Louis XVI of France

Louis XVI Of France

Louis XVI (23 August 1754 – 21 January 1793), later Louis Capet, was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre until 1791, and then as King of the French from 1791 to 1792, before being deposed and executed in 1793.

Succeeding Louis XV, his unpopular grandfather, Louis XVI was well aware of the growing discontent of the French population against the absolute monarchy. The first part of his reign is marked by his attempts to reform the kingdom in accordance with the Enlightenment ideals (abolition of torture and serfdom, tolerance towards Jews and Protestants, abolition of the Taille etc.). However, Louis XVI failed to impose his will, as his reforms stumbled on the hostility of the nobles.

Louis XVI actively supported the Americans, who were seeking their independence from Great Britain, which was realized in the 1783 Treaty of Paris. The example of the American Revolution and the financial crisis which followed France's involvement in the war were two of the many contributing factors to the French Revolution, which broke out in 1789.

The French Revolution abolished the absolute monarchy in France and proclaimed a constitutional monarchy in September 1791. While Louis XVI, as a constitutional king, enjoyed broad popularity among the population, his indecisiveness and conservatism led some elements of the people of France eventually to view him as a symbol of the perceived tyranny of the Ancien Régime, and his popularity deteriorated progressively. His disastrous flight to Varennes in June 1791, four months before the constitutional monarchy was declared, seemed to justify the rumors that the king tied his hopes of political salvation to the dubious prospects of foreign invasion. The credibility of the king was deeply undermined and the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of a republic became an ever increasing possibility.

In a context of civil and international war, Louis XVI was suspended and arrested as part of the insurrection of 10 August 1792 just one month before the constitutional monarchy was abolished and a republic declared. He was tried by the National Convention, found guilty of high treason, and executed by guillotine on 21 January 1793 as a desacralized French citizen known as "Citoyen Louis Capet", a nickname in reference to Hugh Capet, the founder of the Capetian dynasty – which the revolutionaries interpreted as Louis' family name. In the meantime, the French Republic had been proclaimed the 21 September 1792, bringing to an end more than a thousand years of continuous French monarchy. Louis XVI is the only King of France ever to be executed.