Matthijs Lok

Abstract: In the present article, two historians compare the results of their respective researches
to demonstrate the convenience of integrating the colonial perspective to the study
of the early nineteenth century Restoration era. In order to do so, they adopt an unprecedented
comparative approach which confronts the experiences lived during that period by
an European kingdom with the difficulties that a Spanish American kingdom faced in the
same period. The text also focuses on the strategies adopted by revolutionary leaders in the
Netherlands and the New Kingdom of Granada in order to preserve their lives and influence
after the return, respectively, of William I and Ferdinand VII. The central idea is to
comprehensibly analyse the “politics of forgetting” and question whether the restored
monarchies’ capability of integrating influential, reluctant subjects determined their subsequent
failure or success. As it shall be shown, unlike in Europe, Spanish American Restorations
were of very limited duration and, as opposed to the former -which usually tended to
maintain the most relevant institutional transformations derived from the revolution and
the Napoleonic regimes-, intended to erase the legacy of the insurgent governments. In addition,
whereas European Restorations promoted the integration of the new society that
emerged from the political clash with the Ancient Regime’s elite, in the Spanish overseas
territories the aim was to purge offices of all those who were previously committed to the
rebellion. In order to understand these differences regarding both duration and social orientation,
the present article underlines the importance of considering previous revolutionary
experiences where the political transformation process had more time to take roots and
Restoration was moderated and willing to assimilate the revolutionary legacy. On the other
side of the spectrum, in the Spanish American case -and also in Spain-, a period of swift
political changes, independently of their transcendence, triggered intransigent and violent
Restorations.

This article analyzes the social construction of silence in early-nineteenth-century Europe, focusing on France and the Netherlands. In both countries, the newly installed Restoration monarchies propagated a “politics of forgetting” of the problematic recent past of the revolution and the Napoleonic era as an essential part of attempts to build a stable and legitimate political order. This official forgetting was
contested in both countries. On the basis of the “letters of adhesion,” the article examines the close interaction between the individual reconstruction of the personal
past and social forgetting. Finally, it relates the rise of a historicizing culture in the early nineteenth century to the culture of silence in Restoration Europe.

This article examines the examines the experience of (dis-)continuity  and temporal confusion of 1814 from a comparative perspective, with France and the Netherlands as case studies. In France the Restored Bourbons emphasized the ‘renewal of the chain of time’ in an attempt to forget the revolutionary past. The temporal continuity with Henri IV was underscored and the perception of historical distance to the sixteenth century was minimized. In the Kingdom of the Netherlands there existed a more complex attitude to the era of the wars of religion. On one hand the sixteenth century Dutch revolt against Spain was used a frame to interpret the end of the Napoleonic rule in the Netherlands. On the other hand, the superiority of the nineteenth century over the sixteenth century was expressed in many Dutch pamphlets and the years ‘1813-1815’ were described in Dutch public opinion as a ‘new beginning’ in national time. Finally the problem of (dis-) continuity is studied from the comparative perspective of the girouette (turncoat or ‘political weathervane’). The girouette in both countries epitomizes the personal and institutional continuity between Empire and Restoration, but also symbolizes the adaption to the new political circumstances and the reinvention of individual pasts.

In this article several new publications on the critics of the Enlightenment are reviewed.
These works build partly on the legacy of Isaiah Berlin’s concept of the Counter-Enlightenment,
but they also emphasise the problematic nature of his essentialistic and timeless interpretation
of the Counter-Enlightenment tradition. The authors argue that the so-called
enemies of the Enlightenment should in fact be examined as part of the Enlightenment
itself, and that the Enlightenment cannot be understood without studying its self-proclaimed
enemies.

... [ 3] Emmanuel de Waresquiel, Talleyrand. Le prince immobile, Paris, 2003 ; Id., « Talley-rand et la légitimité : la “révolution” du 31 mars 1814 », Jean-Yves Mollier, Martine Reid et Jean-Claude Yon (eds.), Repenser la Restauration, Paris, Nouveau Monde Éditions, 2005. Retour. ...

This article examines the possibility of exporting the concept of “extreme centre” from a French context to other European countries, those which after 1796 and under the Empire felt the influence of France as a model of politisation or were inspired by the French style of administration. The “extreme centre” – that is, the politics of moderation combined with a strong executive and an ideological flexibility among elites – can be detected in the Kingdom of the Netherlands after 1815. During the Restoration, moderation appeared as a deliberate programme, as an administrative technique, and in the end as a language – perspectives inviting new research that would compare the political life of European countries influenced by France well after 1815.

My book Windvanen ('[Political] Weathervanes') is a comparative study of the political transition of 1813-1815 (from the Napoleonic Empire to the Restoration) in France and the Low Countries from the understudied perspective of the Napoleonic administrative elites that survived the regime change. It argues that the so-called Restoration monarchies were to a large extent constructed by Napoleonic officials who adapted very well to the new political situation. As well as (quantitatively) studying the institutional and personal continuity after 1814, the contemporary critical discourses and attitudes towards these political survivors (nicknamed 'girouette' in French or 'windvaan' in Dutch) as well their apologies ('they were serving their nation in difficult times') are analysed. Also ample attention is paid to the administrative rites of passages, the survival strategies and the mentalities of these political girouettes. I conclude that, although the French case was more politicised, there are important resemblances between the French and Dutch experience of 1814 and that this transition forms a crucial moment in the development of a modern civil administration. According to NRC Handelsblad, Windvanen was one of the best historical books published in the Netherlands in 2009.