Once I was a clever boy learning the arts of Oxford... is a quotation from the verses written by Bishop Richard Fleming (c.1385-1431) for his tomb in Lincoln Cathedral. Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College in Oxford, is the subject of my research for a D. Phil., and, like me, a son of the West Riding. I have remarked in the past that I have a deeply meaningful on-going relationship with a dead fifteenth century bishop... it was Fleming who, in effect, enabled me to come to Oxford and to learn its arts, and for that I am immensely grateful.


Saturday 3 May 2014

The entry of King Louis XVIII into Paris 1814


Today is the bicentenary of the entry into his capital city of King Louis XVIII in 1814. I posted about his arrival in France in Return of the Bourbons in 1814 - post I have revised slightly by adding another image.

The Senate having offered to Crown to King Louis XVIII on April 6th, on April 12 his brother the Count of Artois, who had been in France since earlier in the year, entered Paris in state as Lieutenant General of the Realm and what the Count described as the happiest day he had known for thirty years. On April 24th King Louis travelled from Dover to Calais accompanied by other members of the Royal family.

On the 2nd of May 1814 King Louis stopped in Saint-Ouen where, under pressure from Tsar Alexander I and urged on by Talleyrand, he signed the Saint-Ouen Declaration, re-establishing the monarchy whilst recognising significant constitutional changes established under the Revolution and the Empire.There is more about the Declaration here. This can be seen as similar to the Declaration of Breda by King Charles II in 1660, and the terms in respect of land confiscated and sold during the Revolutionary regime similar to the acceptance of the sale of monastic estate sin the 1554 English return to the Roman obedience.



The French Royal family in 1814
King Louis XVIII in the centre, with top left Madame Royale, daughter of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette, top right the Count of Artois, the King's brother and successor as King Charles X, and at the base his two sons, the Duke of Angoulême, husband of Madame Royale, and later King Louis XIX, and the Duke of Berry, father of King Henri V

Image: Tea at Trianon



Nicolas Joseph Vergnaux:Louis-Antoine de France 1775-1844 Duc dAngouleme, at the Barriere de Vaugirard, 1814

The Duke of Angoulême at the Barriere Vaugirard
 by Nicholas Joseph Vergnaux
Musee Carnevallet

Image:1st-art-gallery


Presentation of the Keys of Paris to King Louis XVIII at the Barriere Saint-Denis on 3rd May 1814, c.1815-20 - Henri  (after) Courvoisier-Voisin

Presentation of the keys of the city at the Barriere Saint Denis to the King
by Henri Courvoisier-Voisin

Biblioteque des Arts Decoratifs, Paris

Image:mystudios.com

Nicolas Joseph Vergnaux:Entrance of Louis XVIII 1755-1824 through the Porte Saint-Denis, 1814

Entry of the King at the Porte Saint-Denis
 by Nicholas Joseph Vergnaux
Musee Carnevallet

Image:1st-art-gallery
                                                
  
The ceremonial entry of King Louis XVIII into Paris  A detail of  Melling’s painting of the scene. Brunot's equestrian statue of King Henri IV on the Pont Neuf as seen  here replaced the seventeenth-century original that was destroyed during the Revolution.

Image:sites.google.com

Entry into Paris of Louis XVIII 1814 by French School


A contemporary French print of the entry of the King and Royal Family

Image: Bridgeman art Callery/ easyart.com

Entrée de Louis XVIII à Paris : [3 mai 1814]. 26 : [estampe] / Courvoisier del. ; Dubois sculp. - 1

The procession through the streets
Drawn by Courvoisier, engraved by Dubois 

Image: gallica.bnf.fr 

Nicolas Joseph Vergnaux:Charles-Ferdinand de France 1778-1820 Duc de Berry returning to the Tuileries through the Place Vendome, 1814

The Duke of Berry returns to the Tuilleries through the Place Vendome
 by Nicholas Joseph Vergnaux
Musee Carnevallet

Image:1st-art-gallery
                              



When the Royal party finally arrived at the Tuilleries the emotion of the occasion was to prove too much for Madame Royale on her return to the city which had seen the murder of her parents, aunt and brother by the revolutionaries and she fainted. One can hardly be surprised considering what she had witnessed or been subjected to in the city in the years after 1789 before her release from the Temple in 1795. 

Nonetheless the Restoration had taken place. The next year witnessed the Hundred Days, but the Bourbons were to return again. Asked if the Crown was secure King Louis opined, in his mordant fashion, that if he outlived his brother it was, but if his brother outlived him he could not be sure. The pity is that there was the 1830 revolution, and no satisfactory Restoration after that  - well not so far...



File:Coat of Arms of the Bourbon Restoration (1815-30).svg

Image:Wikipedia

Vive Le Roi!


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