Louis XVIII and the Royalist Insurgent Movement in Western France
Bovykin Dmitry
The article deals with the relationship of Louis XVIII, who ascended the throne in 1795, with the leaders of the Vendéens and Chouans. The author raises a question: why the new King, although he made considerable efforts, could not take advantage of resource as powerful as the royalist revolts in the West of France. The Bourbons sought to establish the financing of the uprising by England, they agreed that one of the French princes would personally led the rebels, they organized the landing of the emigrants' troops on the Quiberon peninsula, and still they failed. Discord between the leaders of the rebellion continued and the emigrants upon their landing on Quiberon were defeated by the troops under the command of general L. Hoche. The King's brother the Comte d’Artois, though he had sailed to the French coast, had to return to London. By 1796 the rebellion waned. Exhausted by war, drained by the punitive expeditions of the Republicans, the Vendée and Britanny couldn’t help Louis XVIII, although they remained an important symbol of resistance to the Republic.