French Legitimists and Spanish Carlists: Transnational Ultra-Conservative Solidarity During Spain's First Carlist War, 1833–1840

When the First Carlist War (1833–1840) broke out in Spain between the queen regent María Cristina, supported by the liberals, and the absolutist pretender Don Carlos, French legitimists portrayed it as a clash of civilizations between absolutism and liberalism. As supporters of the eldest branch of the Bourbon dynasty who had governed France from 1589 to 1792 and then again from 1814–1815 to 1830, legitimists had been ousted from power by the July Revolution in 1830. Three years later, they regarded Don Carlos's mission to regain the Spanish throne as their latest hope for the restoration of absolutism in France and Europe. Although historians have largely portrayed the 1830s as a decade in which legitimists had little say in politics, the liveliness of the French legitimist press during the First Carlist War reveals that legitimists were far from quiet. Their support of Don Carlos contributed to the definition of a coherent set of reactionary ideas, which contributed to making legitimism a credible political alternative in the second half of the nineteenth century.