The Catholic Church returned too, although much weaker because it had lost land and the ability to collect tithes. And when Napoleon himself fell, France restored the monarchy. And except for a four-year period between 1815 and 1870, France had a king who was either a Bourbon or a Bonaparte. Now, these were no longer absolute monarchs who claimed that their right to rule came from God. They were constitutional monarchs of the kind that the revolutionaries of 1789 had originally envisioned. But the fact remains that France had a king again, and a nobility, and an established religion, and it was definitely not a democracy or a republic. And perhaps this is why the French Revolution is so controversial and open to interpretation.