After Napoleon, kings and nobles were restored in Europe, who were even more absolutist than before. Their fear of fresh revolutions caused them to discourage liberal ideas and reform to an even greater degree than would be usual.
“For nearly forty years the idea of the Holy Alliance, the Concert of Europe which arose out of it, and the series of congresses and conferences that succeeded the concert, kept an insecure peace in war-exhausted Europe. Two main things prevented that period from being a complete social and international peace, and prepared the way for the cycle of wars between 1854 and 1871. The first of these was the tendency of the royal courts concerned, towards the restoration of unfair privilege and interference with freedom of thought and writing and teaching. … The obstinate disposition of Monarchy to march back towards past conditions was first and most particularly manifest in Spain. Here even the Inquisition was restored.”
H. G. Wells, Outline of History, Part II, 37.6, “The Map of Europe in 1815.”
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