100-608: Louis Henri may refer to: Louis Henri, Prince of Condé (1756–1830) Louis Henri, Duke of Bourbon (1692–1740) [REDACTED] Topics referred to by the same term This disambiguation page lists articles about people with the same name. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Louis_Henri&oldid=1017609000 " Category : Human name disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
200-643: A duel ; "they met early one morning in the Bois de Boulogne , the fight being stopped after the Duke wounded Charles in the hand." Although the two men were reconciled in 1779, the marriage did not turn out to be a happy one, and in 1780 the couple separated. Louis never remarried. Shortly afterwards, Louis Henri began a public affair with the Paris Opera singer Marguerite “Mimi” Michelot, which resulted in two illegitimate daughters, one of whom, Adèle, went on to marry
300-712: A counter-revolution. Louis himself held reservations against depending on foreign assistance. Like his mother and father, he thought that the Austrians were treacherous and the Prussians were overly ambitious. As tensions in Paris rose and he was pressured to accept measures from the Assembly against his will, Louis XVI and the Queen plotted to secretly escape from France. Beyond escape, they hoped to raise an "armed congress" with
400-473: A country. Mirabeau's death on 7 April, and Louis XVI's indecision, fatally weakened negotiations between the Crown and moderate politicians. The Third Estate leaders also had no desire in turning back or remaining moderate after their hard efforts to change the politics of the time, and so the plans for a constitutional monarchy did not last long. On one hand, Louis was nowhere near as reactionary as his brothers,
500-605: A dangerous foreign attempt to undermine France's sovereignty. In addition to the ideological differences between France and the monarchical powers of Europe, there were continuing disputes over the status of Austrian estates in Alsace , and the concern of members of the National Constituent Assembly about the agitation of émigrés nobles abroad, especially in the Austrian Netherlands and
600-584: A formal Treaty of Alliance , and later that year France went to war with Britain . In deciding in favor of war, despite France's large financial problems, the King was materially influenced by alarmist reports after the Battle of Saratoga , which suggested that Britain was preparing to make huge concessions to the Thirteen Colonies and then, allied with them, to strike at French and Spanish possessions in
700-561: A member of the reigning House of Bourbon , he was a prince du sang and was entitled to the style of Serene Highness , prior to his accession to the Condé title, while he was known as the duke of Enghien and later as Duke of Bourbon . On succeeding his father he was entitled to the style of Royal Highness . On 24 April 1770, he married Bathilde d'Orléans , the only surviving daughter of Louis Philippe d'Orléans, Duke of Orléans and Louise Henriette de Bourbon . The couple were married in
800-446: A pension; Ernestine Lambriquet (1778–1813), daughter of two servants at the palace, who was raised as the playmate of his daughter and whom he adopted after the death of her mother in 1788; and finally "Zoe" Jeanne Louise Victoire (born in 1787), who was adopted in 1790 along with her two older sisters when her parents, an usher and his wife in service of the king, had died. Of these, only Armand, Ernestine and Zoe actually lived with
900-572: A position more favorable to Austria, which in the Treaty of Teschen was able to get in compensation the Innviertel , a territory whose population numbered around 100,000 persons. However, this intervention was a disaster for the image of the Queen, who was named " l'Autrichienne " (a pun in French meaning "Austrian", but the "chienne" suffix can mean "bitch") on account of it. Louis XVI hoped to use
1000-494: A sailing expedition around the world (La Pérouse and his fleet disappeared after leaving Botany Bay in March 1788. Louis is recorded as having asked, on the morning of his execution, "Any news of La Pérouse?".). There is a lack of scholarship on the subject of Louis XVI's time as a constitutional monarch, though it was a significant length of time. The reason as to why many biographers have not elaborated extensively on this time in
1100-502: A series of unsuccessful foreign military campaigns, leaving France in a state of financial difficulty. The young Louis XVI felt woefully unqualified to resolve the situation. As king, Louis XVI focused primarily on religious freedom and foreign policy. Although raised as the Dauphin since 1765, he lacked firmness and decisiveness. His desire to be loved by his people is evident in the prefaces of many of his edicts that would often explain
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#17327723109181200-574: A thousand years of continuous French monarchy. Both of his sons died in childhood, before the Bourbon Restoration ; his only child to reach adulthood, Marie Thérèse , was given over to her Austrian relatives in exchange for French prisoners of war, eventually dying childless in 1851. Louis-Auguste de France , who was given the title Duke of Berry at birth, was born in the Palace of Versailles on 23 August 1754. One of seven children, he
1300-423: A wider perspective, the failure was attributable to the king's indecision—he repeatedly postponed the schedule, allowing for smaller problems to become severe. Furthermore, he totally misunderstood the political situation. He thought only a small number of radicals in Paris were promoting a revolution that the people as a whole rejected. He thought, mistakenly, that he was beloved by his subjects. The King's flight in
1400-561: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Louis Henri, Prince of Cond%C3%A9 Louis Henri Joseph de Bourbon (13 April 1756 – 30 August 1830) was the Prince of Condé from 1818 to his death. He was the brother-in-law of Philippe Égalité and nephew of Victoire de Rohan . Louis Henri was the only son of Louis Joseph, Prince of Condé by his first wife, Charlotte de Rohan , daughter of Charles de Rohan, Prince of Soubise . As
1500-749: Is never wrong." He, therefore, appointed an experienced advisor, Jean-Frédéric Phélypeaux, Count of Maurepas who, until his death in 1781, would take charge of many important ministerial functions. Among the major events of Louis XVI's reign was his signing of the Edict of Versailles , also known as the Edict of Tolerance, on 7 November 1787, which was registered in the Parlement of Paris on 29 January 1788. Granting non-Roman Catholics – Huguenots and Lutherans , as well as Jews – civil and legal status in France and
1600-502: The Count of Provence and the Count of Artois , and he repeatedly sent messages to them requesting a halt to their attempts to launch counter-coups. This was often done through his secretly nominated regent, Cardinal Étienne Charles de Loménie de Brienne . On the other hand, Louis was alienated from the new democratic government both by its negative reaction to the traditional role of the monarch and in its treatment of him and his family. He
1700-567: The Declaration of Pillnitz , which declared the interest of the monarchs of Europe in the well-being of Louis and his family, and threatened vague but severe consequences if anything should befall them. Although Leopold saw the Pillnitz Declaration as an easy way to appear concerned about the developments in France without committing any soldiers or finances to change them, the revolutionary leaders in Paris viewed it fearfully as
1800-541: The Estates General , which had not met since 1614 (at the beginning of the reign of Louis XIII ). As a last-ditch attempt to get new monetary reforms approved, Louis XVI convoked the Estates General on 8 August 1788, setting the date of their opening on 1 May 1789. With the convocation of the Estates General, as in many other instances during his reign, Louis XVI placed his reputation and public image in
1900-731: The Insurrection of 10 August 1792 . One month later, the monarchy was abolished and the French First Republic was proclaimed on 21 September 1792. The former king became a desacralized French citizen, addressed as Citoyen Louis Capet (Citizen Louis Capet) in reference to his ancestor Hugh Capet . Louis 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. Louis XVI's death brought an end to more than
2000-687: The National Assembly . Louis XVI's attempts to control it resulted in the Tennis Court Oath ( serment du jeu de paume ), on 20 June, the declaration of the National Constituent Assembly on 9 July, and eventually to the storming of the Bastille on 14 July, which started the French Revolution. Within three short months, the majority of the King's executive authority had been transferred to the elected representatives of
2100-413: The Parlement , who opposed his reforms, on 6 May 1788, and even dissolving and depriving of all power the "Parlement", replacing it with a plenary court, on 8 May 1788. The failure of these measures and displays of royal power is attributable to three decisive factors. First, the majority of the population stood in favor of the Parlement against the King, and thus continuously rebelled against him. Second,
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#17327723109182200-649: The Seven Years' War . Vergennes, supported by King Louis, refused to go to war to support Austria in the War of the Bavarian Succession in 1778, when the Queen's brother Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor tried to partition Bavaria over a disputed inheritance. Vergennes and Maurepas refused to support the Austrian position, but the intervention of Marie Antoinette in favor of Austria obliged France to adopt
2300-525: The Testament politique de Louis XVI ("Political Testament of Louis XVI"), explaining his rejection of the constitutional system as illegitimate. The National Assembly was quick to decide to publish the theory that the King had been kidnapped, thus avoiding any challenge to the Constitution, which was then nearing completion, while at the same time ordering that the carriage be placed under arrest. It
2400-402: The abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of a republic became an ever-increasing possibility. The growth of anti-clericalism among revolutionaries resulted in the abolition of the dîme (religious land tax) and several government policies aimed at the dechristianization of France . In a context of civil and international war , Louis XVI was suspended and arrested at the time of
2500-407: The abolition of the monarchy on 21 September 1792. From 1791 onwards, he used the style of King of the French . The first part of Louis XVI's reign was marked by attempts to reform the French government in accordance with Enlightenment ideas. These included efforts to increase tolerance toward non-Catholics as well as abolish the death penalty for deserters . The French nobility reacted to
2600-856: The American Revolutionary War as an opportunity to expel the British from India. In 1782, he sealed an alliance with the Peshwa Madhavrao II . As a consequence, the Marquis de Bussy-Castelnau moved his troops to the Isle de France (now Mauritius ) and later contributed to the French effort in India in 1783. Pierre André de Suffren became the ally of Hyder Ali in the Second Anglo-Mysore War against
2700-686: The American rebels was a disappointment, with defeats at Rhode Island and Savannah . In 1780, France sent Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau and François Joseph Paul de Grasse to help the Americans, along with large land and naval forces. The French expeditionary force arrived in North America in July 1780. The appearance of French fleets in the Caribbean was followed by
2800-458: The Assembly created the Comité des Finances, and while Louis XVI attempted to declare his concern and interest in remedying the economic situations, inclusively offering to melt crown silver as a dramatic measure, it appeared to the public that the King did not understand that such statements no longer held the same meaning as they did before and that doing such a thing could not restore the economy of
2900-516: The Austrian court did hope for the princess to exert influence over her husband. Letters sent between the Empress and the Ambassador express a desire for Marie Antoinette to exercise authority in the French court and to encourage Louis XVI to dedicate more attention to his role as prince. To their disappointment, however, the princess did not seem overly interested in "serious affairs". Over time,
3000-697: The British East India Company from 1782 to 1783, engaging the Royal Navy along the coasts of India and Ceylon . France also intervened in Cochinchina following Pierre Pigneau de Behaine 's intervention to obtain military aid. A France-Cochinchina alliance was signed through the Treaty of Versailles of 1787 , between Louis XVI and Prince Nguyễn Ánh . Louis XVI also encouraged major voyages of exploration. In 1785, he appointed Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse to lead
3100-471: The British. This had led to a strategy amongst the French leadership of seeking to rebuild the French military in order to fight a war of revenge against Britain, in which it was hoped the lost colonies could be recovered. France still maintained a strong influence in the West Indies , and in India maintained five trading posts , leaving opportunities for disputes and power-play with Great Britain. In
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3200-519: The Children of France), from 1760 until his marriage in 1770, did not prepare him for the throne that he was to inherit in 1774 after the death of his grandfather, Louis XV. Throughout his education, Louis-Auguste received a mixture of studies particular to religion, morality, and humanities. His instructors may have also had a good hand in shaping Louis-Auguste into the indecisive king that he became. Abbé Berthier, his instructor, taught him that timidity
3300-958: The Comte de Reuilly. During the French Revolution , Louis Henri accompanied his father into exile in England and survived the purge of the House of Bourbon in France, which cost the lives of King Louis XVI and his wife Queen Marie Antoinette , amongst others. In 1804, his son, Louis Antoine, Duke of Enghien , was abducted in Germany by order of Napoleon and executed in the moat of the Château de Vincennes on trumped-up charges of treason. The Duke of Enghien had been married to Charlotte Louise de Rohan for less than two months and had no issue. Louis Henri returned with his father to France after
3400-541: The Crown to restore its power in a new constitutional form . Beginning in 1791, Armand Marc, comte de Montmorin , Minister of Foreign Affairs, started to organize covert resistance to the revolutionary forces. Thus, the funds of the Liste Civile , voted annually by the National Assembly, were partially assigned to secret expenses in order to preserve the monarchy. Arnault Laporte , who was in charge of
3500-495: The Duke of Aumale. His father, Louis Philippe, was the feudal-law heir to Conti and Condé, being the grandson of Louise Henriette de Bourbon , a daughter of Louise Élisabeth de Bourbon , who was sister of Louis Henri II's grandfather. He also had illegitimate issue; [REDACTED] Media related to Louis Henri, Prince of Condé at Wikimedia Commons Louis XVI Louis XVI (Louis Auguste; French: [lwi sɛːz] ; 23 August 1754 – 21 January 1793)
3600-406: The French aristocracy and to the absolute monarchy , of which Louis XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette, were representatives. Increasing tensions and violence were marked by events such as the storming of the Bastille , during which riots in Paris forced Louis to definitively recognize the legislative authority of the National Assembly . Louis's indecisiveness and conservatism led some elements of
3700-594: The French public. France's alliance with its traditional enemy Austria had pulled the country into the disastrous Seven Years' War , in which it was defeated by the British and the Prussians , both in Europe and in North America . By the time that Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were married, the French people generally disliked the Austrian alliance, and Marie Antoinette was seen as an unwelcome foreigner. For
3800-740: The Infantry Corps, the Prince was made Colonel General of the Light Infantry and consequently became the namesake for the Bourbon Line Infantry Regiment which was formed by the merger of the 9th Line Infantry Regiment ( 9ème Régiment d'Infanterie de Ligne ) and the 2nd & 7th Battalions of the 37th Light Infantry Regiment ( 37ème Régiment d'Infanterie Légère ). This regiment also joined Napoleon after his return from Elba in March 1815. While in exile in 1811,
3900-653: The King agreed to retain many of the traditions which had been the norm in 1614 and prior convocations of the Estates General, but which were intolerable to a Third Estate (the bourgeoisie) buoyed by recent proclamations of equality. For example, the First and Second Estates (the clergy and nobility respectively) proceeded into the assembly wearing their finest garments, while the Third Estate was required to wear plain, oppressively somber black, an act of alienation that Louis XVI would likely have not condoned. He seemed to regard
4000-476: The Nation. The Menus-Plaisirs du Roi was under the direction of Papillon de la Ferté and he gave details in his journal about the costs of the performances over the years 1756–1780 in three different palaces. The wedding in 1771 was especially costly. The performance of Castor et Pollux in 1779 when he was visited by his brother-in-law, Joseph II, involved more than 500 people. Royal household spending in 1788
4100-526: The North American colonists , who were seeking their independence from Great Britain , which was realised in the Treaty of Paris (1783) . 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
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4200-587: The Parlement of Paris to register the new laws and fiscal reforms. Upon the refusal of the members of the Parlement , Louis XVI tried to use his absolute power to subjugate them by every means: enforcing in many occasions the registration of his reforms via Lit de justice (6 August 1787, 19 November 1787, and 8 May 1788), exiling all Parlement magistrates to Troyes as a punishment on 15 August 1787, prohibiting six members from attending parliamentary sessions on 19 November, arresting two very important members of
4300-462: The Prussian envoy, Baron Goltz, reported that Louis XVI had definitely declined the operation. Louis XVI was frequently declared to be perfectly capable of sexual intercourse, as confirmed by Joseph II , and during the time he was supposed to have had the operation, he went out hunting almost every day, according to his journal. This would not have been possible if he had undergone a circumcision; at
4400-746: The West Indies. Spain and the Netherlands soon joined the French in an anti-British coalition. After 1778, Great Britain switched its focus to the West Indies , as defending the sugar islands was considered more important than trying to recover the Thirteen Colonies. France and Spain planned to invade the British Isles themselves with the Armada of 1779 , but the operation never went ahead. France's initial military assistance to
4500-522: The capture of a number of the sugar islands, including Tobago and Grenada . In October 1781, the French naval blockade was instrumental in forcing a British army under Cornwallis to surrender at the Siege of Yorktown . When news of this reached London in March 1782, the North ministry fell and Great Britain immediately sued for peace terms; however, France delayed the end of the war until September 1783 in
4600-431: The chapel at the Palace of Versailles and were descended from Louis XIV to the same degree, their paternal great grandmothers were sisters, daughters of Madame de Montespan . In 1772 their only son, Louis Antoine, Duke of Enghien , was born. In March 1778, King Louis XVI 's youngest brother, the Count of Artois (the future King Charles X ), assaulted his wife at a masked ball, leading Louis Henri to challenge him to
4700-422: The civil list, collaborated with both Montmorin and Mirabeau. After the sudden death of Mirabeau, Maximilien Radix de Sainte-Foix , a noted financier, took his place. In effect, he headed a secret council of advisers to Louis XVI, which tried to preserve the monarchy; these schemes proved unsuccessful, and were exposed later when the armoire de fer was discovered. Regarding the financial difficulties facing France,
4800-442: The condition seven years after their marriage. Louis XVI's doctors were not in favour of the surgery – the operation was delicate and traumatic, and capable of doing "as much harm as good" to an adult male. The argument for phimosis and a resulting operation is mostly seen to originate from Stefan Zweig 's 1932 biography of Marie Antoinette. Most modern historians agree that Louis XVI had no surgery – for instance, as late as 1777,
4900-459: The country's way out of debt. Again this failed, so Louis convoked the Assembly of Notables in 1787 to discuss a revolutionary new fiscal reform proposed by Calonne. When the nobles were informed of the true extent of the debt, they were shocked and rejected the plan. After this, Louis XVI and his new Controller-General of Finances , Étienne-Charles de Loménie de Brienne , tried to simply force
5000-425: The couple became closer, though while their marriage was reportedly consummated in July 1773, it did not actually happen until 1777. The couple's failure to produce any children for several years placed a strain upon their marriage, exacerbated by the publication of obscene pamphlets ( libelles ) mocking their infertility. One such pamphlet questioned, "Can the King do it? Can't the King do it?". The reasons for
5100-404: The couple's initial failure to have children were debated at that time, and they have continued to be debated since. One suggestion is that Louis XVI suffered from a physiological dysfunction, most often thought to be phimosis , a suggestion first made in late 1772 by the royal doctors. Historians adhering to this view suggest that he was circumcised (a common treatment for phimosis) to relieve
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#17327723109185200-525: The crisis from the public by explaining only that ordinary revenues exceeded ordinary expenses, and not mentioning the loans. After he was forced from office in 1781, new taxes were levied. This intervention in America was not possible without France adopting a neutral position in European affairs to avoid being drawn into a continental war which would be simply a repetition of the French policy mistakes in
5300-535: The crowd to the Tuileries Palace in Paris, the reasoning being that the King would be more accountable to the people if he lived among them in Paris. The Revolution's principles of popular sovereignty, though central to democratic principles of later eras, marked a decisive break from the centuries-old principle of divine right that was at the heart of the French monarchy. As a result, the Revolution
5400-459: The defeat of Napoleon in 1814, and both recovered their fortunes and public status. On his father's death in 1818, he assumed the title of Prince of Condé . During the 1814 restoration, the Prince, as Duke of Bourbon, became the namesake for the 8th Bourbon Light Horse Regiment ( 8ème Régiment de Chasseurs à Cheval de Bourbon ). However, following Napoleon's return in March 1815, the regiment joined Napoleon and he emigrated to Belgium. Within
5500-404: The deputies of the Estates General with respect: in a wave of self-important patriotism, members of the Estates refused to remove their hats in the King's presence, so Louis removed his to them. This convocation was one of the events that transformed the general economic and political malaise of the country into the French Revolution . In June 1789, the Third Estate unilaterally declared itself
5600-526: The developments in France, and considered whether they should intervene, either in support of Louis or to take advantage of the chaos in France. The key figure was Marie Antoinette's brother, Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor . Initially, he had looked on the Revolution with equanimity. However, he became more and more disturbed as it became more and more radical. Despite this, he still hoped to avoid war. On 27 August, Leopold and Frederick William II of Prussia , in consultation with émigrés French nobles, issued
5700-441: The duc de Bourbon had made the acquaintance at a bordello in Piccadilly of Sophia Dawes or Daw, a maid in a brothel from the Isle of Wight . He set the woman and her mother up in London in a house on Gloucester Street. There, she went through an extensive educational program. After the Bourbon Restoration in 1815, Louis Henri brought her to Paris and arranged a marriage for her to Baron Adrien Victor de Feucheres, an officer in
5800-487: The excellence of [his] judgement," though flattery was to be expected when addressing a prince. Louis-Auguste's apparent mathematical skills are corroborated by his enjoyment of cartography, which would have required an understanding of scale and projections. He also enjoyed physical activities such as hunting with his grandfather and rough play with his younger brothers, Louis-Stanislas, Count of Provence , and Charles-Philipe, Count of Artois . From an early age, Louis-Auguste
5900-402: The first ever accounting of the French Crown's expenses and accounts, the Compte-rendu au Roi . This misleading publication led the people of France to believe the kingdom ran a modest surplus. When this policy of hiding and ignoring the kingdom's financial woes failed miserably, Louis dismissed and replaced him in 1783 with Charles Alexandre de Calonne , who increased public spending to "buy"
6000-458: The hands of those who were perhaps not as sensitive to the desires of the French population as he was. Because it had been so long since the Estates General had been convened, there was some debate as to which procedures should be followed. Ultimately, the Parlement of Paris agreed that "all traditional observances should be carefully maintained to avoid the impression that the Estates General could make things up as it went along." Under this decision,
6100-440: The head of the House of Orléans , the Duke of Orleans , and through him made a new entry into society. In return, she agreed to use her influence on the aging Louis Henri II to have him set up a will making the son of Louis Philippe, Prince Henri, Duke of Aumale , the old prince's main heir. Sophia was given two million francs for her services in the matter. The new Bourbon king, Charles X, eventually accepted her back at court. She
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#17327723109186200-440: The help of the émigrés , as well as assistance from other nations with which they could return and, in essence, recapture France. This degree of planning reveals Louis's political determination, but it was for this determined plot that he was eventually convicted of high treason. He left behind (on his bed) a 16-page written manifesto, Déclaration du roi, adressée à tous les François, à sa sortie de Paris , traditionally known as
6300-434: The hope of overrunning more British colonies in India and the West Indies. Great Britain recognized the independence of the Thirteen Colonies as the United States of America, and the French war ministry rebuilt its army . However, the British defeated the main French fleet in 1782 at the Battle of the Saintes and successfully defended Jamaica and Gibraltar . France gained little from the Treaty of Paris (1783) that ended
6400-401: The inheritance for years to come. There are some aspects of the relationship between Sophia and the Prince which may have inspired William Thackeray 's novel Vanity Fair , specifically concerning the character Becky Sharp and her possible involvement in the death of Joseph Sedley. With Louis Henri's death the line of Bourbon-Condé came to an end; his lands and wealth passed to his godson,
6500-434: The king from his profile on a 50 livres assignat (paper money), had given the alert. Louis XVI and his family were taken back to Paris where they arrived on 25 June. Viewed suspiciously as traitors, they were placed under tight house arrest upon their return to the Tuileries. At the individual level, the failure of the escape plans was due to a series of misadventures, delays, misinterpretations, and poor judgments. In
6600-531: The king's life is due to the uncertainty surrounding his actions during this period, as Louis XVI's declaration that was left behind in the Tuileries stated that he regarded his actions during his constitutional reign as provisional; he reflected that his "palace was a prison". This time period was exemplary in its demonstration of an institution's deliberation while in their last standing moments. Louis XVI's time in his previous palace came to an end on 5 October 1789, when an angry mob of Parisian working men and women
6700-570: The legal right to practice their faiths, this edict effectively nullified the Edict of Fontainebleau that had been law for 102 years. The Edict of Versailles did not legally proclaim freedom of religion in France – this took two more years, with the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789 – however, it was an important step in eliminating religious tensions and it officially ended religious persecution within his realm. Radical financial reforms by Anne Robert Jacques Turgot and Guillaume-Chrétien de Lamoignon de Malesherbes angered
6800-450: The marriage bed and Marie Antoinette's lack of interest in conjugal activity. Joseph described the couple as "complete fumblers"; however, with his advice, Louis XVI began to apply himself more effectively to his marital duties, and in the third week of March 1778 Marie Antoinette became pregnant. Eventually, the royal couple became the parents of four children. According to Jeanne-Louise-Henriette Campan , Marie Antoinette's lady-in-waiting,
6900-405: The minor states of the Holy Roman Empire . In the end, the Legislative Assembly , supported by Louis XVI, declared war on Austria ("the King of Bohemia and Hungary") first, voting for war on 20 April 1792, after a long list of grievances was presented to it by the foreign minister, Charles François Dumouriez . Dumouriez prepared an immediate invasion of the Austrian Netherlands, where he expected
7000-472: The monarchs had clearly been heading for the Austrian border . War now seemed imminent, and the King seemed to have been politically involved with France's traditional enemies, who were still widely hated despite recent cooperation. Many citizens felt betrayed, and as a result, Republicanism now burst out of the coffee houses and became a dominating philosophy of the rapidly radicalized French Revolution. The other monarchies of Europe looked with concern upon
7100-400: The nature and good intention of his actions as benefiting the people, such as reinstating the parlements . When questioned about his decision, he said, "It may be considered politically unwise, but it seems to me to be the general wish and I want to be loved." In spite of his indecisiveness, Louis XVI was determined to be a good king, stating that he "must always consult public opinion; it
7200-483: The night of 2–3 November 1783. Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were the parents of four live-born children: In addition to his biological children, Louis XVI also adopted six children: "Armand" Francois-Michel Gagné ( c. 1771 –1792), a poor orphan adopted in 1776; Jean Amilcar ( c. 1781 –1796), a Senegalese slave boy given to the queen as a present by Stanislas de Boufflers in 1787, but whom she instead had freed, baptized, adopted and placed in
7300-482: The nobles and were blocked by the parlements who insisted that the King did not have the legal right to levy new taxes. So, in 1776, Turgot was dismissed and Malesherbes resigned, to be replaced by Jacques Necker . Necker supported the American Revolution , and he carried out a policy of taking out large international loans instead of raising taxes. He attempted to gain public favor in 1781 by publishing
7400-581: The northeastern border of France, where he would join the émigrés and be protected by Austria. The voyage was planned by the Swedish nobleman, and often assumed secret lover of Queen Marie Antoinette, Axel von Fersen . While the National Assembly worked painstakingly towards a constitution , Louis and Marie-Antoinette were involved in plans of their own. Louis had appointed Louis Auguste Le Tonnelier de Breteuil to act as plenipotentiary, dealing with other foreign heads of state in an attempt to bring about
7500-536: The people of France to view him as a symbol of the perceived tyranny of the Ancien Régime , and his popularity deteriorated progressively. His unsuccessful 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 intervention . His credibility was deeply undermined, and
7600-418: The proposed reforms with hostility, and successfully opposed their implementation. Louis implemented deregulation of the grain market , advocated by his economic liberal minister Turgot , but it resulted in an increase in bread prices. In periods of bad harvests, it led to food scarcity which, during a particularly bad harvest in 1775, prompted the masses to revolt . From 1776, Louis XVI actively supported
7700-401: The queen also suffered two miscarriages. The first one, in 1779, a few months after the birth of her first child, is mentioned in a letter to her daughter, written in July by Empress Maria Theresa. Madame Campan states that Louis XVI spent an entire morning consoling his wife at her bedside, and swore to secrecy everyone who knew of the occurrence. Marie Antoinette suffered a second miscarriage on
7800-400: The royal family: Jean Amilcar, along with the elder siblings of Zoe and Armand who were also formally foster children of the royal couple, simply lived on the queen's expense until her imprisonment, which proved fatal for at least Amilcar, as he was evicted from the boarding school when the fee was no longer paid, and reportedly starved to death on the street. Armand and Zoe had a position which
7900-508: The royal guard. This was done to allow Sophia’s entry into French society. However, in the course of setting up her marriage license, Sophia lied on several particulars. Feucheres, who became an aide to the duke, believed for several years that Sophia was a natural daughter of Louis Henri II. When he discovered the truth, he separated from his wife, and informed King Louis XVIII of the real relationship between Louis Henri and Sophia. The king banned Sophia from court. In revenge, Sophia approached
8000-631: The royal treasury was financially destitute to a crippling degree, leaving it incapable of sustaining its own imposed reforms. Third, although the King enjoyed as much absolute power as his predecessors, he lacked the personal authority crucial for absolutism to function properly. Now unpopular with both the commoners and the aristocracy, Louis XVI was therefore only very briefly able to impose his decisions and reforms, for periods ranging from 2 to 4 months, before having to revoke them. As authority dissipated from him and reforms were clearly becoming unavoidable, there were increasingly loud calls for him to convoke
8100-406: The short term was traumatic for France, inciting a wave of emotions that ranged from anxiety to violence to panic. The realization that the King had repudiated the Revolution was a shock for people who until then had seen him as a good king who governed as a manifestation of God's will. Many suspected the King of collaborating with the Austrians, due to Marie Antoinette's family ties and the fact that
8200-478: The spring of 1776, Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes , the Minister for Foreign Affairs, saw an opportunity to humiliate France's long-standing enemy, Great Britain , and to recover territory lost during the Seven Years' War , by supporting the American Revolution . In the same year Louis was persuaded by Pierre Beaumarchais to send supplies, ammunition, and guns to the rebels secretly. Early in 1778 he signed
8300-418: The testamentary heirs of Condé – might be disinherited by the Prince after a possible flight abroad. Later, rumours circulated amongst the nobility that Condé had died pleasuring himself, engaged in what would later be known as autoerotic asphyxiation . Since there was insufficient evidence to prove that he had been murdered, the baroness was not prosecuted, although she was involved in litigation regarding
8400-422: The throne in 1774, he was nineteen years old. He had an enormous responsibility, as the government was deeply in debt, and resentment of despotic monarchy was on the rise. His predecessor, his grandfather Louis XV , had been widely hated by the time of his death. The public remembered him as an irresponsible man who spent his time womanizing rather than administrating. Furthermore, the monarchy had poured money into
8500-407: The very least, he would have been unable to ride to the hunt for a few weeks afterwards. The couple's sexual problems are now attributed to other factors. Antonia Fraser 's biography of Marie Antoinette discusses Joseph II's letter on the matter to one of his brothers after he visited Versailles in 1777. In the letter, Joseph describes in astonishingly frank detail Louis XVI's inadequate performance in
8600-408: The war, except the colonies of Tobago and Senegal. Louis XVI was wholly disappointed in his aims of recovering Canada, India, and other islands in the West Indies from Britain, as they were too well defended and the Royal Navy made any attempted invasion of mainland Britain impossible. The war cost 1,066 million livres , financed by new loans at high interest (with no new taxes). Necker concealed
8700-612: The young couple, the marriage was initially amiable but distant. Louis XVI's shyness and, among other factors, the young age and inexperience of the newlyweds (who were near total strangers to each other: they had met only two days before their wedding) meant that the fifteen-year-old bridegroom failed to consummate the union with his fourteen-year-old bride. His fear of being manipulated by her for Austrian purposes caused him to behave coldly towards her in public. Correspondence between Marie Antoinette's mother and Austria's French ambassador Florimond Claude, Comte de Mercy-Argenteau suggest that
8800-483: Was 13% of total state expenses (excluding interest on debts). French involvement in the Seven Years' War had left Louis XVI a disastrous inheritance. Britain's victories had seen them capture most of France's colonial territories. While some were returned to France at the Treaty of Paris (1763) , almost all of New France was ceded to the British, or to France's Spanish allies to compensate them for losses to
8900-474: Was a deliberately deceptive choice, since Louis XVI had left a manifesto in plain view, assuming and justifying the escape. La Fayette decided to censor the text. Letters were sent throughout the country to stop the royal carriage. Louis's indecision, many delays, and misunderstanding of France were responsible for the failure of the escape. Within 24 hours, the royal family was arrested at Varennes-en-Argonne shortly after Jean-Baptiste Drouet , who recognised
9000-403: Was a value in strong monarchs, and Abbé Soldini, his confessor, instructed him not to let people read his mind. On 19 April 1770, at the age of fifteen, Louis XVI married the fourteen-year-old Archduchess Maria Antonia of Austria , his second cousin once removed and the youngest daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Francis I and Empress Maria Theresa . This marriage was met with hostility from
9100-511: Was again considered acceptable by polite French society. She was even able to arrange the marriage of a niece to a nephew of Talleyrand . By now, Louis Henri was trying to get away from the mistress who had taken over his life. In the summer of 1830, he returned to his home at St. Leu . There, he heard of the July Revolution . Sophia immediately set about to get him to recognize the new Orléans monarchy. On 27 August 1830, Louis Henri
9200-483: Was encouraged in another of his interests, locksmithing, which was seen as a useful pursuit for a child. When his father died of tuberculosis on 20 December 1765, the eleven-year-old Louis-Auguste became the new Dauphin . His mother never recovered from the loss of her husband and died on 13 March 1767, also from tuberculosis. The strict and conservative education he received from Paul François de Quelen de la Vauguyon , " gouverneur des Enfants de France " (governor of
9300-409: Was found dead with a rope around his neck but his feet on the ground; while there were initially suspicions of foul play, with the baroness being implicated, an inquiry was held which formally declared his death to be a suicide . There were rumours that the new King of the French, Louis-Philippe , had collaborated with Sophia in the crime, as they feared that she and Louis Phillippe's son Aumale –
9400-525: Was incited by revolutionaries and marched on the Palace of Versailles , where the royal family lived. At dawn, they infiltrated the palace and attempted to kill the queen, who was associated with a frivolous lifestyle that symbolized much that was despised about the Ancien régime . After the situation had been defused by Lafayette , head of the National Guard , the king and his family were brought by
9500-484: Was more similar to that of Ernestine: Armand lived at court with the king and queen until he left them at the outbreak of the revolution because of his republican sympathies, and Zoe was chosen to be the playmate of the Dauphin, just as Ernestine had once been selected as the playmate of Marie Thérèse, and sent away to her sisters in a convent boarding school before the Flight to Varennes in 1791. When Louis XVI acceded to
9600-462: Was opposed by many of the rural people of France and by all the governments of France's neighbors. Still, within the city of Paris and amongst the philosophers of the time, many of which were members of the National Assembly, the monarchy had next to no support. As the Revolution became more radical and the masses more uncontrollable, several of the Revolution's leading figures began to doubt its benefits. Some, like Honoré Mirabeau , secretly plotted with
9700-530: Was particularly irked by being kept essentially as a prisoner in the Tuileries, and by the refusal of the new regime to allow him to have confessors and priests of his choice rather than ' constitutional priests ' pledged to the state and not the Roman Catholic Church. On 21 June 1791, Louis XVI attempted to flee secretly with his family from Paris to the royalist fortress town of Montmédy on
9800-494: Was regarded as bright and handsome but died at the age of nine in 1761. Louis-Auguste, a strong and healthy boy but very shy, excelled in his studies and had a strong taste for Latin, history, geography, and astronomy and became fluent in Italian and English. His tutors in mathematics and physics had high praises for his work. Le Blonde, his mathematics instructor, wrote that the prince's studies were "proofs of [his] intelligence and
9900-461: Was the last king of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution . The son of Louis, Dauphin of France (1729–1765) (son and heir-apparent of King Louis XV ), and Maria Josepha of Saxony , Louis became the new Dauphin when his father died in 1765. In 1770, he married Archduchess Maria Antonia of Austria (Marie Antoinette). He became King of France and Navarre on his grandfather's death on 10 May 1774, and reigned until
10000-466: Was the second surviving son of Louis , the Dauphin of France and the grandson of Louis XV and of his consort, Maria Leszczyńska . His mother was Marie-Josèphe of Saxony , the daughter of Augustus III , Prince-elector of Saxony and King of Poland and Archduchess Maria Josepha of Austria . Louis-Auguste was overlooked by his parents who favored his older brother, Louis, Duke of Burgundy , who
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