Free The Year Without Summer by William K. Klingaman, Nicholas P. Klingaman Page A

were the reparations France would have to
     pay the Allied victors: 700 million francs over a period of five years, plus the entire
     cost of feeding and sheltering an Allied occupation force of 150,000 (stationed mostly
     in eastern France) for at least three years. Adding the annual costs of the indemnity
     and the occupation troops to the regular budget, Louis’s government in the spring
     of 1816 was facing short-term obligations of nearly 1,500 million francs, a sum which
     would require both substantial tax increases and cuts in government spending.
    Compounding Louis’s financial woes was the presence of a zealously reactionary Ultra-Royalist
     majority in the Chamber of Deputies. Led by the Count d’Artois—the king’s brother,
     who was barely on speaking terms with Louis—the Ultra-Royalists were determined to
     seek out and punish the “accomplices” of Napoléon, and especially his most vocal supporters
     during the Hundred Days. Famously “more royalist than the king,” the Ultras knew they
     could not count on the indolent Louis (whom they privately mocked as “a crowned Jacobin,
     a King-Voltaire, a dressed-up comedian”) to carry out a thoroughgoing purge of French
     society. Accordingly, in late October 1815 the Chamber seized the initiative and passed
     the first of a series of measures that launched the “White Terror,” authorizing the
     arrest of individuals suspected of plotting against the restored monarchy, and the
     establishment of special courts to try them.
    Doubtless the results disappointed the deputies. Authentic antiroyalist conspiracies
     were few and far between. “There are continual reports of insurrections and plots,”
     reported a British military officer in Paris in the spring of 1816, “but it is now
     well known that the most of them are ‘got up’ by the Ultras to entrap the unwary.
     The French people seem sunk in apathy and to wish for peace at any rate; nothing but
     the most extreme provocation will induce them to take up arms.” Meanwhile, the clergy
     sought to restore the Roman Catholic Church to its privileged pre-Revolutionary position,
     including the return of real estate that formerly belonged to the Church. Priests
     whipped up popular sentiment against the alleged enemies of the Church, reportedly
     forging communications from the Holy Ghost or claiming to have received letters dropped
     from heaven by Jesus. The result was a series of attacks by Catholic mobs on Protestants,
     particularly in the south of France; in Nimes, a mob massacred sixteen Protestants
     during a two-day riot.
    Such tactics succeeded mainly in arousing anxiety among the populace, most of whom
     were willing to tolerate Louis but opposed any attempt to resurrect the Ancien Régime,
     particularly if it meant returning real estate to the Church. Fearful that the vengeful
     actions of obdurate reactionaries would alienate the French public to the point of
     threatening his throne yet again, Louis and his ministers repeatedly opposed the majority
     in the Chamber, until the nation was treated to the spectacle of Ultra-Royalists defending
     the prerogatives of the legislature against the king. After beating back an Ultra
     attempt to abolish divorce, the government at last decided to prorogue the Chamber.
     On April 29, the king declared the legislative session closed, and his ministers began
     to plan for new elections in the fall.
    A week later, a lawyer named Jean-Paul Didier launched an abortive uprising in Grenoble
     that collapsed almost before it began. Supported by a force of several hundred peasants
     and retired soldiers, Didier purportedly sought to overthrow Louis and replace him
     with Napoléon’s infant son, the King of Rome. Government troops easily quashed the
     feeble uprising and executed twenty-one alleged conspirators, including a sixteen-year-old
     boy; Didier, who fled to Savoy, was subsequently captured and executed on June 8.
     Meanwhile, the police in Paris