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Louis XVI (Louis-Auguste; French: [lwi sɛːz]; 23 August 1754 – 21 January 1793) was the last king of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. The son of Louis, Dauphin of France (son and heir-apparent of King Louis XV), and Maria Josepha of Saxony, Louis became the new Dauphin when his father died in 1765.
The Left had three objects of enmity. First among these was the royal couple, King Louis XVI, Queen Marie Antoinette and the royal family. The Left as a whole wished to replace the monarchy with a republic, although this was not initially the public position of most of them.
[3] [4] [5] Combined with resistance to reform by the ruling elite and indecisive policy by Louis XVI and his ministers, the result was a crisis the state was unable to manage. [6] [7] Between 1715 and 1789, the French population grew from 21 to 28 million, 20% of whom lived in towns or cities, Paris alone having over 600,000 inhabitants. [8]
The National Constituent Assembly declared a celebration for 14 July 1790 on the Champ de Mars.By way of prelude to this patriotic fête, on 20 June, the Assembly, at the urging of the popular members of the nobility, abolished all titles, armorial bearings, liveries and orders of knighthood, destroying the symbolic paraphernalia of the ancien régime.
Louis XVI, who had backed Calonne's reform programme wholeheartedly, saw its refusal by the notables and the parliament as a personal failure. Conscientious in his attempts to alleviate the suffering of the French people, the king, it is clear, genuinely hoped to implement an enlightened policy with the help of Calonne.
Louis vetoed the decree as a matter of conscience. Louis XVI formed a series of cabinets, veering at times as far left as the Girondins. However, by the summer of 1792, amid war and insurrection, it had become clear that the monarchy and the now-dominant Jacobins could not reach any accommodation.
Jacques Necker (French: [ʒak nɛkɛʁ]; 30 September 1732 – 9 April 1804) was a Genevan banker and statesman who served as finance minister for Louis XVI.He was a reformer, but his innovations sometimes caused great discontent.
Louis XVI's order to surrender. At that moment the battalions of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine arrived, and the reinforced insurgents pushed the Swiss back into the palace. Louis, hearing from the manége the sound of firing, wrote on a scrap of paper: "The King orders the Swiss to lay down their arms at once, and to retire to their barracks." To ...