Decazes introduces the Law of the Double Vote in France
- When
- 1820
- Where
- France
- Episodes
- 1
In 1820 the French franchise was changed to give the wealthiest electors a double vote, a measure adopted under Richelieu's ministry in time for the November 1820 election. Although legacy data attributes the change to Élie Decazes, supplied passages indicate Decazes had fallen from power after the February 1820 assassination of the duc de Berry, and that the electoral revision followed under Richelieu.
Episodes
Background and detail
Background. By 1820, the opposition liberals and Ultras made up half the Chamber of Deputies, proving unmanageable for the government. Decazes and King Louis XVIII sought to revise electoral laws to ensure a more tractable conservative majority. This political maneuvering occurred against the backdrop of the Bourbon Restoration, where the Chamber was elected by census suffrage.
Political Context. The assassination of the Duke of Berry in February 1820 triggered Decazes' fall from power and the triumph of the Ultras. Richelieu returned to power for a short interval from 1820 to 1821. It was under Richelieu's ministry, not Decazes', that the franchise was changed to give the wealthiest electors a double vote.
People involved
- Élie Decazes · Former head of government; sought electoral revisions before his fall
- Richelieu · Minister who implemented the double vote franchise change
- Louis XVIII · King who sought a tractable conservative majority
Sources
- Bourbon Restoration in France Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-02
- Chamber of Deputies (France) Wikipedia, revision of 2026-06-01
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.