How the First Bourbon Restoration Was Thwarted by Napoleon’s Return From Exile

How the First Bourbon Restoration Was Thwarted by Napoleon’s Return From Exile
Coronation portrait of Louis XVIII of France, by François Gérard. Public Domain
Gerry Bowler
Updated:
0:00
Commentary

When King Louis XVI of France was deposed in September 1792 and a French Republic proclaimed, it looked like the Bourbon dynasty was finished. After Louis and his wife Marie Antoinette were executed the next year and their 10-year-old heir (styled Louis XVII by royalists) was abused to death in prison, few anticipated a return to power of the family that had ruled France since 1589.

Gerry Bowler
Gerry Bowler
Author
Gerry Bowler is a Canadian historian and a senior fellow of the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.