Louis XVI

From a young age, he had a reputation for being shy, withdrawn, and not particularly conversational. He possessed neither the social ease of Louis XIV nor the courtly self-assurance expected of a monarch.

He could appear uncomfortable in social gatherings and preferred relatively quiet settings. This was particularly problematic at Versailles, where politics relied heavily on personal presence, alliances, gestures, and the ability to manage the court.

Louis XVI did not seem to enjoy that game very much.

He was hardworking... but in a peculiar way.

He had an immense curiosity about technical and practical matters.

He was interested in:

geography;
navigation;
astronomy;
mechanics;
hunting;
craftsmanship;
locksmithing.

In fact, he personally learned the trade of a locksmith and kept a small workshop.

This speaks volumes about him: he was a man who could be fascinated by discovering how a lock worked, yet struggled immensely to decide how France should function politically.

It is a caricature, but an amusing one, as it captures a part of his personality.

He was relatively kind-hearted.

Even his enemies acknowledged certain personal qualities.

He does not appear to have possessed the taste for cruelty that characterized other European monarchs. He was capable of showing compassion and cared deeply about his family.

He was also sincerely Catholic, though not exactly a religious zealot.

And there is an important detail: his reluctance to sign certain measures against the revolutionaries, and his subsequent concern regarding the violence, show that he was not indifferent to suffering.

But he was extremely indecisive.

This is where his greatest flaw lay.

Louis XVI could grasp the need for reform, yet still back down when faced with strong opposition.

He was prone to consulting others, hesitating, changing his mind, and consulting again.

His problem was not a lack of thought.

He thought too much and decided too little.

And for a king facing a national crisis, that can be fatal.

He was a conservative, but not necessarily a reactionary.

Louis XVI sincerely believed in the monarchy and his own authority, yet during the early years of his reign, he accepted reforms that would have significantly transformed the system.

Louis XVI was reserved, shy, inquisitive, hardworking, family-oriented, religious, relatively compassionate, and technically intelligent; but he was also indecisive, politically insecure, conservative, and ill-equipped to assert himself against stronger personalities.

Stature: He was quite tall for the 18th century—around 1.90 m, according to most common estimates.
Build: Robust and broad. He was prone to weight gain and, in his later years, appeared distinctly heavy-set.
Face: Round, with a prominent nose and relatively large features.
Hair: Originally light to dark brown, though he wore a powdered wig, as was the custom.
Eyes: Generally described as blue or blue-gray.
Complexion: Fair.
Posture: Due to his heavy build, he could appear somewhat clumsy or lumbering, especially when contrasted with the slender elegance expected of a Versailles courtier.

Marie Antoinette: Wife, No matter how hard he tries, Luis 16 cannot hate her, even if he tries to, he still remembers what he owes her, he remembers that thanks to him and his cowardice and shame he never touched her. She is also the woman he abandoned after being guillotined and who knew nothing about him afterward, leaving her and her children alone in the midst of a violent revolution.

Maximilien Robespierre: It is ironic that he now remembers that Robespierre was the one who ordered his immediate execution after being tried, remembering the child he ignored in the middle of the rain (Robespierre was making a speech in latin on his honour), he thinks that perhaps if he had paid more attention to him, if he had not been cold to him, perhaps things would have been different.

On the morning of January 21, 1793, after receiving communion , Louis XVI, called Louis Capet by the revolutionaries and still King of France and Navarre by the monarchists, entrusted Cléry with the task of bidding his relatives a final farewell and left the Temple in a carriage. At 10:15 a.m., the condemned man arrived at the site where the guillotine was erected, the then-named Place de la Révolution.

As he stepped down from the carriage, he removed his jacket, unbuttoned his linen shirt , and took off his neckerchief. Some guards tried to tie his hands, but Louis indignantly refused: "You will do as you have been ordered, but you will never tie me." Edgeworth helped him up the steep steps of the scaffold , and, having reached the gallows, the executioner Sanson cut off his pigtail. Louis finally had to agree to have his hands tied, spurred on by Edgeworth, who told him that this would be his "final sacrifice." After all this, Louis de Bourbon asked if the drums would roll during his execution; he former Louis XVI of France, managing to pull away from the executioner, made a move to turn toward the people of France but was stopped in the attempt; he even exclaimed: "People, I die innocent of all the crimes of which I am accused! I forgive those who caused my death and I pray to God that the blood you are about to shed will never fall upon France!". The executioner later related in his memoirs that "[the king] endured all this with a composure and firmness that astonished us all. I am convinced that he drew his strength from the principles of religion, of which no one seemed more convinced and affected than he." One or two minutes after 10:20, he was finally guillotined.

In the summer of 1776, news reached France of the American colonies ' declaration of independence from England. Negotiations between the colonies and France had already taken place the previous year. Finally, Vergennes convinced Louis XVI to enter the war for the colonies' freedom, to the detriment of the hostile British. France's objective was to recover the colonies lost in the Seven Years' War .

On February 8, 1778, the Franco-American alliance was made public. That same year, Louis XVI welcomed Benjamin Franklin to France and convinced Charles III of Spain to ally with the colonies. Another important development was that Marie Antoinette became pregnant in the spring of 1778. She gave birth on December 19 of the same year, much to the disappointment of those present: a girl, named Marie Thérèse . Meanwhile, France had achieved numerous victories, including the decisive battle off Ouessant Island on July 27, 1778. Louis XVI himself, with the help of Sartine, the Minister of the Navy, planned attacks in the English Channel . [ 42 ] In 1779, the French managed to recapture Senegal , but suffered several naval defeats; moreover, their fleet and the Spanish fleet were decimated by diseases such as dysentery .

The king decided to garrison America by sending numerous troops, composed in part of court nobles, to aid General Washington . 1781 was an eventful year: in America, numerous victories took place during the Siege of Yorktown , and in France, on October 22, Marie Antoinette gave birth to the long-awaited Dauphin, Louis Joseph . Another important event was the death of Maurepas on November 21. The courtiers then wondered who would succeed him, but the sovereign clarified everything by saying the following words: "J'entends régner" (I intend to reign)

On February 2, the Franco-Spanish fleet recaptured Menorca by defeating the English fleet. On the night of April 8–9, Louis XVI pledged to quell a bourgeois uprising in Geneva by adhering to the principles of absolutism , forgetting that he was fighting in America for liberty and equality . [ 44 ] As a consequence of this event, the delegates to the American Congress, Benjamin Franklin , John Adams , and John Jay , rejected the agreements with France and signed a separate peace with England, which enraged the French king, who ordered Vergennes to reprimand Franklin.

Finally, on January 20, 1783, an agreement was reached when French, Spanish, American, and English delegates met in the Council Chamber of the Palace of Versailles . The signing of the agreement resulted in France gaining Senegal, some Caribbean islands, and trading posts in India and Dunkirk , but the French lost six million pounds initially agreed upon with the Americans, thus exacerbating the state's financial crisis. The deficit reached 80 million pounds.

Maria Teresa , Madame Royale (December 19, 1778-October 19, 1851), Duchess of Angoulême with Louis Antoine of France , and for the monarchists Queen consort of France and Navarre (1830) through her marriage to him.
Louis Joseph (22 October 1781-4 June 1789), Dauphin of France and Duke of Brittany . Died in infancy at the age of 7.
Louis Charles (March 27, 1785 – June 8, 1795), Duke of Normandy . Considered king by the enemies of the republican regime and by several European states after the death of his father, although in reality he never ruled.
Sofia (July 9, 1786-June 19, 1787), died in infancy at eleven months old.

The Duke of Choiseul decides to ally himself with Austria in order to end the prosperity of Great Britain and Russia , and therefore asks for the hand of Marie Antoinette of Austria , Archduchess of Austria and daughter of Francis of Lorraine and Empress Maria Theresa , to marry her to the Dauphin.
Two pavilions were erected for Marie Antoinette's crossing of the border, symbolizing the two allied powers. In the French pavilion were the Countess de Noialles, lady-in-waiting ; the Duchess de Cossé, lady of the wardrobe; four ladies of the palace; the Count de Saulx-Tavannes, gentleman of honor; the Count de Tessé, first equerry; and the Bishop of Chartres , first chaplain . [ 18 ] In the other pavilion were the Austrian ladies who had accompanied the Archduchess and dressed her in French garments sent from Paris .
arie Antoinette entered Strasbourg and stopped in Compiègne , arriving there on May 15, 1770. There she met the king, her future husband, and the Mesdames de France (the daughters of Louis XV ).
Afterward, the entourage went to Saint-Denis , where the Carmelite nun Louise de France (daughter of Louis XV) met the future Dauphine. [ 20 ] In Saint-Denis, the archduchess and her entourage stayed at the Palais de la Muette , and the king and the Dauphin returned to Versailles. The following morning (May 16), the Dauphine arrived at Versailles, and the young couple were escorted to the palace chapel, where the Grand Chaplain, Cardinal de la Roche , gave them the nuptial blessing.
The court celebrations were brilliant, but those in Paris surpassed them, and both in the capital and at Versailles there were huge crowds. [ 22 ] However, these celebrations would turn into catastrophe: at one of the celebrations in Paris, in the Place Louis XV , where a large crowd had gathered, fireworks were set off, which caused great fear among the crowd, who fled towards another street. The uneven ground caused some people to fall, which led to many more falling, being crushed by passing carriages and even falling into the Seine .
The marriage was not consummated until seven years after the wedding, when the couple had already ascended the throne. This is attributed to Louis XVI's phimosis, which prevented him from having sexual relations, although it was also due to the young man's shyness, which initially caused him to avoid his wife.

Louis XVI ; Versailles , 23 August 1754 – Paris , 21 January 1793 was King of France and Navarre. between 1774 and 1791, Co-Prince of Andorra between 1774 and 1793 and King of the French.

Louis XVI became Dauphin of France after the death of his father and heir presumptive, Louis of France . Following the death of his grandfather, King Louis XV , on May 10, 1774, he inherited the title of King of France and Navarre , which he held until 1791, when he assumed the title of King of the French .

The early years of his reign were marked by attempts to reform the French administration in accordance with Enlightenment ideals . These attempts included increasing tolerance towards non-Catholics and abolishing the death penalty for deserters.

The French nobility reacted to the proposed reforms with hostility and successfully opposed their implementation. Louis implemented the deregulation of the grain market , championed by his finance minister, the liberal Turgot , but this resulted in soaring bread prices. Periods of poor harvests led to food shortages, which, during a particularly bad harvest in 1775, prompted mass revolts . From 1776, Louis XVI actively supported the North American colonists , who were seeking independence from Great Britain , which was achieved with the Treaty of Paris in 1783. The ensuing financial and debt crisis contributed to the unpopularity of the Ancien Régime . This led to the convocation of the Estates-General in 1789. Discontent among the middle and lower classes of France resulted in strong opposition to the French aristocracy and the absolute monarchy , of which Louis and his wife , Queen Marie Antoinette , were seen as representatives. The escalating tensions and violence were marked by events such as the storming of the Bastille , during which riots in Paris forced Louis to definitively recognize the legislative authority of the National Assembly .

Louis's indecisiveness and conservatism led some in France to see him as a symbol of the perceived tyranny of the Ancien Régime , and his popularity steadily declined. His failed flight to Varennes in June 1791, four months before the declaration of the constitutional monarchy , seemed to validate rumors that the king tied his hopes for political salvation to the prospect of foreign intervention . The king's credibility was severely undermined, and the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of a republic became an increasingly likely possibility. The rise of anticlericalism among the revolutionaries resulted in the abolition of the dime (religious land tax) and various government policies aimed at the de-Christianization of France .

In an atmosphere of national chaos brought on by civil and international war , Louis XVI was arrested and deposed on August 10, 1792. A month later, the monarchy was abolished and the First Republic was proclaimed on September 21, 1792. The deposed monarch was desecrated with the name " Citizen Louis Capet , " in reference to his ancestor Hugh Capet . Louis was tried by the National Convention (which had convened itself as a court for the occasion), found guilty of high treason , and executed by guillotine on January 21, 1793. Louis XVI was the only king of France to be executed , and his death brought an end to more than a thousand years of continuous French monarchy. His two sons died in infancy, before the Bourbon Restoration . Her only daughter to reach adulthood, Maria Theresa , was given to the Austrians in exchange for French prisoners of war, and eventually died childless in 1851.