French History Advance Access originally published online on October 20, 2008
French History 2008 22(4):446-468; doi:10.1093/fh/crn045
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‘Il ne faut pas être le roi de deux peuples’: strategies of national reconciliation in Restoration France
* The author is a doctoral student at the Université de Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris. She may be contacted at frederki{at}club-internet.fr
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Abstract |
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On 4 June 1814, Louis XVIII, recently restored to the throne of France, promulgated the Constitutional Charter, a royal gift (‘octroi’) ratifying the major achievements of the French Revolution. The monarchy had to resolve a crucial problem: how, after the divisions of the revolutionary and imperial years, could the reconciliation of the ‘deux France’ be realized so as to create a stable foundation for the regime? This article analyses different strategies for national reconciliation in the light of the crisis of legitimacy and representation faced by the restored monarchy: not only amnesty, oubli (forgetting), pardon, commemoration and its religious version, expiation, but also the punishment of coupables (culprits) and attempts at integration. It will also examine the reactions provoked by these contradictory, often mutually exclusive strategies, as well as evaluating their success and their contribution to either strengthening or weakening the restored monarchy.