Louis XVI, The Silent King. Louis XVI’s courage on June 20, 1792, when the royal palace was invaded by the Paris mob after his dismissal of the Girondin ministry, and his dignified bearing during his trial and at the moment of execution did something to redeem, but did not reestablish, his reputation. Professor of Modern History, Victoria University of Manchester, 1953–69. Initially, he had looked on the Revolution with equanimity. En 1816, son frère le roi Louis XVIII fit élever un monument funéraire (statue de marbre de Louis XVI à genoux en orant) réalisé par Edme Gaulle. Louis could no longer be considered a hostage or as leverage in negotiations with the invading forces. À la demande de Sanson, il ouvre le col de sa chemise. Joseph described the couple as "complete fumblers"; however, with his advice, Louis began to apply himself more effectively to his marital duties, and in the third week of March 1778 Marie Antoinette became pregnant. The Girondins were partial to keeping the deposed king under arrest, both as a hostage and a guarantee for the future. The duke then issued on 25 July a proclamation called the Brunswick Manifesto, written by Louis's émigré cousin, the Prince de Condé, declaring the intent of the Austrians and Prussians to restore the king to his full powers and to treat any person or town who opposed them as rebels to be condemned to death by martial law. [citation needed]. [31], This intervention in America was not possible without France adopting a neutral position in European affairs to avoid being drawn into a continental war which would be simply a repetition of the French policy mistakes in the Seven Years' War. The royal family took shelter with the Legislative Assembly. Beyond escape, they hoped to raise an "armed congress" with the help of the émigrés, as well as assistance from other nations with which they could return and, in essence, recapture France. Le vicaire Damoureau témoigne : « Arrivé au cimetière, je fis faire le plus grand silence. The Edict of Versailles did not legally proclaim freedom of religion in France – this took two more years, with the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of 1789 – however, it was an important step in eliminating religious tensions and it officially ended religious persecution within his realm.[24]. After 1778, Great Britain switched its focus to the West Indies, as defending the sugar islands was considered more important than trying to recover the thirteen colonies. He was succeeded by Queen Elizabeth II in 1952. La voiture quitte le Temple vers 9 heures au son de tambours et de trompettes. Philippe Égalité, formerly the Duke of Orléans and Louis's cousin, voted for Louis's execution, a cause of much future bitterness among French monarchists; he would himself be guillotined on the same scaffold, Place de la Révolution, before the end of the same year, on 6 November 1793. )[37], There is a lack of scholarship on the subject of Louis XVI's time as a constitutional monarch, though it was a significant length of time. At a trial on 17 January 1793, the National Convention had convicted the king of high treason in a near-unanimous vote; while no one voted "not guilty", several deputies abstained. Public dissension grew, and a National Guard formed to resist the King's actions. La polizia aveva fatto sapere che la giovane era stata uccisa e ora il marito della cugina si è dichiarato colpevole di omicidio colposo. He seemed to regard the deputies of the Estates-General with respect: in a wave of self-important patriotism, members of the Estates refused to remove their hats in the King's presence, so Louis removed his to them.[26]. [citation needed] The Madeleine cemetery was closed in 1794. L’un des assistants de Sanson présenta la tête de Louis XVI au peuple, cependant que s’élevait un immense cri de : “Vive la Nation ! They executed the King with their hats on, and it was without taking his hat off that Samson, [sic] seizing by the hair the severed head of Louis XVI., showed it to the people, and for a few moments let the blood from it trickle upon the scaffold.[4]. It was seen as if with the death of one came the life of the other. Dans son édition du lendemain, le quotidien L'Humanité commente la journée[24] : « Deux cents ans après la décapitation de Louis XVI, la fleur de lys tenait le haut du pavé. Louis's indecisiveness and conservatism led some elements of the people of France to view him as a symbol of the perceived tyranny of the Ancien Régime, and his popularity deteriorated progressively. L'autel de la crypte y marque l'endroit exact où Louis XVI fut inhumé. Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were the parents of four live-born children: In addition to his biological children, Louis XVI also adopted six children: "Armand" Francois-Michel Gagné (c. 1771-1792), a poor orphan adopted in 1776; Jean Amilcar (c. 1781-1793), a Senegalese slave boy given to the queen as a present by Chevalier de Boufflers in 1787, but whom she instead had freed, baptized, adopted and placed in a pension; Ernestine Lambriquet (1778-1813), daughter of two servants at the palace, who was raised as the playmate of his daughter and whom he adopted after the death of her mother in 1788; and finally "Zoe" Jeanne Louise Victoire (born in 1787), who was adopted in 1790 along with her two older sisters when her parents, an usher and his wife in service of the king, had died. The voyage was planned by the Swedish nobleman, and often assumed secret lover of Queen Marie-Antoinette, Axel von Fersen. Le trajet de la prison du Temple à la place de la Révolution, « Je meurs innocent de tous les crimes qu'on m'impute. According to Madame Campan, Marie Antoinette's lady-in-waiting, the queen also suffered two miscarriages. Initially, Louis XVI resisted, declared the Assembly null and void and called out the army to restore order. Per segnalare alla redazione eventuali errori nell'uso del materiale riservato, scriveteci a staff@notizie.it : provvederemo prontamente alla rimozione del materiale lesivo di diritti di terzi. Louis XVI, the last king of France (1774–92) in the line of Bourbon monarchs preceding the French Revolution of 1789. Daughter Marie-Thérèse was released from prison in December 1795 into the custody of her family in Austria. ", Henri Sanson was appointed Executioner of Paris from April 1793, and would later execute Marie Antoinette. First, the majority of the population stood in favor of the Parlement against the King, and thus continuously rebelled against him. When the pressure mounted, Louis XVI reverted to his earlier teaching of being austere and uncommunicative, posing no solution to the problem and not responding to others who offered help. Je prie Dieu que le sang que vous allez répandre ne retombe jamais sur la France, « Vive la Nation ! Well-disposed toward his subjects and interested in the conduct of foreign policy, Louis had not sufficient strength of character or power of decision to combat the influence of court factions or to give the necessary support to reforming ministers, such as Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot or Jacques Necker, in their efforts to shore up the tottering finances of the ancien régime. (2013)[66] tested the Y-DNA of three living members of the House of Bourbon, one descending from Louis XIII of France via King Louis Philippe I, and two from Louis XIV via Philip V of Spain, and concluded that all three men share the same STR haplotype and belonged to Haplogroup_R1b (R-M343). Il était vêtu d'un gilet blanc, d'une culotte de soie grise, les bas pareils. Can't the King do it?"[13]. Increasing 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. The day is now commemorated in France as a national holiday and the start of the French Revolution. The reasons for the couple's initial failure to have children were debated at that time, and they have continued to be debated since. "[22] In spite of his indecisiveness, Louis XVI was determined to be a good king, stating that he "must always consult public opinion; it is never wrong. He enjoyed physical activities such as hunting with his grandfather and rough play with his younger brothers, Louis-Stanislas, comte de Provence, and Charles-Philippe, comte d'Artois. Father Edgeworth had reminded the King that on Good Friday Jesus had offered his hands to be tied. Others (even some who had supported major political reform) condemned the execution as an act of senseless bloodshed and saw it as a sign that France had devolved into a state of violent, amoral chaos.