Louis XVIII in the context of "French nobility"

The Charter of 1815, signed on 22 April 1815, was the French constitution prepared by Benjamin Constant at the request of Napoleon I when he returned from exile on Elba. Officially named the Additional Act to the Constitutions of the Empire, the document extensively amended (in fact virtually replacing) the previous Napoleonic Constitutions (Constitution of the Year VIII, Constitution of the Year X and Constitution of the Year XII). The Additional Act reframed the Napoleonic constitution into something more along the lines of the Bourbon Restoration's Charter of 1814 of Louis XVIII, while otherwise ignoring the Bourbon charter's existence. It was very liberal in spirit, and gave the French people rights which had previously been unknown to them, such as the right to elect the mayor in communes of less than 5,000 in population. Napoleon treated it as a mere continuation of the previous constitutions, and it therefore took the form of an ordinary legislative act "additional to the constitutions of the Empire".

The French nobility (French: la noblesse française) was an aristocratic social class in France from the Middle Ages until its abolition on 23 June 1790 during the French Revolution.

From 1808 to 1815 during the First Empire the Emperor Napoléon bestowed titles that were recognized as a new nobility by the Charter of 4 June 1814 granted by King Louis XVIII.

The Basilica of Saint-Denis (French: Basilique royale de Saint-Denis, now formally known as the Basilique-cathédrale de Saint-Denis) is a large former medieval abbey church and cathedral in the commune of Saint-Denis, a northern suburb of Paris. The building is of singular importance historically and architecturally as its choir, completed in 1144, is widely considered the first structure to employ all of the elements of Gothic architecture.

The basilica became a place of pilgrimage and a necropolis containing the tombs of the kings of France, including nearly every king from the 10th century to Louis XVIII in the 19th century. Henry IV of France came to Saint-Denis formally to renounce his Protestant faith and become a Catholic. The queens of France were crowned at Saint-Denis, and the regalia, including the sword used for crowning the kings and the royal sceptre, were kept at Saint-Denis between coronations.

The Bourbon Restoration was the period of French history during which the House of Bourbon returned to power after the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1814 and 1815. The second Bourbon Restoration lasted until the July Revolution of 1830, during the reigns of Louis XVIII (1814–1815, 1815–1824) and Charles X (1824–1830), brothers of the late King Louis XVI. Exiled supporters of the monarchy returned to France, which had been profoundly changed by the French Revolution. Exhausted by the Napoleonic Wars, the kingdom experienced a period of internal and external peace, stable economic prosperity and the preliminaries of industrialisation.

The Hundred Days (French: les Cent-Jours IPA: [le sɑ̃ ʒuʁ]), also known as the War of the Seventh Coalition (French: Guerre de la Septième Coalition), marked the period between Napoleon's return from eleven months of exile on the island of Elba to Paris on 20 March 1815 and the second restoration of King Louis XVIII on 8 July 1815 (a period of 110 days). This period saw the War of the Seventh Coalition, and includes the Waterloo campaign and the Neapolitan War as well as several other minor campaigns. The phrase les Cent Jours (the Hundred Days) was first used by the prefect of Paris, Gaspard, comte de Chabrol, in his speech welcoming the king back to Paris on 8 July.

Napoleon returned while the Congress of Vienna was sitting. On 13 March, seven days before Napoleon reached Paris, the powers at the Congress of Vienna declared him an outlaw, and on 25 March, Austria, Prussia, Russia and the United Kingdom, the four Great Powers and key members of the Seventh Coalition, bound themselves to put 150,000 men each into the field to end his rule. This set the stage for the last conflict in the Napoleonic Wars, the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo, the second restoration of the French kingdom, and the permanent exile of Napoleon to the distant island of Saint Helena, where he died in 1821.

The French Charter of 1814 was a constitutional text granted by King Louis XVIII shortly after the Bourbon Restoration, in the form of a royal charter. The Congress of Vienna demanded that Louis bring in a constitution of some form before he was restored.After refusing the proposed constitution, the Constitution sénatoriale, set forth on 6 April 1814 by the provisional government and the Sénat conservateur ("Conservative Senate"), Louis Stanislas Xavier, count of Provence, bestowed a different constitutional Charter, on 4 June 1814. With the Congress of Vienna's demands met, the count of Provence was officially named Louis XVIII, and the monarchy was restored.

The Charter presents itself as a text of compromise, possibly of forgiveness, preserving the numerous acquisitions from the French Revolution and the Empire, whilst restoring the dynasty of the Bourbons. Its title as ‘constitutional Charter’ acts as evidence of compromise, the term ‘charter’ as reference to the Ancien Régime (“old rule”) and ‘constitutional’ indicates revolutionary intent. However, the Charter establishes a limited monarchy, as opposed to a constitutional monarchy, implementing a regime dominated by the King himself, declaring him as Head of State.

The Treaty of Paris of 1815, also known as the Second Treaty of Paris, was signed on 20 November 1815, after the defeat and the second abdication of Napoleon Bonaparte. In February, Napoleon had escaped from his exile on Elba, entered Paris on 20 March and began the Hundred Days of his restored rule. After France's defeat at the hands of the Seventh Coalition at the Battle of Waterloo, In defeat, Napoleon was forced to abdicate again, on 22 June. King Louis XVIII, who had fled the country when Napoleon arrived in Paris, took the throne for a second time on 8 July.

The 1815 treaty had more punitive terms than the treaty of the previous year. France was ordered to pay 700 million francs in indemnities, and its borders were reduced to those that had existed on 1 January 1790. France was to pay additional money to cover the cost of providing additional defensive fortifications to be built by neighbouring Coalition countries. Under the terms of the treaty, parts of France were to be occupied by up to 150,000 soldiers for five years, with France covering the cost. However, the Coalition occupation under the command of the Duke of Wellington was deemed necessary for only three years; the foreign troops withdrew from France in 1818 (Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle).