Louis XVIII of France

Louis Stanislas Xavier was born in 1755 as Count of Provence, brother to Louis XVI. When the Revolution exploded in 1791, he fled France; the National Convention abolished the monarchy in 1792 and guillotined his brother. After his young nephew Louis XVII died in prison in June 1795, he claimed the throne as Louis XVIII from exile. He drifted through Prussia, Great Britain, and Russia for over two decades. In 1814, the Sixth Coalition defeated Napoleon and placed him on the throne, but Napoleon escaped Elba and Louis XVIII fled again during the Hundred Days. A Seventh Coalition defeated Napoleon a second time and restored Louis XVIII in 1815. He ruled as a constitutional monarch under the Charter of 1814, his royal prerogative drastically reduced. His second return triggered a wave of White Terror; the following year he dissolved the reactionary Chambre introuvable, and his reign saw the rise of the liberal Doctrinaires, the Quintuple Alliance, and a military intervention in Spain. He died in 1824 without children, passing the crown to his brother Charles X - the last French king to die still reigning.