norms of international law. In the edict Hanover was called a "usurper", and this caused outrage in Hanover and England. The German Confederation that same year attempted to intervene in this matter and ordered Charles to accept the new constitution from his minority. Charles disregarded it, and continued governing as his father had. He did not have his decrees cosigned, but continued as an absolute monarch, as the Guelphs had been for more than 1,000 years. The ownership of the printing presses ultimately won the battle as the popular opinion was turned against their monarch. Charles's administration was maligned as being corrupt and misguided. When in 1830 the July Revolution broke out, Charles happened to be in Paris. He hurriedly returned to Brunswick, where he announced his intention to suppress all revolutionary tendencies by force. But on 6 September, he was attacked by stone throwers while riding home from the theatre; on the next day, a large mob tried to break into the palace. Charles fled and the palace was completely destroyed by fire. When Charles's brother, William, arrived in Brunswick on 10 September, he was received joyfully by the people. William originally considered himself only his brother's regent, but after a year declared himself ruling duke. Charles made several desperate attempts to depose his brother by diplomacy and by force, but they were unsuccessful. Charles reportedly had agreements from the French King to send a mercenary army to retake the duchy. Charles continued to be active in his office as ruling prince in exile. He filed many protests against Hanover, against his brother, and against Prussia's annexation of the Kingdom of Hanover after the 1866 Austro-Prussian War. In his later letters he predicted communism would take the lands from the Prussians. Charles spent the rest of his life outside of Germany, mostly in Paris and London. While he lived in London he engaged in a high-profile feud with the publisher Barnard Gregory due to articles published about the Duke in The Satirist. After the war between France and Germany broke out, he moved to Geneva, where he died in the Beau-Rivage Hotel in 1873, aged 68. Brunswick Monument In his will drawn up on 5 March 1871, Charles left his entire estate to the city of Geneva with a single stipulation: that a mausoleum be built for him in Geneva "in a prominent position and worthy", that it should