Count of Provence

Count of Provence

https://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/1081/

1081

Louis-Stanislas-Xavier, younger brother of Louis XVI, later ruled as Louis XVIII (1814–24). More liberal than his brothers, Provence was no friend to reform before 1789. He left the country in June 1791, establishing a royalist center at Coblentz. He fomented conspiracies in and outside of France against the revolutionary government and slowly gathered a military force of émigrés. When Louis XVI was executed, Provence declared the dauphin Louis-Charles King as Louis XVII, assuming the post of regent. When the imprisoned Louis XVII died in 1795, Provence declared himself Louis XVIII. Perpetually in exile, he moved from Italy to Poland to England to Germany. In January 1814, he declared himself willing to accept some of the revolution’s changes, paving the way for the Charter of 1814 and the Restoration of the Bourbons.