Louis XVIII of France

1755–1824 · King of France, 1814–1824 · Bourbon Restoration

Louis XVIII (Louis-Stanislas-Xavier de France) was the elder of the two Bourbon brothers restored to the French throne after Napoleon’s fall, reigning from 1814 (with the Hundred Days interruption in 1815) until his death in 1824. Ironically, the line so often put in Napoleon’s mouth is documented as the restored king’s: addressing the officer cadets of Saint-Cyr in 1819, he framed the army as a career open to talent — the same meritocratic promise his predecessor had embodied.

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“Every soldier carries a marshal's baton in his knapsack”

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