560 



LOUIS XVII. LOUIS XVIII. 



the state prisons to be examined, and liberated the 

 unhappy victims of despotism. Louis declared that 

 he would never sign, beforehand, a lettre de cachet. 

 His great object was the happiness and love of his 

 people. On his journey to Cherbourg, in 1786, 

 \\licre he had undertaken the construction of the 

 celebrated harbour, in 1784, to which he had appro- 

 priated 37,000,000 livres, he received the most une- 

 quivocal marks of the love of the French. He 

 wrote, at the time, to the queen, " The love of my 

 people has touched me to the heart ; think you not 

 that I am the happiest king on earth?" And in his 

 will of Dec. 25, 1792, he says, "I forgive, from my 

 whole heart, those who have behaved towards me 

 as enemies, without my giving them the least cause, 

 and I pray God to forgive them. And I exhort my 

 son, if he should ever have the misfortune to reign, 

 to forget all hatred and all enmity, and especially 

 my misfortunes and sufferings. I recommend to him 

 always to consider that it is the duty of man to 

 devote himself entirely to the happiness of his fellow 

 men ; that he will promote the happiness of his sub- 

 jects only when he governs according to the laws ; 

 and that the king can make the laws respected, and 

 attain his object, only when he possesses the neces- 

 sary authority." In the same spirit he wrote to 

 Monsieur (Louis XVIII.) : " I submit to Providence 

 and necessity, in laying my innocent head on the 

 scaffold. By my death, the burden of the royal 

 dignity devolves upon my son. Be his father, and 

 rule the state so as to transmit it to him tranquil and 

 prosperous. My desire is, that you assume the title 

 of a regent of the kingdom ; my brother, Charles 

 Louis, will take that of lieutenant-general. But less 

 by the force of arms than by the assurance of a wise 

 freedom and good laws, restore to my son his domin- 

 ions, usurped by rebels. Your brother requests it 

 of you, and your king commands it. Given in the 

 tower of the Temple, Jan. 20, 1793." Louis was 

 buried in the Magdalen churchyard, Paris, between 

 the graves of those who were crushed to death, in 

 the crowd, at the Louvre, on the anniversary of his 

 marriage, in 1774, and the graves of the Swiss, who 

 fell on the 10th August, 1792, in his defence. Deso- 

 doard's work on the history of this prince is of little 

 value. J. J. Regnault's Siecle de Louis XVI. is not 

 impartial. The Fie privee et politique de Louis 

 XVI., avec un Precis historique sur Marie Antoi- 

 nette, Mme. Elizabeth, etc., par M. A., contains 

 little that is not to be found elsewhere. More im- 

 portant are the abbe Georgel's Memoires pour servir 

 a. VHl&toire des Evenements depuis 1760, jusqu'en 

 1806 1810, published by the nephew of the author 

 after his death (Paris, 1817, 2 vols.), and Madame 

 Campan's Memoirs of the Private Life of the Queen, 

 with anecdotes of the Times of Louis XIV., XV., 

 XVI. (Paris, 1822, 3 vols.); and the abbe' de Mont- 

 gaillard's Histoire de France depuis la Fin du Regne 

 de Louis XT., &c. (Paris, 1827, 4 vols., to 1793.) 



LOUIS XVII., second son of Louis XVI. and of 

 Marie Antoinette, was born at Versailles, March 27, 

 1785, and, in 1789, after the death of his elder 

 brother, received the title of dauphin. He was four 

 years old when his mother presented him to the 

 seditious populace of Paris, and carried him to the 

 capital on the terrible 5th and 6th October. Con- 

 fined with his parents and his aunt Elizabeth in the 

 Temple, his innocent gaiety and affectionate disposi- 

 tion were the chief solace of the unhappy prisoners. 

 On the death of Louis XVI., he was proclaimed king 

 by the royalists, and his uncle (afterwards Louis 

 XVIII.) assumed the title of regent. He was soon 

 after separated from his mother, sister, and aunt, 

 and delivered (1793) to a shoemaker by the name of 

 Simon, a fierce Jacobin, of a gross and ferocious dis- 



position, who, with his wife, treated the young Ca- 

 pet with the most unfeeling barbarity. Reproaches, 

 blows, scanty food, the damps and filth of a dun- 

 geon, and a sleep broken by menaces and abuse, 

 were the lot of the innocent child. He was even 

 compelled to drink strong liquors, and join in the 

 obscene songs, and repeat the atrocious language of 

 his tormentor. He survived this treatment only till 

 June 8, 1795, when lie died at the age of ten years 

 and two months. He was buried in the common 

 grave in the cemetery of Ste. Marguerite, where his 

 remains could not be distinguished in 1815. Several 

 impostors hav e a ppeared, pretending to be the prince ; 

 among them, Hervagant, a tailor's son, in 1802 (died 

 1812 ( in prison), and Bruneau, a shoemaker, who, 

 in 1818, was condemned to seven years' imprison- 

 ment. See Eckard's Memoires sur Louis X /'"//. 



LOUIS XVIII. (Stanislaus Xavier), le Desire, 

 formerly count of Provence, third son of the dauphin 

 (the son of Louis XV.), born November 17, 1755, 

 married, May 14, 1771, the daughter of king Victor- 

 Amadens III. of Sardinia, Mary Josephine Louisa, 

 who died in 1810. At the accession of his brother, 

 Louis XVI., in 1774, he received the title of Mon- 

 sieur, and, after his death, became regent of France. 

 After the death of his nephew, June 8, 1795, from 

 which time he reckoned his reign, he took the name 

 of Louis XVIII., king of France and of Navarre. 

 But, with the exception of Britain, the states of 

 Europe did not acknowledge him as king of France 

 before the taking of Paris, March 31, 1814. His 

 brother, Monsieur, count of Artois, as lieutenant- 

 general, became the head of the provisional govern- 

 ment in Paris, April 13. Immediately after, Louis 

 XVIII. began his reign, by his manifesto from St 

 Ouen, May 2, 1814. During the reign of his brother, 

 he had taken but little interest in the intrigues and 

 the pleasures of the court, and had principally occu- 

 pied himself with books ; his wife had followed a 

 different course. It is said that, in his youth, Louis 

 had much taste for poetry, and was the author of 

 several tolerably good poems. He translated also 

 some volumes of Gibbon s History, and applied him- 

 self to the study of the Roman poets and philoso- 

 phers. The history of his emigration he has related 

 in an agreeable manner, in a work which appeared 

 at Paris, in 1823 (Relation d'un Voyage a Bruxelles 

 et d Coblence, 179 1); dedicated d Antoine Louis 

 Francois d'Avaray, son liiterateur, Louis Stanislaus 

 Xavier de France, plein de Reconnaissance, Salut. 

 In the first assembly of the notables, in 1787, he was 

 at the head of the first of the seven bureaus, and ap- 

 peared on the side of the opposition, against Colonne, 

 controleur general des finances ; at least, the latter 

 was most violently attacked by the bureau, under 

 the presidency of the count of Provence. The 

 people, therefore, looked upon him with favour, 

 and saluted him with cries of joy, when he received 

 from the king orders to compel the registration ot 

 some edicts, by the cour des comptes. His brother, 

 the count of Artois (Charles X.), on the other hand, 

 who did not belong to the opposition, was loaded 

 with reproaches. At the second assembly of the 

 notables, November 9, 1788, he alone declared 

 himself for the double representation of the third 

 estate. During the revolution, it was as impos- 

 sible for him as for the king to escape the attacks 

 of calumny. After the destruction of the Bastile, 

 the king, accompanied by his two brothers, entered 

 the hall of the national assembly, July 15, and de- 

 clared that he counted upon the love and the fidelity 

 of his subjects, and had, therefore, given orders to 

 the troops to withdraw from Paris and Versailles. 

 But the people of Paris had already proscribed the 

 count of Artois, who, therefore, left the kingdom. 



