Louis XVIII of France (17 November 1755-16 September 1824) was King of France from 6 April 1814 to 20 March 1815 in between Napoleon I's two reigns, and again from 8 July 1815 to 16 September 1824, succeeding Napoleon and preceding Charles X of France. Louis was the brother of Louis XVI of France, and he was the Legitimist claimant to the French throne during the reign of the French Republic and the First French Empire. He was briefly restored to power following Napoleon's 1814 abdication and then again after the Battle of Waterloo, restoring the Bourbon absolute monarchy.
Biography[]
Louis Stanislas, Count of Provence in 1778
Louis Stanislas Xavier was the son of Louis, Dauphin of France, and Maria Josepha of Saxony, Dauphine of France, the grandson of King Louis XV of France, and the brother of Louis XVI of France and Charles X of France. Styled the Count of Provence, Louis was opposed to giving any concessions to the Third Estate before the French Revolution broke out in 1789, and he fled to the Austrian Netherlands in July 1791, becoming the de facto regent of France while in exile. He was in exile in Italy until 1796, and he fled to Jelgava in the Russian Empire, then to Stockholm in Sweden, and finally to London in the United Kingdom. In January 1814, he sent his brother Charles, Count of Artois to Paris to serve as regent for him after Allied forces invaded France at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, as he was wheelchair-bound and unable to walk.
King of France[]
King Louis in 1815
On 6 April 1814, he became King of France under the Bourbon Restoration, but he was forced into exile on 20 March 1815 when Napoleon I returned from exile on Elba and was crowned Emperor once more. After the Battle of Waterloo, Louis returned to reigning as King of France, and the Conservative Senate recognized him as king after he decided to pursue a moderate course and maintain Napoleon and the revolution's reforms. In 1814, he drafted the Charter of 1814, which provided for a two-house parliament, consisting of the royally-appointed members of the Chamber of Peers and the elected Chamber of Deputies. The Napoleonic Code remained in effect, as did the revolutionary redistribution of land confiscated from the church and nobility, and he balanced the privileges of the aristocracy with the demands of the bourgeoisie. His brother Charles led the reactionary Ultra-Royalists to victory in the 1820 elections, and the Ultra-Royalists reduced voting rights and palced restrictions on civil liberties, opposing Louis' moderate policies. When Louis died in 1824, Charles succeeded him.