Resumen de Restoring credit in post-napoleonic France: settling french war claims

Thomas Gauchet, Christine Haynes

• This article examines a forgotten episode in the Napoleonic Wars: the Restoration government’s liquidation of claims from the Allied invasions of 1814 and 1815. While paying requisitions and reparations to the Allied powers, the new regime reimbursed its own subjects for debts – in taxes, requisitions, and damages – incurred by the previous regime. This indemnification was central to the monarchy’s strategy to restore its political and economic credit. Tracing the goals and mechanisms of this indemnification, the article argues that, though it succeeded in re-establishing the state’s financial credit, it exacerbated divisions between royalists and revolutionaries, thereby undermining its political stability.