Émigrés

Émigrés (French, “emigrants”, “refugees”), designation given the Royalist fugitives who fled France during the revolution of 1789, most of them aristocrats or members of the clergy. At their head were the Comte de Provence, who later became Louis XVIII, and the Comte d'Artois, later Charles X (both brothers of King Louis XVI), and Louis Joseph de Bourbon, Prince de Condé. The émigrés sought refuge at first in Germany and Austria, and later in England and Russia.

Before the execution of Louis XVI, the émigrés were active in plots and conspiracies to restore the absolute power of the king. After his death in 1793, they worked to restore the Bourbon monarchy and declared their allegiance to Louis's son, proclaiming him king as Louis XVII. When the latter died in 1795, his place was taken by the Comte de Provence. Many émigrés fought in armies put into the field by the allied European powers to crush the French Revolution. An émigré contingent formed part of the invasion force led by the Duke of Brunswick in 1792, and 3,000 émigrés participated in an abortive landing in Brittany in 1795.

Their lands in France were confiscated and used as part of the security for the paper currency known as Assignats. Relatives of the émigrés were deprived of civil rights, and many were guillotined during the Terror. Some émigrés returned to France during the Napoleonic period; others did not come back until the restoration of the Bourbons in 1814.

After 1917, the term émigré was also applied to refugees from the Russian Revolution and, later, to any political refugee.