CHARLES X, King of France. — Son of Louis, Dauphin of France, and Maria Josepha of Saxony, born on 9 Oct 1757 at Versailles, died on 6 Nov 1836 at Gorizia. He bore the title of Count of Artois and married in 1773 Maria Theresa of Savoy. Opposed to any reform, he left France on the morrow of the taking of the Bastille and settled in Turin. Later he moved to Coblenz and finally to England, becoming one of the leaders of the emigration. After the fall of Napoleon, on 12 Apr 1814 he made his triumphal entry into Paris as lieutenant-general of his brother, King Louis XVIII. At the latter’s death in 1824 he succeeded to the throne.
He promised to be and was the king of the émigrés. He secured the passage of a law indemnifying those whose property had been confiscated during the Revolution and sought to reintroduce the law of primogeniture, encountering opposition in the Chamber. In 1829 he proceeded to form a ministry of pure royalists, of which the leading figure was the Prince de Polignac. On 26 July 1830 the four “Ordonnances” were issued suppressing press freedom, dissolving the Chamber, altering the electoral body and fixing the date of new elections. This was the signal for the so-called July Revolution, and on 2 Aug the king was forced to abdicate. Charles X, though not free from the traditional Gallican prejudices of French monarchs, maintained during his reign a cordial attitude toward the Catholic Church and the Holy See.