Assassination, Politics and Miracles: France and the Royalist Reaction of 1820

By David Skuy. Montreal — Kingston, McGill-Queen's University Press, 2003. ix+301 pp. Hb £57.00; $75.00. David Skuy refutes the conventional French republican dogma that the Restored Monarchy was ‘impossible’ from the start; for him the turning point was 1820. The birth of an heir to the throne six months after the murder of the duc de Berry meant that an increasingly stable regime could be made even more secure, but the reaction of ultra-monarchists to the murder made its demise likely. On 13 February 1820, the duc de Berry, certain to be the last Bourbon heir to the throne, was stabbed in front of his wife as he was leaving the opera. The murderer, Louvel, a man with Bonapartist sympathies, acted alone, but the ultras were never convinced. They concocted a tale of an assassination plot linked to the chief minister, Decazes, who had favoured slightly liberal policies. Louvel was executed, but ultras pushed for a panoply of anti-liberal exceptional legislation, above all a law that gave the twenty-five per cent richest voters a second vote. For a few years, ultras dictated government policy. Ultimately, ultra vengeance backfired and provoked unity within the disparate liberal opposition. In 1830, a revolution permanently eliminated the Bourbons. Skuy courageously eschews a solely narrative approach, apart from a brief prologue. Part One claims that up to the murder the ultras were held in check and that the 1817 electoral law gave the liberals a growing voice. Restoration conspiracies are dissected, but some threads are missing: the Congregation, the Jesuits and a favourite enemy of the right, freemasons. Competing political groups are analysed to emphasize that it was indeed the royalist reaction that weakened the regime. Part Two moves back to chronology. Media response to the murder made the regime unexpectedly popular for a time. Numerous illustrations of the death, memorial services and subscriptions, transformed the duc into a model husband, pious Catholic martyr and patriotic son of the nation, no mean feat when his profligate youth, disregard of religion, morganatic earlier marriage complete with young family, plus a succession of actress mistresses, some of them with child, are considered. The unremarkable duchesse became loyal suffering wife and devoted mother when the duc de Bordeaux was born. That a vital male heir appeared, apparently with umbilical cord attached, was interpreted by royalists as a miracle, a claim of no small significance at this time of Catholic revival. Pictures of the miracle child abounded and were bought almost like sacred relics. Unfortunately for the royalists, the exceptional legislation they pushed through to control the supposed revolutionary threat from the liberals backfired and, within a few years, liberals were able to present themselves as the more convincing representatives of the nation. This book offers a scholarly and readable new dimension to a neglected period for experts and students alike. The structure leads to some repetition and loose ends, but the mass of compelling illustrations contribute immeasurably to our grasp of the ‘miracle’.

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