The history of Valencia, as it happened with the rest of Europe, was marked by the repercussions of the French Revolution between the end of the Eighteenth Century and commencement of the Nineteenth.

On the news about the abdications of Carlos the 4th and Fernando the 7th and the Madrid’s uprising on May the 2nd versus the Napoleonic troops, the Valencian people took up the arms on May the 23rd, 1808, inflamed by the rousing speech of characters such as the Palleter, by Emilio Calandín. The insurgents occupied the Citadel and created a Supreme Junta of the Government that was in charge of the city and was ready to defend it. In the tense revolutionary environment, the most radical sector of the revolt assaulted the citadel and executed four hundred French civilians that were sheltered there.

On June the 28th, a first attack from the Napoleonic army under the command of General Moncey took place which was heroically rejected. Later, General Suchet repeated the siege twice, achieving its goal on January the 9th, 1812, after several days of restless bombardments. The government of General Suchet, Duke of the Albufera, was in general terms, beneficial for the city. Among other actions we may mention here, he applied wise hygiene and security public measures and gardens were created in important enclaves of Valencia. Its control over the city was brief since on July 1813 he had to leave the city due to the French army’s retirement.    
During the years of the French invasion, the Valencian people celebrated elections for deputes and sent its representatives to the Courts of Cadiz, where the first Spanish Constitution was written in 1812, popularly known as “The Pepa” since it was approved on March the 19th, Day of San Jose Festivity.

A year after the exit of Suchet’s troops, whose army withdrew in a military formation, peacefully and merely without being disturbed during its exit in May 1814, Fernando the 7th returned to the peninsula through Valencia, where he settled himself at the Cervello’s palace, derogating at once the constitution approved in Cadiz and establishing a regime of absolutist nature. The city lived these years under General Elío’s order who took in charge the General Captaincy of Valencia, days after Suchet left the city. His way of equal ruling earned him unconditional adhesions and fierce enemies.  

The history of Valencia during the kingdom of Fernando the 7th and even afterwards is substantially the same as the rest of Spain: a stage of conflicts among the supporters of the absolutist regime collapsing for moments and those followers of liberalism, who do not manage to assume power. But some of the most remarkable episodes were lived in Valencia. On March 1820, during the Liberal Triennia (1820 -1823), General Elio was incarcerated and three months later he was executed. During the absolutist stage that later followed (the so called Ominous Decade, from 1823 to 1833), a repression against liberals and Masons was carried out by the forces of the State and the Inquisition that acted in Valencia for the last time with the execution of Cayetano Ripoll in 1826, a school teacher who was accused of being “deist “and “Mason.”

After the death of Fernando the 7th in 1833, during María Cristina’s regency and the later progressive government of General Espartero, the Old Regime was definitively avoided, thus the liberal state was strengthened. They were tough years in which the city lived a revolutionary climate, with clashes between the different liberal factions and in constant threat by the Carlista troops of General Cabrera. It was from Valencia that María Cristina left for the exile in October 1840, after failing an agreement with Espartero and she returned to this same city three years later, during the uprising of General Narvaez who toppled Espartero and proclaimed Isabel the 2nd as queen.

Important changes occurred during this convulsive period. In 1883 provinces were created. The city hall was restructured this same year, thus posts held for life disappeared therefore persons whose social origin was from the local bourgeoisie were elected by means of vote. In 1873, the disentailment of the church’s goods began which were mostly bought by the aristocracy and local bourgeoisie.
The reign of Isabel the 2nd constituted a stage of relative stability and growth for Valencia. The City Hall, as the country as a whole, went into the hands of a moderate bourgeoisie, that had consolidated its power of influence under the disentailment, with the offering of services to the community (water supply, paving of the roads, gas, transportations) or with financial operations. This term was characterized by a regained dynamics of the Valencian economy caused by the countless innovations that were introduced in agriculture, the industry and in the financial sector. From the hand of heroes such as José Campo, Valencia moved towards modernity, substantially improving the infra structures and services and carrying out projects such as the port, which was for long required by the people.

The agitated ideological context and discontent with the crown caused the revolution of 1868, “The Glorious”. Isabel the 2nd  left for the exile, a progressive constitution was written and a new government was created, led by general Prim, who was in charge of looking for a candidate to occupy the throne, finding it with Amadeo Saboya. The new king ruled according with the Constitution during four years full of political conflicts (between the bourbons favouring the restoration, the Carlistas, the federalist republicans and the workers’ movements) but he finally abdicated in 1873, proclaiming the First Republic.

In the midst of a radicalized environment, the cantonalista insurrection unleashed. Valencia’s Canton, proclaimed on July the 19th, 1873 did not have the revolutionary character that it reached in other regions of Spain but Madrid’s government decided to suffocate the rebellion with the arms, sending troops at the command of General Martínez Campos, named Captain General of the plaza, who entered in the city on August the 7th after subduing it into a heavy bombardment. When the conflict was pacified, the military looked for support in the city in order to promote the Restoration of the bourbon dynasty and after the Sagunto’s pronouncement and the occupation of Valencia; he gave a coup d´etat which defeated the Republican government. Alfonso the 12th, son of Isabel the 2nd, arrived in Valencia in his way to Madrid on January the 11th, 1875 and little later he was proclaimed king.

Valencia was the cradle of the bourbon restoration since outstanding members of the local society contributed with its advent and helped to create the political basis of the system, the two party systems between conservatives and liberals, by means of the practice of obtaining votes with promises of government posts and tyranny. The stability between both formations began to turn apart, however with the concession of the male universal vote in 1890; republicanism showed up with Vicente Blasco Ibañez ahead, it considerably grew until becoming into the most voted force in the city.

In the 70 decade, a cultural movement committed with the recovery of language and the Valencian traditions gained force, the Renaixenca. To the initial attitudes, closer to romanticism and the nostalgic recall with Teodoro Llorente as a leader, the most vindicating statements counteracted which were represented by persons such as Constantí Llombart, creator of Lo Rat Penat.
During the last quarter of the Nineteenth Century, Valencia began to grow. The withdrawal of the walls in 1865 that was an aspiration towards all projects for modernity was the starting point for the development of the peripheral areas. The opening of the great highways, foreseen in the widening plans, strengthened the fast urbanization of the eastern sector, with an organized street communication planning, which was inhabited with buildings of the modernist and eclectic style, many of which are still there. In the rest of the region, especially at the other Turia River’s bank, the urbanization was delayed until the midst of the Twenty Century. The other expression of Valencia’s expansive character was the incorporation of the peripheral municipalities from Grau to Cabanyal to Patraix, Campanarto Benimaclet.

Modernity changed the city’s social habits. The July Fair turned out to be the axis of the festive calendar without giving up the most traditional celebrations such as the Fallas. The theatre, the trinquet, or bulls, were the preferred shows of the Valencian people, though other novelties soon showed up like the cinematographer that was a mere curiosity at the moment.