ABSTRACT
The years of constitutional monarchy have been dismissed as a hiatus by historians, influenced by the utopian scorn of the socialists and the supercilious superiority of republicans. The monarchies have been derided because they failed to create permanent regimes, because French nationalist interests were neglected and particularly the Orleanists took insufficient account of the 'social question' and thus left France prey to increasing social conflicts, especially the June Days. After the Second World War, another war was waged by the Annales School, clustered around an influential periodical of the same name, which has impacted on approaches to all periods of French history. Marc Bloch, one of the founders of annaliste history, insisted that historians should look up from the written archives to study the topography of the land, the architecture of the city. Louis Chevalier's moving account of the Paris poor has been criticised for its lack of critical perspective because he took contemporary novelists at face value.
