Louis XVI

Portrait by Antoine-François Callet

King of FranceReign 10 May 1774 – 21

September 1792 King of the French3 September 1791 –21 September 1792

Coronation 11 June 1775Reims Cathedral

Predecessor Louis XV

Successor Louis XVIII

Born 23 August 1754Palace of Versailles,France

Died 21 January 1793(aged 38)Place de la Révolution,Paris, France

Burial 21 January 1815Basilica of St Denis

Spouse Marie Antoinette ofAustria(m. 1770)

Issue Marie Thérèse, Queenof FranceLouis Joseph, Dauphinof FranceLouis XVII of FrancePrincess Sophie

Full name

Louis Auguste de France

House Bourbon

Louis XVI

Louis XVI (Louis-Auguste; French pronunciation: [lwi sɛːz]; 23 August 1754 – 21 January1793) was the last king of France before the fall of the monarchy during the FrenchRevolution. He was referred to as Citizen Louis Capet during the four months just beforehe was executed by guillotine. In 1765, upon the death of his father, Louis, Dauphin ofFrance, he became the new Dauphin. Upon his grandfather Louis XV's death on 10 May1774, he assumed the title King of France and Navarre, until 4 September 1791, when hereceived the title of King of the French until the monarchy was abolished on 21 September1792.

The first part of his reign was marked by attempts to reform the French government inaccordance with Enlightenment ideas. These included efforts to abolish serfdom, removethe taille (land tax) and the corvée (labour tax),[1] and increase tolerance toward non-Catholics as well as abolish the death penalty for deserters.[2][3] The French nobility reactedto the proposed reforms with hostility, and successfully opposed their implementation.Louis implemented deregulation of the grain market, advocated by his economic liberalminister Turgot, but it resulted in an increase in bread prices. In periods of bad harvests, itled to food scarcity which, during a particularly bad harvest in 1775, prompted the massesto revolt. From 1776, Louis XVI actively supported the North American colonists, whowere seeking their independence from Great Britain, which was realised in the 1783 Treatyof Paris. The ensuing debt and financial crisis contributed to the unpopularity of the AncienRégime. This led to the convening of the Estates-General of 1789. Discontent among themembers of France's middle and lower classes resulted in strengthened opposition to theFrench aristocracy and to the absolute monarchy, of which Louis and his wife, QueenMarie Antoinette, were viewed as representatives. Increasing tensions and violence weremarked by events such as the storming of the Bastille, during which riots in Paris forcedLouis to definitively recognize the legislative authority of the National Assembly.

Louis's indecisiveness and conservatism led some elements of the people of France to viewhim as a symbol of the perceived tyranny of the Ancien Régime, and his popularitydeteriorated progressively. His unsuccessful flight to Varennes in June 1791, four monthsbefore the constitutional monarchy was declared, seemed to justify the rumors that the kingtied his hopes of political salvation to the prospects of foreign intervention. The credibilityof the king was deeply undermined, and the abolition of the monarchy and theestablishment of a republic became an ever-increasing possibility. The growth of anti-clericalism among revolutionaries resulted in the abolition of the dîme (religious land tax)and several government policies aimed at the dechristianization of France.

In a context of civil and international war, Louis XVI was suspended and arrested at thetime of the Insurrection of 10 August 1792. One month later, the absolute monarchy wasabolished and the First French Republic was proclaimed on 21 September 1792. Louis wasthen tried by the National Convention (self-instituted as a tribunal for the occasion), foundguilty of high treason, and executed by guillotine on 21 January 1793, as a desacralizedFrench citizen under the name of Citizen Louis Capet, in reference to Hugh Capet, thefounder of the Capetian dynasty – which the revolutionaries interpreted as Louis's surname.Louis XVI was the only king of France ever to be executed, and his death brought an endto more than a thousand years of continuous French monarchy. Both of his sons died inchildhood, before the Bourbon Restoration; his only child to reach adulthood, MarieTherese, was given over to the Austrians in exchange for French prisoners of war,eventually dying childless in 1851.

ChildhoodFamily lifeAbsolute monarch of France, 1774–1789

Contents

Father Louis, Dauphin ofFrance

Mother Maria Josepha ofSaxony

Religion Roman Catholicism

Signature

The young duc de Berry (right) with hisyounger brother, the comte de Provence.Portrait by François-Hubert Drouais, 1757

The duc de Berry as a youngboy, artist unknown

Foreign policyConcerning the American Revolution and EuropeConcerning Asia

Revolutionary constitutional reign, 1789–1792Flight to Varennes (1791)Intervention by foreign powers

Imprisonment, execution and burial, 1792–1793Legacy

In film and literature

AncestryArmsReferencesBibliography

HistoriographyPrimary sources

External links

Louis-Auguste de France, who was given the titleDuc de Berry at birth, was born in the Palace ofVersailles. One of seven children, he was thesecond surviving son of Louis, the Dauphin ofFrance, and the grandson of Louis XV of Franceand of his consort, Maria Leszczyńska. His motherwas Marie-Josèphe of Saxony, the daughter ofFrederick Augustus II of Saxony, Prince-Elector ofSaxony and King of Poland.

Louis-Auguste was overlooked by his parents whofavored his older brother, Louis, duc deBourgogne, who was regarded as bright andhandsome but who died at the age of nine in 1761.Louis-Auguste, a strong and healthy boy but veryshy, excelled in his studies and had a strong taste

for Latin, history, geography, and astronomy and became fluent in Italian and English. He enjoyedphysical activities such as hunting with his grandfather and rough play with his younger brothers,Louis-Stanislas, comte de Provence, and Charles-Philippe, comte d'Artois. From an early age, Louis-Auguste was encouraged inanother of his interests, locksmithing, which was seen as a useful pursuit for a child.[4]

When his father died of tuberculosis on 20 December 1765, the eleven-year-old Louis-Auguste became the new Dauphin. His mothernever recovered from the loss of her husband and died on 13 March 1767, also from tuberculosis.[5] The strict and conservativeeducation he received from the Duc de La Vauguyon, "gouverneur des Enfants de France" (governor of the Children of France), from1760 until his marriage in 1770, did not prepare him for the throne that he was to inherit in 1774 after the death of his grandfather,Louis XV. Throughout his education, Louis-Auguste received a mixture of studies particular to religion, morality, and humanities.[6]

His instructors may have also had a good hand in shaping Louis-Auguste into the indecisive king that he became. Abbé Berthier, hisinstructor, taught him that timidity was a value in strong monarchs, and Abbé Soldini, his confessor, instructed him not to let peopleread his mind.[7]

On 16 May 1770, at the age of fifteen, Louis-Auguste married the fourteen-year-old Habsburg Archduchess Maria Antonia (betterknown by the French form of her name, Marie Antoinette), his second cousin once removed and the youngest daughter of the HolyRoman Emperor Francis I and his wife, the Empress Maria Theresa.[8]

Childhood

Family life

Marie Antoinette, Queen of France,with her three eldest children, Marie-Thérèse, Louis-Charles and Louis-Joseph, by Marie Louise ÉlisabethVigée-Lebrun

Louis XVI in early adulthood

Louis-Charles, the dauphin of Franceand future Louis XVII, by MarieLouise Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun

This marriage was met with hostility from the French public. France's alliance with Austriahad pulled the country into the disastrous Seven Years' War, in which it was defeated by theBritish and the Prussians, both in Europe and in North America. By the time that Louis-Auguste and Marie-Antoinette were married, the French people generally disliked theAustrian alliance, and Marie-Antoinette was seen as an unwelcome foreigner.[9] For theyoung couple, the marriage was initially amiable but distant. Louis-Auguste's shyness and,among other factors, the young age and inexperience of the newlyweds (who were near totalstrangers to each other: they had met only two days before their wedding) meant that the 15-year-old bridegroom failed to consummate the union with his 14-year-old bride. His fear ofbeing manipulated by her for imperial purposes caused him to behave coldly towards her inpublic.[10] Over time, the couple became closer, though while their marriage was reportedlyconsummated in July 1773, it did not actually happen until 1777.[11]

The couple's failure to produce any children for several years placed a strain upon theirmarriage,[12] exacerbated by the publication of obscene pamphlets (libelles) mocking theirinfertility. One questioned, "Can the King do it? Can't the King do it?"[13]

The reasons for the couple's initial failure to have children were debated at that time, and theyhave continued to be debated since. One suggestion is that Louis-Auguste suffered from aphysiological dysfunction,[14] most often thought to be phimosis, a suggestion first made inlate 1772 by the royal doctors.[15] Historians adhering to this view suggest that he wascircumcised[16] (a common treatment for phimosis) to relieve the condition seven years aftertheir marriage. Louis's doctors were not in favour of the surgery – the operation was delicateand traumatic, and capable of doing "as much harm as good" to an adult male. The argumentfor phimosis and a resulting operation is mostly seen to originate from Stefan Zweig's 1932biography of Marie Antoinette.

Most modern historians agree that Louis had no surgery[17][18][19] – for instance, as late as1777, the Prussian envoy, Baron Goltz, reported that the King of France had definitelydeclined the operation.[20] Louis was frequently declared to be perfectly capable of sexualintercourse, as confirmed by Joseph II, and during the time he was supposed to have had theoperation, he went out hunting almost every day, according to his journal. This would nothave been possible if he had undergone a circumcision; at the very least, he would have beenunable to ride to the hunt for a few weeks afterwards. The couple's sexual problems are nowattributed to other factors. Antonia Fraser's biography of the queen discusses Joseph II's letteron the matter to one of his brothers after he visited Versailles in 1777. In the letter, Josephdescribes in astonishingly frank detail Louis's inadequate performance in the marriage bedand Antoinette's lack of interest in conjugal activity. Joseph described the couple as"complete fumblers"; however, with his advice, Louis began to apply himself moreeffectively to his marital duties, and in the third week of March 1778 Marie Antoinettebecame pregnant.

Eventually, the royal couple became the parents of four children. According to MadameCampan, Marie Antoinette's lady-in-waiting, the queen also suffered two miscarriages. Thefirst one, in 1779, a few months after the birth of her first child, is mentioned in a letter to herdaughter, written in July by empress Maria Theresa. Madame Campan states that Louis spentan entire morning consoling his wife at her bedside, and swore to secrecy everyone whoknew of the occurrence. Marie Antoinette suffered a second miscarriage on the night of 2–3November 1783.

Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were the parents of four live-born children:

Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte (19 December 1778 – 19 October 1851)Louis-Joseph-Xavier-François, the Dauphin (22 October 1781 – 4 June 1789)Louis-Charles, Dauphin after the death of his elder brother, future titular kingLouis XVII of France (27 March 1785 – 8 June 1795)Sophie-Hélène-Béatrix, died in infancy (9 July 1786 – 19 June 1787)

In addition to his biological children, Louis XVI also adopted six children: "Armand"Francois-Michel Gagné (c. 1771-1792), a poor orphan adopted in 1776; Jean Amilcar (c.1781-1793), a Senegalese slave boy given to the queen as a present by Chevalier deBoufflers in 1787, but whom she instead had freed, baptized, adopted and placed in a pension; Ernestine Lambriquet (1778-1813),

Louis XVI by Antoine-FrançoisCallet, 1786

"Le Couronnement de Louis XVI", byBenjamin Duvivier, honoring the 11June 1775 coronation of Louis XVI

daughter of two servants at the palace, who was raised as the playmate of his daughter and whom he adopted after the death of hermother in 1788; and finally "Zoe" Jeanne Louise Victoire (born in 1787), who was adopted in 1790 along with her two older sisterswhen her parents, an usher and his wife in service of the king, had died.[21]

Of these, only Armand, Ernestine and Zoe actually lived with the royal family: Jean Amilcar, along with the elder siblings of Zoe andArmand who were also formally foster children of the royal couple, simply lived on the queen's expense until her imprisonment,which proved fatal for at least Amilcar, as he was evicted from the boarding school when the fee was no longer paid, and reportedlystarved to death on the street.[21] Armand and Zoe had a position which was more similar to that of Ernestine: Armand lived at courtwith the king and queen until he left them at the outbreak of the revolution because of his republican sympathies, and Zoe was chosento be the playmate of the Dauphin, just as Ernestine had once been selected as the playmate of Marie-Therese, and sent away to hersisters in a convent boarding school before the Flight to Varennes in 1791.[21]

When Louis XVI acceded to the throne in 1774, he was nineteen years old. He had anenormous responsibility, as the government was deeply in debt, and resentment of despoticmonarchy was on the rise. He himself felt woefully unqualified to resolve the situation.

As king, Louis XVI focused primarily on religious freedom and foreign policy. While nonedoubted his intellectual ability to rule France, it was quite clear that, although raised as theDauphin since 1765, he lacked firmness and decisiveness. His desire to be loved by hispeople is evident in the prefaces of many of his edicts that would often explain the nature andgood intention of his actions as benefiting the people, such as reinstating the parlements.When questioned about his decision, he said, "It may be considered politically unwise, but itseems to me to be the general wish and I want to be loved."[22] In spite of his indecisiveness,Louis XVI was determined to be a good king, stating that he "must always consult publicopinion; it is never wrong."[23] He, therefore, appointed an experienced advisor, Jean-Frédéric Phélypeaux, Comte de Maurepas who, until his death in 1781, would take charge ofmany important ministerial functions.

Among the major events of Louis XVI's reign was his signing of the Edict of Versailles, alsoknown as the Edict of Tolerance, on 7 November 1787, which was registered in the parlement on 29 January 1788. Granting non-Roman Catholics – Huguenots and Lutherans, as well as Jews – civil and legal status in France and the legal right to practice theirfaiths, this edict effectively nullified the Edict of Fontainebleau that had been law for 102 years. The Edict of Versailles did not legallyproclaim freedom of religion in France – this took two more years, with the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of 1789 –however, it was an important step in eliminating religious tensions and it officially ended religious persecution within his realm.[24]

Radical financial reforms by Turgot and Malesherbes angered the nobles and were blockedby the parlements who insisted that the King did not have the legal right to levy new taxes.So, in 1776, Turgot was dismissed and Malesherbes resigned, to be replaced by JacquesNecker. Necker supported the American Revolution, and he carried out a policy of taking outlarge international loans instead of raising taxes. He attempted to gain public favor in 1781 bypublishing of the first ever accounting of the French Crown's expenses and accounts, theCompte-rendu au Roi. This misleading publication led the people of France to believe thekingdom ran a modest surplus.[25] When this policy of hiding and ignoring the kingdom'sfinancial woes failed miserably, Louis dismissed and replaced him in 1783 with CharlesAlexandre de Calonne, who increased public spending to "buy" the country's way out ofdebt. Again this failed, so Louis convoked the Assembly of Notables in 1787 to discuss a

revolutionary new fiscal reform proposed by Calonne. When the nobles were informed of the true extent of the debt, they wereshocked and rejected the plan.

After this, Louis XVI and his new Controller-General des finances, Étienne-Charles de Loménie de Brienne, tried to simply force theParlement de Paris to register the new laws and fiscal reforms. Upon the refusal of the members of the Parlement, Louis XVI tried touse his absolute power to subjugate them by every means: enforcing in many occasions the registration of his reforms (6 August 1787,19 November 1787, and 8 May 1788), exiling all Parlement magistrates to Troyes as a punishment on 15 August 1787, prohibitingsix members from attending parliamentary sessions on 19 November, arresting two very important members of the Parlement, whoopposed his reforms, on 6 May 1788, and even dissolving and depriving of all power the "Parlement," replacing it with a plenarycourt, on 8 May 1788. The failure of these measures and displays of royal power is attributable to three decisive factors. First, themajority of the population stood in favor of the Parlement against the King, and thus continuously rebelled against him. Second, theroyal treasury was financially destitute to a crippling degree, leaving it incapable of sustaining its own imposed reforms. Third,although the King enjoyed as much absolute power as his predecessors, he lacked the personal authority crucial for absolutism tofunction properly. Now unpopular to both the commoners and the aristocracy, Louis XVI was therefore only very briefly able toimpose his decisions and reforms, for periods ranging from 2 to 4 months, before having to revoke them.

Absolute monarch of France, 1774–1789

Surrender of Cornwallis to French(left) and American (right) troops, atthe Siege of Yorktown in 1781, byJohn Trumbull

Louis XVI receiving theambassadors of Tippu Sultan in1788, Voyer after Emile Wattier, 19thcentury

As authority dissipated from him and reforms were clearly becoming unavoidable, there were increasingly loud calls for him toconvoke the Estates-General, which had not met since 1614 (at the beginning of the reign of Louis XIII). As a last-ditch attempt to getnew monetary reforms approved, Louis XVI convoked the Estates-General on 8 August 1788, setting the date of their opening on 1May 1789. With the convocation of the Estates-General, as in many other instances during his reign, Louis XVI placed his reputationand public image in the hands of those who were perhaps not as sensitive to the desires of the French population as he was. Because ithad been so long since the Estates-General had been convened, there was some debate as to which procedures should be followed.Ultimately, the Parlement de Paris agreed that "all traditional observances should be carefully maintained to avoid the impression thatthe Estates-General could make things up as it went along." Under this decision, the king agreed to retain many of the traditionswhich had been the norm in 1614 and prior convocations of the Estates-General, but which were intolerable to a Third Estate buoyedby recent proclamations of equality. For example, the First and Second Estates proceeded into the assembly wearing their finestgarments, while the Third Estate was required to wear plain, oppressively somber black, an act of alienation that Louis XVI wouldlikely have not condoned. He seemed to regard the deputies of the Estates-General with respect: in a wave of self-importantpatriotism, members of the Estates refused to remove their hats in the King's presence, so Louis removed his to them.[26]

This convocation was one of the events that transformed the general economic and political malaise of the country into the FrenchRevolution. In June 1789, the Third Estate unilaterally declared itself the National Assembly. Louis XVI's attempts to control itresulted in the Tennis Court Oath (serment du jeu de paume), on 20 June, the declaration of the National Constituent Assembly on 9July, and eventually to the storming of the Bastille on 14 July, which started the French Revolution. Within three short months, themajority of the king's executive authority had been transferred to the elected representatives of the Nation.

French involvement in the Seven Years' War had left Louis XVI a disastrous inheritance. Britain's victories had seen them capturemost of France's colonial territories. While some were returned to France at the 1763 Treaty of Paris, a vast swath of North Americawas ceded to the British.

This had led to a strategy amongst the French leadership of seeking to rebuild the French military in order to fight a war of revengeagainst Britain, in which it was hoped the lost colonies could be recovered. France still maintained a strong influence in the WestIndies, and in India maintained five trading posts, leaving opportunities for disputes and power-play with Great Britain.[27]

In the spring of 1776, Vergennes, the Foreign Secretary, saw an opportunity to humiliateFrance's long-standing enemy, Great Britain, and to recover territory lost during the SevenYears' War, by supporting the American Revolution. In the same year Louis was persuadedby Pierre Beaumarchais to send supplies, ammunition, and guns to the rebels secretly. Earlyin 1778 he signed a formal Treaty of Alliance, and later that year France went to war withBritain. In deciding in favor of war, despite France's large financial problems, the King wasmaterially influenced by alarmist reports after the Battle of Saratoga, which suggested thatBritain was preparing to make huge concessions to the thirteen colonies and then, allied withthem, to strike at French and Spanish possessions in the West Indies.[28] Spain and theNetherlands soon joined the French in an anti-British coalition. After 1778, Great Britainswitched its focus to the West Indies, as defending the sugar islands was considered moreimportant than trying to recover the thirteen colonies. France and Spain planned to invade theBritish Isles themselves with the Armada of 1779, but the operation never went ahead.

France's initial military assistance to the American rebels was a disappointment, with defeatsat Rhode Island and Savannah. In 1780, France sent Rochambeau and Grasse to help theAmericans, along with large land and naval forces. The French expeditionary force arrived inNorth America in July 1780. The appearance of French fleets in the Caribbean was followedby the capture of a number of the sugar islands, including Tobago and Grenada.[29] InOctober 1781, the French naval blockade was instrumental in forcing a British army underCornwallis to surrender at the Siege of Yorktown.[30] When news of this reached London inMarch 1782, the government of Lord North fell and Great Britain immediately sued for peaceterms; however, France delayed the end of the war until September 1783 in the hope ofoverrunning more British colonies in India and the West Indies.

Great Britain recognized the independence of the thirteen colonies as the United States ofAmerica, and the French war ministry rebuilt its army. However, the British defeated themain French fleet in 1782 and successfully defended Jamaica and Gibraltar. France gainedlittle from the 1783 Treaty of Paris that ended the war, except the colonies of Tobago andSenegal. Louis XVI was wholly disappointed in his aims of recovering Canada, India, and

Foreign policy

Concerning the American Revolution and Europe

Louis XVI giving La Pérouse hisinstructions, by Nicolas-AndréMonsiau

One Louis d'or, 1788, depicting LouisXVI

other islands in the West Indies from Britain, as they were too well defended and the Royal Navy made any attempted invasion ofmainland Britain impossible. The war cost 1,066 million livres, financed by new loans at high interest (with no new taxes). Neckerconcealed the crisis from the public by explaining only that ordinary revenues exceeded ordinary expenses, and not mentioning theloans. After he was forced from office in 1781, new taxes were levied.[31]

This intervention in America was not possible without France adopting a neutral position in European affairs to avoid being drawninto a continental war which would be simply a repetition of the French policy mistakes in the Seven Years' War. Vergennes,supported by King Louis, refused to go to War to support Austria in the Bavarian Succession crisis in 1778, when Austrian HolyRoman Emperor Joseph tried to control parts of Bavaria. Vergennes and Maurepas refused to support the Austrian position, but theintervention of Marie Antoinette in favor of Austria obliged France to adopt a position more favorable to Austria, which in the treatyof Teschen was able to get in compensation a territory whose population numbered around 100,000 persons. However, thisintervention was a disaster for the image of the Queen, who was named "l'Autrichienne" (a pun in French meaning "Austrian", butthe "chienne" suffix can mean "bitch") on account of it.[32]

Louis XVI hoped to use the American Revolutionary War as an opportunity to expel theBritish from India.[27] In 1782, he sealed an alliance with the Peshwa Madhu Rao Narayan.As a consequence, Bussy moved his troops to the Isle de France (now Mauritius) and latercontributed to the French effort in India in 1783.[27][33] Suffren became the ally of Hyder Aliin the Second Anglo-Mysore War against British rule in India, in 1782–1783, fighting theBritish fleet along the coasts of India and Ceylon.[34][35]

France also intervened in Cochinchina following Mgr Pigneau de Béhaine's intervention toobtain military aid. A France-Cochinchina alliance was signed through the Treaty ofVersailles of 1787, between Louis XVI and Prince Nguyễn Ánh.[36]

Louis XVI also encouraged major voyages of exploration. In 1785, he appointed La Pérouseto lead a sailing expedition around the world. (La Pérouse and his fleet disappeared afterleaving Botany Bay in March 1788. Louis is recorded as having asked, on the morning of hisexecution, "Any news of La Pérouse?".)[37]

There is a lack of scholarship on the subject of Louis XVI's time as a constitutional monarch, though it was a significant length oftime. The reason as to why many biographers have not elaborated extensively on this time in the king's life is due to the uncertaintysurrounding his actions during this period, as Louis XVI's declaration that was left behind in the Tuileries stated that he regarded hisactions during constitutional reign provisional; he reflected that his "palace was a prison". This time period was exemplary in itsdemonstration of an institution's deliberation while in their last standing moments.[38]

Louis XVI's time in his previous palace came to an end on 5 October 1789, when an angry mob of Parisian working men and womenwas incited by revolutionaries and marched on the Palace of Versailles, where the royal family lived. At dawn, they infiltrated thepalace and attempted to kill the queen, who was associated with a frivolous lifestyle that symbolized much that was despised about theAncien Régime. After the situation had been defused by Lafayette, head of the Garde nationale, the king and his family were broughtby the crowd to the Tuileries Palace in Paris, the reasoning being that the king would be more accountable to the people if he livedamong them in Paris.

The Revolution's principles of popular sovereignty, though central to democratic principles oflater eras, marked a decisive break from the centuries-old principle of divine right that was atthe heart of the French monarchy. As a result, the Revolution was opposed by many of therural people of France and by all the governments of France's neighbors. Still, within the cityof Paris and amongst the philosophers of the time, many of which were members of theNational Assembly, the monarchy had next to no support. As the Revolution became moreradical and the masses more uncontrollable, several of the Revolution's leading figures beganto doubt its benefits. Some, like Honoré Mirabeau, secretly plotted with the Crown to restoreits power in a new constitutional form.

Beginning in 1791, Montmorin, Minister of Foreign Affairs, started to organize covertresistance to the revolutionary forces. Thus, the funds of the Liste Civile, voted annually by the National Assembly, were partiallyassigned to secret expenses in order to preserve the monarchy. Arnault Laporte, who was in charge of the Civil list, collaborated withboth Montmorin and Mirabeau. After the sudden death of Mirabeau, Maximilien Radix de Sainte-Foix, a noted financier, took hisplace. In effect, he headed a secret council of advisers to Louis XVI, which tried to preserve the monarchy; these schemes proved

Concerning Asia

Revolutionary constitutional reign, 1789–1792

Tinted etching of Louis XVI, 1792.The caption refers to the date of theTennis Court Oath and concludes,"The same Louis XVI who bravelywaits until his fellow citizens returnto their hearths to plan a secret warand exact his revenge."

unsuccessful, and were exposed later when the armoire de fer was discovered. Regarding the financial difficulties facing France, theAssembly created the Comité des Finances, and while Louis XVI attempted to declare his concern and interest in remedying theeconomic situations, inclusively offering to melt crown silver as a dramatic measure, it appeared to the public that the king did notunderstand that such statements no longer held the same meaning as they did before and that doing such a thing could not restore theeconomy of a country.[38]

Mirabeau's death on 7 April, and Louis XVI's indecision, fatally weakened negotiations between the Crown and moderate politicians.The Third Estate leaders also had no desire in turning back or remaining moderate after their hard efforts to change the politics of thetime, and so the plans for a constitutional monarchy did not last long. On one hand, Louis was nowhere near as reactionary as hisbrothers, the comte de Provence and the comte d'Artois, and he repeatedly sent messages to them requesting a halt to their attempts tolaunch counter-coups. This was often done through his secretly nominated regent, the Cardinal Loménie de Brienne. On the otherhand, Louis was alienated from the new democratic government both by its negative reaction to the traditional role of the monarchand in its treatment of him and his family. He was particularly irked by being kept essentially as a prisoner in the Tuileries, and by therefusal of the new regime to allow him to have confessors and priests of his choice rather than 'constitutional priests' pledged to thestate and not the Roman Catholic Church.

On 21 June 1791, Louis XVI attempted to flee secretly with his family from Paris to theroyalist fortress town of Montmédy on the northeastern border of France, where he wouldjoin the émigrés and be protected by Austria. The voyage was planned by the Swedishnobleman, and often assumed secret lover of Queen Marie-Antoinette, Axel vonFersen.[39][40]

While the National Assembly worked painstakingly towards a constitution, Louis and Marie-Antoinette were involved in plans of their own. Louis had appointed Breteuil to act asplenipotentiary, dealing with other foreign heads of state in an attempt to bring about acounter-revolution. Louis himself held reservations against depending on foreign assistance.Like his mother and father, he thought that the Austrians were treacherous and the Prussianswere overly ambitious.[41] As tensions in Paris rose and he was pressured to accept measuresfrom the Assembly against his will, Louis XVI and the queen plotted to secretly escape fromFrance. Beyond escape, they hoped to raise an "armed congress" with the help of theémigrés, as well as assistance from other nations with which they could return and, inessence, recapture France. This degree of planning reveals Louis's political determination, butit was for this determined plot that he was eventually convicted of high treason.[42] He leftbehind (on his bed) a 16-page written manifesto, Déclaration du roi, adressée à tous lesFrançois, à sa sortie de Paris (https://www.bahrnoproducts.com/PDF/Declaration%20to%20the%20French%20People%20by%20Louis%20XVI.pdf),[43] traditionally known as theTestament politique de Louis XVI ("Political Testament of Louis XVI"), explaining hisrejection of the constitutional system as illegitimate; it was printed in the newspapers.However, his indecision, many delays, and misunderstanding of France were responsible forthe failure of the escape. Within 24 hours, the royal family was arrested at Varennes-en-Argonne shortly after Jean-Baptiste Drouet, who recognised the king from his profile on a 50livres assignat[44] (paper money), had given the alert. Louis XVI and his family were takenback to Paris where they arrived on 25 June. Viewed suspiciously as traitors, they were placed under tight house arrest upon theirreturn to the Tuileries.[45]

At the individual level, the failure of the escape plans was due to a series of misadventures, delays, misinterpretations, and poorjudgments.[46] In a wider perspective, the failure was attributable to the king's indecision—he repeatedly postponed the schedule,allowing for smaller problems to become severe. Furthermore, he totally misunderstood the political situation. He thought only a smallnumber of radicals in Paris were promoting a revolution that the people as a whole rejected. He thought, mistakenly, that he wasbeloved by his subjects.[47] The king's flight in the short term was traumatic for France, inciting a wave of emotions that ranged fromanxiety to violence to panic. Everyone realized that war was imminent. The deeper realization, that the king had in fact repudiated theRevolution, was an even greater shock for people who until then had seen him as a good king who governed as a manifestation ofGod's will. They felt betrayed, and as a result, Republicanism now burst out of the coffee houses and became a dominatingphilosophy of the rapidly radicalized French Revolution.[48]

The other monarchies of Europe looked with concern upon the developments in France, and considered whether they shouldintervene, either in support of Louis or to take advantage of the chaos in France. The key figure was Marie-Antoinette's brother, theHoly Roman Emperor Leopold II. Initially, he had looked on the Revolution with equanimity. However, he became more and more

Flight to Varennes (1791)

Intervention by foreign powers

The return of the royal family to Parison 25 June 1791, colouredcopperplate after a drawing of Jean-Louis Prieur

The Storming of the Tuileries Palace,on 10 August 1792 (Musée de laRévolution française)

Louis XVI imprisoned at the Tour duTemple, by Jean-François Garneray(1755–1837)

disturbed as it became more and more radical. Despite this, he still hoped to avoid war.

On 27 August, Leopold and Frederick William II of Prussia, in consultation with émigrésFrench nobles, issued the Declaration of Pillnitz, which declared the interest of the monarchsof Europe in the well-being of Louis and his family, and threatened vague but severeconsequences if anything should befall them. Although Leopold saw the Pillnitz Declarationas an easy way to appear concerned about the developments in France without committingany soldiers or finances to change them, the revolutionary leaders in Paris viewed it fearfullyas a dangerous foreign attempt to undermine France's sovereignty.

In addition to the ideological differences between France and the monarchical powers ofEurope, there were continuing disputes over the status of Austrian estates in Alsace, and theconcern of members of the National Constituent Assembly about the agitation of émigrésnobles abroad, especially in the Austrian Netherlands and the minor states of Germany.

In the end, the Legislative Assembly, supported byLouis XVI, declared war on Austria ("the King ofBohemia and Hungary") first, voting for war on 20 April 1792, after a long list of grievanceswas presented to it by the foreign minister, Charles François Dumouriez. Dumouriez preparedan immediate invasion of the Austrian Netherlands, where he expected the local population torise against Austrian rule. However, the Revolution had thoroughly disorganised the army,and the forces raised were insufficient for the invasion. The soldiers fled at the first sign ofbattle and, in one case, on 28 April 1792, murdered their general, Irish-born comte Théobaldde Dillon, whom they accused of treason.[49]

While the revolutionary government frantically raised fresh troops and reorganised its armies,a Prussian-Austrian army under Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick assembled atCoblenz on the Rhine. In July, the invasion began, with Brunswick's army easily taking the

fortresses of Longwy and Verdun. The duke then issued on 25 July a proclamation called the Brunswick Manifesto, written byLouis's émigré cousin, the Prince de Condé, declaring the intent of the Austrians and Prussians to restore the king to his full powersand to treat any person or town who opposed them as rebels to be condemned to death by martial law.

Contrary to its intended purpose of strengthening Louis XVI's position against the revolutionaries, the Brunswick Manifesto had theopposite effect of greatly undermining his already highly tenuous position. It was taken by many to be the final proof of collusionbetween the king and foreign powers in a conspiracy against his own country. The anger of the populace boiled over on 10 Augustwhen an armed mob – with the backing of a new municipal government of Paris that came to be known as the Insurrectional ParisCommune – marched upon and invaded the Tuileries Palace. The royal family took shelter with the Legislative Assembly.

Louis was officially arrested on 13 August 1792 and sent to the Temple, an ancient fortress inParis that was used as a prison. On 21 September, the National Assembly declared France tobe a Republic, and abolished the monarchy. Louis was stripped of all of his titles and honors,and from this date was known as Citoyen Louis Capet.

The Girondins were partial to keeping the deposed king under arrest, both as a hostage and aguarantee for the future. Members of the Commune and the most radical deputies, whowould soon form the group known as the Mountain, argued for Louis's immediate execution.The legal background of many of the deputies made it difficult for a great number of them toaccept an execution without the due process of law, and it was voted that the deposedmonarch be tried before the National Convention, the organ that housed the representatives ofthe sovereign people. In many ways, the former king's trial represented the trial of themonarchy by the revolution. It was seen as if with the death of one came the life of the other.The historian Jules Michelet later argued that the death of the former king led to theacceptance of violence as a tool for happiness. He said, "If we accept the proposition that oneperson can be sacrificed for the happiness of the many, it will soon be demonstrated that twoor three or more could also be sacrificed for the happiness of the many. Little by little, we willfind reasons for sacrificing the many for the happiness of the many, and we will think it was abargain."[50]

Two events led up to the trial for Louis XVI. First, after the Battle of Valmy on 22 September1792, General Dumouriez negotiated with the Prussians who evacuated France. Louis could no longer be considered a hostage or asleverage in negotiations with the invading forces.[51] Second, in November 1792, the armoire de fer (iron chest) incident took place atthe Tuileries Palace, when the existence of the hidden safe in the king's bedroom containing compromising documents and

Imprisonment, execution and burial, 1792–1793

Execution of Louis XVI in the Place de laRévolution. The empty pedestal in front ofhim had supported an equestrian statue ofhis grandfather, Louis XV. When themonarchy was abolished on 21 September1792, the statue was torn down and sentto be melted.

correspondence, was revealed by François Gamain, the Versailles locksmith who had installed it. Gaiman went to Paris on 20November and told Jean-Marie Roland, Girondinist Minister of the Interior, who ordered it opened.[52] The resulting scandal servedto discredit the king. Following these two events the Girondins could no longer keep the king from trial.[51]

On 11 December, among crowded and silent streets, the deposed king was brought from the Temple to stand before the conventionand hear his indictment, an accusation of high treason and crimes against the State. On 26 December, his counsel, Raymond Desèze,delivered Louis's response to the charges, with the assistance of François Tronchet and Malesherbes. Before the trial started and Louismounted his defense to the convention, he told his lawyers that he knew he would be found guilty and be killed, but to prepare andact as though they could win. He was resigned to and accepted his fate before the verdict was determined, but he was willing to fightto be remembered as a good king for his people.[53]

The convention would be voting on three questions: first, Is Louis guilty; second, whatever the decision, should there be an appeal tothe people; and third, if found guilty, what punishment should Louis suffer? The order of the voting on each question was acompromise within the Jacobin movement between the Girondins and Mountain; neither were satisfied but both accepted.[54]

On 15 January 1793, the convention, composed of 721 deputies, voted on the verdict.Given the overwhelming evidence of Louis's collusion with the invaders, the verdict wasa foregone conclusion – with 693 deputies voting guilty, none for acquittal, with 23abstaining.[55] The next day, a roll-call vote was carried out to decide upon the fate ofthe former king, and the result was uncomfortably close for such a dramatic decision.288 of the deputies voted against death and for some other alternative, mainly somemeans of imprisonment or exile. 72 of the deputies voted for the death penalty, butsubject to several delaying conditions and reservations. The voting took a total of 36hours.[54] 361 of the deputies voted for Louis's immediate execution. Louis wascondemned to death by a majority of one vote. Philippe Égalité, formerly the Duke ofOrléans and Louis's cousin, voted for Louis's execution, a cause of much futurebitterness among French monarchists; he would himself be guillotined on the samescaffold, Place de la Révolution, before the end of the same year, on 6 November1793.[56]

The next day, a motion to grant Louis XVI reprieve from the death sentence was voteddown: 310 of the deputies requested mercy, but 380 voted for the immediate execution

of the death penalty. This decision would be final. Malesherbes wanted to break the news to Louis and bitterly lamented the verdict,but Louis told him he would see him again in a happier life and he would regret leaving a friend like Malesherbes behind. The lastthing Louis said to him was that he needed to control his tears because all eyes would be upon him.[57]

On Monday, 21 January 1793, Louis XVI, at age 38, was beheaded by guillotine on the Place de la Révolution. As Louis XVImounted the scaffold, he appeared dignified and resigned. He delivered a short speech in which he pardoned "...those who are thecause of my death.... ".[58] He then declared himself innocent of the crimes of which he was accused, praying that his blood wouldnot fall back on France.[59] Many accounts suggest Louis XVI's desire to say more, but Antoine-Joseph Santerre, a general in theNational Guard, halted the speech by ordering a drum roll. The former king was then quickly beheaded.[60] Some accounts of Louis'sbeheading indicate that the blade did not sever his neck entirely the first time. There are also accounts of a blood-curdling screamissuing from Louis after the blade fell but this is unlikely, since the blade severed Louis's spine. The executioner, Charles HenriSanson, testified that the former king had bravely met his fate.[61]

Immediately after his execution, Louis XVI's corpse was transported in a cart to the nearby Madeleine cemetery, located rue d'Anjou,where those guillotined at the Place de la Révolution were buried in mass graves. Before his burial, a short religious service was heldin the Madeleine church (destroyed in 1799) by two priests who had sworn allegiance to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy.Afterward, Louis XVI, his severed head placed between his feet, was buried in an unmarked grave, with quicklime spread over hisbody. The Madeleine cemetery was closed in 1794. In 1815 Louis XVIII had the remains of his brother Louis XVI and of his sister-in-law, Marie-Antoinette transferred and buried in the Basilica of St Denis, the Royal necropolis of the Kings and Queens of France.Between 1816 and 1826, a commemorative monument, the Chapelle expiatoire, was erected at the location of the former cemeteryand church.

While Louis's blood dripped to the ground, several onlookers ran forward to dip their handkerchiefs in it.[62] This account was proventrue in 2012 after a DNA comparison linked blood thought to be from Louis XVI's beheading to DNA taken from tissue samplesoriginating from what was long thought to be the mummified head of his ancestor, Henry IV of France. The blood sample was takenfrom a squash gourd carved to commemorate the heroes of the French Revolution that had, according to legend, been used to houseone of the handkerchiefs dipped in Louis's blood.[63]

Legacy

Memorial to Louis XVI and MarieAntoinette, sculptures by EdmeGaulle and Pierre Petitot in theBasilica of Saint-Denis

The Duchess of Angoulême at thedeathbed of Henry Essex Edgeworth,last confessor to Louis XVI, byAlexandre-Toussaint Menjaud, 1817

The 19th-century historian Jules Michelet attributed the restoration of the French monarchy tothe sympathy that had been engendered by the execution of Louis XVI. Michelet's Histoirede la Révolution Française and Alphonse de Lamartine's Histoire des Girondins, inparticular, showed the marks of the feelings aroused by the revolution's regicide. The twowriters did not share the same sociopolitical vision, but they agreed that, even though themonarchy was rightly ended in 1792, the lives of the royal family should have been spared.Lack of compassion at that moment contributed to a radicalization of revolutionary violenceand to greater divisiveness among Frenchmen. For the 20th century novelist Albert Camusthe execution signaled the end of the role of God in history, for which he mourned. For the20th century philosopher Jean-François Lyotard the regicide was the starting point of allFrench thought, the memory of which acts as a reminder that French modernity began underthe sign of a crime.[64]

Louis's daughter, Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte, the future Duchess of Angoulême, survived theFrench Revolution, and she lobbied in Rome energetically for the canonization of her fatheras a saint of the Catholic Church. Despite his signing of the "Civil Constitution of theClergy", Louis had been described as a martyr by Pope Pius VI in 1793.[65] In 1820,however, a memorandum of the Congregation of Rites in Rome, declaring the impossibilityof proving that Louis had been executed for religious rather than political reasons, put an endto hopes of canonization.

Other commemorations of Louis XVI include:

The Requiem in C minor for mixed chorus by Luigi Cherubini was written in1816, in memory of Louis XVI.Paul Wranitzky's Symphony Op. 31, which is themed on the events of theFrench Revolution, includes a section titled "The Funeral March for the Death ofthe King Louis XVI".The city of Louisville, Kentucky, is named for Louis XVI. In 1780, the VirginiaGeneral Assembly bestowed this name in honor of the French king, whosesoldiers were aiding the American side in the Revolutionary War. The VirginiaGeneral Assembly saw the King as a noble man, but many other Continentaldelegates disagreed. (At that time, Kentucky was a part of the Commonwealth ofVirginia. Kentucky became the 15th State of the United States in 1792.)

King Louis XVI has been portrayed in numerous films. In Captain of the Guard (1930), he isplayed by Stuart Holmes. In Marie Antoinette (1938), he was played by Robert Morley. Jean-François Balmer portrayed him in the 1989 two-part miniseries La Révolution française.More recently, he was depicted in the 2006 film Marie Antoinette by Jason Schwartzman. InSacha Guitry's Si Versailles m'était conté, Louis was portrayed by one of the film's producers,Gilbert Bokanowski, using the alias Gilbert Boka. Several portrayals have upheld the imageof a bumbling, almost foolish king, such as that by Jacques Morel in the 1956 French filmMarie-Antoinette reine de France and that by Terence Budd in the Lady Oscar live actionfilm. In Start the Revolution Without Me, Louis XVI is portrayed by Hugh Griffith as a laughable cuckold. Mel Brooks played acomic version of Louis XVI in The History of the World Part 1, portraying him as a libertine who has such distaste for the peasantryhe uses them as targets in skeet shooting. In the 1996 film Ridicule; Urbain Cancelier plays Louis.

Louis XVI has been the subject of novels as well, including two of the alternate histories anthologized in If It Had HappenedOtherwise (1931): "If Drouet's Cart Had Stuck" by Hilaire Belloc and "If Louis XVI Had Had an Atom of Firmness" by AndréMaurois, which tell very different stories but both imagine Louis surviving and still reigning in the early 19th century. Louis appearsin the children's book Ben and Me by Robert Lawson but does not appear in the 1953 animated short film based on the same book.

Larmuseau et al. (2013)[66] tested the Y-DNA of three living members of the House of Bourbon, one descending from Louis XIII ofFrance via King Louis Philippe I, and two from Louis XIV via Philip V of Spain, and concluded that all three men share the sameSTR haplotype and belonged to Haplogroup_R1b (R-M343). The three individuals were further assigned to sub-haplogroupR1b1b2a1a1b* (R-Z381*). These results contradicted an earlier DNA analysis of a handkerchief dipped in the presumptive blood ofLouis XVI after his execution performed by Laluez-Fo et al. (2010).[67]

In film and literature

Ancestry

Ancestors of Louis XVI8. Louis, Duke of Burgundy

4. Louis XV of France

9. Marie Adélaïde of Savoy

2. Louis, Dauphin of France

10. Stanisław I Leszczyński

5. Marie Leszczyńska

11. Katarzyna Opalińska

1. Louis XVI of France

12. Augustus II of Poland

6. Augustus III of Poland

13. Christiane Eberhardine of Bayreuth

3. Maria Josepha of Saxony

14. Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor

7. Maria Josepha of Austria

15. Wilhelmine Amalia of Brunswick

Coat of arms of Louis XVI

NotesUpon his accession to the throne Louis assumed the royal coat of arms of France &Navarre.[68]

Adopted1774–1793

CrestThe Royal crown of France

HelmAn opened gold helmet, with blue and gold mantling.

EscutcheonAzure, three fleurs-de-lis Or (for France) impaling Gules on a chain in cross saltire and orle Oran emerald Proper (for Navarre).

SupportersThe two supporters are two angels, acting as heralds for the two realms. The dexter angelcarries a standard with the arms of France, and wearing a tabard with the same arms. Thesinister angel also carries a standard and wears a tabard, but that of Navarre. Both arestanding on puffs of cloud.

MottoThe motto is written in gold on a blue ribbon: MONTJOIE SAINT DENIS the war cry of France,Saint Denis was also the abbey where the oriflamme was kept.

OrdersThe escutcheons are surrounded first by the chain of the Order of Saint Michael and by thechain of the Order of the Holy Spirit, both were known as the ordres du roi.

Other elementsAbove all is a pavilion armoyé with the Royal crown. From it, is a royal blue mantle with asemis of fleurs-de-lis Or, lined on the inside with ermine.

Banner

Royal standard of the king

1. "Louis XVI of France, King and Martyr" (http://elvis.rowan.edu/~kilroy/JEK/01/21b.html).2. Berkovich, Ilya (2 February 2017). Motivation in War (https://books.google.com/books?id=1JzDDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA

85). p. 85. ISBN 9781107167735. Retrieved 11 December 2017.3. Delon, Michel (4 December 2013). Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment (https://books.google.com/books?id=QEpJAg

AAQBAJ&pg=PA1246). p. 1246. ISBN 9781135959982. Retrieved 11 December 2017.4. Andress, David, The Terror: The Merciless War for Freedom in Revolutionary France, Farrar, Straus and Giroux,

New York, 2005, pp. 12–13. ISBN 978-03745307305. Lever, Évelyne, Louis XVI, Librairie Arthème Fayard, Paris, 19856. Hardman, John, Louis XVI, The Silent King, New York: Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 10.

Arms

References

7. Hardman, John, Louis XVI, The Silent King, New York: Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 18.8. John Hardman (1994). Louis XVI: The Silent King and the Estates (https://books.google.com/books?id=nkJqSmHcd

5oC&pg=PA24). Yale University Press. p. 24. ISBN 978-0-300-06077-5.9. Andress, David. The Terror, p. 12

10. Fraser, Antonia, Marie Antoinette, pp.100–10211. Fraser, Antonia, Marie Antoinette, p.12712. Fraser, Antonia, Marie Antoinette, pp.166–16713. Fraser, Antonia, Marie Antoinette, p.16414. Francine du Plessix Gray (7 August 2000). "The New Yorker From the Archive Books" (http://www.newyorker.com/pr

intables/archive/021007fr_archive01). The Child Queen. Retrieved 17 October 2006.15. Fraser, Antonia, Marie Antoinette, p.12216. Androutsos, George. "The Truth About Louis XVI's Marital Difficulties" (https://web.archive.org/web/2011051812374

2/http://www.historyofcircumcision.net/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=78). Translated from French.Archived from the original (http://www.historyofcircumcision.net/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=78) on 18May 2011. Retrieved 4 April 2011.

17. Fraser, Antonia (2001). Marie Antoinette: The Journey (https://archive.org/details/marieantoinette00anto_0).18. Lever, Evelyne (2001). Marie Antoinette: Last Queen of France (https://archive.org/details/marieantoinette00evel).19. Cronin, Vincent (1974). Louis and Antoinette (https://archive.org/details/louisantoinette00cron).20. "Dictionary of World Biography". Author: Barry Jones. Published in 1994.21. Philippe Huisman, Marguerite Jallut: Marie Antoinette, Stephens, 197122. Hardman, John. Louis XVI, The Silent King. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. pp. 37–39.23. Andress, David,(2005) The Terror, p.1324. Encyclopedia of the Age of Political Ideals, Edict of Versailles (1787) (http://booking-help.org/book_338_glava_314_

Edict_of_Versailles_%281787%29.html) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20120714094231/http://booking-help.org/book_338_glava_314_Edict_of_Versailles_(1787).html) 14 July 2012 at the Wayback Machine, downloaded29 January 2012

25. Doyle, William (2001). The French Revolution: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press.pp. 26–27.

26. Baecque, Antoine de, From Royal Dignity to Republican Austerity: The Ritual for the Reception of Louis XVI in theFrench National Assembly (1789–1792), The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 66, No. 4 (December 1994), p. 675.

27. "Tipu Sultan and the Scots in India" (https://web.archive.org/web/20081121224521/http://www.tigerandthistle.net//tipu315.htm). The Tiger and The Thistle. Archived from the original (http://www.tigerandthistle.net/tipu315.htm) on 21November 2008. Retrieved 17 July 2011.

28. Corwin, Edward Samuel, French Policy and the American Alliance (https://archive.org/stream/frenchpolicyamer00corwuoft#page/121/mode/1up) (1916) pp. 121–148

29. The Oxford Illustrated History of the British Army (1994) p. 130.30. Jonathan R. Dull, The French Navy and American Independence: A Study of Arms and Diplomacy, 1774–1787

(1975).31. On finance, see William Doyle, Oxford History of the French Revolution (1989) pp. 67–74.32. Joel Felix & Louis Sixteen and Marie Antoinette 2006, pp. 220–22533. Mahan, Alfred Thayer (January 1987). The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 (https://books.google.c

om/books?id=nc7H1eQiArQC&pg=PA461). p. 461. ISBN 9780486255095.34. "The History Project – University of California, Davis" (https://web.archive.org/web/20110929061344/http://historypr

oject.ucdavis.edu/ic/standard/5.00/5.3_1.00/13161.html). Historyproject.ucdavis.edu. Archived from the original (http://historyproject.ucdavis.edu/ic/standard/5.00/5.3_1.00/13161.html) on 29 September 2011. Retrieved 17 July2011.

35. Black, Jeremy (4 January 2002). Britain as a military power, 1688–1815 (https://books.google.com/books?id=Fk_RaalNQAQC&pg=PA183). ISBN 9780203007617. Retrieved 17 July 2011.

36. TRAITÉ conclu à Versailles entre la France et la Cochinchine, représentée par Mgr Pigneau de Béhaine, évêqued'Adran, le 28 novembre 1787 (http://belleindochine.free.fr/2TraiteVersaillesEvequeAdran.htm) (in French)

37. AN|U Reporter, "Finding La Pérouse" (https://reporter.anu.edu.au/finding-la-p%C3%A9rouse). Retrieved 10 January2019

38. A., Caiani, Ambrogio (1 January 2012). Louis XVI and the French Revolution, 1789-1792. Cambridge UniversityPress. ISBN 9781107631014. OCLC 802746106 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/802746106).

39. Swedish historian Herman Lindqvist in the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet, found at [1] (http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/kolumnister/hermanlindqvist/article11667372.ab) In Swedish, not far from the top "Ändå är det historisktdokumenterat att Marie-Antoinette + Axel von Fersen = sant." which in English becommes "Still is it historicallydocumented that Marie-Antoinetter + Axel von Fersen = true."

40. Barrington 1902, p. 44

41. Hardman, John, Louis XVI, The Silent King, New York: Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 12742. Price, Munro, Louis XVI and Gustavus III: Secret Diplomacy and Counter-Revolution, 1791–1792, The Historical

Journal, Vol. 42, No. 2 (June 1999), p. 441.43. France), Louis X.V.I. (roi de (1791). "Déclaration du roi [Louis XVI] adressée à tous les Français, à sa sortie de ..." (ht

tps://books.google.com/books?id=H8g_AAAAcAAJ)44. "Assignat de 50 livres" (http://assignat.fr/1-assignat/ass-04a).45. Guttner, Darius von (2015). The French Revolution. Nelson Cengage. pp. 132–133.46. J. M. Thompson, The French Revolution (1943) identifies a series of major and minor mistakes and mishaps, pp.

224–22747. Timothy Tackett, When the King Took Flight (2003) ch. 348. Timothy Tackett, When the King Took Flight (2003), p. 22249. Liste chronologique des généraux français ou étrangers au service de France, morts sur le champ de bataille... de

1792 à 1837, A. Leneveu, rue des Grands-Augustins, n° 18, Paris, 1838, p. 7.50. Dunn, Susan, The Deaths of Louis XVI: Regicide and the French Political Imagination, Princeton: Princeton

University Press, 1994, pp. 72–76.51. Hardman, John (2000). Louis XVI: The Silent King. Oxford University Press Inc. pp. 157–158.52. G. Lenotre, Vieilles maisons, vieux papiers, Librairie académique Perrin, Paris, 1903, pp. 321–338 (in French)53. Fay, Bernard (1968). Louis XVI or The End of a World. Henry Regnery Company. p. 392.54. Jordan, David (1979). The King's Trial: The French Revolution vs. Louis XVI (https://archive.org/details/kingstrial00d

avi). Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 166 (https://archive.org/details/kingstrial00davi/page/166).55. von Guttner, Darius (2015). The French Revolution. Nelson Cengage. p. 225.56. von Guttner, Darius. The French Revolution (https://www.academia.edu/9869783/The_French_Revolution), 2015.57. Hardman, John (2000). Louis XVI: The Silent King. Oxford University Press Inc. p. 230.58. Hardman, John (1992). Louis XVI. Yale University Press. p. 232.59. Louis XVI's last words heard before the drums covered his voice: Je meurs innocent de tous les crimes qu'on

m'impute ; je pardonne aux auteurs de ma mort ; je prie Dieu que le sang que vous allez répandre ne retombe passur la France.

60. Hardman 1992, p. 232.61. Alberge, Dalya.What the King said to the executioner... (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article7

03107.ece), The Times, 8 April 2006. Retrieved 26 June 2008.62. Andress, David, The Terror, 2005, p. 147.63. "Blood of Louis XVI 'found in gourd container' " (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20882305). BBC News. 1

January 2013. Retrieved 3 January 2013.64. See Susan Dunn, The Deaths of Louis XVI: Regicide and the French Political Imagination. (1994).65. "Pius VI: Quare Lacrymae" (http://thejosias.com/2015/01/29/pius-vi-quare-lacrymae/). 29 January 2015. Retrieved

20 April 2015.66. Larmuseau, Maarten H D.; Delorme, Philippe; Germain, Patrick; Vanderheyden, Nancy; Gilissen, Anja; Van

Geystelen, Anneleen; Cassiman, Jean-Jacques; Decorte, Ronny (9 October 2013). "Genetic genealogy reveals trueY haplogroup of House of Bourbon contradicting recent identification of the presumed remains of two French Kings"(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3992573). European Journal of Human Genetics. 22 (5): 681–687.doi:10.1038/ejhg.2013.211 (https://doi.org/10.1038%2Fejhg.2013.211). PMC 3992573 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3992573). PMID 24105374 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24105374).

67. Lalueza-Fox, C.; Gigli, E.; Bini, C.; Calafell, F.; Luiselli, D.; Pelotti, S.; Pettener, D. (1 November 2011). "Geneticanalysis of the presumptive blood from Louis XVI, King of France". Forensic Science International. Genetics. 5 (5):459–63. doi:10.1016/j.fsigen.2010.09.007 (https://doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.fsigen.2010.09.007). hdl:10261/32188 (https://hdl.handle.net/10261%2F32188). PMID 20940110 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20940110).

68. (http://www.heraldica.org/topics/france/frarms.htm)

Baecque, Antoine De. "From Royal Dignity to Republican Austerity: the Ritual for the Reception of Louis XVI in theFrench National Assembly (1789–1792)." Journal of Modern History 1994 66(4): 671–696. JSTOR.org (https://www.jstor.org/stable/2125154)Burley, Peter. "A Bankrupt Regime." History Today (January 1984) 34:36–42.ISSN 0018-2753 (https://www.worldcat.org/search?fq=x0:jrnl&q=n2:0018-2753) Fulltext in EBSCODoyle, William. Origins of the French Revolution (3rd ed. 1999) online edition (https://www.questia.com/library/book/origins-of-the-french-revolution-by-william-doyle.jsp)Doyle, William. "The Execution of Louis XVI and the End of the French Monarchy." History Review. (2000) pp 21+Questia.com (https://www.questia.com/read/5001205429), online edition

Bibliography

Louis XVI (https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/349122) at the Encyclopædia BritannicaFull text of writings of Louis XVI (http://dmr.bsu.edu/cdm4/results.php?CISOOP1=exact&CISOFIELD1=CISOSEARCHALL&CISOROOT=/FrnchRev&CISOBOX1=Louis+XVI%2C+King+of+France%2C+1754-1793) in Ball StateUniversity's Digital Media RepositoryWorks by or about Louis XVI (https://worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n80-38425) in libraries (WorldCat catalog)

Doyle, William (2002). The Oxford History of the French Revolution (https://archive.org/details/oxfordhistoryoff00doyl). UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-925298-5. Pages 194–196 deal with the trial of Louis XVI.Doyle, William, ed. Old Regime France (2001).Dunn, Susan. The Deaths of Louis XVI: Regicide and the French Political Imagination. (1994). 178 pp.Hardman, John. Louis XVI: The Silent King (2nd ed. 2016) 500 pages; much expanded new edition; now thestandard scholarly biography

Hardman, John. Louis XVI: The Silent King (1994) 224 pages, an older scholarly biographyHardman, John. French Politics, 1774–1789: From the Accession of Louis XVI to the Fall of the Bastille. (1995). 283pp.Jones, Colin. The Great Nation: France from Louis XV to Napoleon (2002) Amazon.com (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0140130934), excerpt and text searchMignet, François Auguste (1824). "History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814" (http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext06/8hfrr10.txt). Project Gutenberg. See Chapter VI, The National Convention, for more details on the king'strial and execution.Padover, Saul K. The Life and Death of Louis XVI (1939) Questia.com (https://www.questia.com/read/3921322),online editionPrice, Munro. The Road from Versailles: Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, and the Fall of the French Monarchy (2004)425 pp. Amazon.com (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0312326130), excerpt and text search; also published as TheFall of the French Monarchy: Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and the Baron de Breteuil. (2002)Schama, Simon. Citizens. A Chronicle of the French Revolution (1989), highly readable narrative by scholarAmazon.com (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0141017279), excerpt and text searchTackett, Timothy. When the King Took Flight. (2003). 270 pp. Amazon.com (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000F4LMP8), excerpt and text search

McGill, Frank N. "Execution of Louis XVI" in McGill's History of Europe (1993) 3:161-4Moncure, James A. ed. Research Guide to European Historical Biography: 1450–Present (4 vol 1992) 3:1193–1213Rigney, Ann. "Toward Varennes." New Literary History 1986 18(1): 77–98 in JSTOR (https://www.jstor.org/stable/468656), on historiography

Campan, Jeanne-Louise-Henriette (1910). Memoirs of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France and Wife of Louis XVI:Queen of France (https://archive.org/details/memoirsmarieant00mmegoog). Collier.Full text of writings of Louis XVI (http://libx.bsu.edu/cdm4/results.php?CISOOP1=exact&CISOFIELD1=CISOSEARCHALL&CISOROOT=/FrnchRev&CISOBOX1=Louis+XVI%2C+King+of+France%2C+1754-1793) in Ball StateUniversity's Digital Media Repository.

Historiography

Primary sources

External links

Louis XVIHouse of Bourbon

Cadet branch of the Capetian dynastyBorn: 23 August 1754 Died: 21 January 1793

Regnal titles

Preceded byLouis XV

King of France10 May 1774 – 21 September 1792

King of the French from 1791

VacantNational Convention

Title next held byNapoleon Ias emperor

French royalty

Preceded byLouis

Dauphin of France20 December 1765 – 10 May 1774

Succeeded byLouis-Joseph

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