within France, political tensions were exacerbated by Napoleon’s mad gamble and by the mistakes committed during the first restoration. The problem facing the Bourbons would have been difficult enough without these tensions
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The most heterogeneous of all was the independent group—an uneasy coalition of republicans, Bonapartists, and constitutional monarchists brought together by their common hostility to the Bourbons and their common determination to preserve or restore many of the Revolutionary reforms.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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a return to the unsullied principle of divine right, buttressed by the restored authority of the established church.
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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.
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Charles X threw himself enthusiastically into the campaign for Catholic revival. The anticlericals of the liberal left were outraged,
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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.
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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.
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Some of Polignac’s ministers urged a royal coup d’état at once, before the rejuvenated opposition could grow too strong.
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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.