refused the invitation, but in the end of 1571, after receiving repeated assurances of goodwill, he at length repaired to Blois, where Charles was holding his court. Any suspicion he might still have had was soon removed by the apparent kindness of the king, which he crowned on the 18th of August, 1572, by the marriage of his sister to Henry of Navarre. On Friday the 22nd an attempt was made to shoot Coligni, as he was passing a house occupied by a dependent of the duke of Guise. The king professed to be deeply grieved by this cruel attempt, and visited the wounded man; but the conspirators were plotting deeply, and whatever were the king's motives for his previous conduct, it is sure that his consent was obtained for the dreadful massacre which was begun on the morning of the 24th. He professed to have discovered a conspiracy against his life, and that he ordered the slaughter of the Huguenots in self-defence; but was ever afterwards distracted with the thought of the cruelty to which he had given his sanction, and died in great distress in 1574.—J. B.
CHARLES X., King of France, was the youngest son of the dauphin, grandson of Louis XV., and brother of Louis XVI. He was born at Versailles in October, 1757, and received at his birth the name of Charles-Philippe, and the title of Count of Artois. His early years were spent in frivolity and dissipation. On the breaking out of the Revolution, he resolutely opposed all concession to the popular demands, and quitted France in July, 1789, after the destruction of the bastile. He peremptorily refused to return when invited to do so in 1791, and the legislative assembly in consequence stopped his allowance and confiscated his property. When war was declared against France, Charles took the command of a body of emigrants, and joined the Austrian and Prussian armies in the unsuccessful campaign of 1792. In the following year, after the execution of his brother, Louis XVI., he undertook a journey to Russia, in the hope of obtaining assistance from the Empress Catherine. He next made a descent on the coast of Brittany, after the breaking out of the Vendean war, but speedily re-embarked, and returned to England without accomplishing anything of importance. He resided some years in the palace of Holyrood at Edinburgh; but in 1809 he joined his brother, Louis XVIII., at Hartwell, and in 1814 he went to Germany to watch the progress of events. On the abdication of Napoleon, the count of Artois entered Paris on the 12th of April, and the senate conferred on him the provisional government of the kingdom. On the arrival of the king, his brother, Charles was appointed colonel-general of all the national guards of the kingdom. The return of Napoleon, of course, compelled the count to leave France along with the rest of the royal family; but he returned after the battle of Waterloo. As the leader of the ultra-royalist and priestly party, the count exercised great influence on the government of his brother, and indeed from the date of M. Villele's ministry in 1821, Charles may he regarded as the real king of France. He succeeded to the throne on the death of Louis XVIII., 16th September, 1824. He was fond of popularity, and for a short time his conduct seemed to make a favourable impression upon the French nation; but the priests and jesuits, by whom he was really though unconsciously governed, soon induced him to adopt measures that interfered with the rights and privileges, both sacred and secular, of the people, and excited the strong disapprobation of all sagacious and moderate men. Among the most hateful of these measures may be mentioned the law which was proposed in 1827 for restricting the liberty of the press. Opposition to the government continued to gather force; and in November the chamber of deputies was dissolved by the king. The new elections were decidedly unfavourable to the ministry; and in 1827, M. de Villele and his colleagues were compelled to resign, and were succeeded by Viscount Martignac, counts de Ferronays, Portales, and others. Several good measures were brought forward by the new ministry. M. Martignac, however, did not possess the confidence of the king, and was only endured by him as a necessary evil, to be got rid of at the first favourable opportunity. Accordingly the ministry, having been defeated by a coalition of parties on a bill for reforming the municipal councils, were soon after dismissed by the king (August, 1829), and a government composed of extreme royalists, with Prince Polignac at their head, was established in their room. The appointment of such men was regarded as an insolent defiance to the nation, and a conspiracy against its liberties. It was vehemently denounced by the press, and excited such indignation throughout the whole country, that associations were formed for the purpose of resisting the payment of taxes. The new ministry were defeated on the address in the chamber of deputies by a majority of forty; but the king, in reply to the address, which told him plainly that his ministers did not possess the confidence of the representatives of the people, declared that his resolution was immovable. The next day (March 19) the chamber was prorogued to the 1st of September, and a dissolution was resolved on in May. A crusade was undertaken against the press, and the managers of several of the liberal journals were convicted and severely punished. The new elections went strongly in favour of the opposition. The whole policy of the government was violently reprobated, and every act of theirs was regarded with suspicion or dislike. Even the tidings of the conquest of Algiers, which arrived at this juncture, in no degree lessened their unpopularity. Charles and his advisers, however, were determined not to give way, and at length it was determined on the 7th of July to suspend the constitution. Accordingly, on the 25th, the king issued several ordinances, countersigned by his ministers, abolishing the liberty of the press; dissolving the newly-elected chamber of deputies; which had not yet met, and establishing a new electoral system; reducing the number of deputies from four hundred and thirty to two hundred and fifty-eight; altering the electoral franchise; and placing the elections under the direct influence of the prefects. On the publication of these fatal ordinances, the chief journalists of Paris signed an energetic protest, written by M. Thiers, and continued to publish as before. This was followed by a protest from a number of deputies declaring the ordinances illegal. The people rose in arms, erected barricades in all the principal quarters of Paris, and prepared to overturn the government by force. With a folly and want of foresight almost incredible, Charles and his ministers had taken no precautions whatever against a popular outbreak. The troops in the city were comparatively few in number, and no arrangement had been made to furnish them either with provisions or ammunition. A fierce and sanguinary contest ensued, which lasted for three days, and terminated in the complete triumph of the insurgents and the establishment of a provisional government. Marmont, to whom the command of the garrison of the capital had been intrusted, was compelled to evacuate the city. When the disastrous result was communicated to Charles, who remained at St. Cloud, he was at length induced to revoke the obnoxious ordinances and to dismiss his ministers. But this concession came too late. The popular leaders assembled at the Hotel de Ville, issued a proclamation that Charles X. had ceased to reign. Deserted on all sides, the unhappy monarch finding further resistance hopeless, abdicated the crown on the 9th of August in favour of his grandson, the duke of Bourdeaux; and set out for Cherbourg. The chambers, however, refused to recognize the claims of the young prince, and elected the duke of Orleans, who had previously (July 30) been nominated lieutenant-general of the kingdom by the provisional government. (See Louis-Philippe.) From Cherbourg the dethroned monarch sailed for England, and ultimately took up his residence in Holyrood House. He afterwards spent some time in Prague in Bohemia. In the autumn of 1836 he removed to Goritz in Styria, and died there of cholera on the 6th of October. Charles married in 1773 Maria Theresa of Savoy, sister to the wife of his brother, Louis XVIII. His eldest son, the duc d'Angouleme, who died at Goritz in 1843, was childless. His second son, the duc de Berry, who was assassinated in February, 1820, left one daughter and a posthumous son, the duke de Bourdeaux, or Count Chambord, as he is now called.—J. T.
CHARLES the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, and Count of Charolais, was the son of Philip the Good, and of Isabella of Portugal, and was born in 1433. The mild and free government of Burgundy, in the time of Phillip, had raised the duchy to a degree of prosperity unparalleled at any former period. During the greater part of his reign, Charles was at enmity with his feudal superior, Louis XI. of France. In the lifetime of his father he put himself at the head of a confederacy of the principal French nobility, who had been oppressed by Louis, and marched with a powerful army towards Paris in 1465. A battle took place at Montlhery, where, after an obstinate struggle, Charles remained master of the field. In 1467 he succeeded to the dukedom of Burgundy on the death of his father, from whom he inherited immense treasures, which he squandered in the prosecution of his ambitious and often fantastic schemes. In 1468 he entered into
