Charles X of France was born on October 9, 1757.

Charles X (9 October 1757 – 6 November 1836) was King of France from 16 September 1824 until 2 August 1830.

Early Life

Charles Philippe of France, born in 1757 at the Palace of Versailles, was the youngest son of the Dauphin Louis and Dauphine Marie Josèphe. At birth, his grandfather, King Louis XV, granted him the title of Count of Artois. As the youngest son, Charles seemed unlikely to ever inherit the throne. However, when his elder brother, Louis, Duke of Burgundy, died in 1761, Charles moved up in the line of succession. After the death of his father in 1765, Charles’ eldest surviving brother, Louis Auguste, became the Dauphin, the heir apparent to the French throne. When King Louis XV passed away in 1774, Louis-Auguste ascended to the throne as Louis XVI.

Charles’ political awakening began in 1786, during the first major crisis of the French monarchy, when it became clear that the kingdom was bankrupt due to the Seven Years’ War and the American War of Independence. In response to this, Louis XVI convened the Estates General in May 1789 to ratify financial reforms. Charles was the most conservative member of the royal family, opposing the demands of the Third Estate (the commoners) to increase their political power. When the Third Estate declared itself a National Assembly in June 1789, intent on creating a new constitution, Charles’ conservative stance became increasingly controversial. He worked with the Baron de Breteuil to form political alliances aimed at removing the liberal finance minister, Jacques Necker. However, this move backfired, and Necker’s dismissal triggered the storming of the Bastille on July 14. Three days later, Charles and his family fled France.

Exile

During Charles’ exile, the National Assembly enacted radical reforms, including the Constitution of 1791, and passed a regency bill that overlooked Charles’s place in the royal succession, favouring the Count of Provence or the Duke of Orléans as potential regents. On January 1, 1792, it declared all émigrés traitors, confiscating their titles and property. The monarchy was formally abolished in September 1792, and by 1793, both Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette had been executed.

With the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars in 1792, Charles fled to Great Britain, where King George III granted him a generous allowance. After his nephew’s death in 1795, Charles’ elder brother, now styled as Louis XVIII, continued to lead the royalist cause from exile. On 31 March, Paris fell to the Allies, and just a week later, Napoleon I abdicated. The Senate restored the Bourbon monarchy, naming Louis XVIII as King. Charles, now heir presumptive, assumed the role of Lieutenant General until Louis XVIII returned from the UK. During this brief regency, he established a secret ultra-royalist police force that operated independently of Louis XVIII’s knowledge and continued for over five years.

Reign

When Louis XVIII passed away in early 1824, Charles, then aged 66, ascended the throne as King Charles X. His reign started with some liberal reforms, such as lifting press censorship, but he quickly reverted to ultra-royalist policies by retaining Joseph de Villèle, his brother’s conservative Prime Minister. In April 1825, two key laws were enacted: the Indemnity Law, which compensated nobles whose properties had been confiscated during the Revolution, and the Anti-Sacrilege Act, which imposed harsh penalties for religious desecration.

After losing the parliamentary majority in the general election of November 1827, Charles reluctantly dismissed Villèle and appointed the more moderate Jean-Baptiste de Martignac as Prime Minister. However, Charles disliked Martignac and eventually replaced him in 1829 with Jules de Polignac, a staunch ultraroyalist. In March 1830, the French Chamber of Deputies, increasingly frustrated with the King’s autocratic tendencies, passed a motion calling for ministerial accountability to the legislature. In response, Charles dissolved the Chamber and called for new elections. The results, unfavourable to Charles, prompted him to take drastic action. On 25 July 1830, he issued the July Ordinances, which dissolved the newly elected Chamber, altered the electoral system to favour his supporters, and reimposed press censorship. These ordinances triggered widespread unrest and on 26 July, protests erupted in Paris. Charles’s military commander, Marshal Marmont, could not quell the uprising, and by 28 July, it was clear that the monarchy’s control had collapsed.

On 2 August 1830, Charles, under pressure, abdicated in favour of his grandson, Henri, Duke of Bordeaux (Henri V). Charles’ son, the Duke of Angoulême, also renounced his claim to the throne, but the newly proclaimed King Henri V was never recognised. Instead, Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orléans, was declared King of the French on 9 August, marking the end of Charles X’s reign and the beginning of the July Monarchy.

Second Exile & Death

After the fall of Charles X, the royal family went into exile in the United Kingdom. In the winter of 1832/33, they moved to Prague at the invitation of Emperor Francis I of Austria. However, upon the death of the latter in 1835, the Bourbons left Prague Castle because the new emperor, Ferdinand I, needed it for coronation ceremonies. Seeking a warmer climate along Austria’s Mediterranean coast, Charles X travelled to Gorizia in the Kingdom of Illyria. Unfortunately, he contracted cholera shortly after his arrival and passed away on 6 November 1836.

Charles X was buried in the Church of the Annunciation of Our Lady, located in Nova Gorica, Slovenia. This makes him the only King of France to be buried outside of his homeland, and his remains lie in a crypt alongside those of his family. There has been a movement since 2016 advocating for the repatriation of his remains to the Basilica of St. Denis, the traditional resting place of French monarchs. However, Louis Alphonse, the current head of the House of Bourbon, expressed his desire in 2017 to let the remains of his ancestors remain undisturbed.