Louis-Antoine d'Artois, duc d'Angoulême

Louis Antoine was born at Versailles, as the eldest son of Charles Philippe, Count of Artois, the youngest brother of King Louis XVI of France. He was born one year after the death of his great-grandfather Louis XV of France. His mother was Princess Maria Theresa of Savoy (known as Marie Thérèse in France), the daughter of Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia and Maria Antonietta of Spain.

From 1780 until 1789, Louis Antoine and his younger brother, Charles Ferdinand, Duke of Berry, were educated by the marquis de Sérent, their gouverneur, in the château de Beauregard, a few miles from Versailles.[2] On the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 the two young princes followed their father into exile to first Turin, then to Germany and finally England.

In 1792, Louis Antoine joined the émigré army of his cousin, the Prince of Condé.

In June 1795, his uncle, the comte de Provence proclaimed himself King Louis XVIII. Later that year, the 20-year old Louis-Antoine led an unsuccessful royalist uprising in the Vendée. In early 1797, he joined his brother and uncle in the German Duchy of Brunswick, hoping to join the Austrian Army. The defeat of Austria by France obliged them to flee, and they took refuge in Mittau, Courland, under the protection of Tsar Paul I of Russia.

There, on 10 June 1799, he married his first cousin, Princess Marie Thérèse of France, the eldest child of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, and the only member of the immediate royal family to survive the French Revolution. Since her release from the Temple Prison in 1795, she had been living at the Austrian court. They had no children.

Military service[edit]

In April 1800, Louis Antoine took command of a regiment of cavalry in the Bavarian army and took part in the battle of Hohenlinden against the French, showing some ability.

In early 1801, Tsar Paul made peace with Bonaparte, and the French court in exile fled to Warsaw, then controlled by Prussia. For the next ten years, Louis-Antoine accompanied and advised his uncle, Louis XVIII. They returned to Russia when Alexander I became Tsar, but in mid-1807 the treaty between Napoleon and Alexander forced them to take refuge in England. There, at Hartwell House, King Louis reconstituted his court, and Louis-Antoine was granted an allowance of £300 a month. Twice (in 1807 and 1813) he attempted to return to Russia to join the fight against Napoleon, but was refused permission by the Tsar. He remained in England until 1814 when he sailed to Bordeaux, which had declared for the King. His entry into the city on 12 March 1814 was regarded as the beginning of the Bourbon restoration. From there, Louis Antoine fought alongside the Duke of Wellington to restore his cousin Ferdinand VII to the throne of Spain.

Flight to England and return[edit]

As chief of the royalist army in the southern Rhône River valley, Louis Antoine was unable to prevent Napoleon's return to Paris and was again forced to flee to England during the "Hundred Days". After the final defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, he loyally served Louis XVIII. In 1823, he commanded a French corps sent into Spain to restore the King's absolute powers, known as the Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis: he was victorious in the Battle of

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