The Price of Peace:
Modernising the Ancien Régime?
Europe 1815-1848
Paris, 22-25 August 2016
University of Kent Paris, Reid Hall 4 rue de Chevreuse, 75006 Paris
The period 1815-1848 has acquired a number of awkward labels: the ‘Restoration,’ the ‘Post- Napoleonic era,’ and in Germany Vörmarz.’ Most of these descriptions reveal a historical impatience with an era that is squeezed uncomfortably between the Napoleonic Wars and the age of Nationalism. There has been a scholarly impatience with the so-called Restoration and in many historiographical traditions it has been depicted as an awkward interval. An époque that needs to be bypassed in order to move onto more profound turning points and developments.
This trend has been counter-acted recently by new research across Europe that seeks to progress beyond these outdated visions of the ‘Restoration.’ However, these new studies have tended to be pursued in isolation within national academic contexts. This conference will try to bring leading scholars from across Europe together to develop new comparative ways of understanding the political, administrative, diplomatic, cultural changes and their interconnections between 1815-1848. It is a key ambition of this conference to establish a strong dialogue between scholars of international relations and those who work from a national perspective.
Essentially this conference has the ambition of breaking down old myths and stereotypes about the ‘Restoration’ in order to think more broadly and openly about the key transitions and issues.
After all, it should be remembered that the statesmen who emerged to govern Europe after Waterloo had no limpid crystal ball with which to glimpse future. They struggled to synthesise and master the discordant legacies of the ancien régime, the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Empire. They had just survived an epic struggle to place Europe under a universal and rational administrative and political system. On the contrary, the monarchs, ministers and diplomats of the Restoration had the difficult task of managing political, administrative and cultural diversity in a world which, thanks to 1789 and Napoleon, was far more interconnected than it had been ever before. Many old & new diversities (and to a certain extent regional particularism that was redolent of the ancien régime) confronted these newly constituted regimes, both within their borders and externally, in the realm of international relations.
This conference will revolve around the provocative historiographical issue of whether the post- Napoleonic order represented an attempt to reconcile the heritage of the ancien régime with a deeply transformed world. The conference will also serve as a spring board for future workshops and conferences on the ‘Restoration.’
The conference is bilingual (French and English). Les communications et échanges auront lieu en français et en anglais.
Monday 22 August
09:30-09:30 Registration
Introductory Session
09.30-9:45 Welcome from the Organisers and the University of Kent Paris 9:45-10:30 Stephen Bann (University of Bristol) ‘Opening Remarks’
10:30-10:45 Break
International Order after the Congress of Vienna - Session 1
10:45-11:15 Luigi Mascilli Migliorini (Università degli studi di Napoli L'Orientale), ‘Kissinger’s Metternich, How to Study The Restoration’
11:15-11:45 Richard Langhorne (Rutgers - State University of New Jersey) ‘Managing Multi- Polarity 1814-1830: the foundations of the Concert of Europe’
11:45-12:15 Stella Ghervas (University of Harvard) ‘Modernizing the Machinery of Peace? From a Balance of Power to a Balance of Negotiation’
12:15-13:15 Lunch
Managing Europe after Napoleon
13:15 : 13 :45 Emmanuel de Waresquiel (École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris) ‘Chute des Empires et Restauration Monarchiques’
13:45-14:15 Joanna Innes (University of Oxford) ‘Re-imagining the social order in the post Napoleonic World’
14:15: 14:30 Break
International Order after the Congress of Vienna - Session 2
14:30-15:00 Beatrice de Graaf (Universiteit Utrecht), “The Council of Ambassadors and Restoration France – balancing power with justice’
15:00-15:30 Munro Price (University of Bradford),‘ “We will take back our Belgium,” French Foreign Policy 1815-1830’
16:00-16:30 Elise Wirtschafter (California State Polytechnic University, Pomona), ‘Russia, the Grand Alliance, and the War Scare of 1821-22’
16:30-17:00 Andrea Pennini (Università degli Studi di Torino), ‘Sardinian diplomatic networks and the Concert of Europe’
Tuesday 23 August
Constitutions and Charters
10:00-10:30 Markus J. Prutsch (European Parliament) ‘Constitutional Monarchism in Post- Napoleonic Europe’
10:30-11:00 Philip Mansel (Institute of Historical Research, London) ‘Louis XVIII, the Charte and Europe’
11:00-11:30 Morten Nordhagen Ottosen (Syddansk Universitet) ‘The Many Faces of Liberal Constitutionalism in the Age of Reaction’
11:30-12:00 Georg Eckert (Bergische Universität Wuppertal) ‘Royal opposition against the Ancien régime: The case of Württemberg’
12:00-13:15 Lunch
New Composite Monarchies
13:15-13:45 Karin Schneider (University of Innsbruck) ‘The Austrian Empire as Composite Monarchy after 1815’
13:45-14:15 Ido de Haan (Universiteit Utrecht) ‘A monarchical regime based on republican antecedents. The constitution of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands’
14:15-14:45 Enrico Genta Ternavasio (Università degli studi Torino, Italy) ‘Monarchia Sabauda and the Restaurazione’
14:45-15:00 Break
Before and Beyond the Nation
15:00-15:30 Rasmus Glenthøj (Syddansk Universitet) ‘Pan-Scandinavism and the threshold principle’
15:30-16:00 Bernard Rulof (Maastricht University) ‘Voting for Henri V, Rex Francorum: Popular Aspirations and Elite Concerns, Montpellier (Hérault), 1830-1850’
16:00-16:30 Ivana Pederzani (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore Milano) ‘Tullio Dandolo and liberal-catholic culture in Italy after the Restoration,’
Wednesday 24 August Monarchies after the Revolution and Napoleon
10:30-11:15 Heidi Mehrkens & Richard Meyer Forsting (University of St Andrews) ‘Heroic Heirs. Monarchical Succession and the Role of the Military in Restoration Spain and France’
11:15-11:45 Jeroen van Zanten (Universiteit van Amsterdam), ‘Mirabeau and the revolutions of 1830 & 1848’
11:45-12:15 Bård Frydenlund (University of Oslo) ‘Southern influences on Nordic political culture - Bernadotte as king of Norway and Sweden’
12:15-13:30 Lunch
11:30-12:00 Gonzalo Butrón Prida (Universidad de Cádiz) ‘Spanish Restoration Revisited: Was a moderate representative government possible in Spain?’
12:00-13:30 Lunch
Historicising the Ancien Régime?
13:30-14:00 Bettina Frederking (IHMC-IHRF, CNRS/Université Paris 1), ‘The Ancien Régime in Restoration France’
14:00-14:30 Matthijs Lok (Universiteit van Amsterdam) ‘The ambivalent memory of the Dutch revolt and the construction of the Dutch Restoration regime’
14:30-14:45 Break
New Border New Identities
14:45-15:15 Roald Berg (Universitetet i Stavanger) ‘New borders, invented identities: Norwegian officers during Danish, Swedish and corps identity construction processes, 1814-1830’
15:15-15:45 Marco Meriggi (University of Napoli Federico II) ‘The construction of the boundaries in Restoration Italy, A comparative perspective’
15:45-16:00 Break
Recovering Religion
16.00-16:30 Michael Rowe (King’s College, London), ‘From Cooperation to Confrontation: Church- State Relations in the Prussian Rhineland, 1815-1840’
Thursday 25 August Restoring/Renewing Europe
10:30-11:00 Gonzalo Butron Prida (Universidad de Cádiz) ‘Spanish Restoration Revisited: Was a moderate representative government possible in Spain?’
11:00-11:30 Jaroslaw Czubaty (Uniwersytetu Warzawskiego) ‘Poles and their next “saviour,”
Alexander I and the Kingdom of Poland’
11:30-12:00 Marco Bellabarba (Università degli Studi di Trento) ‘Peace through legislation: law codes and social control in Restoration Italy’
12:00-13:45 Lunch
Transnational Publics and Ideologies after Napoleon
13:45-14:15 Ruth Hemstad (National Library Norway) ‘Writing Scandinavianism, The public sphere and the Scandinavianist movement’
14:15-14:45 Ute Planert (Universität Köln) ‘Napoleon as an icon of political liberalism in Restoration Germany’
14:45-15:15 Mark Lawrence (University of Kent) ‘The Sieges of Bilbao and the international appeal of Spain's First Carlist War'?
15:00-15:15 Break
15:15-15:45 Michael Broers (University of Oxford) ‘Concluding Remarks’
15:45-17:00 Roundtable
The discussion here is expected to focus on establishing a research network and collaborative funding bids.
Practical information
Venue
The conference will take place in the Grande Salle of the University of Kent at Paris (4 rue de Chevreuse, 75006 Paris). Please note, The University of Kent rents seminar and office space at Reid Hall, an illustrious study centre. Reid Hall is owned and managed by Columbia University;
common space is shared with other eminent US institutions.
Organising Committee:
Prof. Michael Broers (University of Oxford), Dr. Ambrogio A. Caiani (Université of Kent), Bettina Frederking (IHMC-IHRF, CNRS-Paris I), Prof. Gaynor Johnson (Université of Kent, Kent), & Prof. Munro Price (University of Bradford).
Conference Website and Registration:
https://www.kent.ac.uk/history/events/conferences/restoration.html
There is no charge for invited speakers and panel chairs. For those wishing to attend this four- day conference there is a £120 registration fee (this includes a light lunch over four days).
If you wish to attend the conference for less than four days, please contact Bettina Frederking frederki@club-internet.fr in order to register.
We wish to thank and acknowledge the assistance received from the University of Kent at Paris, Faculty of Humanities Research Fund and the School of History Internationalisation Fund. We are also exceedingly grateful to the British International History Group for their financial support.
