Links to episode categories: Narrative | Thematic | Fact Check | Interview | Supplemental
Episode 49: The Trial
The July Revolution may be done, but France isn't sure if it's done with revolution. As King Louis-Philippe and a band of squabbling politicians try to govern France, the people of Paris take to the streets to demand one thing above all else: the heads of Charles X's former ministers. Will Jules de Polignac and company meet their end at a guillotine — or at the hands of a lynch mob?
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Episode 48: Citizen-King
With the July Revolution over, France has a new king. And Louis-Philippe wants everyone to know he's not like a regular king, he's a cool king.
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Fact Check 3: Polignac's Visions
French prime minister Jules de Polignac believed he was receiving visions of the Virgin Mary during France's 1830 July Revolution — or so many sources claim. But is it true?
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Episode 47: The July Settlement
The July Revolution is over, and Louis-Philippe will be France's next king. But what sort of monarchy Louis-Philippe will lead is yet to be determined, as France's politicians gather to hash out the final details of the nascent July Monarchy.
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Episode 46: Revolutions
Revolutions podcaster Mike Duncan talks about the July Revolution, why Charles X is one of the great idiots of history, the dissident elites who can make or break any revolution, and the value of narrative history podcasting as a medium.
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Episode 45: The July Revolution
In an epic conclusion, the people of Paris will chase Marshal Marmont and King Charles X's army out of Paris on Thursday, July 29, 1830 — leaving all of France up for grabs as republicans, Bonapartists, Orléanists, and rank adventurers all make bids for power with the ultimate prize on the line.
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Episode 44: Bourbons on the Rocks
King Charles X just wants to spend some time at his vacation house playing cards, hunting, and hanging out with his family. But it's late July 1830, and people keep interrupting him to talk about some alleged revolution in Paris.
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Fact Check 2: The Lying Chef
Larger-than-life French chef Alexis Soyer helped revolutionize British cuisine in the Victorian era — but his widely reported personal encounter with France's 1830 revolution is just a tall tale.
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Episode 43: The Politicians
While men fight and die on the streets of Paris, France's feckless politicians try to muster the will to take decisive action of their own to address a revolution no one on either side expected.
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Episode 42: Marmont
Marshal Auguste de Marmont was tasked with putting down Parisian rebels after the Four Ordinances of July 1830. There were only a few problems: he didn't have enough men or supplies, he opposed the Ordinances, and his bosses neglected to inform him of his new job.
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Supplemental 21: The French History Games
Three French history podcasters come together to determine the most corrupt, idealistic, eloquent and idiotic figures — among others — from the Revolutionary, Napoleonic and post-Napoleonic eras.
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Episode 41: The People
That escalated quickly. On the afternoon of Monday, July 26, 1830, Parisian workers didn't seem to care at all that King Charles X had just seized power in a coup. By Tuesday afternoon, they were engaging the French Army in street combat. Build a barricade and join us in the streets for a worker's-eye view.
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Episode 40: The Journalists
Charles X's Four Ordinances in July 1830 threatened to impose strict censorship on France's opposition newspapers. So what were the journalists going to do about it?
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Supplemental 20: What's a franc?
Everything you ever wanted to know about francs and sous, centimes and louis d’or, and the bewildering array of 19th Century French currency. What were all these coins? What were they worth? How did they compare to other currencies like pounds and dollars — and how does that compare to today?
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Supplemental 19: Fifth Birthday Special
Since debuting in January 2019, The Siècle has released 60 regular and bonus episodes, totaling hundreds of thousands of words and dozens of hours. To mark the show's fifth anniversary, I'm joined by fellow history podcaster Everett Rummage of The Age of Napoleon to answer listener questions and talk about history, podcasting, and more.
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Episode 39: The Four Ordinances
On July 26, 1830, Parisians woke up to four stunning proclamations from King Charles X, four ordinances rewriting French politics and public life. Join me to explore what these Four Ordinances did, how Charles could issue them, and how they came to appear in Parisians' morning newspaper.
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Episode 38: The 221
In 1830, France's slow-moving political crisis builds to a fever-pitch, as King Charles X goes to war with his liberal opposition at home, and the Regency of Algiers abroad. Amid military and electoral campaigns, Charles X will face a decision that could reshape his reign.
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Episode 37: Algiers
In the late 1820s, Napoleonic intrigues and a brutal assault by flyswatter combined to turn French attention across the Mediterranean to the Ottoman Regency of Algiers. Join Prof. Ashley Sanders to explore the cosmopolitan world of Ottoman Algeria that the Bourbon Restoration faced under Charles X.
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Episode 36: Wreck of the Medusa
In 1816, the French frigate Medusa ran aground off the coast of Africa, leading to one of the most infamous naval disasters in world history. In the process, it will shine a light on the harsh realities of Bourbon Restoration politics and France's tiny colonial empire.
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Supplemental 18: Bonds, French Bonds
Follow the money and where does it lead? In the Bourbon Restoration, the financial lifeblood of France was the Paris Stock Exchange, where trading in government bonds made and lost fortunes, secured comfortable retirements, and shook the very ship of state.
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Episode 35: L'Économie
The French economy in 1830 was overwhelmingly agricultural, constrained by slow transportation networks, and — in a worrying sign for prime minister Jules de Polignac — mired in a deep recession.
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Episode 34: Polignac
On Aug. 8, 1829, a new French ministry was appointed featuring Charles X's friend Jules de Polignac. This made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.
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Supplemental 17: Béranger
During the Bourbon Restoration, one man's songs were everywhere. He wrote about politics and about love, for the rich and for the poor, and persevered despite the best efforts of the government to shut him up. Meet the Bob Dylan of the Restoration: Pierre-Jean de Béranger.
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Episode 33: Martignac
Buffeted by a bad election, King Charles X is forced to appoint a more moderate ministry. Can Prime Minister Martignac forge a middle course before his boss gets fed up with concessions?
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Supplemental 16: Restoration Elections
Restoration France had an elected parliament, but its elections were radically different from the voting we're familiar with today. Here's how they did it, from tax-based voting rights to not-so-secret ballots to candidates running and winning in multiple districts at once.
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Episode 32: The Congregation
King Charles X's reign was marked by web of conspiracy theories about the alleged role of two secretive Catholic organizations: the Jesuits and the enigmatic Congregation. Let's dive in to what was true, what was false, and why ultimately it didn't really matter what the facts were.
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Fact Check 1: Learning and Forgetting
Many people have quoted a famous quip about the Bourbon Restoration, that "The Bourbons have learned nothing and forgotten nothing." While this is a real quote, more or less, almost everything people think they know about it is wrong.
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Episode 31: The Election of 1827
"The enemy redoubles his efforts," King Charles X wrote in September 1827, shortly before he dissolved the French parliament in a risky political gambit. "However, I am resolved to act with firmness and wisdom and am entirely confident that in the end we will overcome all obstacles." Did he? Let's find out.
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Supplemental 15: Art Greco
A Delacroix painting, a Rossini opera and a Dumas novel help demonstrate the profound impact that the Greek War of Independence had on French art and literature.
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Episode 30: Greek-ing Out
The Greeks go into revolt against the Ottoman Empire — a revolt that fires the imaginations of France and the rest of Europe. The French government reacts with ambivalence, but many French men and women enthusiastically adopt the Greek cause.
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Episode 29: The Doctrinaires
A small but crucial group of Restoration politicians were centrist liberals who championed constitutional monarchy against enemies to the right and left. Meet the brilliant and controversial clique who are known to history as the Doctrinaires.
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Supplemental 14: Émigrés
Thousands of French men and women fled the country during the Revolution. Who were they, what were their lives like in exile — and how did they handle it when they finally came back home?
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Supplemental 13: Scrofula
I join Benjamin Jacobs from the "Wittenberg to Westphalia" podcast for a deeper dive into scrofula, the skin condition whose sufferers Charles X touched at his coronation in a medieval ritual believed to hold the power of healing.
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Supplemental 12: Second Sons
Before becoming King Charles X, the Comte d'Artois spent many years of his life bearing an unusual French honorific: "Monsieur," given to the younger brother of the reigning king. Before Artois, King Louis XVIII was Monsieur himself under King Louis XVI. Professor Jonathan Spangler joins the show to explain this unique institution and how it shaped French courts over the centuries.
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Episode 28: Charles in Charge
King Charles X begins his long-awaited reign in a warm glow of popularity, but his honeymoon phase won't last forever as he begins to push a controversial agenda for France.
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Supplemental 11: The Year 1817
A famous — or infamous — chapter in Victor Hugo's masterpiece Les Misérables is "The Year 1817," a lengthy recitation of a series of minor events that happened in France in that year. As a special bonus episode, take a dive into that chapter — and see how many of his obscure events you now recognize!
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Episode 27: Mission from God
The restoration of the Bourbons also meant a restoration of Catholicism as the state religion of France — delighting some, and outraging others. Not only is religion vital to fully understand Restoration France, it's especially vital to understand the new King Charles X.
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Supplemental 10: Et cetera, Wellington
Restoration France as analyzed by an outsider with intimate knowledge of France both on the battlefield and in the salons — Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington.
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Episode 26: Monsieur
With Louis XVIII dead, the new king is his younger brother, the Comte d'Artois. But what kind of man is France's new king? To see, let's rewind back through the first 10 years of the Restoration, from the point of view of the very charming and very conservative Artois.
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Episode 25: The King Is Dead
After 10 years on the throne, King Louis XVIII of France's health enters a terminal decline. As he tries to entrench his legacy with one final accomplishment, what are we to make of the reign of France's restored king?
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Episode 24: Lafayette in America
After the defeat of his efforts to bring about liberal reform in France through both legal and illegal means, the Marquis de Lafayette in 1824 boarded a ship for the fledgling United States, where he would be celebrated as "the nation's guest" in a momentous tour. Learn more in conversation with Lafayette expert Alan Hoffman.
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Episode 23: Charbonnerie
Conspiracy is in the air in France. In a world of secret societies and paranoid styles, the Bourbon Restoration clings to power while secretive cells spread across the country. The fate of the entire country is up for grabs as the French army is forced to decide its loyalty.
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Supplemental 9: Thiers in Spain
An 1822 account of civil war on the Franco-Spanish border by an up-and-coming liberal journalist named Adolphe Thiers, who observes a refugee crisis, battles between liberal and conservative forces, and the disposition of French soldiers preparing to intervene.
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Supplemental 8: Bastille Day
Happy Bastille Day! But in the Bourbon Restoration, Bastille Day was banned, along with 'La Marseillaise' and the tricolor flag. In this special episode, find out how these modern-day symbols of France were treated, and what the Bourbons used in their place.
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Episode 22: French Press
Long before this podcast covered the Bourbon Restoration, French newspapers did. Enter the strange world of early 19th Century journalism — and debunk a delightful myth.
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Episode 21: The Afterlife of Napoleon
Napoleon Bonaparte is dead — but he still lives on, in myth and legend, in flowers and tobacco boxes, in jails and asylums, and above all in the political memory of Restoration France, for whom even death cannot rid them of their greatest foe.
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Supplemental 7: Memorial of St. Helena
An excerpt from the book written by Napoleon's aide Emmanuel de Las Cases, describing the ex-emperor's life and opinions on his St. Helena exile. The book proved a smash hit and the 'Bonapartist bible' for decades to come.
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Episode 20: The Death of Napoleon
Halfway across the world from the country he once ruled, the most famous man of his age dies in isolated exile — but not before profoundly reforging his legacy through both story and suffering.
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Episode 19: France and the Monroe Doctrine
French schemes to place Bourbon princes on the thrones of Spain's former American colonies run up against opposition from both Great Britain and the United States.
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Episode 18: The Road to Trocadero
The conservative powers of Europe strike back at the wave of liberal revolutions sweeping the continent, and France struggles with how to respond — a crisis that brings down one prime minister and elevates a new politician to center stage.
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Episode 17: Europe in Concert
When the victorious powers met at the Congress of Vienna after Napoleon's defeat, they did more than just punish France. They redrew the map of Europe and tried to create a new, more stable world order. Learn about this new order and its impact on Restoration France.
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Supplemental 6: France and England After Waterloo
Chris Fernandez-Packham of the Age of Victoria podcast and I talk about the different experiences of erstwhile rivals France and Great Britain in the years after Waterloo.
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Supplemental 5: Assassination Vacation
I talk with Sam Hume of the Pax Britannica podcast about the two political murders we've both covered recently: the Duc de Berry on The Siècle, and the Duke of Buckingham in 17th Century England.
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Episode 16: Romantiques
A discussion with Philippe Moisan, a professor of French at Grinnell College, about the literary movement of French Romanticism — everything from what made it distinct to which books you should read to get started.
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Episode 15: The Miracle Child
France swings hard to the right, as the government passes new repressive laws and the nation celebrates the birth of a Bourbon 'miracle child.' Pushed back on their heels, the French left turns to conspiracy.
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Supplemental 4: Circle of the Union
In the second part (after Episode 12) of my interview with historian Philip Mansel, we discuss the relationship between France and Britain after the two countries finished killing each other in the Napoleonic Wars.
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Episode 14: Slipped on the Blood
The Restoration struggles to find solid footing, amid dynastic maneuvering, a tug of war between right and left, covert intrigues, economic and foreign pressures — all culminating in a single, shocking act of political violence.
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Supplemental 3: The Livres
A look behind the scenes of The Siècle, including how I research, record and edit episodes, and a closer look at a few of the sources I use to research the podcast. Brought to you by the show's supporters on Patreon.
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Episode 13: Bourbons, Neat
An introduction to Restoration France's illustrious — and not-so-illustrious — royal family circa 1816, including a little too much genealogy and a surprising amount of absurdly petty snubs.
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Episode 12: Louis Louis
An interview with Philip Mansel, author of several books about 19th Century France, including a biography of Louis XVIII. We discuss the life and personality of France's restored Bourbon king.
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Episode 11: The Year Without A Summer
No sooner is France beginning to recover from the tumult of 1815 than a new disaster strikes: a year of bad weather with catastrophic effects for the country's agriculture and very social fabric.
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Episode 10: People of the Land
A look at the lives of Restoration France's silent majority: the millions of peasants scraping a living out of tiny plots of farmland, at the mercy of the elements and everything else.
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Supplemental 2: The Restoration According to Chateaubriand
An excerpt from the memoirs of the great French writer and statesman Chateaubriand, describing his experiences in the first few years of the Bourbon Restoration.
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Episode 9: Legitimism
Meet the "legitimists," the group of right-wing ultra-royalists who would have a profound influence on 19th Century French politics. Champions of natural order and Catholicism, liberty and inequality, they had a sophisticated philosophy rooted in opposing the evils of the Enlightenment and Revolution.
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Episode 8: The Unexpected Chamber
The Bourbon Restoration holds elections for the parliament set up by the Charter of 1814 — and the result surprises just about everyone, and sets up a most unlikely political showdown.
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Episode 7: The Charter
Despite the return of the old monarchy, France in the Bourbon Restoration was a constitutional monarchy. Here we take a look at that constitution, the fascinating Charter of 1814.
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Episode 6: Our Friends the Enemies
An interview with Prof. Christine Haynes about her new book, Our Friends the Enemies: The Occupation of France After Napoleon, and what her research shows about this chaotic and momentous period following Waterloo.
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Episode 5: The White Terror
France is occupied by more than 1 million foreign soldiers, mobs seek blood and vengeance, and Louis struggles to reestablish his reign.
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Episode 4: The Paradox of Paris
An introduction to Paris during the Bourbon Restoration, a city of intense contradictions, of supreme wealth and extreme poverty living side-by-side, of palaces, restaurants, farms and apartments.
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Supplemental 1: The Hundred Homers
Retelling Napoleon's famous Hundred Days, but in the format of Simpsons GIFs.
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Episode 3: The Kingdom of Louis Dix-Huit
What kind of kingdom had Louis XVIII managed to win after Waterloo, anyway? We take a tour of France in 1815, from its mountains and rivers to its hardscrabble peasants, wine-trading merchants and imperious nobles. With lots of maps!
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Episode 2: The Hundred Days
Napoleon returns from Elba. Louis XVIII flees to Belgium. And the future of a sharply divided France is decided by force of arms on the field of Waterloo.
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Episode 1: The Return of the King
The Siècle begins in the year 1814. Napoléon has abdicated, and the Bourbons are back in charge of France. Here's how they screw it up, the first scene in our century-long saga of a country at war with itself.
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Episode 0: The Century Between
What exactly is The Siècle? An introduction to the project.