Louis XVI

Louis XVI (1754-1793), king of France (1774-1792), who lost his throne in the French Revolution and was later beheaded by the revolutionary regime.

Louis was born at Versailles on August 23, 1754, the grandson of Louis XV. The deaths of his two elder brothers and of his father, only son of Louis XV, made the young prince the Dauphin of France in 1765. In 1770 he married Marie-Antoinette, youngest daughter of Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria. On Louis’s accession, France was impoverished and burdened with debts, and heavy taxation had resulted in widespread misery among the French people. Immediately after he was crowned, aided by such capable statesmen as Finance Minister Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, baron de l’Aulne, Interior Minister Chrétien Guillaume de Lamoignon de Malesherbes, and Foreign Minister Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes, Louis remitted some of the most oppressive taxes and instituted financial and judicial reforms. Greater reforms were prevented, however, by the opposition of the upper classes and the court. So strong was this opposition that in 1776 Turgot was forced to resign and was replaced by financier Jacques Necker.

After Louis granted financial aid (1778-1781) to the American colonies revolting against Great Britain in the New World (see American Revolution), Necker proposed drastic taxes on the nobility. He was forced to resign in 1781, and statesman Charles Alexandre de Calonne, appointed finance minister in 1783, borrowed money for the court until 1786, when the borrowing limit was reached. The anger of the French people against taxes and the lavish spending of the court resulted in 1788 in the recall of Necker, who, however, could not prevent the bankruptcy of the government. In 1788 Louis was forced to call for a meeting of the representative governmental body called the Estates-General, the first gathering of that assembly in 175 years. Once in session, the Estates-General assumed the powers of government. On July 14, 1789, the Parisian populace razed the Bastille, and a short time later imprisoned the king and royal family in the palace of the Tuileries. In 1791 the royal family attempted to escape to Austria, but they were caught and brought back to Paris. Louis swore obedience to the new French constitution in 1791, but continued secretly to work against the revolution and to plot intrigues with France’s enemies. In 1792, when the National Convention, the assembly of elected French deputies, declared France a republic, the king was tried as a traitor and condemned to death. Louis XVI was guillotined on January 21, 1793, in the Place de la Révolution (now Place de la Concorde) in Paris.

Historians consider Louis XVI a victim of circumstances rather than a despot similar to the former French kings Louis XIV and Louis XV. He was weak and incapable as king and not overly intelligent. He preferred to spend his time at hobbies, such as hunting and making locks, rather than at his duties of state, and he permitted his wife to influence him unduly.