After Napoleon Bonaparte seized power and created the Consulate’s new institutions, Benjamin Constant was appointed to the Tribunate, a body meant to debate proposed laws. This early role put Constant inside the new regime while he developed a liberal critique of arbitrary rule and unchecked executive power.
Constant drafted Principles of Politics Applicable to All Governments as a systematic statement of liberal politics. The work focused on limits on government, individual rights, and representative institutions—ideas he would later reuse during the Restoration when constitutional monarchy returned to France.
In The Spirit of Conquest and Usurpation, Constant argued that modern societies suffer when rulers pursue expansion and military glory. The pamphlet connected foreign policy to domestic liberty: war, he warned, encourages coercive government at home and undermines constitutional safeguards.
The Bourbon Restoration began with a constitutional charter that created a constitutional monarchy and kept several key civil liberties from the Revolution and Empire. The Charter also preserved strong royal powers, including the ability to issue ordinances—an issue that later became central to liberal opposition politics.
A shortened, revised version of Constant’s Principles of Politics was published, making his liberal arguments more widely available during the Restoration. The book emphasized constitutional checks, accountable government, and protections for speech and religion—core ideas for a post-revolutionary France seeking stable liberty.
When Napoleon returned in 1815, Constant briefly served in the Council of State. This episode mattered for French liberalism because Constant tried to push Napoleon toward constitutional limits, showing how liberals debated whether “constitutional guarantees” could restrain even a powerful leader.
In his 1819 lecture, Constant distinguished between ancient liberty (direct political participation with heavy control over private life) and modern liberty (individual rights, private freedom, and representative institutions). This became a classic statement of classical liberalism: protecting personal independence while using representative government to prevent arbitrary rule.
Constant entered parliamentary politics as a deputy during the Restoration, giving the liberal opposition a prominent writer and speaker inside the legislature. His role helped link liberal theory—rights, limits on power, representative government—to day-to-day fights over laws, budgets, and civil liberties.
The Duke of Berry was stabbed on February 13, 1820 and died the next day, an event that became a turning point in Restoration politics. The assassination strengthened hardline royalists and intensified pressure on liberals, helping drive a more restrictive political climate.
The June 29, 1820 “Law of the Double Vote” changed the electoral system so the wealthiest voters in each department could vote twice in different electoral colleges. This reform reduced the political influence of the broader (already limited) electorate and made it harder for the liberal opposition to win seats under the Restoration’s censitary (tax-based) suffrage rules.
After a liberal opposition victory in the 1830 legislative elections, Charles X turned to emergency-style rule through the Saint-Cloud ordinances. Signed on July 25 and published on July 26, the ordinances suspended press freedom, dissolved the newly elected Chamber, and restricted the electorate—moves that liberals saw as violating constitutional government.
Street fighting in Paris during “les Trois Glorieuses” (July 27–29, 1830) transformed protest into an uprising. The revolt ended Charles X’s effective rule and opened the way for a new constitutional settlement, shaped in large part by liberal constitutional monarchists.
The Charter of 1814 was revised on August 7, 1830 and the new Charter became effective on August 14, reducing key royal powers (including ordinance power “for the security of the state”). This shift marked a liberal constitutional outcome of the July Revolution: a monarchy more explicitly tied to national sovereignty and parliamentary politics.
Benjamin Constant and French Liberalism during the Restoration and July Monarchy (1799–1830)