LOUIS XVIII. LOUIS IV. 



585 



of the Russian ambassador, Pozzo di Borgo, and of 

 Wellington, succeeded in obtaining from the king the 

 ordinance of September 5, 1816, by which he dis- 

 solved the chamber of deputies, and ordered that the 

 new members should all be of the lawful age of forty. 

 At the same time, he declared that the constitution 

 should be subjected to no alteration. This victory 

 of the constitutional party gave a check, for a time, 

 to the ultra royalists, to whom Louis XVIII. himself 

 did not appear to be enough of a royalist, and silenced, 

 for some time, their Vive le roi, quand memc / 

 The organ of that party, Chateaubriand, in his work 

 De la Monarchic selon la Charte, reproached the 

 government with having taken away personal liberty 

 and the liberty of the press. He was even bold 

 enough to maintain, that that ordinance was contrary 

 to the wishes of the king. The elections for the 

 new chambers were such that the constitutionalists 

 could raise their voices. They spoke in vain, though 

 with great talent and boldness, for the freedom of the 

 press and a jury. The law of censorship of Novem- 

 ber 9, remained in force. The state of the people, in 

 the general dearness of all articles, and the weight of 

 the taxes, needed every possible alleviation, and the 

 king's spirit of order contributed greatly to this. 

 From 1814 to 1816, the arrears amounted to more 

 than 83,000,000 franc?, which had increased the 

 budget of expenses for 1817 to 1,088,000,294 being 

 699,000 more than in 1816; while the revenue for 

 1817 could not be estimated higher than 774,000,000, 

 so that a deficit of 314,000,000 was to be covered. 

 Recourse was had to loans ; the same thing took 

 place in 1818. The diminution of the standingarmy, 

 and its entire dissolution in consequence of the con- 

 gress of Aix. were, therefore, fortunate events. 

 Among the events of the administration of Louis 

 XVIII., it must, however, be remarked, that the 

 national institute was restored in 1816, with its former 

 four academies, although the best institutions, as that 

 of the decennial prizes, were not retained. The 

 attempt to bring Hayti to submission, by the offer of 

 favourable conditions, utterly failed, and the concor- 

 date was not effected with the pope. 



Louis was himself inclined to use mild measures. 

 On the day of St Louis, therefore, August 25, 1818, 

 when the bronze statue of Henry IV. was erected in 

 Paris, which had been paid for by private subscrip- 

 tion, several persons arrested for political offences 

 were pardoned. He allowed, also, some of the exiles 

 who had voted for the death of the king, as Camba- 

 ceres, Ilabaud, and fifteen members of the convention, 

 to return. As, however, he gave way to the incli- 

 nations of the emigrant party, on several occasions, 

 the nation conceived suspicions that the Bourbons 

 could not sincerely forgive. The king neglected to 

 give full security in their property to the possessors 

 of the national domains, by a particular edict. At 

 the same time, the constitutional party was strength- 

 ened by the passage of laws which contradicted the 

 articles of the charter. The liberals, therefore, ob- 

 tained for a time, the superiority, and Louis named, 

 December 29, 1818, his third, and, November 19, 



1 8 1 9, his fourth ministry, under Decazes. (See France, 

 since 1814.) From this time, the government of Louis 

 had the support of public opinion. But, after the 

 assassination of the duke of Berry, February 14, 



1820, the party of the ultras again raised its head. 

 Richelieu took the place of Decazes ; the law of 

 election was altered ; the censorship of newspapers 

 was introduced, personal freedom limited, &c. All 

 tin's gave more power and influence to the extreme 

 royalists. 



The party of anti-Bourbonists, which thought that 

 the welfare of France required a dynasty not belong- 

 irg immediately to the Bourbon line, remained still a 



large one, while the party of the princes, which 

 showed a very great and very natural predilection for 

 Louis, was supported by the ultras, who sought to 

 form, in all Europe, a general coalition against liberal 

 principles. The white conspiracy, as it was called, 

 detected in 1818, showed that it was the object of 

 the ultra royalists to destroy the constitution. Thr-y 

 had given to the ambassadors of foreign powers a 

 paper written, it is said, by the baron de Vitrolles 

 Note secrete exposant les pretextes et le but de la dcr- 

 niere conspiration, to attract their attention to the 

 dangers which menaced the reign of the Bourbons, 

 that their troops might not be withdrawn from France, 

 but a change made in the French ministry. This 

 note, the giving of which was, according to the 

 French laws, treasonable, caused so much dissatisfac- 

 tion, that Chateaubriand, in his Remarques sur le* 

 Affairs du Moment, denies having had any thing to 

 do with it. That party had in view to form a new 

 ministry, of which Villele, Chateaubriand, Donadieu, 

 and others, were to be members. All examination 

 into this business was, however, prevented, and the 

 generals Canuel, Chapdelaine, with H. II. Joannis, 

 Romilly, De Sorgis, &c., who had been already 

 arrested as accomplices, were released August 19, 

 1818, from the secret prison (secret). By the ordi- 

 nance, July 24, however, the baron Vitrolles was 

 struck off the list of ministers of state and members 

 of the privy council of the king. But Louis allowed 

 what was called the theocratic party, in union with 

 the friends to old privileges, to gain, continually, 

 more influence in the internal management of the 

 kingdom. This was shown by the prosecutions 

 against the writers, who complained of abuses in 

 the public administration, and, especially, of the 

 measures of the secret police, by which those who were 

 suspected of being political enemies were enticed to 

 manifest their feelings by deeds. An instance of this 

 kind was the punishment of the deputy Kochlin. By 

 the change in the law of elections, in June, 1820, 

 the system of the strict royalists was triumphant ; 

 Villele was placed at the head of the ministry. But 

 the strength of the king, who had, for several years, 

 been unable to walk, now entirely failed him. His 

 last triumph was the campaign in Spain in 1823. 

 In August, 1824, it became evident that his disease 

 was mortal. Until the day of his death, September 

 16, 1824, he gave proofs of firmness and resignation. 

 " Un rot doit mourir" said he, quaintly, " mais ne 

 doit jamais etre malade." Louis XVIII. possessed 

 much intellectual cultivation and sagacity, but, en- 

 feebled by disease, he had not sufficient strength of 

 character to restrain the ultras, nor did he understand 

 new France. He had one remarkable maxim Uex- 

 actitude est la politesse des rois. 



LOUIS III. (called, in German history, the Child), 

 born in 893, succeeded his father, the emperor Am 

 nlph, when six years old. In his minority, arch- 

 bishopHatto. of Mentz, administered the government, 

 and carried the monarch about with him, wherever 

 the affairs of the empire required the presence of the 

 regent. During the course of his reign, Germany 

 was desolated by the Hungarians, and torn asunder 

 by civil discord. He assumed the imperial title in 

 908, but was never crowned. He died in 911, or 

 912, and with him ended the royal line of Charle- 

 magne. 



LOUIS IV., the Bavarian, emperor of Germany, 

 son of Louis the Severe, duke of Bavaria, was born 

 in 1286. On the death of Henry VII. (q. v.), five 

 electors were in favour of Louis, while the others 

 supported Frederick, duke of Austria. The two 

 rivals being both crowned, a war ensued, and Fred- 

 eric was made prisoner, in the battle of Muhldorf, in 

 1322. (See Bavaria; and Germany, History of.} 



