LEGITIMISM. — This is the theory advanced at the time of the Restoration concerning the ethical and juridical obligation to restore the Bourbons to the throne of France and the former sovereigns to the other thrones after the collapse of the “usurper” Napoleon.
In the diplomatic sphere, the principle of l. never progressed beyond an empirical stage, hence Talleyrand’s lament: “la force mystérieuse de la légitimité se perd parce qu'elle n'a jamais été comprise. Tous les hommes de révolution la réduisent à être un moyen de conservation pour la puissance des rois, tandis que c'est surtout un élément nécessaire de repos et de bonheur pour les peuples, tandis que c'est la garantie la plus solide et, j'oserais dire, la seule de l'existence des nations et de leur durée” (G. Lacour-Gayet, Talleyrand, III, Paris 1934, pp. 107–108). In France, the principle of l. served as a method of alliance between the State and the Church against the aftermath of Jacobin revolutionaryism.
But l. did not remain merely on a tactical level; in Italy, for example, it became a genuine ideal. For Cesare Balbo, the principle of l. represents justice in opposition to force and legality in opposition to arbitrariness; by postulating the principle of l. against Jacobin abstractionism, it affirmed a substantial political historicism. The legitimist principle was also theorized on a socio-economic level by Antonio Rosmini, who defended a concept of patrimonial legitimacy, precisely because property is the criterion of l.
The supporters of the Bourbons against Luigi Filippo d'Orléans were subsequently called Legitimists in France; in other countries and at other times, the supporters of analogous situations were likewise so called.