King Louis XVI Louis XVI (Louis-Auguste; French: [lwi sɛːz]; 23 August 1754 – 21 January 1793) was the last king of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. The son of Louis, Dauphin of France (son & heir apparent of King Louis XV), & Maria Josepha of Saxony, Louis became the new Dauphin when his father died in 1765. In 1770, he married Marie Antoinette & became King of France & Navarre on his paternal grandfather's death on 10 May 1774, & reigned until the abolition of the monarchy on 21 September 1792. From 1791 onwards, he used the style of king of the French.
The first part of Louis XVI's reign was marked by attempt to reform the French government in accordance with Enlightenment idea. These included effort to increase tolerance toward non-Catholic as well as abolishing the death penalty for deserters. The French nobility reacted to the proposed reform with hostility & successfully opposed their implementation. Louis implemented deregulation of the grain market, advocated by his economic liberal minister Turgot, but it resulted in an increase in bread price. In period of bad harvest, it led to food scarcity which, during a particularly bad harvest in 1775, prompted the masses to revolt. From 1776, Louis XVI actively supported the North American colonists, who were seeking their independence from Great Britain, which was realised in the Treaty of Paris (1783). The ensuing debt & financial crisis contributed to the unpopularity of the ancien régime. This led to the convening of the Estates General of 1789. Discontent among France's middle & lower classe intensified opposition to the French aristocracy & the absolute monarchy led by Louis XVI & his wife, Marie Antoinette. Tension progressively rose, punctuated by violent riot such as the storming of the Bastille, which forced Louis to recognize the legislative authority of the National Assembly.
King Louis's indecisiveness & conservatism toward demand of the Estates led many to despise him as the embodiment of ancien régime tyranny & his popularity deteriorated progressively. His unsuccessful flight to Varennes in June 1791 seemed to confirm suspicion that the king hoped for foreign intervention to restore his power, deeply undermining his legitimacy. Four months later, the constitutional monarchy was declared & the replacement of the monarchy with a republic became an ever-increasing possibility. The growth of anti-clericalism among revolutionaries resulted in the abolition of the dîme (religious land tax) & several government policies aimed at the dechristianization of France.
With the outbreak of civil & international war, Louis XVI was arrested during the Insurrection of 10 August 1792. One month later, the monarchy was abolished & the French First Republic was proclaimed on 21 September 1792. The former king became a desacralized French citizen, addressed as Citoyen (Citizen) Louis Capet in reference to his ancestor Hugh Capet. Louis was tried by the National Convention (self-instituted as a tribunal for the occasion), found guilty of high treason & executed by guillotine on 21 January 1793. Louis XVI's death brought an end to more than a thousand years of continuous French monarchy. Both of his sons died in childhood, before the Bourbon Restoration; his only child to reach adulthood, Marie Thérèse, was released to her Austrian relatives in exchange for French prisoners of war, eventually dying childless in 1851.
Childhood The young Duke of Berry (right) with his younger brother, the Count of Provence (by François-Hubert Drouais, 1757) The young duke of Berry painted by Jean-Martial Frédou, c. 1760 Louis-Auguste de France, who was given the title Duke of Berry at birth, was born in the Palace of Versailles on 23 August 1754. One of seven children, he was the second surviving son of Louis, the Dauphin of France & the grandson of Louis XV & of his consort, Maria Leszczyńska. His mother was Marie-Josèphe of Saxony, the daughter of Augustus III, Prince-elector of Saxony and King of Poland & Archduchess Maria Josepha of Austria. Louis-Auguste was overlooked by his parents who favored his older brother, Louis, Duke of Burgundy, who was regarded as bright & handsome but died at the age of nine in 1761. Louis-Auguste, a strong & healthy boy but very shy, excelled in his study & had a strong taste for Latin, history, geography & astronomy thus became fluent in Italian & English. His tutor in mathematics & physics had high praise for his work. Le Blonde, his mathematics instructor, wrote that the prince's studies were "proofs of [his] intelligence & the excellence of [his] judgement," though flattery was to be expected when addressing a prince. Louis-Auguste's apparent mathematical skills are corroborated by his enjoyment of cartography, which would have required an understanding of scale & projection. He also enjoyed physical activities such as hunting with his grandfather & rough play with his younger brothers, Louis-Stanislas, Count of Provence & Charles-Philipe, Count of Artois. From an early age, Louis-Auguste was encouraged in another of his interests, locksmithing, which was seen as a useful pursuit for a child. When his father died of tuberculosis on 20 December 1765, the eleven-year-old Louis-Auguste became the new Dauphin. His mother never recovered from the loss of her husband and died on 13 March 1767, also from tuberculosis. The strict & conservative education he received from Paul François de Quelen de la Vauguyon, "gouverneur des Enfants de France" (governor of the Children of France), from 1760 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 study particular to religion, morality & humanity. His instructor may have also had a good hand in shaping Louis-Auguste into the indecisive king that he became. Abbé Berthier, his instructor, taught him that timidity was a value in strong monarchs & Abbé Soldini, his confessor, instructed him not to let people read his mind May the Holy Roman Catholic Church be blessed by God the Father God the Son & God the Holy Spirit Hallelujah Hallelujah ‧♱🕯️♱‧ Blessed be the word of the Lord for Christ is risen Hallelujah Hallelujah peace be still in Nomine Patris et FiLii et Spiritus Sancti amen & amen
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Behind Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette Failed Reign I SLICE HISTORY | FULL DOCUMENTARY