Louis XVI of France Facts for Kids

Louis XVI (August 23, 1754 - January 21, 1793) was King of France and Navarre from 1774 to 1791 and as King of the French from 1791 to 1792. Suspended and arrested during the Insurrection of 10 August 1792, he was tried by the National Convention, found guilty of treason, and executed by guillotine on 21 January 1793. He was the only king of France to be executed and the last French Monarch.

Early Life
French Revolution
Exile and Escape
Arrest and Execution
Legacy
Related pages
Images for kids

Early Life

Queen Marie Antoinette with her three oldest children painted out after her death. By Marie Louise Élisabeth Vigée Lebrun

Louis XVI was born to Louis Ferdinand, Dauphin of France and grandson of Louis XV and his wife, Marie Josephe of Saxony, in 1754. His father died early in Louis's life and Louis XVI became the dauphin. His parents liked his older brother more than Louis and were upset when Louis's brother died at ten. Louis's parents turned against him and he became a shy boy. When Louis was 15, he married Marie Antoinette. At first, he and Marie did not consummate the marriage. At last, they did in 1773.

However, they failed to produce children for several years after that. This made the marriage strained. The situation was made worse when obscene pamphlets called libelles were published. These libelles mocked their failure to produce children. One questioned, "Can the King do it? Can't the King do it?" In the end, he and Marie Antoinette had four children:

Marie Thérèse of France (December 19, 1778)
Louis Joseph, Dauphin of France (October 22, 1781)
Louis XVII of France (March 27, 1785)
Sophie of France (July 9, 1787)

French Revolution

At Versailles, King Louis XVI could scarcely believe the storming of Bastille, but the National Assembly took it in stride. It was a victory for the people, and bloodshed was natural in revolution. But this was an important turning point for France. There was no longer any possibility for reform—the movement had organically become a revolution.

On October 5, 1789, an agitated assembly of women demanding bread marched to Versailles. They surged effortlessly past the palace guards and thundered into the queen's bedroom mere minutes after she fled. The mob wanted the royal family to come with them to Paris, and the ever-faltering Louis at last acquiesced to the people's demands. With a heavy heart, Louis added his signature to the Declaration of the Rights of Man and loaded his family into the royal carriage.

Exile and Escape

But Louis wouldn't be content as puppet king for very long. Even though he was imprisoned by the people in the Tuileries Palace, he had allies beyond France's borders who wanted to see him regain the throne. They planned an escape and broke from the Tuileries on the night of June 21, 1791, under the guise of servants. The royal family was close to the Austrian border when its carriage was apprehended at the town of Varennes. When Louis and his family were brought back to their quarters at the Tuileries, they were kept under heavier watch. Suspicions against the royal family continued to mount, including founded or unfounded beliefs that Marie Antoinette was writing to her family about confidential military maneuvers. In an act of misguided duty to the monarchies of Europe, Prussia's Duke of Brunswick wrote “ We will destroy Paris into the ground if anything happens to our royal majesty, the king and queen.”

Arrest and Execution

Louis' cousin, the Duke of Orleans was the one responsible for spreading rumors about Louis' wife which caused people to get very angry. Louis was officially arrested on 13 August and sent to the Temple, an ancient Paris fortress used as a prison. On September 21, the National Assembly declared France to be a republic and abolished the monarchy.

Louis was made to go on trial as an ordinary citizen, and he was quickly proclaimed guilty. Louis Capet had no allies in the Convention, but the Girondins at least wanted to spare his life. The Jacobins wouldn't hear of it; Louis must die. Robespierre convinced the people that the monarch must die for the republic to live. For the last time, he was reunited to his family and promised to come back the next morning but he did not. On his way to the guillotine, Louis Capet ominously prophesied, "I trust that my death will be for the happiness of my people, but I grieve for France, and I fear that she may suffer the anger of the Lord" but his speech was drowned out by a roll of drums. On January 20, 1793, the man they had once called “King” was no more. Marie Antoinette, the Queen, was executed months later.

Legacy

Louisville, Kentucky is named for Louis XVI. In 1780, the Virginia General Assembly present this name in honor of the French king, whose soldiers were aiding the American side in the American Revolution. The Virginia General Assembly saw the King as a noble man, but many other continental delegates disagreed.

Images for kids

The young duc de Berry (right) with his younger brother, the comte de Provence (portrait by François-Hubert Drouais, 1757)
The duc de Berry as a young boy. Portrait artributed to Pierre Jouffroy
Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, with her three eldest children, Marie Thérèse, Louis-Charles and Louis-Joseph, by Marie Louise Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun
Louis XVI in early adulthood
Louis-Charles, the dauphin of France and future Louis XVII, by Marie Louise Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun
Surrender of Cornwallis to French (left) and American (right) troops, at the Siege of Yorktown in 1781, by John Trumbull
Louis XVI distributing money to the poor of Versailles, during the brutal winter of 1788
"Le Couronnement de Louis XVI", by Benjamin Duvivier, honoring the 11 June 1775 coronation of Louis XVI
Louis XVI visiting Cherbourg in June 1786, on the occasion of the work to put in place a dike (1817)
Louis XVI receiving the ambassadors of Tippu Sultan in 1788, Voyer after Emile Wattier, 19th century
Louis XVI giving La Pérouse his instructions, by Nicolas-André Monsiau
One Louis d'or, 1788, depicting Louis XVI
Silver coin: 1 écu – Louis XVI, 1784
Tinted etching of Louis XVI, 1792. The caption refers to the date of the Tennis Court Oath and concludes, "The same Louis XVI who bravely waits until his fellow citizens return to their hearths to plan a secret war and exact his revenge."
The return of the royal family to Paris on 25 June 1791, coloured copperplate after a drawing of Jean-Louis Prieur
The Storming of the Tuileries Palace, on 10 August 1792 (Musée de la Révolution française)
Louis XVI imprisoned at the Tour du Temple (by Jean-François Garneray)
Execution of Louis XVI in the Place de la Révolution. The empty pedestal in front of him had supported an equestrian statue of his grandfather, Louis XV. When the monarchy was abolished on 21 September 1792, the statue was torn down and sent to be melted.
Memorial to Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, sculptures by Edme Gaulle and Pierre Petitot in the Basilica of Saint-Denis
The Duchess of Angoulême at the deathbed of Henry Essex Edgeworth, last confessor to Louis XVI, by Alexandre-Toussaint Menjaud, 1817

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Louis XVI of France facts for kids

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