CHAPTER OUTLINE

I. Introduction

II. The Congress of Vienna and the Restoration of

the Old Order

A. The Conservative Alliance and the Congress

System

B. Protecting the Old Order: Religion

C. Protecting the Old Order: The Law

III. Challenges to the Old Order: The ‘-isms’

A. Romanticism: European Culture in the Age

of Metternich

B. Challenging the Old Order: Revolutions,

1815–25

IV. Autocracy in Romanov Russia

V. The Liberal-Monarchical Compromise in France

VI. The Revolutions of 1830

VII. The Advance of Liberalism in Britain

VIII. International Liberalism and Slavery

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CHAPTER 24

THE DEFENSE OF THE OLD REGIME, 1815–48

T

he coalition that defeated Napoleon in

1812–15 supported monarchy and the insti-

tutions of the Old Regime. During the next

generation (1815–48), victorious conserva-

tives tried to restore their world. Chapter 24 examines

this era, often called the age of Metternich in honor of

its leading conservative statesman. It starts with monar-

chists reasserting the Old Regime at the peace congress

of 1815 (the Congress of Vienna). Next the chapter

looks at the postwar conservative alliance and its “con-

gress system” designed to preserve that order.

The restoration of the Old Regime was widely re-

sisted. A variety of political movements, from liberal re-

formism to socialist revolution, challenged the old

order. These movements are discussed as are the revo-

lutions that they encouraged, such as the liberal-

national revolutions of the 1820s and a wave of

revolutions in 1830–32. The chapter goes on to

examine the success of the conservative order by ex-

ploring the differing conditions of autocratic monarchy

in Russia, the victories of liberalism in Britain, and the

delicate compromise between monarchism and liberal-

ism reached in France.

The Congress of Vienna and the

Restoration of the Old Order

A Quadruple Alliance of Russia, Prussia, Austria, and

Britain was needed to defeat Napoleon. Armies of these

allies reached Paris in 1814. Napoleon received a gen-

erous settlement in return for his unconditional abdica-

tion. He kept the title of emperor (with an annual

income of two million French francs) and received the

Italian island of Elba to govern. Similar leniency char-

acterized the treaty given to France, the Treaty of Paris,

which restored the Bourbon monarchy. The eldest

brother of Louis XVI thus returned to Paris “in the bag-

gage of the allies.” He took the title of Louis XVIII, in

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