A History of Modern Europe - From the Renaissance to the Present

508 Ch. 13 • Napoleon and Europe

French capital in March 1814. Tsar Alexander I of Russia and King Freder­
ick William III of Prussia rode triumphantly into the city. At Fontainebleau,
Napoleon’s marshals refused to join in his frantic plans for an attack on the
allies in Paris and pressured him to abdicate. Talleyrand called the Senate
into session. It voted to depose Napoleon. The allies refused to consider
Napoleon’s abdication in favor of his three-year-old son. Without an army
and, perhaps for the first time, without hope, Napoleon abdicated on April 6,
1814, and then took poison, which failed to kill him. The long adventure
finally seemed at an end.

Monarchical Restoration and Napoleon's Return

The allies sought the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy. The French Sen­
ate, too, expressed its wish that Louis XVI’s brother, the count of Provence,
return to France as Louis XVIII. By the Treaty of Fontainebleau (April 11,
1814), the allies exiled Napoleon to a Mediterranean island off the coast of
Italy. Bonaparte would be emperor of Elba. Marie-Louise refused to accom­
pany him, preferring to be duchess of Parma, receiving the title by virtue of
being a member of the Austrian royal family.

The Bourbon Restoration

The count of Provence entered Paris on May 3, 1814, as King Louis XVIII

(ruled 1814-1815; 1815-1824). With more than a little wishful thinking, he

announced that this was the nine­

teenth year of his reign (counting

from the death of the son of Louis

XVI, who had died in 1795 in a

Paris prison without ever reigning).

The allies worked out a surprisingly

gracious peace treaty with France,

largely thanks to Talleyrand’s

skilled diplomacy. The Treaty of

Paris, signed on May 30, 1814, left

France with Savoy and small

chunks of land in Germany and the

Austrian Netherlands—in other

words, the France of November 1,

1792. France could now rejoin the
      monarchies of Europe.
      Louis XVIII signed a constitu­
      tional “Charter” that granted his
      Louis XVIII, king of the French. Note the people “public liberties,” promising
      perhaps unconscious Napoleonic pose, that a legislature would be elected,