After the resignation of Talleyrand, Louis XVIII designated the technocrat Duke of Richelieu to form a cabinet.

The minister of the Richelieu ministry were Ultras and counter-revolutionaries hostile to Bonapartism and republicanism, and in the first phase of the ministry they actualized the legal terror called "Second White Terror", that caused the exile, the imprisonment or the execution of several revolutionaries.

However, after the partial-election of 1817, a new Liberal leftist group was formed in the Chamber of Deputies, composed by radicals like General Maximilien Foy and Abbot Henri Grégoire.

There was also a rising rivality between Richelieu and his Minister Élie Decazes, a popular Doctrinaire.

Finally, at the end of December 1818, Richelieu resigned after he lost the favour of the Ultras and the support of the Doctrinaires.