ABSTRACT
The decade and a half that stretches from the fall of Napoleon to the revolution of July, 1830, forms, in common opinion, a historical period with a dominating theme of its own that it develops to a relative conclusion. Literature and poetry were full of antireactionary attacks and took sides with the nations that were rising against foreign domination and against domestic despots; to aid them, committees were formed, volunteers set out, legions were raised, expert officers were sent. Public opinion had prevented England from participating with arms in the suffocation of the constitutional movements and of those for national independence. In the countries in which the restoration had held to its system of government or extinguished the constitutional régime established by revolution, the process, which was the natural course of things, pursued its inevitable way, even if it was not apparent to the eye or if men believed it to be interrupted and arrested.
