Lost Illusions: The Regicides in France During the Bourbon Restoration, 1814-1830

The regicides, who had voted for the death of Louis XVI in 1793, were living symbols of the ideals of the French revolution. How they were treated after the Bourbons returned in 1814 shows how French society as a whole regarded those Revolutionary ideals. The Bourbons did not persecute the regicides; the royal government often had to protect them from counter-Revolutionaries in the country, where opinion had moved several steps to the right. After 1814, the ideals of democracy and popular self-government were generally regarded as systems that had failed in France; most regicides had themselves turned against the republicanism and democracy of 1793. Their exile symbolized the banishment of the idea of democracy from post-Revolutionary France. (ELN)