Louis Stanislas Xavier, comte de Provence and younger brother of Louis XVI, left Paris on 20 June 1791 and reached the Austrian Netherlands. After Louis XVI’s execution, he claimed the regency for Louis-Charles, recognised by royalists as Louis XVII, and assumed the title Louis XVIII after the child’s death in 1795. He returned in 1814 after Napoleon’s abdication. The Charter preserved equality before the law and confirmed sales of national property, while granting the king extensive executive powers and establishing appointed and narrowly elected chambers. Displaced during the Hundred Days, he returned in 1815 and reigned until 1824.
