2 - Battle commences: from September 1816 to July 1820

Summary

THE DECAZES EXPERIMENT

During verification procedures for the new parliament, Villèle denounced Louis-Antoine Malouet for interfering in elections in the Pas-de-Calais and, as evidence, gave the press a prefectoral letter urging voters not to support Deputies of the previous Chamber. In the Peers, Chateaubriand called for investigation of ministerial corruption.

While out of power, ultraroyalists attacked executive despotism, criticizing the practice of making Deputies civil servants, or promoting Deputies who already held government office. Such ‘favours’ enhanced cabinet influence by reducing parliamentary independence. In 1816 an ultraroyalist Deputy proposed a complete ban on holding both positions, and in January 1817 Villéle suggested adoption of the British model, whereby Deputies must seek re-election after appointment or promotion. Both propositions were designed to hamper the cabinet from corrupting elections, and both ran aground against warnings of the danger of restricting royal prerogative. Even the doctrinaire Pierre-Paul Royer-Collard, generally associated by historians with advocacy of constitutional checks and balances, argued against excessive division of powers. Villèle replied that he wanted to secure a Chamber sufficiently independent to inform the king of the truth. Subsequently, the electoral law of 1817 did establish that prefects and military commanders were ineligible to run in the departments they administered, but went no further.

The first two years of the Restoration deeply influenced left-wing opposition by entrenching resistance to ultraroyalism, but a more complex dynamic emerged after the elections of 1816.