Read the given paragraph and answer the following question:

Ideas of national unity in early nineteenth-century Europe were closely allied to the ideology of liberalism. The term "liberalism" derives from the Latin root liber, meaning "free." For the new middle classes, liberalism stood for freedom for the individual and equality for all before the law. Politically, it emphasised the concept of government by consent. Since the French Revolution, liberalism has stood for the end of autocracy and clerical privileges, a constitution, and representative government through parliament. Nineteenth-century liberals also stressed the inviolability of private property. Yet, equality before the law did not necessarily mean universal suffrage. You will recall that in revolutionary France, which marked the first political experiment in liberal democracy, the right to vote and to get elected was granted exclusively to property-owning men. Men without property and all women were excluded from political rights. Only for a brief period under the Jacobins. However, the Napoleonic Code went back to limited suffrage and reduced women to the status of minors, subject to the authority of fathers and husbands. Throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, women and non-propertied men organised opposition movements demanding equal political rights. In the economic sphere, liberalism stood for the freedom of markets and the abolition of state-imposed restrictions on the movement of goods and capital. During the nineteenth century, this was a strong demand of the emerging middle classes.

What has been understood by the word "Liberalism" since the French revolution?