Editing Reactionary (section)

=== Restoration of the French monarchy ===
{{see also|Bourbon Restoration in France}}
{{Unreferenced section|date=March 2024}}
[[File:Cruikshank - Old Bumblehead.png|thumb|Caricature of [[Louis XVIII of France|Louis XVIII]] preparing for the [[Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis|French intervention in Spain]] to help the Spanish Royalists, by [[George Cruikshank]]]]
{{Toryism |expanded=related}}
With the [[Congress of Vienna]], inspired by Tsar [[Alexander I of Russia]], the monarchs of [[Russian Empire|Russia]], [[Kingdom of Prussia|Prussia]] and [[Austrian Empire|Austria]] formed the [[Holy Alliance]], a form of collective security against [[revolution]] and [[Bonapartism]]. This instance of reaction was surpassed by a movement that developed in France when, after the second fall of [[Napoleon]], the [[Bourbon Restoration in France|Bourbon Restoration]], or reinstatement of the [[House of Bourbon|Bourbon]] dynasty, ensued. This time it was to be a [[constitutional monarchy]], with an [[election|elected]] lower house of parliament, the Chamber of Deputies. The Franchise was restricted to men over the age of forty, which indicated that for the first fifteen years of their lives, they had lived under the ''[[ancien régime]]''. Nevertheless, King [[Louis XVIII of France|Louis XVIII]] worried he would still suffer an intractable parliament. He was delighted with the [[ultra-royalist]]s, or Ultras, whom the election returned, declaring that he had found a ''[[chambre introuvable]]'', literally, an "unfindable house".

It was the [[Declaration of Saint-Ouen]] that prepared the way for the Restoration. Before the French Revolution, which radically and bloodily overthrew most aspects of French society's organization, the only way constitutional change could be instituted was by extracting it from old legal documents that could be interpreted as agreeing with the proposal. Everything new had to be expressed as a righteous revival of something old that had lapsed and had been forgotten. This was also the means used by diminished aristocrats to get themselves a bigger piece of the pie. In the 18th century, those gentry whose fortunes and prestige had diminished to the level of peasants would search diligently for every ancient feudal statute that might give them something. For example, the "ban" meant that all peasants had to grind their grain in their lord's mill. Therefore, these gentry came to the [[French States-General of 1789]] fully prepared to press for expanding such practices in all provinces to the legal limit. They were horrified when, for example, the French Revolution permitted common citizens to go hunting, one of the few perquisites they had always enjoyed.

Thus with the Bourbons Restoration, the ''Chambre Introuvable'' set about reverting every law to return society to conditions prior to the [[absolute monarchy]] of [[Louis XIV]], when the power of the Second Estate was at its zenith. This clearly distinguishes a "reactionary" from a "conservative". The use of the word "reactionary" in later days as a political slur is thus often rhetorical since there is nothing directly comparable with the ''Chambre Introuvable'' in the history of other countries.