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María Sofia Corciulo
In this article Maria Sofia Corciulo discusses the dissolution of the recently elected ‘Chambre introuvable’ by Louis XVIII, following his second restoration in 1815. The king had been completely surprised by the outcome of the elections, which returned an ultra-royalist majority. This put severe pressure on the king and his ministers who were committed to moderate, conciliationist policies, in which they were supported and pressured by the representatives of the Allied powers. The Ultras found themselves in confrontation with the ministers and policies of the king. This created a paradox, in that the Ultras, who wished to reinstate features of the ancien régime, could only do so by imposing parliamentarianism on the king, and use their majority to force him to change his ministers and adopt policies that they knew he opposed. On the other hand, the king felt he could only save the liberal constitutional values, which he and the ministers considered necessary if civil war was to be avoided, by a dissolution of the Chamber, for which there was no clear constitutional justification. The article discusses whether Louis XVIII, by his dissolution, which his critics claimed was a coup d'état, in fact secured the future of liberal constitutional government in France.
