Conclusion

The agitations and uprisings of the 1820s and early 1830s showed that the revolutionary legacy still smoldered and might erupt into flames again at any moment. Napoleon Bonaparte transformed the legacy but also kept it alive. He reshaped French institutions and left a lasting imprint in many European countries. Moreover, like Frankenstein’s monster, he bounced back from numerous reversals; between the French retreat from Moscow in 1812 and his final defeat at Waterloo in 1815, Napoleon lost many battles yet managed to raise an army again and again.

The powers that eventually defeated Napoleon tried to maintain the European peace by shoring up monarchical governments and damping down aspirations for constitutional freedoms and national autonomy. Nevertheless, Belgium separated from the Netherlands, Greece achieved independence from the Turks, Latin American countries shook off the rule of Spain and Portugal, and the French installed a more liberal monarchy than the one envisioned by the Congress of Vienna. Metternich’s vision of a conservative Europe still held, but in the next two decades dramatic social changes would prompt a new and much more deadly round of revolutions.