Description

Louis XVIII (1755–1824), known as "The Desired", was a monarch of the House of Bourbon who ruled as King of France from 1814 to 1824 except for a period in 1815 known as the Hundred Days. Louis XVIII spent twenty-three years in exile in Prussia, the United Kingdom and Russia, from 1791 to 1814, during the French Revolution and the First French Empire, and again in 1815, during the period of the Hundred Days, upon the return of Napoleon I from Elba.

Louis XVIII ruled as king for slightly less than a decade. The Bourbon Restoration regime was a constitutional monarchy (unlike the ancien régime, which was absolutist). As a constitutional monarch, Louis XVIII's royal prerogative was reduced substantially by the Charter of 1814, France's new constitution. Louis had no children; therefore, upon his death, the crown passed to his brother, Charles, Count of Artois.

Engraver: Pierre-Joseph Tiolier