When Napoleon was exiled to Elba , the Allies did not have a firm plan for the future governance of France . This, then, allowed royalists to push for a restoration of the Bourbons, and in April 1814 the Allies agreed to call Louis XVI's younger brother from exile in England to become Louis XVIII. (Louis XVII was Louis XVI's son who died in the Tower during the Revolution.)

In May 1814 Louis XVIII arrived in Paris . Although a Bourbon was back on the throne, even he realized that it was no longer possible to resurrect completely the old regime, having accepted the political reality of a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system and limited suffrage.

In March 1815, however, with Napoleon's return from Elba , Louis XVIII left France for Belgium . After Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo in June, though, Louis was put back on the French throne by the victorious Allies.

The Comte d'Artois, who became King Charles X on ascending the throne, was less successful. His coronation at Reims was a symbolic return to the ways of the old regime, and suggested the tenor that his reign would take: one which would encourage the ultras, infuriate the radicals, and worry the moderates. Consequently, when the king issued decrees in July 1830 that strictly limited various political liberties, an insurrection broke out in response to these “July Ordinances.”

The bloody street fighting during three “glorious” days at the end of July was generally carried out by the pro-republican working class and students, but it was the moderates (constitutional monarchists) who ultimately controlled the outcome. What they proposed was that the throne be transferred from the Bourbons to the Orléans line. When Charles X abdicated and left for exile in England in early August 1830, therefore, the Duc d'Orléans agreed to become King Louis Philippe.

Because of the date of the 1830 revolution that put him on the throne, Louis-Philippe's reign is known as the July Monarchy. His reign has also been called the bourgeois monarchy, although this term is deceptive. The historian Gordon Wright explains:

It is true that the new Orleanist aristocracy created by Louis-Philippe was drawn almost entirely from the upper bourgeoisie, while most members of the old aristocracy withdrew disdainfully to their provincial chateaux or their Parisian town houses in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. It is also true that the mass of the population—peasants, urban workers, middle and petty bourgeoisie—still had no voice in politics ( France in Modern Times . Third edition. New York : W.W. Norton, 1981, p. 118).

Certainly this exclusion of the common man (women's exclusion will last into the 20 th century!) from the political process is one of the factors that aroused the populace and ultimately caused the downfall of Louis-Philippe's government.