This date in 1754 was the birthdate of King Louis XVI of France, who reigned from 1774 to 1793 and was married to Marie Antoinette. 10 facts about him.
He was never supposed to be king. Like Henry VIII, he had an older brother who died young.
Because he wasn’t first in line to the throne, the young Louis was virtually ignored by his parents and grandfather while his older brother was with praise and gifts while being groomed for kingship. King Louis XV, his grandfather, called his grandson "ungainly" and "dimwitted", even though he was actually very intelligent.
After the death of his elder brother in 1761, and his father in 1765 aged just 36, Louis became the new dauphin at the age of 11 and his kingly education had to begin. His tutors, however, weren’t that good, teaching him that being timid and shy was a great attribute for a king, as was never letting on to anyone what you might be thinking about.
Louis was 15 when he married the Austrian princess Marie Antoinette. The marriage was arranged for political reasons. The marriage got off to a bad start when Louis decided he was going to organise the Firework display to end all firework displays as part of the celebrations. He ordered piles of fireworks to be set up on a wooden podium in the middle of Paris. People crowded in to get the best view. The wooden podium caught fire and people fled. 130 people lost their lives in the stampede to get away from the fire. It was here that Louis showed he wasn’t a cruel and heartless king: he met with the families of the victims personally and supported them financially. He did care, and wanted to be liked; he just didn’t know how.
Louis and Marie Antoinette had no children for several years, leading to rumours that the king couldn’t “get it up”. There was speculation he suffered from a condition that made the required marital relations very painful for him, if not impossible. In the end, Marie Antoinette’s brother, Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, concerned that the Austria-France alliance was in danger, decided he needed to go to Versailles in person and get to the bottom of the problem. He showed up incognito as the Comte de Falkenstein and stayed for a while. The story goes that Joseph was blunt enough to ask Louis what he and Marie Antoinette actually did when they were in bed together. Joseph wrote that Louis told him that he "introduces the member," but then, "stays there without moving for about two minutes." Then he’d get up and leave. So it seems as well as not teaching him how to rule a country, or the health and safety around fireworks, his teachers didn’t teach him how to do sex properly, either. Presumably Joseph gave him a few pointers and Marie Antoinette got pregnant soon after, although now the rumours circulated that Louis wasn’t actually the father of her kids.
Louis became king aged 19, in 1774. He did try and do some good stuff. He signed the 1787 Edict of Versailles (also known as the Edict of Tolerance), giving non-Catholics civil and legal status and freedom of religion in France.
He also tried to get France out of debt by introducing new taxes. Needless to say, that didn’t go down well and most of his efforts were blocked by the nobles.
Some may dispute that he was a caring sort on reading the following fact. One of his favourite pastimes was shooting Cats. It’s possible Louis developed a dislike for cats because his grandfather Louis XV loved them and let them roam and breed all over Versailles. So whenever Louis XVI came across a cat in the grounds, he’d shoot it. He didn’t stop to consider that it might be someone’s pet and at least once shot a female courtier's beloved moggy by mistake. To be fair, when he realised what he’d done he was most apologetic and even bought the lady a new cat.
When the revolution happened, Louis and his family were held in the Tuileries in Paris. While there, Louis came up with an escape plan. They would sneak out at night disguised as servants and flee to safety in Austria, where they would regroup and return in due course to take back the throne. The plan went well to start with. They got out of the Tuileries and made it as far as a small village near the Austrian border before it all went pear-shaped. The story goes that a local man recognised the king because his face was on all the money and shopped him. So the family was captured and returned to a more secure prison in Paris.
Louis had made a fatal mistake, because he wrote a manifesto on why he should be kept on as king and left it behind in the Tuileries when he left. Needless to say, it didn’t go down well with the revolutionaries who merely saw it as evidence of treason to be used to condemn him at his trial. Louis XVI was executed by guillotine on 21 January 1793. Just before he was executed he pardoned those who had signed his death warrant and proclaimed his own innocence. His execution marked the end of 1,000 years of continuous French monarchy.
No comments:
Post a Comment