Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/635

Europe after the Congress oj Vienna 479 be invited cordially and affectionately to join this "Holy Alli- ance." This was not, as later supposed, a conspiracy of despotic monarchs to repress all liberal movements, but it was so repre- sented by newspapers and reformers. Accordingly Metternich's policy of repression was often ascribed to the Holy Alliance. II. FRANCE, 1814-1830 846. The Restoration of the Bourbons in France. The French had aroused themselves in 1793-1794 to repel the foreign powers Austria and Prussia, who threatened to bring back the old regime. Twenty years later, in 1814, when the allies entered Paris, there was no danger of the reestablishment of the old wrongs. It is true that the Bourbon line of kings was restored, but France had always been monarchical at heart. It was only the ill-advised conduct of Louis XVI that had led to his deposition and the founding of a republic, which Napoleon had easily converted into a monarchy. The new king, Louis XVIII, made no effort to destroy the great achievements of the Revolution. He granted the nation a constitution, called the Charter, which remained in force, slightly changed in 1830, until 1848. 847. The Charter of 1814. The Charter of 1814 furnishes us with a statement of the permanent results of the Revolution and measures the distance that separates this time from that of Louis XVI. Almost all the great reforms proclaimed by the first Declaration of the Rights of Man ( 755) are guaranteed. The laws are to be made by the king in cooperation with a parliament, consisting of a House of Peers and of a Chamber of Deputies elected by the nation ; the latter may impeach the king's ministers. 848. Charles X deposed in 1830. In 1824 Louis XVIII died and was succeeded by his brother, the count of Artois, who took the title of Charles X. Under his rule the reactionary policy of the government became more pronounced. A bill was passed voting the nobility a large sum of money for the property they had lost during the Revolution. Then, by royal decrees, a censor- ship of the press was established, the suffrage was limited to a