A question regarding Henry Count of Chambord.

Intriguing. Was there any chance of changing the feeling of the populace from liberal leanings to conservative ones? And if so what might cause that?
 
Intriguing. Was there any chance of changing the feeling of the populace from liberal leanings to conservative ones? And if so what might cause that?

Only if they were to see liberalism as a lost cause - IDK how that would be possible in the 1820s though. Their appetites have been whetted.
 
I didn't know that, and its interesting, but I'm not sure it necessarily changes things. He still did, whatever his feelings, lead the army and in the 1820s and 1830s that would have been the story. He might well have had misgivings about what Fernando did afterwards, but how does he demonstrate that to the public at the time? Remember this is a time of fervid rumour and wild conspiracy - large numbers of Frenchmen and women were convinced, for example, that Bonaparte was secretly still alive in the 1820s and might return to liberate them once more.

Whatever he does, Louis XIX will be dogged with the reputation of having suppressed a Liberal regime with force and this will affect how people treat him politically if he lasts as king.


But how much would it have mattered?

Iirc, the issues which brought down Charles X - dissolution of the Chamber, narrowing the franchise by decree, etc - were purely domestic. Would a mere foreign policy issue be enough to bring down the King?
 
But how much would it have mattered?

Iirc, the issues which brought down Charles X - dissolution of the Chamber, narrowing the franchise by decree, etc - were purely domestic. Would a mere foreign policy issue be enough to bring down the King?

On its own it wouldn't be the only factor, but don't make the mistake of defining politics by purely domestic or foreign policy. They were a venn diagram in the 19th century as they are now. Just as French Liberals sought to model their demands for representation in part on the example of British constitutional monarchy, so too were they aware that the use of force to suppress liberals abroad could be translated into use of force against liberals at home.

Imagine this scenario -

Louis XIX comes to the throne a couple of years earlier. In line with his political leanings, he moves to expand the franchise a little bit [maybe akin to the situation in Britain pre-1832 Reform Act]. Some Liberals who do not qualify, or want full suffrage for men, protest, organising large peaceful demonstrations in major cities like Lyon and Bordeaux. Louis XIX refuses to be moved, wary of the example of 1789 and advised by men who lived through the Terror of Republicanism and Revolution. Demonstrations grow. At one held on the Champ de Mars in Paris, Louis is forced to call up troops merely as a precaution. Rumour spreads through the crowd that there are troops - demagogues amongst those assembled shout that Louis has used force before and that they might all be killed. Panic turns to anger, anger turns to riot, and Louis has the beginnings of a full-scale revolution on his hands thanks, in part, to memory of his actions in Spain.
 
If the above scenario happened, then I wouldn't be surprised at those who decry the mob mentality that democracy encourages
 
If the above scenario happened, then I wouldn't be surprised at those who decry the mob mentality that democracy encourages

Maybe, but that was just one of the features of nineteenth-century political life. Whats more, many Liberals and Republicans were perfectly able to balance calling for democracy on the one hand and violently suppressing those who sought to push it further than they wanted. Just look at the June Days of 1848 in France for example.
 
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