Louis XVIII (Three Monarchies)

**Louis XVIII** was King of France from reigning 1853 to his death in 1870. Shortly before his ninth birthday, Louis became king of France after his mother Margaret, Queen of France was compelled to abdicate in his favour. Marshal Étienne Maurice Gérard became Regent during his minority. Louis died aged 30 in 1870, and was succeeded by his son, Louis XIX, who was born the following year.

## Political background, early life and paternity

### Early Life

Born at the Palace of Fontainebleau as the eldest son of Christina, Queen of France. Officially, his father was her husband, Prince Francisco de Asís. Louis's biological paternity is uncertain. There is speculation that his biological father may have been Louis de Pointe du Lac (the captain of the musketeers of the guard). These rumours were used as political propaganda against Louis by the Legitimists. As son of the queen, he was a Fils de France ("son of France"), and as the eldest son, Dauphin of France.

His mother's accession created the second cause of instability, which was the Liberal Wars. The supporters of the Count of Artois as king of France rose to have him enthroned. In addition, within the context of the post-Napoleonic restorations and revolutions which engulfed the West both in Europe and the Americas, both the Legitimists and the Liberal conservatives were opposed to the new Napoleonic constitutional system. As a child, he was raised under the supervision of the royal governess Françoise de Montglatc.

## Rule of Étienne Maurice Gérard

### Regency

Following the Glorious Revolution of 1858, Christina, Queen of France was overthrown. She was forced to abdicate on 24 July 1854 in favour of the ten-year old Louis and appointed General Étienne Maurice Gérard as named Lord Protector of the Realm, Governor of the King's Person, and Regent of the Realm. The Regent let his ministers take full charge of government affairs, playing a far lesser role than Christina. The principle that the prime minister was the person supported by a majority in the Chamber of Deputies, whether the king personally favoured him or not, became established. His governments, with little help from the Regent, presided over French policy.

## Reign as a adulte

### Constitutional Reign

Léon Faucher took power as Premier, the new king, proclaimed on 14 September 1860. Initially led by as moderate prime minister, what was thought at one time as a coup aimed at placing the military in the political-administrative positions of power, in reality ushered in a civilian regime that lasted until Charles de Gaulle's Ascendancy during World War II.

In order to eliminate one of the problems of the reign of Christina, the single party and its destabilizing consequences, the Liberal Party was allowed to incorporate and participate in national politics, and the 'turnismo' or alternation was to become the new system. Turnismo would be endorsed in the Constitution Act of 1860 and the Pact of the Louvre (1881). It meant that liberal and conservative prime ministers would succeed each other ending thus the troubles.

During his reign, Louis on the whole behaved as a constitutional monarch. He did not, however, quite give up interfering in politics. In 1860 Louis refused to sanction a law by which the ministers were to remain in office for a fixed term of 18 months. Upon the consequent resignation of Léon Faucher, he summoned , Émile Ollivier, the Liberal leader, to form a new cabinet. Émile Ollivier played a major role in Louis XVIII's reign from 1860, determining France's direction over the course of the next decade.

Under Louis and Ollivier France gradually became a constitutional monarchy following the British model. Reforms of the voting system increased the power of the Chamber of Deputies at the expense of the Chamber of Peers and the monarch. The French Monarchy became more symbolic than political, it placed a strong emphasis on morality and family values, in contrast to the sexual, financial and personal scandals that had been associated with the reign of Queen Christina.

In colonial affairs, Louis organised the development and administration of French West Africa, and French Equatorial Africa.

## Colonial and Foreign Policy under Louis XVIII

### Africa

Unlike other colonial powers, France, under the guidance of Louis XVIII and Ollivier, encouraged a peaceful coexistence in French West Africa between the colonial administration and the Natives. Africans, converted to Catholicism, were considered as "natural Frenchmen" by the Ordonnance of 1863. And In 1864 King Louis issued the Royal Proclamation of 1863 which retained indigenous elites loyal to the French crown and converts to Christianity as intermediaries between their communities and royal government.

French Equatorial Africa was also developed under Louis XVIII.

### Americas

The American Civil War was waging the Americas. Thousands of Slaves in the Southern States fled to the the French West Indies. Specifically from France's former colonial possession of Louisiana. He issued the Royal Proclamation of Neutrality in 1862. Despite France's Caribbean Possessions being reliant on the southern cotton industry. He as a devoted Catholic was against slavery.

He signed a treaty in 1864 that allowed Tortuga, then a French possession, to have its own constitution, albeit one under French rule.