Navarre / Louis XVI le Restaurateur de la Liberté Française (King Louis XVI the Restorer of French Liberty)

Navarre - Louis XVI le Restaurateur de la Liberté Française (King Louis XVI the Restorer of French Liberty) (10 May 1774 - 21 September 1792)

Louis XVI, born Louis-Auguste, also known as Louis Capet, was King of France from 1774 until his deposition in 1792, although his formal title after 1791 was King of the French. He was guillotined on 21 January 1793. His father, Louis, Dauphin of France, was the son and heir apparent of Louis XV of France, but his father died in 1765, and Louis succeeded his grandfather as king in 1774.

The first part of Louis' reign was marked by attempts to reform France in accordance with Enlightenment ideas. These included efforts to abolish serfdom, remove the taille, and increase tolerance toward non-Catholics. The French nobility reacted to the proposed reforms with hostility, and successfully opposed their implementation. Louis implemented deregulation of the grain market, advocated by his liberal minister Turgot, but it resulted in an increase in bread prices. In periods of bad harvests, it would lead to food scarcity which would prompt the masses to revolt. From 1776, Louis XVI actively supported the North American colonists, who were seeking their independence from Great Britain, which was realized in the 1783 Treaty of Paris.

The ensuing debt and financial crisis contributed to the unpopularity of the Ancien Régime. This led to the convening of the Estates-General of 1789. Discontent among the members of France's middle and lower classes resulted in strengthened opposition to the French aristocracy and to the absolute monarchy, of which Louis and his wife, queen Marie Antoinette, were viewed as representatives. In 1789, the storming of the Bastille during riots in Paris marked the beginning of the French Revolution.

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. His disastrous flight to Varennes in June 1791, four months before the constitutional monarchy was declared, seemed to justify the rumors that the king tied his hopes of political salvation to the prospects of foreign invasion. The credibility of the king was deeply undermined, and the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of a republic became an ever-increasing possibility.

In a context of civil and international war, Louis XVI was suspended and arrested at the time of the insurrection of 10 August 1792; one month later, the constitutional monarchy was abolished; the First French Republic was proclaimed on 21 September 1792. He was tried by the National Convention (self-instituted as a tribunal for the occasion), found guilty of high treason, and executed by guillotine on 21 January 1793, as a desacralized French citizen under the name of "Citizen Louis Capet", a nickname in reference to Hugh Capet, the founder of the Capetian dynasty - which the revolutionaries interpreted as Louis' family name. Louis XVI was the only King of France ever to be executed, and his death brought an end to more than a thousand years of continuous French monarchy.

The English translation of the royal style of King Louis XVI was:

(1774–1791) By the Grace of God, Most Christian King of France and Navarre; Count of Provence, Forcalquier and the lands adjacent; Dauphin of Viennois, Count of Valentinois and of Diois

(1791) By the Grace of God, Most Christian King of France and Navarre

(1791-1792) By the Grace of God and by the Constitutional Law of the State, King of the French

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Louis XVI le Restaurateur de la Liberté Française (King Louis XVI the Restorer of French Liberty): Details
CountryNavarre
From10 May 1774
To21 September 1792
Personal Information King Louis XVI of France
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