Louis XVII of France

Louis XVII Of France

Louis XVII (Versailles 27 March 1785 – Paris 8 June 1795), from birth to 1789 known as Louis-Charles, Duke of Normandy; then from 1789 to 1791 as Louis-Charles, Dauphin of France; and from 1791 to 1792 as Louis-Charles, Prince Royal of France, was the second son of King Louis XVI of France and Queen Marie Antoinette. As the son of the king, he was a Fils de France (Son of France). His older brother, Louis Joseph, died in June 1789, just a few weeks before the start of the French Revolution.

His parents were executed for treason under the first republic making the newly orphaned eight-year-old Louis-Charles nominal successor to the abolished throne. In keeping with dynastic order, when his father was executed on 21 January 1793, during the middle-period of French Revolution, he became (nominally) the uncrowned King of France and Navarre in the eyes of the royalists. However, as France was then undergoing the decade of turmoil as the First French Republic (21 September 1792 – 2 December 1804), and as he had been imprisoned from August 1792 until his death from illness in 1795 at the age of 10, he had never been officially crowned as king, nor had he ruled. His title is rather one bestowed by his royalist supporters and by Louis XVIII's adoption of the title Louis XVIII rather than Louis XVII.