572 PARIS. 
rived at the twenty-firft year of that mild and paternal 
reign. It will be fit, therefore, that we now bring our 
readers to a better acquaintance with him, by the infer- 
tion of a few biographical anecdotes. 
Louis Staniflaus Xavier was born on the 17th of No¬ 
vember, 1755, being the fecond fon of the then Dauphin 
of France. From a long line of anceftors he inherited 
the name of Louis; that of Staniflaus was derived from 
his great grandfather, Staniflaus duke of Lorraine and 
king of Poland, whole only daughter, Maria Leczinfki, 
was queen to Louis XV. whilft that of Xavier was taken 
from the electoral family of Saxony, his own mother, 
Maria Jofepha, being daughter to the duke of that an¬ 
cient divifion of the German empire. Whi 1 ft yet a child, 
he was defignated by the title of Count de Provence, 
which he changed for Monfieur, when the death of his 
grandfather, Louis XV. left the throne for his elder bro¬ 
ther, the late unfortunate monarch. 
Monfieur appears not to have taken any aftive part in 
the politics of his native land until the year 1787, when, 
in the Afl'embly of the Notables, then firfl: called together 
by Calonne, he declared himfelf hoftile to all interference 
with noble and ecclefiaftical privileges ; but, at the fame 
time, he was not forgetful of the welfare of the people, 
fteadily maintaining that there was no neceflity for any 
additional taxes to be laid on their induftry, and always 
exprefiing his convi£lion that a few years of peace, of eco¬ 
nomy, and of regularity, would remove every financial 
difficulty; and it is generally believed, that the minifter 
was induced, by the force of his reafoning, to lay afide 
much of the.fpeculative and vifionary part of his plans. 
Calonne, however, went out; and the fucceedingminifters 
did not choofe to pay attention -to the modeft advice of 
the unoftentatious prince, who mixed but little either 
with the gay or the political world. 
Hitherto Monfieur had reiided fome diftance from Paris ; 
but no looner did the horrors of the revolution com¬ 
mence, in 1789, by the perlonal infults to the king oblig¬ 
ing him to remove from Verfailles to the capital, than 
he gave up his retirement, and became a refident in the 
Luxembourg palace, where he was, perhaps, the only 
real friend left to the unhappy Louis, as the Count 
d’Artois, now Monfieur, was then in Germany, whither 
he had emigrated with feveral others of the blood-royal. 
The confpirators little knew the real fpirit and refolu- 
tion of the late unfortunate monarch; and, fuppofing 
that the advice of Monfieur alone had prompted him to 
the conduit of the moment, they ufed every means in 
their power to feparate them, or at lead to deftroy the 
mutual confidence which fubfifted between the two bro¬ 
thers. For that purpofe, it is faid, La Fayette and his 
party trumped up a plot about a marquis de Favres, in 
which they boldiy afferted that Monfieur was implicated. 
Favres was tried ; and, as Monfieur knew his innocence, 
he actually attended upon his trial to give evidence in his 
favour: but the municipal judges paid no attention to 
his proteftations, and the unfortunate Favres fell a viftirn 
to the ambitious plans of La Fayette and Mirabeau, who, 
by this firfl: revolutionary meafure, this firfl: revolutionary 
trial and condemnation, fucceeded in impofing fuch a 
belief on the people as they wifhed, and railed fuch an 
odium againfl the unfortunate prince, that a regard to his 
own perlonal fafety, when his exertions could no longer 
be of ufe to his brother, forced him to emigrate, which 
he was only able to do through the affiftance of a friendly 
Swede, the count de Ferfen, palling by the way of Va¬ 
lenciennes into Brabant; but not until he had aftually 
heard the a£l of accufation againfl: himfelf and all the 
Bourbons publicly cried about, having been printed at a 
jacobin prefs, evidently for the purpofe of infuring his and 
their condemnation. Nor did he even then defert his 
brother; for the efcape of the royal family was at the lame 
time concerted, though it did not finally fucceed. 
No fooner did Monfieur arrive at Coblentz, where he 
found his now-furviving brother, and the other Bourbon 
branches, than he immediately applied himfelf to the mi¬ 
litary arrangements neceflary for railing and organizing 
an emigrant force under the aufpices of the German em¬ 
peror and other friendly monarchs; a force which he took 
under his own immediate command. 
No fooner was it known that Monfieur had emigrated, 
than the new legiflative government decreed that he had 
forfeited his eventual right to the regency, if he did not 
return within two months: but he knew too well the 
character of thofe he had to deal with, to trull to their 
mercy. 
It is unnecelfary to recapitulate the events of the pe¬ 
riod between that and the year 1795, (being already re¬ 
corded in this work,) when the death of the Dauphin, or 
rather of Louis XVII. prefented the diftant view of a 
throne to the fubjefl of our biography ; a throne to which 
he was proclaimed the rightful heir, not only amonglt the 
loyal emigrants in Germany, but even in La Vendee, in 
the weft of France itfelf. 
Little profpeft, however, appeared of his being able to 
recover the throne of his ancellors; and accordingly he 
made no ferious attempts for it, but refided quietly at 
the court of Turin, having been for fome years married 
to the daughter of the Sardinian monarch. But even 
from this retreat he was driven by the advance of the re¬ 
publican armies ; when he retired, in 1796, to Verona, a 
city in the Venetian territories, where he lived incognito, 
as Count de Lille : here, indeed, his relidence was of very 
fliort duration, as Bonaparte quickly demanded his dif- 
miflal from the Venetian proteilion. To this demand the 
fenate of that ancient and once-powerful Hate was obliged 
to agree; but not until the unhappy yet fpirited prince 
had demanded admiffion to the Golden Book of the fenate, 
which contained the names of all the Venetian nobles. 
In that book his great anceftor the gallant Henry IV. had 
once infcribed his name, and the name of Bourbon; and 
thefe the infulted monarch difdainfully erafed from their 
records. 
Even in his retreat from Verona he feems to have been 
followed by republican vengeance; for we have feen it 
recorded, that in the futniner of 1797, whilft on his route 
through Germany, a foreign aflaffin, ora female regicide, 
watched for him there ; and, whilft Handing at the win¬ 
dow of an inn in an obfcure village, a fliot was fired, 
which wounded him flightly in the head. His conduct 
on this occafion was molt magnanimous, forbidding all 
fearch to be made after the villain, and faying, that “ it 
mult either be a miftake or a premeditated crime : in the 
former cafe, it would be cruel to purfue; and in the lat¬ 
ter, as I have done no harm to any human being, the 
perfon who would murder me has punifliment enough in 
his own bofom, and wants my forgivenefs more than I do 
his death.” 
In the conteft which Ruffia had with France, in 1798, 
the late emperor Paul found it expedient to acknowledge 
Louis XVIII. as the juft claimant to the throne of that 
country ; and it was his intention to affift him in recover¬ 
ing the throne of his anceftors; he offered him an afylum 
at Mittau, in Livonia, a propofal which the unhappy 
prince gladly accepted, his health being confiderably im¬ 
paired by the privations, diftrefles, fatigues, and even the 
penury and want, which he experienced in his noble ad¬ 
herence to the unfortunate loyalifts of the Condean army, 
at whole particular requeft it was that he was perfuaded 
to indulge in a temporary repofe. 
The conduct of Paul was, at firft, magnanimous and 
generous in the extreme, as his royal gueft was received 
and treated with all the honours which a fovereign in his 
fituation could poffibly wifli for, having not only a guard 
of native Ruffians appointed to attend upon him, but 
alfo one formed from the French noblefle; befides being 
permitted to draw around him as many of his loyal coun¬ 
trymen -as he pleafed, with whom the generous prince 
fhared, in the moll bounteous manner, the liberal allow¬ 
ance which Paul had appropriated to his ufe. Indeed, fo 
4. anxious 
