King Louis XVI and the French Revolution

The French Revolution is remembered with different opinions. It is agreed, however,

that the years from 1789 to 1799 was a reign of terror. It was a time in French and Europe

history where the monarchy government underwent a lot changes and in the end was

overthrown by the French citizens. Reasons for this strong and violent rebellion were the too

high and unfair taxes, which only the third estate had to pay, and the lack of participation in

ruling that King Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette showed. When the French people didn’t

want to deal with the mess anymore, they went and overthrew the government and guillotined

first the King and later also the Queen, which lead to a different, more responsible

government and the end of the absolute monarchy.

Louis XVI was born on August 23rd 1754 at Versailles in Paris. When he was only 16

years old married Marie-Antoinette through an arranged marriage and they became king and

queen in 1774. A couple of years later they had their first daughter, Marie-Therese, followed

by two sons and another daughter. Their last child died quickly after her birth and the two

boys died during the French revolution. Since both Louis and Marie-Antoinette preferred their

hobbies and living in luxury to ruling the country, they did everything to get more and more

money, not regarding the needs of others. They increased the taxes for the third estate and

used it all for their own good. Eventually this caused an incredible hatred in the French

citizens and soon they stormed the Palace of Versailles and imprisoned the royal family. They

tried to escape, but did not succeed and we’re sentenced to death only a short while after.

King Louis was guillotined on January 21st 1793.

King Louis didn’t see the French Revolution coming. However, when he did realize

that it was there, he maintained different personal and political goals. At first his goal was to
stop the revolution. His attempt at this failed though because since he hadn’t paid attention to

how to rule a country earlier, he had no idea what to do against the revolution. When he

realized that he had caused this trouble and that people were out to kill him and his family he

all of a sudden had a different goal in front of his eyes. All he wanted to do was stay alive. To

achieve this goal, he hid behind as many other people as necessary and didn’t care about their

well-being. This shows his selfishness and his disrespect toward his guards.

Another goal that King Louis XVI had during the French Revolution was to stay King

and keep France a monarchy. He noticed that his position of King was in danger when he was

described quite negatively in the papers and also when his wife was drawn as a harpy, an evil,

ferocious monster. Louis knew no one liked him, but he didn’t want to believe in it. That is

the reason why he didn’t do anything to change the revolution. He could have ended the

revolution by giving in and asking the peasant what they wanted and needed, by making fairer

taxes and giving people the freedom of opinion and speech.

To get away from all the people that wanted to see him dead, King Louis decided to

escape with his family near Austria, where they would be safe enough from attacks on the

Palace. By making this decision, Louis set up another goal, which was to get away safe,

secure, and secretly, without anyone noticing. Unfortunately, for him and his family, a post-

master in a little village recognized their faces from coins and drawings and reported them

immediately. When the royal family was arrested and brought back to Paris, they were looked

at with even more disgust. The French citizens imprisoned Louis and his family. Now there

was no longer anything special about them; they were just ordinary poor prisoners with

ragged old clothes. The failed escape brought King Louis XVI to an even more dangerous

position than the one he had been in before his attempted escape.
 All these things were goals of the King during the French Revolution. Whether he

managed to fulfill these or not is pretty clear when you look at the result of the revolution.

King Louis could not achieve his first goal, which was to stay alive. When the French citizens

noticed that Austria and Prussia were aiming to free Louis from prison, they realized that in

order to keep the two enemy countries away, they would be forced to kill the King. On

January 21st 1793 he was executed. Louis did not achieve his second goal either. When he and

his family were arrested on August 10th 1792 he was dethroned at the same time. It was clear

that as soon as the citizens had taken the step to arrest him, they would also take the next step

and take away his royalty. He did not achieve his last goal either because he was caught while

trying to escape.

As a conclusion anyone can see that King Louis XVI was not a very successful king

and ruler. Sometimes it is also the case that even though someone died, he was still successful

because their ideas were carried on after their death. This was not the case for Louis. To this

day, he has a bad reputation as a lazy, irresponsible leader.