Description
Order of St Louis Knight in Gold, Bourbon Restauration 1814 King Louis XVIII, excellent quality, with original ribbon, with the superb original faded silk bow ribbon.
An attractive and excellent quality piece from the reign of King Louis XVIII dating to 1814-1830.
With Napoleon out of the picture and in Exile on St Helena, King Louis XVIII was brought back from exile to take the throne as King of France and with it came the revival of the ancient Order of St Louis, founded by his forefather King Louis XIV on 5th April 1693 which had been discontinued in 1792 as it was part of the so called “Ancien Regime” that was toppled in the French Revolution of 1792 which led to the Peninsular Wars and rise of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.
The order would suffer a brief interruption when Napoleon returned back to France although after he was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo in March 1815, Louis XVII got back his throne on 20th March 1815.
However after the death of King Louis XIII in 1824, came the Trois GLorieuses aka the French July Revolution of 1830, once again ending the Monarchy in France.
Following the 1830 Revolution, the order was made extinct and would not officially return, recipients of the order who were still living would be allowed to wear the badges however the distinctive “Fleur de Lys” had to be removed as it was a symbol of the Bourbon Dynasty that the people of France had fought so hard to extinguish.
