Declaration of Saint-Ouen

The Declaration of Saint-Ouen is a statement made by the future Louis XVIII in 1814 which paved the way for Bourbon Restoration.

Upon landing in France, the future king stated most notably that the lands of the aristocrats who fled, and which the Republic had sold at auction, were not to be confiscated nor was restitution to be given. Further, that the Napoleonic Code of Law was to remain in force, that the awards and social function of the Legion of Honor given to those loyal to Napoleon was not to be abolished.

Napoleon's changes to the educational system, most notably the University of Paris, would remain. It was the desire to restore all these issues to their pre-revolutionary conditions that most dramatically defined a reactionary. And many of the Ultras held these notions, thus becoming far more reactionary than the King's own policies.