page_title: Louis XVIII
section_title: Hundred Days
hierarchical_section_title: Louis XVIII / Bourbon Restoration / Hundred Days
context_page_description: Louis XVIII, known as the Desired, was King of France from 1814 to 1824, except for the Hundred Days in 1815. He spent twenty-three years in exile: during the French Revolution and the First French Empire; and during the Hundred Days.
  Until his accession to the throne of France, he held the title of Count of Provence as brother of King Louis XVI. On 21 September 1792, the National Convention abolished the monarchy and deposed Louis XVI, who was later executed by guillotine. When his young nephew Louis XVII died in prison in June 1795, the Count of Provence proclaimed himself king under the name Louis XVIII.
  Following the French Revolution and during the Napoleonic era, Louis XVIII lived in exile in Prussia, England, and Russia. When the Sixth Coalition finally defeated Napoleon in 1814, Louis XVIII was placed in what he, and the French royalists, considered his rightful position. However, Napoleon escaped from his exile in Elba and restored his French Empire. Louis XVIII fled, and a Seventh Coalition declared war on the French Empire, defeated Napoleon again, and again restored Louis XVIII to the French throne.
  Louis XVIII ruled as king for slightly less than a decade.
context_section_description: On 26 February 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte escaped his island prison of Elba and embarked for France. He arrived with about 1,000 troops near Cannes on 1 March. Louis XVIII was not particularly worried by Bonaparte's excursion, as such small numbers of troops could be easily overcome. There was, however, a major underlying problem for the Bourbons: Louis XVIII had failed to purge the military of its Bonapartist troops. This led to mass desertions from the Bourbon armies to Bonaparte's. Furthermore, Louis XVIII could not join the campaign against Napoleon in the south of France because he was suffering from another case of gout. Minister of War Marshal Soult dispatched Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans (later King Louis Philippe I), the Count of Artois, and Marshal MacDonald to apprehend Napoleon.
  Louis XVIII's underestimation of Bonaparte proved disastrous. On 19 March, the army stationed outside Paris defected to Bonaparte, leaving the city vulnerable to attack. That same day, Louis XVIII quit the capital with a small escort at midnight, first travelling to Lille, and then crossing the border into the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, halting in Ghent. Other leaders, most prominently Tsar Alexander I, debated whether in the case of a second victory over the French Empire, the Duke of Orleans should be proclaimed king instead of Louis XVIII.
  However, Napoleon did not rule France again for very long, suffering a decisive defeat at the hands of the armies of the Duke of Wellington and Field Marshal Blücher at the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June. The Allies came to the consensus that Louis XVIII should be restored to the throne of France.
caption: The Battle of Waterloo put a definite end to Napoleon Bonaparte's attempt to return to France and thus secured the Bourbon restoration.
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