In March 1814 the allies entered Paris, and thanks to Talley negotiations the restoration of the Bourbons was effected, Louis XVIII. entering Paris on May 2, 1814, after issuing the declaration of St. Ouen, in which he promised to grant the nation a constitution (octroyer une cliarte). He was now nearly 6o, wearied by adversity, and a sufferer from gout and obesity. But though clear-sighted, widely read and a good diplomatist, his im pressionable and sentimental nature made him too subject to personal and family influences. His concessions to the reactionary and clerical party of the emigres, headed by the comte and the duchess aroused suspicions of his loyalty to the constitution, the creation of his Maison militaire, alienated iSee E. Daudet, La Conjuration de Pichegru (Paris, i9or). comte (afterwards duc) de Blacas d'Aulps, was as rigidly royalist as d'Avaray, but more able.
the army, and the constant presence of Blacas made the formation of a united ministry impossible. After the Hundred Days, during which the king was forced to flee to Ghent, the dismissal of Blacas was made one of the conditions of his second restoration. On July 8 he again entered Paris, "in the baggage train of the allied armies," as his enemies said, but in spite of this was received with the greatest enthusiasm by a people weary of wars and look ing for constitutional government. He was forced to retain Talleyrand and Fouche in his first ministry, but took the first opportunity of ridding himself of them when the elections of 1815 assured him of a strong royalist majority in the chamber (the chambre introuvable, a name given it by Louis himself). At this time he came into contact with the young Elie Decazes (q.v.), prefect of the police under Fouche, who now became his favourite and gained his entire confidence. Having obtained a ministry in which he could trust, with the duc de Richelieu at its head, and Decazes as minister of police, the king gave it his loyal support and did his best to shield his ministers from the attacks of the royal family. In Sept. 1816, alarmed at the violence of the chambre introuvable, he was persuaded by Decazes to dissolve it. An attempt on the part of the Ultras to regain their ascendancy over the king, by conniving at the sudden return of Blacas from Rome to Paris, ended in failure.
The king's policy throughout was one of prudence and common sense. While Decazes, who succeeded Richelieu as president of the council in Dec. 1818, was still in power, the king's policy to a large extent followed his, and was rather liberal and moderate, but after the assassination of the duc de Berry (1820), when he saw that Decazes could no longer carry on the government, he sorrow fully acquiesced in his departure, showered honours upon him, and transferred his support to Richelieu, the head of the new ministry. In the absence of Decazes a new favourite was found to amuse the king's old age, Madame du Cayla (Zoe Talon, comtesse du Cayla), a protegee of the vicomte Sosthene de la Rochefoucauld and con sequently a creature of the Ultras. As the king became more and more infirm, his power of resistance to the intrigues of the Ultras became weaker. The birth of a posthumous son to the duc de
Berry (Sept. 1820), the death of Napoleon (May 5, 1821) and the resignation of Richelieu, left him entirely in their hands, and after Villele had formed a ministry of an ultra-royalist character, the comte d'Artois was associated with the government, which passed more and more out of the king's hands. He died on Sept. 16, 1824. Louis XVIII. had the Bourbon characteristics, their love of power, a certain nobility of demeanor, and a consciousness of dignity. But he was cold, unsympathetic and calculating. He had a talent for intrigue, to which was added an excellent memory and a ready wit. An interesting judgment of him is contained in Queen Victoria's Letters, vol. i., in a letter by Leopold I., king of the Belgians, dated Nov. 18, 1836, "Poor Charles X. is dead. . . . History will state that Louis XVIII. was a most liberal monarch, reigning with great mildness and justice to his end, but that his brother, from his despotic and harsh disposition, upset all the other had done and lost the throne. Louis XVIII. was a clever, hard-hearted man, shackled by no principle, very proud and false. Charles X. an honest man, a kind friend." As a personal, rather than a political estimate, this is just.
is no trustworthy or complete edition of the writings and correspondence of Louis XVIII. From his own hand are Relation d'un voyage a Bruxelles et a Coblentz, 1791 (1823) and Journal de Marie-Therese de France, duchesse d'Angou Verne, corrige, et annote par Louis XVIII., edit. Imbert de St. Amand (1894). Some of his letters are contained in collections, such as Lettres et instructions de Louis XVIII. au comte de Saint-Priest, edit. P. B. de Barante (1845) ; Lettres d'Artwel: correspondence politique et privie de Louis XVIII., addressed to d'Avaray (188o) ; Talleyrand et Louis XVIII. corr. pendant le congres de Vienne, 1814-1815, edit. G. Pallain (1881, Eng. trans. 2 vols., 1881) ; see also the correspondence of Castlereagh, Metternich, J. de Maistre, the Wellington Despatches, etc., Corr. diplomatique de Pozzo di Borgo avec le comte de Nesselrode (2 vols., 1890-97), the correspond ence of C. de Remusat, Villele, etc. See also E. Daudet, La Terreur Blanche (1878), Hist. de la restauration 1814-1830 (1882), Louis XVIII. et le duc Decazes (2 vols., 1899-1903), Hist. de l'emigration (3 vols., 1904-07) ; E. Romberg and A. Malet, Louis XVIII. et les cent-jours a Gand (1898). L. de Remack, Bonaparte et les Bourbons (1899) ; G. Stenger, Le Retour des Bourbons (1900. For various episodes, see J. B. H. R. Capefigue, La Comtesse du Cayla (1866), J. Turquan, Souveraines et grandes dames: les favorites de Louis XVIII. (1900), Vicomte de Reiset, "Anne de Caumont-Laforce, comtesse de Balbe" in Les Reines de l'emigration, vol. ii. (19o8). See also the chief memoires of the period, such as those of Talleyrand, Chateaubriand, Guizot, duc de Broglie, Villele, Vitrolles, Pasquier, L. F. S. de la Rochefoucauld (15 vols., 1861-64), and of the comtesse de Boigne, edit. C. Nicoullaud (19o7).