Battlefield Royal: Louis II de Bourbon, Prince de Condé

The way French military prowess is routinely denigrated, it is no wonder that the ignorant often say scoffingly that, in terms of great military leaders, the French would have nothing without Napoleon. And Napoleon wasn’t even really French. This attitude, however, derives almost entirely from World War II and is an exaggeration even if only looking at that unfortunate conflict. Rest assured, that even without Napoleon, France boasts a number of military giants, not only in French history but in the history of the world at large and one of those was most certainly Louis II de Bourbon, Prince de Condé. He was a colorful character to be sure, alternately regarded as a war hero, a traitor and the savior of his country. His achievements warrant his inclusion, not just on any list of great French military commanders but amongst the most remarkable and influential captains in world history (and he would not be the sole Frenchman on such a list).

The young prince

A “prince of the blood”, Louis was born the Duke of Enghien on September 8, 1621. As such, his was a childhood of wealth and privilege. Despite their august and semi-sacred status, many Bourbon royals could still be shy, withdrawn or even possessing of a degree of humility. Condé, however, was not one of them. He was proud, arrogant and could be extremely condescending. Yet, he was one of those rare personalities who, to the frustration of some, had as much talent as he had vanity. Entrusted, because of his birth, with a military command at the age of only nineteen, Condé nonetheless quickly proved that he more than merited such a position. He was no listless lord, no idle aristocrat, not at all one of those puffed up princes of popular fiction who is all glamour and no substance, the sort in any story we all wait to receive his comeuppance. On the contrary, Condé was driven to excel, possessed immense determination and real bravery. He also learned the art of war very quickly and very well. He became a master at evaluating the enemy and exploiting the slightest weakness.

The Prince at the Battle of Rocroi

He displayed so much talent that within three years he was given command of the French army and posted to the frontier to defend against an invasion from the Spanish Netherlands. However, standing still on the defensive was not his style. Condé went on the offensive himself and intercepted the Spanish army at Rocroi on May 19, 1643. This was no small affair. The Spanish infantry formations of pikemen and musketeers were rightly regarded as the best in the world in those days, a powerful combination of powder and steel that seemed unstoppable. The vaunted tercios, however, had met their match in the Prince de Condé. He concentrated his artillery to blast the Spanish lines, outflanked their cavalry with his own and then crushed the Spanish from both sides as his own infantry charged from the front and his cavalry from the rear. It was one of the most spectacular victories in French history. While losing only 2,000 men, Condé had wiped out 20,000 Spaniards, destroyed their army and in so doing also destroyed 150 years of Spanish military dominance in Europe. He had correctly evaluated his enemy and brilliantly exploited their weaknesses. It was his specialty and he won a victory that would never be forgotten.

The Battle of Rocroi, however, was only the beginning for the Prince de Condé. He next shifted to Alsace to meet the Bavarians. Although he did not destroy their army totally as he had the Spanish, in three sharp battles he forced the Bavarians to quit French soil and retreat back across the Rhine. When they returned the following year, Condé, along with another giant of French military history, Turenne, again defeated the Bavarians and forced them to withdraw. Time and again, over the next decade, Condé was called upon to chastise the enemies of France but with each victory he also gained enemies at court where jealously about the young man who so dominated the battlefields was not uncommon. The greater his popularity, the greater the envy many felt towards him. He did have his setbacks as well. In 1647 he was dispatched to Spain and met with a bitter loss at Lerida, a failure of logistics rather than battlefield tactics. Nonetheless, it was an aberration and he still succeeded in carrying out the occupation of Catalonia.

The Prince at the Battle of Lens

1648 saw the Prince de Condé rushed to command the French army in Flanders, the target of the Spanish forces of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm. Condé concocted a cunning trap for the Archduke, feigning a retreat to draw the Spanish out of their defenses at Lens on August 20. The enemy took the bait and as they came out Condé again used his cavalry to outflank them and rolled them up like a blanket. This additional success was welcome but it came at a time of great turmoil in France. “The God-given” Louis XIV was officially King of France but it was his mother, Queen Anne of Austria, who ruled as regent. She, however, had handed actual power over to Cardinal Mazarin and rumors about the two were rampant. Soon, leading aristocrats in France were preparing to rise up in revolt against the Queen-regent and Cardinal Mazarin. To lead this rebellion, the “Fronde”, the elites recruited the Prince de Condé. More controversial still, he made common cause with his former Spanish enemies to bring down the Queen Mother.

The Prince received at Versailles

In 1658, at the head of a largely Spanish army, the Prince de Condé met the loyalist forces of his old comrade-in-arms, the great Turenne. The resulting battle was short but decisive and it was Turenne who emerged victorious. Condé retreated, having already been sentenced to death in absentia for treason in 1654. The situation in France stabilized after 1659 when the war ended with the Treaty of the Pyrenees and the Prince began to use his connections to lobby for his pardon and return home. Many, obviously, were not enthusiastic about this but the enemies of France persisted and it proved impossible to leave so talented a captain in exile. In 1668 Condé finally succeeded in being brought home and given command of another French army. Some distrusted him and always would but his immense talents had not abandoned him and after a smashing victory over the Dutch at Arnhem in 1672 and later another triumph over the Prince of Orange at Seneffe in 1674, his loyalty seemed well proven and his critics were largely silenced.

The success at Seneffe, however, would prove to be his last victory. Although only in his mid-fifties, that was a more advanced age for the time than it is today and Condé was suffering from a variety of ailments ranging from gout, the common affliction of the upper class, to the simple effects of old age and so many years campaigning. He was simply no longer physically capable of taking to the battlefield and so, after more than thirty years of leadership, retired to his palatial home, devoting his remaining years to his family, study and of course, living as lavishly as he could. The great Condé died at Fontainebleau on December 11, 1686 at the age of sixty-five.

The Prince de Condé was one of the most remarkable figures France has ever produced and one of the most brilliant tacticians the world has ever seen. Coming from the very elite of the elite, Condé was nonetheless a “hands on” commander, a general who led from the front and who had the scars to show for it. During his many years of battles he had numerous horses shot out from under him and was wounded in action on multiple occasions. His courage was beyond question and his skill was obvious for all to see. He had a very quick mind, remarkable powers of observation and almost always found some fault in his enemy that he could exploit, in the heat of battle, to win the day. In his own time, Turenne was probably the only commander more influential than he and of course it helped that Turenne was never branded a traitor. Yet, even in that, Condé proved himself capable of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat in his own life. Widely regarded as the greatest war hero in France, he was condemned as a traitor, sentenced to death and yet, in a time of crisis, came back and smashed the Dutch to be celebrated as the savior of his country. In any listing of the great captains of history, from all around the world, one will surely find the name of Louis II de Bourbon, Prince de Condé.

Monarch Profile: King Ferdinand I of the Two-Sicilies

The reign of the Spanish over southern Italy and the island of Sicily, in its last instance, can be traced back to their seizure from the Austrian Hapsburgs during the War of the Polish Succession. At that time, the son of King Philip V of Spain, Charles, was placed on the throne. He had previously been Duke of Parma before moving to Naples as part of the constant struggles and trade deals between the great powers over the states of the Italian peninsula. Eventually, he succeeded his brother as King Charles III of Spain (Carlos III) and so he passed the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily to one of his sons, Ferdinand, who had been born in Naples on January 12, 1751. He was to preside over a time of immense tumult, trepidation and transition in the history of southern Italy, ending ultimately in the creation of a new political entity called the Kingdom of the Two-Sicilies. Little Ferdinand was only in his eighth year when he became King Ferdinand IV of Naples and III of Sicily when his father became King of Spain. King Charles III was forbidden by treaty from continuing to rule over all three kingdoms personally so choosing his third son to succeed him in Naples was a way of ensuring that the Spanish Bourbon dynasty would still retain the crown.

Obviously, as a small child at the time, actual power remained in the hands of the King of Spain or those officials appointed by him to administer southern Italy. At the head of the local government was a council of regency led by Bernardo Tanucci, a native of Tuscany and servant of the King of Spain who had fully embraced the “Enlightenment” ideas that were sweeping the educated elites of society in those days. Tanucci wanted to keep power centralized in his own hands, “reform” the Catholic Church and make government and society more “rational” as he saw it. His efforts to establish state supremacy over the Church earned him an excommunication from Pope Clement XIII, which he responded to by seizing a couple of Catholic monasteries. Unfortunately, his control of the government also gave him considerable power over the upbringing of his young monarch and he was certainly not a positive influence. Because he wished to hold on to power for himself as much as possible, he made sure that King Ferdinand IV learned only what he wished him to know. He encouraged the boy to be frivolous and concentrate on indulging rather than educating himself. Tanucci did, however, make sure that the King grew up with his sense of values.

Due to this, King Ferdinand IV was more adept at sports and other pleasurable pursuits than he was at administration by the time he reached his majority in 1767. As an absolute monarch, Ferdinand IV could rule as he wished but he still kept Tanucci on his council. His first action as King of Naples and Sicily was to expel the Jesuits from his domain, an act which undoubtedly pleased Tanucci greatly. His second priority was to find a suitable wife to ensure that the Bourbon reign would continue. The choice ultimately fell on Archduchess Maria Carolina, the daughter of Empress Maria Theresa, Archduchess of Austria and Queen of Hungary (making her, of course the sister of Emperor Joseph II and Queen Marie Antoinette). More like her brother than her mother, Queen Maria Carolina was also receptive to the new ideas of the “Enlightenment” and favored what would become known in monarchial history as “enlightened despotism”. She was like her mother in that she was strong-willed and assertive. In 1768 she and King Ferdinand were married as part of an Austro-Spanish alliance and by the terms of the treaty the Queen was given a place on the governing council where she made her wishes known. This caused a clash with Tanucci, who was used to being in charge, but the Queen emerged triumphant over the old courtier.

Many came to believe that the Queen was the real ruler of Naples, a charge not without some facts to support it. King Ferdinand had been discouraged throughout his youth from taking much interest in government and was known among some of the public as il ré lazzarone which, while hard to translate exactly, could be understood as the ‘peasant king’ or someone who behaves in a very low-class way. He was not known for his great virtue but he and the Queen certainly had a productive marriage if not a happy one as they had eighteen children. Rather remarkable considering that both, at various times, said they found the other unattractive and stayed together only out of a sense of duty and obligation. Still, the King could have his fun while the Queen worked to consolidate her own position of power. Naples was effectively still being ruled by the King of Spain through Tanucci until the Queen succeeded in having him dismissed over the issue of the Freemasons (Tanucci banned them, the Queen wanted the ban lifted). The Queen took her advice from her Austrian homeland, such as strengthening the navy, and took the country much closer to Great Britain through the influence of an Englishman who was one of her favorites (and about whom there was no shortage of gossip). She also tried to patch up relations with the Catholic Church.

All of this caused a great deal of bad feelings amongst the Spanish Royal Family. The Queen had appointed an Englishman to power at around the same time King Charles III was going to war against Britain alongside France and the fledgling United States. Ties with Austria and Britain increased to the extent that one could easily wonder which country really held power over Naples. For the average Neapolitan, however, none of this might have mattered. They were used to doing things their own way and would ‘keep calm and carry on’ no matter which foreign dynasty happened to be ruling them at the moment. However, the experiments with the philosophy of the “Enlightenment” undermined traditional reverence for the monarchy. In some countries, this had no immediate effect so long as the country was well governed. Unfortunately, under King Ferdinand IV, Naples was not being well-governed. The Queen’s English favorite had actually done considerable harm to the administration of the country. So it was that a perfect storm was brewing in Naples when word came of the outbreak of the French Revolution, culminating in the horrific regicide of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette.

The effort, nominally by King Ferdinand IV, to be an “Enlightened Despot” came to a screeching halt and the King and Queen turned in a decidedly reactionary direction due to the alarming events in France. In 1793 Ferdinand IV pledged the Kingdom of Naples to the War of the First Coalition against republican France and began trying to root out any hint of republicanism or republican sympathy in southern Italy wherever it could be found. However, when he was obliged to make peace with France in 1796 revolutionary agitation at home started to increase again. Queen Maria Carolina persuaded King Ferdinand to declare war on France again in 1798 and though Neapolitan troops briefly marched north and occupied Rome, it was a complete fiasco with the army retreating at the first sign of a French advance (the Neapolitan army had a very poor reputation in this period). The revolutionary forces in Naples saw their chance and began to rise up in imitation of their radical French counterparts. The Royal Family, fearful of sharing the fate of the French King and Queen, immediately fled to Sicily with help from Britain.

Once ensconced in Palermo, King Ferdinand showed his fangs and began massacring any suspected republican he could get his hands on. However, back in Naples, the middle and upper classes that had supported him had been left to the bloodthirsty mob and so quickly called on the French for help. The result was the occupation of southern Italy by French forces and the establishment of the ridiculous contrivance known as the Parthenopaean Republic. In response to this outrage, and in an illustration of how far he had back-peddled from his “Enlightenment” days, King Ferdinand turned to one of the most dashing and fascinating characters of Italian history, the rich, religious, royalist reactionary Ruffo, that is His Eminence Fabrizio Cardinal Ruffo. I must admit here to my partiality as Cardinal Ruffo and his exploits have always been a favorite of mine. The Italian cleric landed in Calabria and raised a counterrevolutionary force of irregulars he dubbed the ‘Army of the Holy Faith’ (they were commonly known as the Sanfedisti). With artillery from Britain and some additional support from Russia, Cardinal Ruffo went after the revolutionaries Old Testament style and his cohorts of religious royalists soon had the whole of southern Italy in an uproar and eventually forced the French to agree to an armistice and wash their hands of the region. It was a glorious and unexpectedly successful operation that was also a colorful adventure, with pious as well as gruesome elements to it.

By July of 1799 King Ferdinand IV had moved from executing republicans in Palermo to executing republicans in Naples, so things were moving in the right direction. However, Napoleon was not going to permit a Bourbon monarchy to remain on the continent he wished to dominate and soon French troops were on their way back led by the Emperor’s brother Joseph. Once again, in 1806, King Ferdinand and his retinue fled to Palermo and Joseph Bonaparte was appointed King of Naples by his brother. Still, the French were constantly having to deal with guerilla attacks and were issued a stinging defeat by the British in the south though the British expedition withdrew afterwards. In 1808 Ferdinand IV received a new nemesis when Joseph Bonaparte was withdrawn to become King of Spain and replaced by Marshal Joachim Murat. He did not have much sense but he was more of a threat as he was more popular than his predecessor, mostly because of his ambition which pushed him toward Italian independence rather than French domination. This naturally led to problems with Napoleon and eventually Murat was defeated by the Austrians and after he fled to France, the Austrian Imperial Army marched in to Naples and announced the restoration of King Ferdinand IV to his throne.

During this time, the Bourbon King and Queen had been having problems of their own in Sicily. The British had given them a subsidy and a garrison to guard them and naturally expected no small amount of influence to coincide with this protection. They tried to steer the country in the direction of a Burkean constitutional monarchy, to encourage popular support for the establishment by having people invested in it rather than for fear of being shot. King Ferdinand was more of the “better dead than red” persuasion and ultimately this resulted in the Queen being exiled and the King forced to issue a classical liberal constitution and make his son regent. However, once Napoleon was defeated and the British had pulled out, King Ferdinand reversed all of that, went back to absolute monarchy, enlisted the help of Austria in regaining his throne in Naples and had Murat shot when he made a bid to restore himself.

At the Congress of Vienna, King Ferdinand IV of Naples abolished the Sicilian constitution and declared himself King Ferdinand I of the Two-Sicilies. All previous agreements were annulled, all enemies or potential enemies of the regime were executed and the Austrian army remained to garrison southern Italy and enforce his rule. He also appointed an Austrian commander-in-chief of the Neapolitan army. All of this caused increasing resentment among the populace and a growth in the revolutionary secret society known as the Carbonari. In 1820 there was a mutiny among the army and an attempted military coup led by General Guglielmo Pepe which forced King Ferdinand I to issue a constitution while at the same time sending troops to stamp down a rebellion for independence in Sicily. All of this chaos drew the attention of the great powers of the Holy Alliance who feared a revolutionary outbreak could spread. King Ferdinand repudiated, again, the constitutional concessions he had made, further damaging his credibility and winning himself no friends amongst the other crowned heads of Europe for his antics. In the end, Prince Metternich sent another Austrian army to occupy southern Italy, defeating the Neapolitan rebels and securing Ferdinand I on his throne once again.

In the end, as before, King Ferdinand abolished the constitution and tried his best to have all revolutionary elements executed but he depended on the Austrian military to sustain himself and, as before, this came at a price. By the end of his life, Austria was effectively ruling southern Italy in his name through the Austrian ambassador Count Charles-Louis de Ficquelmont. King Ferdinand I of the Two-Sicilies, at the age of 73, gave up the ghost in Naples on January 4, 1825. He had started his reign with his country being ruled from Madrid and had ended it with his country being ruled from Vienna. In the intervening years there had never been any shortage of people, all outsiders, wishing to do his job for him. At first he had been content to leave matters to his wife but the horror that swept Europe after the outbreak of the French Revolution  changed all of that. Today he is often remembered as a rather crude and brutal man, constantly being propped up by foreign bayonets to maintain himself. He is the man who ate spaghetti with his fingers at the opera and had lots of people executed. However, before judging him too harshly, one should keep in mind the fact that he was intentionally raised to be disinterested in government and not really prepared for the task. Thus, it is no great surprise that he wasn’t terribly good at it. Also, after going along with the “Enlightenment” trend, his later penchant for putting people to death was a reaction to a very real fear that what had happened to his fellow Bourbon monarch in France could happen to him. What is unfortunate is that he too often broke his own word, damaging his reputation among his subjects and the other courts of Europe. It was a tendency that would be repeated with his successors and the pattern of his reign would, unfortunately, be repeated in a number of ways until the Bourbon reign over the Two-Sicilies came to an end.

Monarch Profile: King Louis XVIII of France

Prince Louis Stanislas Xavier, Count of Provence, was born on November 17, 1755 in Versailles, the third (surviving) son of the Dauphin Louis and Maria Josepha of Saxony. He was the grandson of King Louis XV of France and King Augustus III of Poland. Being fourth in the line of succession, little consideration was given to him at the time that he might actually become King of France one day. However, that changed rather quickly with the death of his eldest brother the Duke of Burgundy in 1761 (another elder had died before he was born). In 1765 his father died, making him second only to his one surviving older brother, future King Louis XVI, to succeed his grandfather King Louis XV. As a child he was doted on by his governess, Madame de Marsan, and was greatly attached to her. When he began his traditional upbringing as a prince of the blood he was found to be an exceptionally bright child. Classical history and literature were his favorite subjects, he could quote Horace from memory (his favorite author), was an expert on the Bible and became fluent in English and Italian as well as his native French language. As he grew into young adulthood, he had many fine qualities but some shortcomings as the inevitable search for a suitable bride for him began.

Maria Giuseppina of Savoy

The Count of Provence, while very intellectual, never enjoyed exercise or physical activity. He did enjoy eating and there were plenty of fine, French delicacies on hand and, not long after reaching adulthood, he grew increasingly overweight. To best serve the interests of France, it was decided that he should be married to a princess of the House of Savoy and, to the disappointment of both, the choice fell on Princess Maria Giuseppina of Savoy, daughter of King Victor Amadeus III of Piedmont-Sardinia. The Count found her unattractive and woefully ignorant of the complex court etiquette of Versailles (the Savoy court in Turin being more simple and military-style) and though the two were married in 1771 it was several years before he consummated the marriage. There was some debate about this as the marriage of another French prince to a Savoy princess caused a bit of an anti-Italian backlash in the court between the circles of the younger princes and the circle of the Austrian queen-to-be Marie Antoinette. The Dauphin and Count of Provence did not always get along and that bitterness was dutifully taken up by their wives and respective friends at court. When the Dauphin proved unable to consummate his own marriage, many believe this prompted the Count to boast of his own bedroom exploits as a way of making Marie Antoinette jealous. Even more vindictive was the account that he announced that his wife was pregnant, before she actually was, as a way to embarrass Marie Antoinette for not yet producing an heir-to-the-throne. However, by 1774 Princess Marie Josephine (as she was called in France) did finally come to be “with child” but, sadly, it ended in miscarriages and none of the couples’ pregnancies were productive.

That same year Louis XV died and the Dauphin became King Louis XVI of France and, in the absence of a male heir, the Count of Provence was then only one step away from the French throne. Unfortunately, this did not bring the two brothers closer together but was the cause of more bitterness. The Count of Provence, with his mastery of the classics and remarkable memory, probably did not have the highest estimation of his brother’s intelligence and wanted very much to have a seat on the king’s council. As the next in line for the throne, he felt entitled to such a position but King Louis XVI would not allow it and this offended the Count a great deal. Frustrated that his talents were not being put to use, he often left the court and spent much of his time traveling around the country. Proud and ambitious, he was more relieved than happy when the King and Queen were finally able to start having children, starting with a girl. That relief turned to disappointment when a son and heir was born in 1781. Yet, he and his younger brother the Count of Artois (future Charles X) had to stand in for the boy’s absent godfather Austrian Emperor Joseph II at the baptism of the little Dauphin.

The count in his youth

By that time the Count of Provence had a mistress and his marriage had been reduced to a mere formality. As he was given no part to play in affairs of state, he withdrew and mostly stayed at home, devoting his time to his mistress and his extensive library. With his improper private life, obesity and lavish spending (his brother the King often had to settle his considerable debts) the Count of Provence could easily have been held up as a propaganda tool for the revolutionaries as an illustration of what was wrong with the French monarchy. When new taxes (on the landowners, which were nobles & clergy) were proposed to pay for, among other things, French intervention in the American War for Independence, the Count of Provence was among the “notables” who opposed this and the issue was adopted and twisted by radicals to stir up rebellion. The Count of Provence had, inadvertently, aided the enemies of the monarchy. However, later he was the only one of the Assembly of Notables to support granting more representation to the common people in the Estates-General which was being summoned which the King did agree to. When the Third Estate demanded tax reform, the Count of Provence opposed this and urged the King to adopt a hard-line and refuse to compromise.

The political situation began to get out of hand but, while the Count of Artois took his family to the safety of Turin, the Count of Provence remained at Versailles with his big brother. Despite their differences, the French Revolution brought the two brothers together and while he had not been as helpful as he could have, when it came down to it there was no doubt that the Count supported his brother and the Kingdom of France to the utmost. He remained at his side until the attempted escape by the King and Queen to Varennes in 1791. The Count of Provence and his family left at the same time, escaping to Belgium (then the Austrian Netherlands) but, of course, the King and Queen were not so fortunate and the attempt sealed their fate. Rather too early for some, the Count declared himself regent of France on the grounds that his brother was the prisoner of the revolutionaries and could not freely rule as King. It was the beginning of many long years of exile for Provence. He soon called on the other crowned heads of Europe to rush their armies to France to rescue their fellow monarch, something which certainly made things difficult for the King but, in reality, he was already a doomed man. After the regicide of King Louis XVI, the Count of Provence declared himself regent for his nephew, the child-King Louis XVII who remained in confinement at the hands of the revolutionaries (he would ultimately be left to starve to death).

Louis XVIII

In 1795, when it was learned that the little Dauphin was dead, the royalists proclaimed the Count of Provence King Louis XVIII of France. He was haunted by the Revolution and the horror would never leave him for the rest of his life but, for the time being, he had to stay ahead of the revolutionary forces to keep the legitimate royal line alive. He moved to Italy, taking up residence in Verona in what was then the Republic of Venice. He managed to get Princess Marie-Therese, the only surviving child of the late King and Queen, released but only a year later he had to flee again as the forces of Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Italy, eventually splitting the territory of Venice with Austria. He was forced to move to northern Germany, living in very modest conditions, until, as with Austria, political moves forced Prussia to abandon him. Fortunately, the staunchly legitimist Czar Paul I of Russia came to his rescue and offered him asylum in Latvia along with a pension (though this was never paid).

Louis XVIII tried to unite the royalist enemies of the revolutionary regime, rally the European powers and present a united front on the part of the Royal Family, which was certainly not easy. As almost all of Europe came to be dominated by Napoleon or forced to make peace with him, Louis XVIII was probably at his lowest point. Feeling he had no other choice, he wrote personally to Napoleon to try to convince him, as he had put a stop to the worst excesses of the Revolution and restored normalcy to France, to restore the legitimate monarchy. Of course, Napoleon would never do such a thing as, even as he moved to the right, he planned to supplant the Bourbons with his own dynasty rather than restore them. In return, Napoleon tried to convince Louis to renounce his own claim to the throne which, naturally, went nowhere as well. Finally, even the Czar of Russia would no longer provide safe haven to the King and he had to assume a disguise and move to Prussia in 1801, selling off personal possessions to pay for the trip. When Prussia proved unfriendly, due to French pressure, Louis returned to Russian territory as the new Czar Alexander I lifted the ban against him but was also less accommodating. The uncrowned King returned to the Baltic but planned to move to Britain as soon as possible. Later, he was advised to leave and traveled to England via Sweden.

King Louis XVIII

With Great Britain alone standing still opposed to Napoleon, it was the only option left to the Bourbon court-in-exile and the political situation also forced Louis to moderate his political position. He ceased to advocate a simple restoration of the old Kingdom of France and began to hint that some of the changes that had come with the Revolution could be retained. However, he was necessarily and increasingly vague in his statements about what France would look like were the monarchy restored. He wanted to win over those who were disillusioned with the current state of affairs but who were farther and farther removed from the old kingdom while also not wishing to alienate his core supporters, most of whom were ardent royalists who wanted a total return to the old regime. Hard times had ensured that only the most zealous royalists were left. This was a difficult balancing act but one that Louis XVIII handled quite well, saying little but just enough to reassure both sides so that they could assume he agreed with them. He finally promised that those who had gone along with the republic and Napoleon would not be punished as traitors (which would have been impossible in any event as by this point there were simply too many of them) and that confiscated lands would not be returned but that the former owners would be compensated for their loss.

When the allied powers finally defeated Napoleon and forced him to abdicate, King Louis XVIII was obviously quite pleased but also careful as he knew, if his most ardent royalist supporters did not, that a restoration was not a forgone conclusion. The French Napoleonic government tried to establish his return on their own terms but Louis was having none of that and, thankfully, the allies supported him. Unfortunately, when the time came in 1814, Louis XVIII was unable to travel immediately and so sent his brother, the Count of Artois, ahead to secure his place as “Lieutenant General of the Kingdom”. Stranded in Britain by an attack of gout, Louis XVIII had to wait while Artois went before him and acted as ruler of the country, effectively setting up his own private government that would, regardless of their intentions, be a source of division throughout the life of the restored Kingdom of France.

Allegory of Louis XVIII rescuing France

When King Louis XVIII was able to return, he was greeting by cheering crowds of war-weary people. Although the King was happy to enjoy his own again, he did not take it to heart. The memory of the Revolution was still with him and he knew the mobs who cheered him could turn on him in an instant. For the sake of peace and order the allies did insist on France becoming a constitutional monarchy and King Louis XVIII was willing to oblige. He produced the Charter of 1814 which represented his best effort at a compromise between the old Kingdom of France and post-Revolutionary France. There would be democracy but with a very limited franchise. Catholicism would again be the state religion but the old religious laws and privileges would not be back. There would be a representative government, enumerated rights and freedoms but, it was made clear, these were gifts of the King who reigned by the grace of God. In short, he would give the moderate liberals at least what they wanted but on his own terms. It was a limited monarchy but built on a traditional foundation. All things considered, it was probably the best that he could have done. The republicans, of course, were not happy (nor were the Bonapartists) and the royalists were not best pleased either, partly because the initial rule of Artois had raised their hopes too high but the rightful king was back, his sovereignty was based on “divine right” rather than the “rights of man” and the tricolor had been replaced with the Bourbon white flag and golden lily.

Louis XVIII signed the Treaty of Paris, which aimed to go easy on the French in order to smooth the way for the restoration to more firmly establish itself. Unfortunately, it seemed that the King had scarcely got the throne warm when Napoleon escaped from exile and landed on the shores of France. At first, Louis XVIII was not too worried. The problem was that most of the army was Napoleonic veterans greatly attached to their former chief and even those units that had been disbanded had been allowed to retain their arms. One unit after another sent to confront the Corsican conqueror collapsed conspicuously into his clinch. King Louis XVIII did not panic but he was extremely worried as Napoleon swept into Paris and declared himself emperor again. The King felt very fortunate that the Bourbon monarchy had been given a second chance and was very concerned that, lost again, would not be given a third. He moved to the border and then finally crossed into Belgium (then part of the Kingdom of the United Netherlands). Whether he would ever see France again was an open question. Czar Alexander I of Russia openly suggested that Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orleans, might be given the throne instead, if and when Napoleon was defeated.

King Louis XVIII

This was a very sore point with King Louis XVIII who certainly did not get along famously with his cousin the Duke of Orleans, managing to tolerate him only out of a desire to present a united Royal Family to the public. They were really not all that different in terms of practical policy but the King could not forgive the part of the Orleans family in the Revolution and, unlike his cousin, could not countenance the idea of a monarch reigning by public approval rather than by the grace of God. Both were agreed that a limited monarchy and moderate policies were best but, to use a touchy word, it was a matter of legitimacy that most separated them. For Louis XVIII the source of his authority and legitimacy had to come from God alone and while he was willing to share power, he was unwilling to do so on any other basis than that it pleased him to do so. To put it another way, he would give a constitution but would not be given a constitution. Fortunately for the King, Napoleon was decisively defeated at Waterloo and the allies agreed that Louis XVIII would resume his reign, though the restrictions placed on France were much harsher than they had been before. Some French politicians even asked for an imported monarch, undoubtedly hoping for one who would be entirely in their power but, most crucially, the Duke of Wellington staunchly supported Louis XVIII.

This time, there were more reprisals on the part of the royalists but it is certainly understandable given how false and ungrateful their enemies had been recently. For his part, King Louis XVIII took no part in these activities but undoubtedly had little sympathy for the victims. He pressed on with trying to make his original constitutional settlement take root, this time taking a firmer hold of the army and purging it of Napoleonic elements who had proven their disloyalty. He also sought to uphold the principle of monarchial legitimacy by sending French troops into Spain in 1823 where rebellion had risen up against the Bourbon King Fernando VII. However, the King did not last long after that. His health had grown worse and worse and he probably suffered from even more ailments than we know of. He had become so fat that he lacked the strength to even hold his head up and had to have a cushion placed on his desk when he was in his office. His bitterness towards the Duke of Orleans never went away though he also feared that his immediate successor, Artois, lacked good sense, both for being too stridently reactionary (in his view) and being too friendly with the Duke of Orleans.

King Louis XVIII

After a long, painful decline King Louis XVIII of France passed away on September 16, 1824 at which point his younger brother became King Charles X. He was the last French monarch to die as king and pass the crown to his successor. All in all, King Louis XVIII receives much less credit than he deserves. Certainly, his personal behavior was often less than ideal and he could have been of more help to his older brother in the build-up to the Revolution. However, he always had the right priorities and while he escaped the guillotine, he suffered a great deal and carried on with remarkable skill and determination in carrying the torch of traditional French monarchism in the darkest of times. He was very intelligent, very practical and, unlike some, had a firm grasp of what was realistic and what was not. He understood, very well, that “politics is the art of the possible” (as Bismarck later said) and he skillfully steered a course that took account of the Revolution and the empire and what impact these had on France without sacrificing the fundamental values of the traditional French monarchy. He was never the sort of monarch who would attract admiration but he was probably the best man for the job at such a difficult time.

Monarch Profile: King Louis XIV of France

King Louis XIV of France, despite reigning more than 370 years ago, remains an iconic figure. For most he was the quintessential absolute monarch, everyone remembering his famous quote, “The State? I AM the State!” His words were certainly accurate, whether one likes it or not. King Louis XIV was ambitious, extravagant, glamorous, immoral and powerful just as the Kingdom of France was under his rule. He was grandeur personified and yet, beyond that, it is hard to generalize him. He was supremely arrogant and yet would receive the poorest of his subjects in audience. He was a flagrant adulterer and often at odds with the Church yet was always a staunchly loyal Catholic even if not a devout one. He was not always successful in his undertakings and yet he never seemed to be out of his depth. Nothing seemed to be beyond him and during his rule France was the envy of the world. Certainly other monarchs were likely to be jealous of his position, his rule was absolute, his word was law and he seemed immune from any internal opposition or bickering. Of course, appearances can be misleading in that regard. He seemed to have a natural talent for exercising and holding on to power.

The good and bad points of King Louis XIV can be debated but what certainly stands above all doubt is that he was a colossus in world history. He gave his name to an era and was known by various names alluding to his powerful and grandiose status such as “Louis the Great” or “the Grand Monarch” but perhaps none were so illustrative or accurate as “the Sun King”. The name reveals quite fittingly the pomposity of King Louis XIV and yet, to the frustration of his enemies, it was also almost eerily accurate. Like the sun, he seemed an eternal fixture in the firmament; he was King of France for an astounding 72 years. He was certainly as radiant as the sun, nothing standing out more than the lavish, monumental and breath-taking palace of Versailles (which was even laid out in such a way that his daily routine would follow the course of the sun). Like the sun, he could give vital warmth but could also burn and devastate. Finally, like the sun in the sky, Louis XIV was the monarch that all others revolved around. Almost everything that happened in all the world around him happened because of some action he initiated or was a response to him. Few national leaders in the history of the world have achieved a status similar to Louis XIV. He was, as I have often said, a monarch who was hard to like but hard not to admire at the same time.

From the day he came into this world, Louis was upheld as being Heaven-sent. He was born to King Louis XIII of France and Queen Anne of Austria September 5, 1638. His parents had been married for 23 years and had had no luck producing an heir to the throne. When little Louis was finally born, it is not then surprising that he was immediately called “Louis the God-given”. Literally from the day he was born the future King Louis XIV was being told that he was God’s gift to the world which is certainly revealing for those amazed at the heights of arrogance he was to achieve. Yet, what may be most frustrating for his enemies and critics is that the arrogance of Louis XIV was not unjustified; he had achievements to back it up. He learned early in life and learned quickly how to play the game of power politics. In 1643 his father died and the young child became officially King Louis XIV of France with his beloved mother Queen Anne as regent and the Italian Cardinal Jules Mazarin as the power behind the throne. No doubt Cardinal Mazarin expected to occupy the same position with Louis XIV that Cardinal Richelieu had occupied under King Louis XIII. At first, that was true, in fact, Mazarin probably had even more power than his predecessor but it was not to endure.

The French nobility immediately rose in revolt against the centralizing policies of the Cardinal but Mazarin was successful in suppressing them. The Thirty Years War was ended on terms quite beneficial to France with the Hapsburgs ceding Alsace along with other concessions and the lesser German states followed the shift in the wind and began to align with France rather than Austria. A second revolt by the nobility achieved even less than the first and after the death of Cardinal Mazarin in 1661 the 23-year old Louis XIV became sole master of his kingdom in fact as well as name. He would have no chief minister but would rule as well as reign himself and the policy of centralization of power under the monarch would continue. Under King Louis XIV the nobility of France would become, effectively, courtiers while his appointees saw that his edicts were put into effect throughout the kingdom. It is almost unfortunate that it tended to work so well because it gave many people a false impression about the efficacy of centralized power. It worked because King Louis XIV was such a remarkable man, strong enough and shrewd enough to carry it off rather than because it was wise policy on its own. Other monarchs who lacked the qualities of Louis XIV, good and bad alike, would not be so successful with it.

For his part, King Louis XIV proved a remarkably capable ruler. He reformed the tax system, bringing in more revenue and putting France back on stable economic ground, improved the army and greatly streamlined the legal system, making it more uniform compared to the myriad of laws that varied from area to area that had existed before. The refurbishment he brought to the economy was necessary but probably still wasn’t enough considering how free-spending Louis was in both his domestic and foreign policies. One thing that would characterize his reign was his lavish building programs and almost constant succession of wars. He was a great patron of the arts on a fantastic scale, covering painters, musical composers and literary authors. The great works of art, music and literature as well as the magnificent buildings that emerged in the reign of Louis XIV made the Kingdom of France the center of the artistic and intellectual world. There were advances in medical science, urban beautification and design, military and civil engineering and architecture. The Kingdom of France flourished and became the envy of the world. Like its larger-than-life monarch, France was also a combination of terrible sin and great piety. A demonic fascination with the occult as well as often degenerate personal behavior spread throughout much of high society while at the same time great saints emerged spreading fervent religious devotion, founding new orders, new symbols of popular piety and doing immense works of charity.

There was also plenty of conflict to capture the attention of Louis XIV and one of his first adversaries was the Dutch Republic, at the time certainly no military weakling but which was also troubled by the division between the republicans and the royalists of the Orange party. War with France was prompted in part by the marriage of King Louis to Infanta Maria Theresa, daughter of King Felipe IV of Spain. A war between France and Spain quickly came to include the Dutch and many other powers allied against France as King Louis XIV pursued the long-established French dream of expansion to the Rhine. French troops were able to overrun Belgium without undue difficulty and were aided for a time by England under King Charles II (a cousin of King Louis) in return for French financial support. Yet, they were not steadfast allies (the Protestant ruling class being very opposed to any alliance with France) and as more countries joined in opposition to France, the war had to be ended with King Louis giving back the Dutch territory he had conquered. Still, he certainly came out ahead with France gaining territory and a position to gain more which was of even greater strategic value.

While his foremost focus was always on Europe, King Louis XIV expanded French control or at least influence in America, Africa and Asia. French frontiersmen and missionaries made advances in Canada, Louisiana and the Mississippi basin and, after a shipwreck, the French explorer LaSalle laid claim to Texas for Louis XIV. The first significant footholds for France in India were established and the French presence in south Asia would allow for further moves into southeast Asia. French missionary activity in China was increased, breaking into what had previously been almost the exclusive domain of Portugal. The extension of diplomatic relations with Morocco increased French influence in North Africa, the renewal of the Franco-Turkish alliance with the Ottoman Sultan against Hapsburg Austria strengthened the hand of France in the eastern Mediterranean and Near East and diplomatic exchanges with the King of Siam (Thailand) ultimately resulted in the granting of a Siamese port to France though this was later revoked. Still, under King Louis XIV the reach of France was extending in western Europe as well as around the world. It was thanks to these beginnings that, despite significant setbacks to come, France would emerge as master of the second largest colonial empire on earth.

In Europe itself, French foreign policy often intersected with religious struggles. At home, King Louis XIV worked to strengthen royal authority over the Church and gave support to the suppressed Catholics of Great Britain and Ireland. He also began to crack down on Protestantism in France, ultimately taking the step of revoking the Edict of Nantes which had granted religious freedom to Protestants. King Louis wanted unity and stability at home and no more religious wars. For the King, to be a loyal Frenchman was to be a Catholic. However, while French clerics praised the King for this, he received no support from the Pope who objected to using coercion against the Protestants. Even most Catholics have since agreed that the suppression of Protestantism was wrong as many simply fled the country or became religious skeptics rather than embrace Catholicism. However, the Catholic Church remained something of a problem for King Louis XIV as well as a major support within France itself. Local bishops upheld the “Divine Right” of the King and royal absolutism but the Pope was constantly at odds with King Louis because of his efforts to make the Church in France subordinate to royal control. The Pope also opposed Louis XIV for political reasons. To maintain papal political power over Rome and central Italy, the popes had a long history of playing off the French and Germans against each other. As French power was on the rise, the Pope shifted to supporting the Austrians, just as others had supported the French when the Holy Roman (German) Emperor became more powerful.

Because of this, Europe was treated to the odd spectacle of the Pope supporting zealously Protestant powers such as the Dutch against the Catholic King of France and his efforts to restore a Catholic monarchy to the three kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland. King Louis was tied by blood, religion and royalist sentiment to the Catholic Stuarts of Great Britain. He secretly pledged to send French troops to England if the Protestants tried to depose King Charles II (a deathbed convert to Catholicism) and it was the financial support of Louis XIV that enabled Charles II to rule without Parliament for the final years of his reign. When the openly Catholic King James II came to the throne after the death of Charles, trouble seemed unavoidable. King Louis XIV and King James II were alike in many ways; lustful, pious and proud but Louis was much more willing to put political self-interest first. When King James II was overthrown in 1688 by his Protestant daughter and son-in-law (the Dutch Prince of Orange), King Louis XIV was not to deliver as much support as he promised. Still, he was about the only sovereign willing to give tangible support to the Catholic Stuarts. The result was an unsuccessful effort at a Stuart restoration in Ireland which set the stage for centuries of sectarian conflict, though, again, it was an odd sort of religious struggle which saw the Pope supporting the Protestant Prince of Orange against the Catholic King James II, and that mostly because he was so closely allied to the staunchly if not devoutly Catholic King Louis XIV of France.

As adamantly Catholic as King Louis was, his private life was nothing short of scandalous. His wife was Queen Maria Theresa of Spain by whom he had six children, though only one of which survived to adulthood. Although he seemed to have a genuine sort of affection for his queen, Louis XIV soon took on a very long succession of mistresses by whom he had a small horde of illegitimate children, all of which he tried to do right by. His court chaplain, Bishop Bossuet, renowned as a Biblical scholar and the greatest orator since Cicero, was just as often chiding the “Sun King” for his irregular private life as he was defending and extolling the absolute power of kings (that is “absolute” and not “arbitrary” as Bossuet was careful to explain). Some of his mistresses had official recognition and many came to be quite well-known in the pages of history such as Catherine Charlotte de Gramont, the wife of Prince Louis I of Monaco, the famous Madame de Montespan who bore him seven children and was accused of sorcery and probably the most famous of all, Madame de Maintenon whom the King ended up privately marrying toward the end of his life. Louis XIV seemed to go through a regular routine of taking up with a mistress, being scolded by Churchmen like Bossuet, expelling them from court but finally, usually after growing tired of that particular mistress, breaking off the relationship, reconciling with the Church and staying on the ‘straight and narrow’ until some other pretty thing caught his eye and the process began again. It was a constant struggle for him but despite his weakness for the ladies and his efforts to assert royal control over the Church, the idea of following the example of King Henry VIII and breaking with Rome would have been unthinkable to Louis XIV as it would have undermined one of the primary foundations of his authority and would have been a repudiation of the faith of his ancestors which is something he was not prepared to do no matter how exasperated he became with the political opposition of the Pope or the disapproving lectures from his chaplains.

Back on the world stage, the death of the Elector Palatine Charles II caused turmoil as Louis XIV struggled to ensure that France continued to have prevailing influence in the Rhineland. This was not so remarkable but given how successful the “Sun King” had been in the past, the other monarchs of Europe were rather nervous about how powerful France was becoming. So, in response, the Holy Roman (German/Austrian) Emperor, Elector of Bavaria, Elector of Saxony, the King of Sweden and the King of Spain all joined together to oppose Louis XIV in the League of Augsburg. With the “Glorious Revolution” of 1688 in England the Prince of Orange joined in as well and the War of the Grand Alliance began. There were setbacks for France such as the aforementioned defeat in Ireland of King James II, the Dutch seizure of the main French outpost in India but, on the whole, it was King Louis XIV who won victory after victory, many of which were thanks to his chief commander the Duke of Luxembourg. In the north, Mons and Namur fell, in the south, Savoy was conquered and by 1694, when the opportunity presented itself, French forces invaded Spain and captured Barcelona. The Allies were pressed to the limit and finally the Duke of Savoy agreed to defect to Louis XIV with the Treaty of Turin, after which the dominos fell quickly as one country after another abandoned the Grand Alliance to seek better terms from the King of France. King Louis XIV had succeeded brilliantly at the age old tactic of “divide and conquer”.

One war was over but another was already taking shape and Louis XIV shrewdly kept his demands for peace moderate, particularly in regards to the Spanish. King Carlos II of Spain was tragically handicapped (the horrifying result of generations of inbreeding) and was not expected to live long, though he did live longer than anyone would have thought possible. Everyone knew that when the childless Carlos II died there would be trouble over the succession and King Louis XIV was planning ahead so as to help further the cause of his grandson, the Duke of Anjou, who he hoped to make the next King of Spain. Naturally, the Austrians expected another Hapsburg to be King of Spain while the British and Dutch were worried about either possibility; if a Bourbon or a Hapsburg became King of Spain it would in any case mean that one of the two most powerful Catholic dynasties would become more powerful still. There was nothing Louis XIV could do about Austria but he did try to alleviate the fears of Britain and Holland by taking Italy off the table, dividing it ahead of time between France and Austria. However, the Spanish did not appreciate having their hold on Italy signed away without them and an embittered Carlos II named the Bavarian Prince Joseph Ferdinand (grandson of the Austrian [HRE] Emperor Leopold I) as his heir. King Louis XIV paid little mind to this and instead concluded a new agreement with the Dutch King William III of England for a division of Spanish lands that was more beneficial to them.

This finally brought home to the Spanish the fact that their empire could only be preserved intact if the candidate of the King of France would be the next King of Spain. In other words, Louis XIV had so arranged things that Spain could either name the Duke of Anjou heir to the throne and see the French brought on side to fight to preserve the Spanish Empire or name some other candidate and see the empire divided no matter who emerged victorious. It was a masterful arrangement for King Louis XIV though it would mean that the War of Spanish Succession (or Queen Anne’s War in America) was inevitable and the struggle began in 1701 with almost the whole of Europe aligned against Louis XIV of France. The Spanish themselves, however, sided with Louis XIV. The Duke of Anjou, finally King Felipe V of Spain, seemed a capable enough fellow and the Spanish public felt more comfortable with the more Latin Gallic candidate than a German Hapsburg. So, on one side was the “Grand Alliance” consisting of Austria (HRE/Germany), Britain, Holland, Savoy, Prussia, Portugal and those Spaniards who were pro-Hapsburg all opposed to the “Party of the Two Crowns” namely the Kingdoms of France and Spain (along with support from minor powers such as the Electorates of Bavaria and Cologne and the Duchy of Mantua).

The war would be the climax of the reign of King Louis XIV and with such an array of countries allied against him, the odds were certainly not in his favor and yet, given that, it is amazing that the Franco-Spanish forces managed to do as well as they did. The decisive factor proved to be the superior military leadership of the Allies compared to the Franco-Spanish forces. The Allies boasted two of the greatest captains in military history; the Duke of Marlborough for Great Britain and Prince Eugene of Savoy who was fighting for the Hapsburgs. King Louis XIV simply had no commander who proved capable of matching these exceptional leaders. France had the larger armies but ultimately this was not enough to overcome British naval dominance and the skill of Marlborough and Savoy on the land. Still, the French forces put up a good fight early on and King Louis XIV adeptly managed the political situation in his favor many times, taking advantage of anti-Hapsburg revolts in Hungary and parts of Germany. Maximilian II Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria was one of the more able commanders on the French side, but he was ultimately defeated by Marlborough. Prince Eugene checked the French in Italy and his previous victories over the Turks meant the Austrians could focus on the western front. At the Battle of Blenheim the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Savoy came together to win a decisive victory over a larger Franco-Bavarian army, effectively putting Bavaria out of the war, ending any French threat to the Hapsburg heartland as well as ending the mentality that France under Louis XIV was unbeatable.

Nonetheless, King Louis XIV, through determination if nothing else, was able to preserve the Spanish Empire and efforts to see Spain divided by the Allies all came to nothing. Despite many lost battles, the persistence of Louis XIV and French forces began to take a toll on the Allies whose political unity began to crack. When the war finally ended in 1714 King Louis XIV came out of it quite well. The Spanish Empire lost some territory but the Duke of Anjou was confirmed as King Felipe V of Spain by the Allied powers so long as it was agreed that one Bourbon monarch would never rule both countries. France even gained some territory in the final agreement. Despite losing the war on the battlefield, King Louis XIV had essentially succeeded in what the whole conflict had ultimately been about which was who the next King of Spain would be. Because of his determination and shrewd political moves, Spain would have a Bourbon monarch and, as everyone knows, while the French monarchy ultimately fell victim to republicanism, it is a Bourbon monarch who still reigns over the Kingdom of Spain to this day in the person of Felipe VI. Against very long odds, King Louis XIV had managed the seemingly impossible; being victorious in a war that his armies lost. Still, it was a close call by any measure and Louis XIV was adept enough to recognize this and advised his great-grandson, who would succeed him as Louis XV, to be, “a peaceful prince”.

Of course, King Louis XIV remained involved in various enterprises to advance the interests of France right up to the very end of his life such as another effort to restore the Stuarts to the British throne with the Jacobite rising of 1715 though the King of France did not leave to see it defeated. “His Most Christian Majesty Louis XIV, by the Grace of God, King of France and of Navarre” died on September 1, 1715 at the Palace of Versailles at the age of 76. He had always appeared more robust than he actually was and finally succumbed, painfully, to gangrene. He had reigned over France for 72 years, 110 days and ruled it for the vast majority of those years as well, coming to the throne as a child, coming to power as a teenager and gaining full power as a young man with the passing of Mazarin. He had known victories and defeats but even his losses seemed rather inconsequential. France had risen quickly under King Louis XIV but though he left the country stronger than he found it, in some ways his very success worked against him. His reign marked the zenith of power and prestige for the Kingdom of France and things would never be quite the same again. For such a larger-than-life figure, the whole of Europe seemed somehow emptier after his passing, and somewhat less glamorous.

Looking back, the reign of King Louis XIV was a glorious success and yet, though hard to see, there were very serious cracks in the façade as well. His centralization of power and enforcement of Catholic uniformity led to internal peace and stability but it also created a bureaucratic monster that only a man as exceptional as Louis XIV could master. His successors would have a much more difficult time. Likewise, while ending the threat of aristocratic rebellion, his policies turned much of the nobility of France into listless, debauched courtiers who stopped taking care of their people and devoted themselves to court gossip, court scandal and licentious escapades. His military and foreign policy had stalled his enemies, expanded French power around the world and put a Bourbon on the throne of Spain. All of these grand achievements had also made France plenty of enemies and left the government in dire financial straits. Again, it was a situation not beyond the abilities of someone like King Louis XIV to overcome but the great-grandson who succeeded him would not inherit all of the best qualities of his predecessor. It has been said that Caesar Augustus ‘found Rome brick and left it marble’ and something similar could be said for Louis XIV. However, while the great Augustus had left behind a system which managed to carry on functioning even with the occasional Caligula at the top of it, Louis XIV had left a state that was molded to his own hands, his own unique set of talents and vices which did not endure in the hands of others.

Whether Louis XIV was a “good” or “bad” king can, I suppose, be debated. He was, on the whole, a successful king, making France more powerful, more prosperous, the leader in every field from art, literature and science  to trade, diplomacy and war and putting France at the center of world affairs. One can argue whether he was “good” or “bad”, whether his faults were greater than his talents or his vices more serious than his virtues but no one can deny that he was a “great” King. More than anything else, King Louis XIV exuded greatness, grandeur and glory. One cannot think of him without thinking of huge, lavish palaces, glamorous and elaborate fashions, finery and meticulous etiquette (in fact, the rules of behavior for the court at Versailles is where most of what the western world considers ‘good manners’ came from). While there was always a dark side, Louis plastered over it with layers of beauty. He wore beautiful clothes, admired beautiful art, lived in beautiful buildings, listened to beautiful music and loved plenty of beautiful women. His court chaplain, Bossuet, wrote that the outward glory of kings was a reflection of the glory of God and one could say that the outward glory of France was a reflection of the glory of Louis XIV. He made France the country everyone looked to as the most fashionable, the most ornate and beautiful, truly the envy of the world. In terms of sheer magnificence, even King Solomon in all his glory would have had to be impressed by the France of Louis XIV.

Monarch Profile: King Louis Philippe I of the French

Even amongst the most ardent royalists, few French monarchs remain so controversial as King Louis Philippe I who reigned as “King of the French” from 1830 to 1848 and who was often referred to as the “Citizen King” because of his efforts to reconcile the traditional Kingdom of France with the Revolution that first brought it to ruin. This was ultimately an unsuccessful effort and it does provoke just the slightest amount of sympathy to see a monarch becoming so equally reviled by both royalists and republicans. Like many others have done, he tried to please everyone and ended up pleasing no one. By his actions it can, perhaps, be said that in spite of all the experience he gained in his lifetime, he never fully understood the underlying principles of either the ancien regime or the Revolution. He was born on October 6, 1773 to the Duke of Chartres, later the Duke of Orleans, Louis Philippe II and Louise Marie Adelaide de Bourbon in the Orleans family home in Paris. From an early age he was given an education that was very liberal and very much in-line with the “Enlightenment” philosophy that was quite fashionable at the time amongst the idle rich of the western world. Even in this we can see the seeds of future misfortune as these “enlightened” thinkers themselves never seemed to realize the ramifications of the ideas they were setting loose on the world.

His family was so very liberal that when the French Revolution first began to appear on the horizon the young Duke of Chartres (succeeding his father to the title in 1785) cut his teeth in the business of rebellion by helping break into a prison and the Paris home of the Duke of Orleans became a regular meeting ground for revolutionary types. The Duke himself would come to be known as “Philippe Egalite” for his pro-revolutionary stance. So, the Duke of Chartres was not being very rebellious at all but simply following the example of his elders when he joined the Jacobin Club with the full support of his father. Still, as a royal, he had other duties to perform and in 1791 took up his hereditary position as a colonel of dragoons in the French army in which he showed himself to be a quite brave, competent and conscientious officer. During his service he gained praise in some quarters and condemnation for others for personally saving two priests from an angry revolutionary mob and more universal acclaim for personally saving an engineer from drowning. There was certainly no doubting his courage. Later, when war broke out between revolutionary France and her neighbors, the Duke again showed his battlefield courage and was promoted to command a cavalry brigade in the Army of the North where he served alongside several men who would rise to the rank of Marshal of France under Napoleon.

In his service at the front the Duke further distinguished himself, earning the command of a division and later promotion to lieutenant general. However, he also began to become at least somewhat disillusioned with the direction the revolution was taking. He even considered leaving the country when the revolutionary leadership voted to execute King Louis XVI. The Duke found this rather unsettling even though his own father, the Duke of Orleans, voted in favor of the regicide. Still, ever loyal to the army, he decided to stay until the outbreak of the Reign of Terror convinced him that the revolution had gone out of control. He first attempted to leave the country for Austrian territory but was stopped by Colonel Louis Nicolas Davout (who would go on to great fame under Napoleon). There was a brief effort to rally the troops in favor of overthrowing the National Convention and restoring the 1791 constitutional monarchy but that failed and the Duke finally left France.

Back in Paris, the Duke of Orleans denounced his own 19-year-old son and left few doubting that he would execute his own heir for turning against the revolution. Still, he was tainted by association and soon the Duke of Orleans was arrested and later sent to the guillotine. Young Louis Philippe had a difficult time even in exile though as he was already being considered a traitor by both the royalists and the revolutionaries. He fled across Switzerland, alone and penniless before finally getting a job teaching school under an assumed name in Austria. After some unpleasantness involving an illegitimate child he fathered with a local girl, Louis Philippe left Austria and wandered around Scandinavia and even traveled to the United States, teaching French in Boston for a time and seeing much of the country. He was quite impressed by the young American republic and later tried to adapt some of the aspects of the U.S. government in France when his time came. He later went to Cuba, the Bahamas, Canada and finally to England.

In 1808 he proposed to Princess Elizabeth, daughter of King George III, but though the Princess was quite taken with the dashing Frenchman she refused because of the opposition of her parents to marrying a Catholic. A year later he married Princess Maria Amalia of the Two-Sicilies, daughter of King Ferdinand IV, with whom he fathered ten children. Among these many offspring, one would marry a Spanish princess, one a Duke of Wurttemberg, one a Princess of Brazil and one would become a Queen consort as wife to the first King of the Belgians. While in exile he was able to make peace with the rest of the Royal Family who, not surprisingly, considered the entire Orleans branch of the family a collection of traitors. There was likely still some lingering resentment (and not unjustly so given all the family had been through) when the Bourbon monarchy was restored to France in the person of King Louis XVIII. Still, Louis Philippe was again to be found in the liberal opposition to the government, as much because of his own personal antipathy for Louis XVIII as for his still very liberal ideas. To be fair to Louis Philippe, one can understand why he would bristle at any slight from Louis XVIII considering that the King himself had not exactly been the most reliable champion of the monarchy in the past but was more than willing to emphasize his filial piety after the fact.

With other people, Louis Philippe was perfectly affable and got along well with King Charles X who succeeded to the throne in 1824, though Charles X was an ardent reactionary and as far from Louis Philippe politically as one could be. Again, despite their good relations, Louis Philippe was something of a problem for the King of France. All problems came to a head in 1830 when revolution broke out again and King Charles X, who refused to be a ceremonial monarch, abdicated in favor of his grandson with Louis Philippe entrusted with overseeing the transition. This, however, did not happen as the ringleaders thought to capitalize on the popularity of Louis Philippe the known liberal and proclaimed him king. The famous Marquis de Lafayette had been key in this movement, starting with his allying with the radicals but, though opposed to the traditional monarchy of Catholic France, they were afraid that another effort at a republic might bring on another Reign of Terror and so opted instead for a limited, “popular monarchy” under Louis Philippe. So it was that on August 9, 1830 Louis Philippe became “King of the French” in a liberal, popular monarchy, rather than “King of France and Navarre” in the traditional fashion. This meant that this was an effort to be something of a new type of monarchy, one which based its right on the support of the people rather than the sacred right of royal blood as in the past. There was little other option of course, as according to the traditional rules of succession Louis Philippe had no right to be king at all.

King Louis Philippe wanted to preserve some part to play in government for the monarchy but also wanted to reconcile with the liberalism of the revolution. The result was a sort of republican-kingdom of France with Louis Philippe being known as the “Citizen-King” and the revolutionary tricolor replacing the traditional Bourbon white flag with the golden lilies. The Bourbon flag would never fly over France again in an official capacity. To emphasize this new direction, King Louis Philippe lived an explicitly modest lifestyle, doing away with most of the old pomp and ceremony associated with the French monarchy. His primary support came from the upper middle class and the wealthy emerging businessmen of the country who wanted enough monarchy to keep order and stability but also enough liberalism to allow them a considerable voice in government.

At first, King Louis Philippe was fairly popular but his every effort to bring about greater unity only seemed to remind everyone of what he was not. Republicans would look to the odd sight of the revolutionary tricolor blowing in the breeze while a king still ruled in Paris. Monarchists saw a monarch trying to direct national affairs while basing his rule on popularity rather than the blessing of God and Louis Philippe was a monarch chosen by the people (at least some of them) rather than God as he had not been born to the position. Even when Louis Philippe tried to reconcile with the imperialists by having the remains of Napoleon returned to France for burial, the Bonapartists were certainly grateful but, as usual, only noted how Napoleon had led them to glorious conquest whereas the Citizen-King simply tried to keep his balance. To his credit, King Louis Philippe tried to do good, to at least do as he thought best. He had proven himself to be a very successful businessman in private life and many in the middle class looked to him as an example to be emulated. As such, many in the socialist opposition began referring to him as the “Bourgeois Monarch”. Royalists and republicans alike condemned his close association with bankers and industrialists and even landowners (many old families that were royalist having lost much of their property by this point in history).

Eventually, even many Orleanists (as the constitutional monarchists who supported the House of Orleans were called) began to turn against the King because of the opposition they perceived on his part to representative government. In truth, King Louis Philippe was still liberal enough to be a strong supporter of representative government but he also supported the restriction of democracy based on income so that only those who owned property, and thus had an actual, tangible interest in the country, could vote. Because of this, the percentage of the population eligible to vote in the “popular monarchy” of France became quite small and opposition to the King increased more and more. It was a shift mostly from the left. The traditional royalists were not a very large group and showed little growth but their opposition was entrenched and irreconcilable. The left, on the other hand, was split between the liberal monarchists and the republicans. As time went on, more and more of the liberal monarchists began to join the republican camp. The expansion of the franchise became the rallying issue and when some hard times resulted in minor uprisings that were suppressed by the army, cries of royal tyranny began to be taken up by the professional rabble-rousers.

In effect, the middle class had begun to turn on King Louis Philippe and with most of the rest of the country supporting either the legitimist royal claimant or a return to the revolutionary republic, it all but sealed his fate. In February of 1848 revolution broke out in France yet again and, once again, in culminated in the abdication of a monarch. King Louis Philippe, wanting no repeat of the fate that befell Louis XVI (inflicted in part by his own father), abdicated in favor of his grandson, the 9-year-old Count of Paris, and left Paris in disguise, eventually going into exile in England. The government was at first willing to continue the popular monarchy but the mob would not stand for it. So, the second French Republic was proclaimed with the presidency soon going to one Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, nephew of the former emperor who had imperial aspirations of his own. King Louis Philippe I, the last member of the House of Bourbon to reign over France and the last French ruler to ever hold the title of “King” lived a quiet life in exile in England until his death on August 26, 1850. He was buried there until his remains were removed to the family resting place in France in 1876.

Commentary
King Louis Philippe remains a monarch that even most monarchists would rather not talk about. He was certainly on the wrong side of things in the revolution but, given that he was only a teenager at the time, this can be attributed to his upbringing more than anything else. He was often on the wrong side and yet he was never a bad man as so many at the time were, certainly amongst the villainous creatures who brought about the revolution. What drove him apart from the revolution was the fact that he could not go along with their cruelty and inhumanity. Like many, in his youth he was more idealistic than realistic and when he came to the throne it was inevitable that he stirred up strong opposition. The simple fact was that he had no right to the Crown of France in the first place. Still, to be fair, it was not a position he actively sought or intrigued and plotted to obtain. It was effectively dumped in his lap and he had two choices; stand on principle and go down with the ship, ending the monarchy and joining Charles X in exile, or to try to make the best of a bad situation. That is basically what he did. That he was unsuccessful is not surprising as he was trying to, on some level at least, reconcile the traditional monarchy with the revolution and these two things are inherently irreconcilable and represent diametrically opposed worldviews.

King Louis Philippe is not a monarch to my taste, nor can I wrap my mind around the idea of the sort of Kingdom of France he was trying to forge. It was neither a pure monarchy nor a pure republic. The monarchy was tainted by republicanism just as the republic was tainted by monarchism. However, unlike most who hold such a view, I cannot bring myself to hate the man himself. I do think he was trying to do the right thing in the midst of political circumstances that were far from ideal. For those inclined to hold anger against him for accepting the throne he had no right to, I can only ask that you consider what other options there were. Had he not done so it would have only meant that the second republic would have come sooner rather than later. Had he tried to restore the traditional monarchy once in place I might have more admiration for his change of heart but it surely would not have brought about anything but his own downfall as his later moves to the right ultimately did. His case is also one monarchists today should consider and familiarize themselves with because, in effect, virtually every monarch in the western world that still reigns today is in a very similar position to King Louis Philippe. They did not come to the throne in the same way of course, but all are trying to manage that same balancing act; representing an institution that is inherently opposed to the principles being espoused by every government, nearly every population and even almost every religious institution in the western world today. It is not an enviable position. They need our support and for King Louis Philippe, even if you oppose him on principle as I do, perhaps if you looked into the subject a bit more, you might find in him a prince to be pitied rather than pilloried.