Louis XVIII (Louis Stanislas Xavier; 17 November 1755 – 16 September 1824), known as "the Desired" (
le Désiré), was a monarch of the
House of Bourbon who ruled as King of
France from 1814 to 1824 except for a period in 1815 known as the
Hundred Days. Louis XVIII spent twenty-three years in exile, from 1791 to 1814, during the
French Revolution and the
First French Empire, and again in 1815, during the period of the Hundred Days, upon the return of
Napoleon I from
Elba.