It included monarchist members from both the Orléanist and Legitimist factions and also some republicans who admired the United States model of government.
Prominent members included Adolphe Thiers, François Guizot and Alexis de Tocqueville.
The party won an absolute majority in the 1849 general election[7] and were opposed to the presidency of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, although he included members of the party in his administration in order to court the political centre-right.
The party enjoyed widespread support in the north of France in the 1849 elections, the departments of Finistère, Côtes-du Nord, Manche, Calvados, Eure, Somme and Aisne as well as Deux-Sèvres, Vienne, Vaucluse and Haute-Garonne returned exclusively Party of Order members to the French Parliament.
After the Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte's coup d'état in December 1851, the party was forcibly dissolved and its members were exiled.