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The Old Order Under Attack

Restoration France

• Within France legitimacy was to be restored by bringing back the Bourbon

monarchy – Louis XVII (Louis XVI’s brother was placed on the throne).

• French political and social development was shaped by economic change and the

class conflict that this created.



The Constitutional Charter of 1814

• Created a constitutional monarchy.

• It guaranteed individual rights (the gains of the revolutionary period such as equality

before the law)

• It established a parliamentary system:

- Chamber of Deputies made up of substantial property owners.

- Restricted franchise – 1 in 100 males.

- Hereditary Chamber of Peers.



Constitutional Problems

• It tried to create a parliamentary system whilst retaining the ideas of an

absolute/hereditary monarchy.

• There was no way of ensuring the responsibility of ministers to the

legislature.

• To survive the govt had to be responsive to business and other interests but

the divisions in French political society did not allow much room for

compromise.

• Political conflicts up to the 1830 Revolution were shaped by long term social

and political developments.



Political conflicts up to the 1830 Revolution

were shaped by long term social and political

developments.

• Royalists who wanted to restore full powers of monarchy.

• An urban middle class – former supporters of Napoleon and

Republicans.

• Conservatives supporting a constitutional monarchy.

• The development of a working/artisan class and a profession middle

class fundamentally shaped future political developments.



The 1830 Revolutions:

• 1830 protests in Italy, Germany, Spain, Britain, France, Belgium, Switzerland and

Poland.

• They essentially a middle class protest against conservative political regimes.

• Successful liberal regimes were established in Switzerland, Belgium. Spain and

France.

• Europe more clearly divided between countries with some form of liberal

constitution and countries that retained autocratic systems of govt.



The 1830 French Revolution

Highlights a pattern which will see again.

• liberal opposition grew during the 1820s in response to repressive measures.

• Number of opposition Deputies in the Assembly grew. In 1830 demanded ministers be

responsible the Chamber.

• King suspends constitution and the Chamber.

• July 1830 workers and students revolt – King forced to abdicate when cannot really on

the army.

• New regime of Louis-Philippe lasted until 1848.



The July Monarchy

Based on three things:

• His qualities as the ‘Citizen King’.

• Support of the landed bourgeoisie and wealthy business/commercial interests.

• A revised Charter of Liberties – key elements:

- king lost power to veto legislation absolutely;

- abolition of censorship;

- franchise extension (170,000);

- Chamber of Peers became an upper house of life members.



The Regimes Problems

• Divided support.

• Hostility of extremists.

• Social Unrest:

- Industrial unrest became a political issue for the first time.

- 1846 over 1 million employed in large scale industry – growth in

towns produced a decline in living standards for workers.

- Employment irregular and this produced unrest.



Chartism and the Political Social Order in Britain

• More clearly recognisable working class consciousness developed in Britain.

• Rapid industrialisation and the terrible social conditions of many of the expanding cities

gave the movements more force.

• The Chartist movement campaigned in the 1830s and 40s for an extension of the vote to

the working classes – Universal Manhood Suffrage.



Kennington Common Meeting 1848



Metternich and the Austrian Empire 1815-48



Metternich and the Austrian Empire 1815-48

•An accumulation of territory collected by the Habsburg family since the 15th C.

• Threats to the dynasty:

- Chiefly nationalist pressures to decentralise the empire – among the 11

nationalities in the empire.

- Opposition also came from old traditional aristocratic groups in the empire( i.e. the Magyars in Hungary).

• From 1848 this opposition to central control from Vienna became more popular in

nature, particularly as towns grew in size.



Clement von Metternich:

• Most important conservative statesman in Europe – served as Minister of

Foreign Affairs (1809-48) and Austrian Chancellor (1821-48) .

• He sought to maintain the social order within the empire and between states

by supporting other monarchies.

• Keeping social order depended on retaining the loyalty of the rural masses.

• Economic change undermined his efforts to oppose revolution and reform –

in particular the growth of an urban middle class



Reform and Repression

The Carlsbad Decrees (1819):• Meeting of the states of the German Confederation introduced the decrees.

• They increased press censorship, banned nationalist societies and increased

control over the universities .

The Six Articles (1832):• Forbad public meetings and renewed edicts against universities.

• As the 1848 revolutions demonstrated a lot of his efforts to hold back change

were unsuccessful



Summary

•Economic development led to class change.

• These changes led to new political pressures on European

governments and the old order.

• In some countries liberalism made progress – in other’s

despotic regimes maintained.

• Europe was divided politically by these changes.

• Things came to a head dramatically in 1848.