The Second White Terror (french: Deuxième Terreur Blanche) occurred in France in 1815–1816, following the defeat of

Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader wh ...

at the

Battle of Waterloo The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815, near Waterloo (at that time in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, now in Belgium). A French army under the command of Napoleon was defeated by two of the armies of the Sevent ...

(18 June 1815) and the enthronement of

Louis XVIII Louis XVIII (Louis Stanislas Xavier; 17 November 1755 – 16 September 1824), known as the Desired (), was King of France from 1814 to 1824, except for a brief interruption during the Hundred Days in 1815. He spent twenty-three years in ...

as king of France after the

Hundred Days The Hundred Days (french: les Cent-Jours ), also known as the War of the Seventh Coalition, marked the period between Napoleon's return from eleven months of exile on the island of Elba to Paris on20 March 1815 and the second restoratio ...

. Suspected sympathizers of the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...

(including former

Jacobins , logo = JacobinVignette03.jpg , logo_size = 180px , logo_caption = Seal of the Jacobin Club (1792–1794) , motto = "Live free or die"(french: Vivre libre ou mourir) , successor = P ...

), Republicans,

Bonapartists Bonapartism (french: Bonapartisme) is the political ideology supervening from Napoleon Bonaparte and his followers and successors. The term was used to refer to people who hoped to restore the House of Bonaparte and its style of government. In thi ...

and, to a minor degree,

Protestants Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

, suffered persecution. Several hundred were killed by angry mobs or executed after a quick trial at a

drumhead court-martial A drumhead court-martial is a court-martial held in the field to hear urgent charges of offences committed in action. The term sometimes has connotations of summary justice. The term is said to originate from the use of a drum as an improvised ...

. Historian John B. Wolf argues that

Ultra-royalist The Ultra-royalists (french: ultraroyalistes, collectively Ultras) were a French political faction from 1815 to 1830 under the Bourbon Restoration. An Ultra was usually a member of the nobility of high society who strongly supported Roman Cath ...

s — many of whom had just returned from exile — were staging a

counter-revolution A counter-revolutionary or an anti-revolutionary is anyone who opposes or resists a revolution, particularly one who acts after a revolution in order to try to overturn it or reverse its course, in full or in part. The adjective "counter-revoluti ...

against the

and also against Napoleon's revolution. :Throughout the

Midi MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and ...

— in Provence, Avignon, Languedoc, and many other places—the White Terror raged with unrelenting ferocity. The royalists found in the willingness of the French to desert the king fresh proof of their theory that the nation was honeycombed with traitors, and used every means to seek out and destroy their enemies. The government was powerless or unwilling to intervene. The period is named after the

First White Terror The White Terror (french: Terreur Blanche) was a period during the French Revolution in 1795 when a wave of violent attacks swept across much of France. The victims of this violence were people identified as being associated with the Reign of T ...

that occurred during the

Thermidorian Reaction The Thermidorian Reaction (french: Réaction thermidorienne or ''Convention thermidorienne'', "Thermidorian Convention") is the common term, in the historiography of the French Revolution, for the period between the ousting of Maximilien Robespie ...

in 1794–1795, when people identified as being associated with Robespierre's Reign of Terror (by means of distinction, also known as the "Red Terror") were harassed and killed.

Bourbon reprisals

After the Hundred Days, Napoleon's brief return to power in 1815, the second White Terror focused mainly on the purging of a civilian administration which had almost completely turned against the Bourbon monarchy. About 70,000 officials were dismissed from their positions. The remnants of the Napoleonic army were disbanded after the

and its senior officers

cashiered Cashiering (or degradation ceremony), generally within military forces, is a ritual dismissal of an individual from some position of responsibility for a breach of discipline. Etymology From the Flemish (to dismiss from service; to discard ...

Marshal Ney Michel Ney, 1st Duke of Elchingen, 1st Prince of the Moskva (; 10 January 1769 – 7 December 1815), was a French military commander and Marshal of the Empire who fought in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. He was one o ...

was executed for treason, Marshal Brune was murdered by a royalist mob in Avignon, and General Jean-Pierre Ramel was assassinated in

Toulouse Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and from Pa ...

. Approximately 6,000 individuals who had rallied to Napoleon were brought to trial. There were about 300 mob lynchings in the south of France, notably in Marseille, where at least eighteen of his Mamelukes were massacred in their barracks.

''Chambre introuvable''

These actions struck fear in the population, persuading liberal and moderate electors (48,000 of the 72,000 voters eligible under the franchise in force) to vote for the

ultra-royalists The Ultra-royalists (french: ultraroyalistes, collectively Ultras) were a French political faction from 1815 to 1830 under the Bourbon Restoration. An Ultra was usually a member of the nobility of high society who strongly supported Roman Cathol ...

in the August 1815 elections. According to ''

Winkler Prins The ''Winkler Prins'' is a Dutch-language encyclopedia, founded by the Dutch poet and clergyman Anthony Winkler Prins (1817–1908) and published by Elsevier. It has run through nine printed editions; the first, issued in 16 volumes from 1870 ...

'' (2002), the royalist electoral victory 'provided the Terror legality'. Of 402 members, the first Chamber of Deputies of the

Restoration Restoration is the act of restoring something to its original state and may refer to: * Conservation and restoration of cultural heritage ** Audio restoration ** Film restoration ** Image restoration ** Textile restoration * Restoration ecology ...

was composed of 350 ultra-royalists; the king himself thus named it the ''

Chambre introuvable The (French for "Unobtainable Chamber") was the first Chamber of Deputies elected after the Second Bourbon Restoration in 1815. It was dominated by Ultra-royalists who completely refused to accept the results of the French Revolution. The nam ...

'' ("the Unobtainable Chamber"), called as such because the Chamber was "more royalist than the king" (''plus royalistes que le roi'') in Louis XVIII's words. Meanwhile, the upper house, the Chamber of Peers, whose members were appointed by the King and served at his pleasure, sentenced

and the Comte de la Bédoyère to death for treason, while 250 people were given prison sentences and some others exiled, including Joseph Fouché, Lazare Carnot, and Cambacérès. The surviving "regicides" who had voted for the execution of Louis XVI in 1792 were exiled. The White Terror in the political sphere ended when Louis XVIII disbanded the ''Chambre introuvable'' in 1816, putting an end to the ultra-royalist excesses, as he feared it would provoke a new revolution.

Bourbon reprisals

''Chambre introuvable''

See also

References

Further reading