CHARLES II. (CHARLES LOUIS DE BOURBON) (1799-1883), duke of Parma, succeeded his mother, Maria Louisa in the duchy of Lucca in 1824. He introduced economy into the administration, increased the schools, and in 1832 became a Prot estant. In 1842 he returned to the Catholic Church and made Thomas Ward, an English groom, his prime minister, a man not without ability and tact. In 1847 he declared himself hostile to the reforms introduced by Pius IX. The Lucchesi demanded the con stitution of 1805, promised them by the Treaty of Vienna, and a national guard, but the duke, in spite of the warnings of Ward, re fused all concessions. A few weeks later he sold his life-interest in the duchy to Tuscany. On Oct. 17 Maria Louisa of Austria, duchess of Parma, died, and Charles Louis succeeded to her throne by the terms of the Florence treaty, assuming the style of Charles II. His administration of Parma was characterized by ruinous finance, debts, disorder and increased taxation, and he concluded an offensive and defensive alliance with Austria. After the outbreak of the revolution in 1848, he abdicated in April and left Parma in the hands of a provisional Government, whereupon the people voted for union with Piedmont. Later Charles II. issued an edict from Weistropp annulling the acts of the provisional Government.
In May 1849 Charles confirmed his abdication, and was suc ceeded by his son CHARLES III. (1823-1854), who, protected by Austrian troops, placed Parma under martial law, inflicted heavy penalties on the members of the late provisional Government, closed the university and instituted a regular policy of persecution. A violent ruler, a drunkard and a libertine, he was assassinated on March 26, 1854. At his death his widow Maria Louisa, sister of the comte de Chambord, became regent during the minority of his son Robert. The duchess introduced some sort of order into the administration, seemed inclined to rule more mildly and dismissed some of her husband's more obnoxious ministers, but the riots of the Mazzinians in July 1854 were repressed with ruthless severity, and the rest of her reign was characterized by political trials, exe cutions and imprisonments, to which the revolutionists replied with assassinations.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.-Massei, Storia civile di Lucca, vol. ii. (Lucca, Bibliography.-Massei, Storia civile di Lucca, vol. ii. (Lucca, 1878) ; Anon., Y Borboni di Parma . . . del 1847 al 1859 (Parma, 186o) ; N. Bianchi, Storia delta diplomazia europea in Italia (Turin, 1865, etc.) ; C. Tivaroni, L'Italia sotto it domino austriaco, ii. 96-101, i. 590-605 (Turin, 1892) and L'Italia degli Italian, i. (Turin, S. Lottici and G. Sitti, Bibliografia generale per la storia parmense (Parma, 1904).