Abstract

This article aims at investigating Franco-Spanish relations in the early years of the Restoration as the testing ground for the influential French role in managing political crises in Europe and the Mediterranean in the decades that followed. The article will start by focusing on marriage policies to ensure Bourbons would remain on both thrones, the first factor Louis XVIII paid attention to in strengthening the Franco-Spanish alliance. Then, the divergent French and Spanish policies concerning political criminals will be explored as a concrete field of experience in the French perspective: such policies made the French government conscious of the Spanish reactionary regime and stimulated French intervention in Spanish domestic policies. Lastly, French diplomatic mediation in the Spanish American colonial crisis will be analysed. The research draws upon the diplomatic correspondence at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Archives at Paris-La Courneuve.