Chapter 5 - The Resurgence of French Power, 1821–1830

Summary

Restored at the allies’ behest in 1814 and 1815, the Bourbons felt considerable pressure to bolster their legitimacy by asserting their nationalist credentials. Consequently, in the 1820s the French exploited the possibilities of public credit to finance a highly aggressive foreign policy, intervening in Spain in 1823, Greece in 1827–9 and Algeria in 1830. Thus, Restoration France became a quintessential fiscal-military state on the model of eighteenth-century Britain. Moreover, the growing French reliance on public credit stimulated the rise of the Paris Bourse as a major international financial centre. French governments thereby gained a new diplomatic tool that facilitated foreign government loans in Paris. The restored Bourbons also sought to use public credit to reinforce the regime by ‘closing the last wound of the Revolution’, compensating those who had lost property following the Revolution through the proceeds of a debt conversion. However, his idea proved highly controversial – though less because it would compensate formerly exiled aristocrats than because it would reduce the income of small rentiers and civic institutions with endowments invested in rentes.