The events and ministerial changes of Louis XVIII.'s reign are described under the article FRANCE: _History_, but it may be said here that the king's policy throughout was one of prudence and common sense. His position was more passive than active, and consisted in giving his support as far as possible to the ministry of the day. While Decazes was still in power, the king's policy to a large extent followed his, and was rather liberal and moderate, but after the assassination of the duc de Berry (1820), when he saw that Decazes could no longer carry on the government, he sorrowfully acquiesced in his departure, showered honours upon him, and transferred his support to Richelieu, the head of the new ministry. In the absence of Decazes a new favourite was found to amuse the king's old age, Madame du Cayla (Zoé Talon, comtesse du Cayla), a protégée of the vicomte Sosthène de la Rochefoucauld and consequently a creature of the Ultras. As the king became more and more infirm, his power of resistance to the intrigues of the Ultras became weaker. The birth of a posthumous son to the duc de Berry (Sept. 1820), the death of Napoleon (5th of May 1821) and the resignation of Richelieu left him entirely in their hands, and after Villèle had formed a ministry of a royalist character the comte d'Artois was associated with the government, which passed more and more out of the king's hands. He died on the 16th of September 1824, worn out in body, but still retaining flashes of his former clear insight and scepticism. The character of Louis XVIII. may be summed up in the words of Bonaparte, quoted by Sorel (_L'Europe et la Rév. fr._ viii. 416 footnote), "C'est Louis XVI. avec moins de franchise et plus d'esprit." He had all the Bourbon characteristics, especially their love of power, combined with a certain nobility of demeanour, and a consciousness of his dignity as king. But his nature was cold, unsympathetic and calculating, combined with a talent for intrigue, to which was added an excellent memory and a ready wit. An interesting judgment of him is contained in _Queen Victoria's Letters_, vol. i., in a letter of Leopold I., king of the Belgians, to the queen before her accession, dated the 18th of November 1836, "Poor Charles X. is dead.... History will state that Louis XVIII. was a most liberal monarch, reigning with great mildness and justice to his end, but that his brother, from his despotic and harsh disposition, upset all the other had done and lost the throne. Louis XVIII. was a clever, hard-hearted man, shackled by no principle, very proud and false. Charles X. an honest man, a kind friend," &c. &c. This seems fairly just as a personal estimate, though it does not do justice to their respective political rôles.