LOUIS XVIII, "Stanislaus Xavier') (given the title of LE DESNA, by the Chamber of Deputies), king of France: b. Versailles, France, 17 Nov. 1755; d. Paris, 16 Sept. 1824. As the younger brother of Louis XVI he was designated Monsieur, his rank in the nobility being Count of Provence. He early showed himself a political marplot, a hinderer of re form and one of the great obstacles to his brother's success in handling the difficulties of the revolutionary movement. When the king escaped from the guards of the Tuileries (1791), Monsieur was by his side, and while Louis XVI was seized and taken back to con finement, escaped to the frontier. With his brother, the Count d'Artois, he held court for some time at Coblenz, where he issued animad versions on the revolutionists in France, and seriously complicated the difficulties of the roy alist cause by his want of temper and judg ment. When the Duke of Brunswick invaded France, Monsieur and the Count d'Artois joined his forces and shared his disasters. On the death of Louis XVI (1793) the Count of Provence declared his nephew king, and when Louis XVII died (1795) he took the title of king of France. He wandered from court to court of Europe, and finally settled in England (1807), where he remained until the fall of Napoleon. At last he crossed the Channel and entered Paris (3 May 1814) after an absence of 23 years.
His reign was inaugurated with the bitter retaliatory measures of the White Terror (q.v.). When Napoleon made his escape from Elba and arrived at Paris (1 March 1815) the unpopularity of the Bourbon restoration was proved by the enthusiasm and devotion of those who flocked to his standard. The king fled
from Paris, but, after the battle of Waterloo, was once more restored, entered the capital under the protection of victorious Wellington, and appointed a new ministry with Talleyrand at the head of it. Louis proceeded to disband the army, to exclude from the general amnesty those who came under the head of
those who had voted for the death of Louis XVI and were consequently "regicides,* and those who had received rank and honosi from Napoleon in 1815. The rest of his reign was satisfactory neither to Blues nor Reds, and the real stay of the country was the Duc de Riche lieu, the successor of Talleyrand. In accord ance with the policy of the Holy Alliance the despotic Ferdinand VII was re-established on the Spanish throne by a French army (1823) and the last year of the king's life was spent in disease, followed by paralysis, which carried off a feeble and illiberal monarch whose only work in life had been to prove that political disquiet in France had not been and was not to be allayed by the restoration of the Bour bons. Consult Daudet, E., (La terreur blanche' (Paris 1878) ; • and (Histoire de la restauration, 1814-3(P (ib. 1882) ; Dulaure and Anguis, 'Histoire de la revolution depvuis 1814 jusqu'I 1830' (1834-38) ; Hall, J. R.,