page_title: July Monarchy
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: July Monarchy / Background
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Louis-Philippe, roi de France de 1830 à 1848 (Monarchie de Juillet)English: Louis-Philippe, King of the French from 1830 to 1848 (July Monarchy)Deutsch: Ludwig Philipp, König der Franzosen von 1830 bis 1848 (Julimonarchie)עברית: המלך לואי פיליפ של צרפת 1830–1848.Español: Luis Felipe I, Rey de los FrancesesNorsk bokmål: Kong Ludvig Filip av Frankrike 1830–1848.
context_page_description: The July Monarchy was a liberal constitutional monarchy in France under Louis Philippe I, starting with the July Revolution of 1830 and ending with the Revolution of 1848. It marks the end of the Bourbon Restoration. It began with the overthrow of the conservative government of Charles X, the last king of the House of Bourbon.
  Louis Philippe, a member of the more liberal Orléans branch of the House of Bourbon, proclaimed himself as Roi des Français rather than "King of France", emphasizing the popular origins of his reign. The king promised to follow the juste milieu, or the middle-of-the-road, avoiding the extremes of both the conservative supporters of Charles X and radicals on the left.
  The July Monarchy was dominated by wealthy bourgeoisie and numerous former Napoleonic officials. It followed conservative policies, especially under the influence of François Guizot. The king promoted friendship with Great Britain and sponsored colonial expansion, notably the French conquest of Algeria. By 1848, a year in which many European states had a revolution, the king's popularity had collapsed, and he was overthrown.
context_section_description: Following the ouster of Napoléon Bonaparte in 1814, the Allies restored the Bourbon Dynasty to the French throne. The ensuing period, the Bourbon Restoration, was characterized by conservative reaction and the re-establishment of the Roman Catholic Church as a power in French politics. The relatively moderate Comte de Provence, brother of the deposed-and-executed Louis XVI, ruled as Louis XVIII from 1814–1824 and was succeeded by his more conservative younger brother, the former Comte d'Artois, ruling as Charles X from 1824.
  Despite the return of the House of Bourbon to power, France was much changed from the era of the ancien régime. The egalitarianism and liberalism of the revolutionaries remained an important force and the autocracy and hierarchy of the earlier era could not be fully restored. Economic changes, which had been underway long before the revolution, had progressed further during the years of turmoil and were firmly entrenched by 1815. These changes had seen power shift from the noble landowners to the urban merchants. The administrative reforms of Napoleon, such as the Napoleonic Code and efficient bureaucracy, also remained in place. These changes produced a unified central government that was fiscally sound and had much control over all areas of French life, a sharp difference from the complicated mix of feudal and absolutist traditions and institutions of pre-Revolutionary Bourbons.
  Louis XVIII, for the most part, accepted that much had changed. However, he was pushed on his right by the Ultra-royalists, led by the comte de Villèle, who condemned the doctrinaires' attempt to reconcile the Revolution with the monarchy through a constitutional monarchy. Instead, the Chambre introuvable, elected in 1815, first banished all Conventionnels who had voted for Louis XVI's death and then passed similar reactionary laws. Louis XVIII was forced to dissolve this Chamber, dominated by the Ultras, in 1816, fearing a popular uprising. The liberals thus governed until the 1820 assassination of the duc de Berry, nephew of the king and known supporter of the Ultras, which brought Villèle's Ultras back to power (vote of the Anti-Sacrilege Act in 1825, and of the loi sur le milliard des émigrés, 'Act on the émigrés' billions'). His brother Charles X, however, took a far more conservative approach. He attempted to compensate the aristocrats for what they had lost in the revolution, curbed the freedom of the press, and reasserted the power of the Church. In 1830 the discontent caused by these changes and Charles' authoritarian nomination of the Ultra prince de Polignac as minister culminated in an uprising in the streets of Paris, known as the 1830 July Revolution. Charles was forced to flee and Louis-Philippe d'Orléans, a member of the Orléans branch of the family, and son of Philippe Égalité who had voted the death of his cousin Louis XVI, ascended the throne. Louis-Philippe ruled, not as "King of France" but as "King of the French" (an evocative difference for contemporaries).
caption: Louis-Philippe I, King of the French. The King is depicted at the entrance of the Gallerie des batailles which he had furnished in the Château de Versailles.
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