La Rochefoucauld was appointed
aide-de-camp to General
Jean Joseph Dessolles immediately after the Allies entered Paris in 1814. He was sent to
Nancy to inform
Charles, Count of Artois of the formation of the provisional government and the fall of
Napoleon. Due to his role in the reestablishment of the "legitimate throne" after the fall of Napoleon, including attempting to bring down the statue of Napoleon on the
Vendôme Column, he was excluded from the amnesty that Bonaparte promulgated, on his
return from the island of Elba. La Rochefoucauld accompanied King
Louis XVIII to
Ghent, and was appointed Colonel of the 5th Legion of the
National Guard of Paris and aide-de-camp to Charles,
Count of Artois during the
Second Restoration. On 22 August 1815, he was elected Deputy for
Marne in the
Chamber of Deputies, voting with the
ultra-royalist majority of the "
Chambre introuvable" He was unable to be re-elected in 1816 as he was under the newly required age, however, he remained aide-de-camp to the Count of Artois. As an intimate of
Zoé Talon du Cayla, he continued his influence in favor of absolute monarchy by pushing her towards
Louis XVIII.
Director of Fine Arts (with Rochefoucauld to the right of the King), 1892 copy by Étienne-Antoine-Eugène Ronjat of
François-Joseph Heim's 1827 painting. In August 1824, King Louis XVIII named him Director General of the Division of Fine Arts and Royal Theaters, a department within the
Ministry of the Interior under Minister
Jacques Joseph de Corbière. When the King died a few days later, he selected
Victor Hugo as the official poet for the
Coronation of Charles X of France. As Director-General of Fine Arts, his duties included supervision of the Royal Theaters and Royal Museums. A number of decrees during his tenure were unpopular, including regulating the length of Opera dancer's skirts, and having plaster vine leaves applied to the middle of all the statues. With the help of
Guillaume Capelle, he unsuccessfully tried to take control of the newspapers undertaking to remove
Joseph-François Michaud, a highly critical royalist journalist, from overseeing
La Quotidienne. He was able to get
Louis XVIII to authorize the purchase of
David's Intervention of the Sabine Women and
Thermopyle for the Louvre, and
Théodore Géricault's
The Raft of the Medusa, which was bought from the painter's heirs in 1824. In 1825, together with
Louis Nicolas Philippe Auguste de Forbin, he chose the subjects for the decorations of the ceilings of four rooms, intended for the
Conseil d'État of the
Jacques Lemercier wing of the
Louvre. After July 1830, the position of Director of Fine Arts remained vacant until journalist
Edmond Cavé was appointed in 1833.
Later years He was promoted to
Maréchal de camp in May 1825, before being elected to the Chamber of Deputies on 24 November 1827, as a Deputy of Marne. After the
July Revolution of 1830, La Rochefoucauld remained in contact with the royal family in exile. The
Duchess of Angoulême (the eldest child of King
Louis XVI and Queen
Marie Antoinette, and their only child to reach adulthood) asked him to investigate
Karl Wilhelm Naundorff, who claimed to be
her brother who died in
Temple prison. ==Personal life==