ABSTRACT
The Ultras and the governments of the period made cultural issues central by their insistence on a symbolic restoration of the role of religion in public life. Intellectual and cultural life presented a very different spectacle from the slow evolution of population, agriculture, and manufacturing. The Napoleonic regime had imposed a stifling conformity on writers and artists; the Restoration, despite the maintenance of some restrictions, permitted lively debate. Ironically, the enduring political institution consolidated by the Second Restoration was not the monarchy, but the practice of parliamentary government that so many enthusiasts for the Bourbons initially condemned as a vestige of the Revolution. Napoleon’s easy success in toppling Louis XVIII was a lasting reminder of the Restoration’s lack of genuine popular support. Despite Napoleon’s efforts to encourage manufacturing, France in 1815 and for many years afterward remained a primarily agricultural country. One was the teenaged Victor Hugo, soon to become the leading representative of the romantic literary movement in France.
