- Prince Charles, Count of Artois
became King Charles X
Ultra-royalists Ultraroyalistes | |
---|---|
Leader | Charles X of France |
Founded | 1815 |
Dissolved | 1830 |
Succeeded by | Legitimists |
Newspaper | La Gazette La Quotidienne Le Conservateur |
Ideology | Monarchism Reactionarism [1] [2] Ultramontanism [3] [4] [5] Conservatism [6] [7] |
Political position | Right-wing [8] |
Religion | Roman Catholicism |
Chamber of Deputies (1824) | 413 / 430 |
Part of the Politics series |
Monarchy |
---|
Politicsportal |
This article is part of a series on |
Conservatism in France |
---|
The Ultra-royalists (French : ultraroyalistes, collectively Ultras) were a French political faction from 1815 to 1830 under the Bourbon Restoration. An Ultra was usually a member of the nobility of high society who strongly supported Roman Catholicism as the state and only legal religion of France, the Bourbon monarchy, [9] traditional hierarchy between classes and census suffrage (privileged voting rights), while rejecting the political philosophy of popular will and the interests of the bourgeoisie along with their liberal and democratic tendencies. [10]
The Legitimists, another of the main right-wing factions identified in René Rémond's Les Droites en France, were disparagingly classified with the Ultras after the 1830 July Revolution by the victors, the Orléanists, who deposed the Bourbon dynasty for the more liberal king Louis Philippe.
Following the return of Louis XVIII to power in 1815, people suspected of having ties with the governments of the French Revolution or of Napoleon suffered arrest. Several hundred were killed by angry mobs or executed after an informal summary court-martial. The episodes happened primarily in the south of France. [11]
Historian John Baptist Wolf argues Ultra-royalists—many of whom had just returned from exile—were staging a counter-revolution against the French Revolution and also against Napoleon's revolution.
Inaugurating the Bourbon Restoration (1814–1830), a strongly restricted census suffrage elected to the Chamber of Deputies an Ultra-royalist majority (la Chambre introuvable ) in 1815–1816 and again from 1824 to 1827. Known to be "more royalist than the king" (plus royalistes que le roi), the Ultras were the dominant political faction under Louis XVIII (1815–1824) and Charles X (1824–1830). Opposed to the limitation of the sovereign's power under the constitutional monarchy, they hoped to restore the Ancien Régime and annul the rupture created by the French Revolution. Passionately espousing the ruling ideology of the Restoration, the Ultras opposed liberalism, republicanism and democracy. While Louis XVIII hoped for a moderate restoration of the Ancien Régime, acceptable to the masses who had participated in the Revolution, the Ultras held rigidly to the dream of an integral restoration. Their power was due in part to electoral laws which largely favored them: on one hand a Chamber of Peers composed of hereditary members and on the other hand a Chamber of Deputies elected under a heavily restricted census suffrage of approximately 100,000 voters.
In 1815, an Ultra majority was elected to the chamber of deputies. Louis XVIII dubbed them La Chambre Introuvable, "the unfindable chamber", due to his astonishment at a group of deputies more royalist than himself. Under the guidance of his chief minister the Armand-Emmenuel de Vignerot du Plessis, Duc de Richelieu, Louis XVIII finally decided to dissolve this turbulent assembly, invoking Article 14 of the Constitutional Charter. There followed a "Liberal Interlude" from 1816–1820, a period of "wilderness years" for the Ultras. Then on 13 February 1820, the Duke of Berry was stabbed by a republican assassin as he left the Paris Opera House with his wife and died the next day. This outrage strengthened the Ultras, who then introduced laws such as the Law of the Double Vote which allowed them to further dominate the Chamber of Deputies. In addition to other factors, Louis XVIII's health was in serious decline, reducing his resistance to Ultra demands: even before he came to the throne, the Comte d'Artois (Charles X) already dominated the government.
The 1824 death of Louis XVIII, whom they saw as too moderate, lifted the spirits of the Ultras: they expected their leader, the new king Charles X, would soon become an absolute monarch, answerable only to God. In January 1825, Villèle's government enacted the Anti-Sacrilege Act, instituting capital punishment for the theft of sacred monstrance vases (with or without consecrated hosts). This "anachronistic law" (Jean-Noël Jeanneney) was never seriously applied and was repealed in the first months of Louis Philippe's reign (1830–1848). The Ultras also wanted to create courts to punish Radicals and passed laws restricting freedom of the press.
The 1830 July Revolution replaced the Bourbons with the more liberal Orléanist branch and sent the Ultras back to private life in their country chateaux. However, they retained some influence until at least the 16 May 1877 crisis and even further. Their views softened, their principal aim became the restoration of the House of Bourbon and they became known from 1830 on as Legitimists. The historian René Rémond has identified the Legitimists as the first of the "right-wing families" of French politics, followed by the Orléanists and the Bonapartists. According to him, many modern far-right movements, including parts of Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front and Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre's Society of St. Pius X, should be considered as parts of the Legitimist family.
Election year | No. of overall votes | % of overall vote | No. of overall seats won | +/– | Position | Leader |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Chamber of Deputies | ||||||
1815 | 35,200 | 87.5% | 350 / 400 | New | 1st (majority) | François-Régis de La Bourdonnaye, |
1820 | 34,780 | 36.9% | 160 / 434 | 190 [lower-alpha 1] | 2nd (minority) | Jean-Baptiste Séraphin, Comte de Villèle |
1824 | 90,240 | 96% | 413 / 430 | 253 | 1st (majority) | Jean-Baptiste Séraphin, Comte de Villèle |
1827 | 40,420 | 43.1% | 185 / 430 | 228 | 1st (majority) | Jean-Baptiste Séraphin, Comte de Villèle |
1830 | 47,940 | 50.7% | 282 / 556 | 97 | 1st (majority) | Jules de Polignac, Duke de Polignac |
Louis XVIII, known as the Desired, was King of France from 1814 to 1824, except for a brief interruption during the Hundred Days in 1815. He spent 23 years in exile from 1791: during the French Revolution and the First French Empire (1804–1814), and during the Hundred Days.
The Second Bourbon Restoration was the period of French history during which the House of Bourbon returned to power after the fall of the First French Empire in 1815. The Second Bourbon Restoration lasted until the July Revolution of 26 July 1830. Louis XVIII and Charles X, brothers of the executed King Louis XVI, successively mounted the throne and instituted a conservative government intended to restore the proprieties, if not all the institutions, of the Ancien Régime. Exiled supporters of the monarchy returned to France but were unable to reverse most of the changes made by the French Revolution. Exhausted by decades of war, the nation experienced a period of internal and external peace, stable economic prosperity and the preliminaries of industrialization.
Charles X was King of France from 16 September 1824 until 2 August 1830. An uncle of the uncrowned Louis XVII and younger brother of reigning kings Louis XVI and Louis XVIII, he supported the latter in exile. After the Bourbon Restoration in 1814, Charles became the leader of the ultra-royalists, a radical monarchist faction within the French court that affirmed absolute monarchy by divine right and opposed the constitutional monarchy concessions towards liberals and the guarantees of civil liberties granted by the Charter of 1814. Charles gained influence within the French court after the assassination of his son Charles Ferdinand, Duke of Berry, in 1820 and succeeded his brother Louis XVIII in 1824.
Jean-Baptiste Sylvère Gay, 1st Viscount of Martignac was a moderate royalist French statesman during the Bourbon Restoration 1814–30 under King Charles X.
Jean-Baptiste Guillaume Joseph Marie Anne Séraphin, 1st Count of Villèle, better known simply as Joseph de Villèle, was a French statesman. Several times Prime minister, he was a leader of the Ultra-royalist faction during the Bourbon Restoration.
Orléanist was a 19th-century French political label originally used by those who supported a constitutional monarchy expressed by the House of Orléans. Due to the radical political changes that occurred during that century in France, three different phases of Orléanism can be identified:
Jacques Laffitte was a leading French banker, governor of the Bank of France (1814–1820) and liberal member of the Chamber of Deputies during the Bourbon Restoration and July Monarchy. He was an important figure in the development of new banking techniques during the early stages of industrialization in France. In politics, he played a decisive role during the Revolution of 1830 that brought Louis-Philippe, the duc d'Orléans, to the throne, replacing the unpopular Bourbon king Charles X.
The French Revolution of 1830, also known as the July Revolution, Second French Revolution, or Trois Glorieuses, was a second French Revolution after the first in 1789. It led to the overthrow of King Charles X, the French Bourbon monarch, and the ascent of his cousin Louis Philippe, Duke of Orléans. After 18 precarious years on the throne, Louis-Philippe was overthrown in the French Revolution of 1848.
The Legitimists are royalists who adhere to the rights of dynastic succession to the French crown of the descendants of the eldest branch of the Bourbon dynasty, which was overthrown in the 1830 July Revolution. They reject the claim of the July Monarchy of 1830–1848 which placed Louis Philippe, Duke of Orléans, head of the Orléans cadet branch of the Bourbon dynasty, on the throne until he too was dethroned and driven with his family into exile.
The July Monarchy, officially the Kingdom of France, was a liberal constitutional monarchy in France under Louis Philippe I, starting on 26 July 1830, with the July Revolution of 1830, and ending 23 February 1848, with the Revolution of 1848. It marks the end of the Bourbon Restoration (1814–1830). It began with the overthrow of the conservative government of Charles X, the last king of the main line House of Bourbon.
Étienne-Denis, duc de Pasquier, Chancelier de France,, was a French statesman. In 1842, he was elected a member of the Académie française, and in the same year was created a duke by Louis-Philippe.
During the Bourbon Restoration (1814–1830) and the July Monarchy (1830–1848), the Doctrinals were a group of French royalists who hoped to reconcile the monarchy with the French Revolution and power with liberty. Headed by Royer-Collard, these liberal royalists were in favor of a constitutional monarchy, but with a heavily restricted census suffrage—Louis XVIII, who had been restored to the throne, had granted a Charter to the French with a Chamber of Peers and a Chamber of Deputies elected under tight electoral laws. The Doctrinaires were a centrist, as well as a conservative-liberal group, but at that time, liberal was considered to be the mainstream political left, so the group was considered a centre-left group.
Aimé-Marie-Gaspard, comte de Clermont-Tonnerre was a French general and statesman.
The Anti-Sacrilege Act (1825–1830) was a French law against blasphemy and sacrilege passed in April 1825 under King Charles X. The death penalty provision of the law was never applied, but a man named François Bourquin was sentenced to perpetual forced labour for the sacrilegious burglary of Eucharistic objects; the law was later revoked at the beginning of the July Monarchy under King Louis-Philippe.
The Chambre introuvable was the first Chamber of Deputies elected after the Second Bourbon Restoration in 1815. It was dominated by Ultra-royalists who completely refused to accept the results of the French Revolution. The name was coined by King Louis XVIII, referring to the impossibility of cooperating with the chamber.
Achille Tenaille de Vaulabelle was a French journalist and politician.
The Ministry of Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord was formed on 9 July 1815 after the second Bourbon Restoration under King Louis XVIII of France. It replaced the French Provisional Government of 1815 that had been formed when Napoleon abdicated after the Battle of Waterloo. The cabinet was dissolved on 26 September 1815 and replaced by the First ministry of Armand-Emmanuel du Plessis de Richelieu.
Christophe André Jean de Chabrol de Crouzol was a French politician who served in the administration of Napoleon, then adhered to the Bourbon Restoration in 1814. As Prefect of Rhône he acquiesced in brutal reprisals in 1817 against former supporters of Bonaparte. He was an elected deputy from 1820 to 1822, then was made a peer of France. He served as Minister of the Navy (1824–29) and as Minister of Finance (1829–30). Chabrol resigned before the July Revolution of 1830, unwilling to remain associated with the increasingly repressive government, but remained a supporter of the Bourbon monarchy.
Ferdinand de Bertier de Sauvigny (1782-1864) was a French aristocrat and politician.
The Liberals was a short lived French liberal political party which was active in several elections before being absorbed into the Doctrinaires, a fellow constitutional monarchy party. Several members of the Liberals eventually went on to serve in the Movement Party and even later in the Orléanist parties. The precedent set by the party would help form modern French classical liberalism, something used in the modern centre-right Republicans party.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)