ABSTRACT
The restoration of a pre-war Europe and the elimination of Napoleon was not a constant preoccupation of France’s enemies. If it had been, France would have fallen long before the battle of Waterloo. This chapter will consider how far what was created in the Catholic western states of Europe, in France and the Italian and Iberian peninsulas at and after the peace settlements of 1814 and 1815 was a conscious attempt to restore pre-war institutions. We shall ask to what degree post-war conservatism was a product of the Romantic imagination or an opportunistic or radical response to the impact of a quarter-century of revolutionary change and war. We shall focus on the new monarchies and their institutions of government, their ruling elites and the Catholic Church.
