Question

After Napoleon's defeat in Europe, how did most European monarchies respond to ideas on liberalism?

Answer 1

Most European monarchies tried to stamp out ideas on liberalism, seeing them as the breeding ground for Revolution.

Context:

The Congress of Vienna was a gathering of leaders from the European nations that had defeated France and Napoleon -- and France was allowed representation also.  (The French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, had a role there. )  The Congress met from November 1814 to June 1815, and set the tone for European politics in the decades that followed.

The delegates of the Congress of Vienna were interested in creating a balance of power in European politics. They did not want one nation to become too powerful again and press beyond its borders as France had done under Napoleon. The Congress of Vienna emphasized also the principal of "legitimacy" -- trying to put rulers in power that they thought to be the legitimate rulers of nations.  They sought to prevent revolutions and unrest from breaking out again, which meant taking a stand against liberal freedoms such as freedom of assembly and freedom of the press.  Conservative monarchs in the 19th century saw such things as a threat to maintaining the established institutions of their kingdoms.

Answer 2

After Napoleon's domination of Europe from around 1800 to 1814, the rulers of Europe wanted to insure that no one would ever be able to come so close to taking over all of Europe again.To this end, the diplomats from all of the Great Powers met at the Congress of Vienna to negotiate from 1814 to 1815. There they reorganized European boundaries in hopes of creating a stable Europe where coalitions of nations could always ally to defeat one nation that got out of hand.