Madeleine Cemetery (in French known as Cimetière de la Madeleine ) is a former cemetery in the 8th arrondissement of Paris and was one of the four cemeteries (the others being Errancis Cemetery , Picpus Cemetery and the Cemetery of Saint Margaret ) used to dispose of the corpses of guillotine victims during the French Revolution . The cemetery was named after Mary Magdalene , known in French as Sainte-Madeleine.
197-470: In 1720, the parish of Sainte-Madeleine de la Ville-l’Évêque bought a piece of land of approximately 45x19m destined to become the third cemetery of the parish. It became known as the Madeleine Cemetery. The cemetery was closed on 25 March 1794, reputedly because it was full, but maybe for sanitary reasons, as it was located in an affluent part of Paris. Major interments were the 133 victims of
394-575: A costume ball celebrating carnival in 1745. By July, she was the King's mistress and was formally given the title of the Marquise de Pompadour. For the next twenty years, she was the King's confidante and advisor, helping him choose or demote ministers. Her opinions led to the downfall of some very competent ministers, including Machault d'Aurnouville and the Marquis d'Argenson , and to the promotion of
591-528: A hedge , two weeping willows , and cypress trees. On 11 January 1815, Desclozeaux sold his house and the old cemetery to Louis XVIII. One of the first decisions of Louis XVIII , when he acceded to the throne of France at the time of the Bourbon Restoration , was to move the remains of his brother and sister-in-law, King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette , to the Basilica of St Denis ,
788-746: A British fleet in the Mediterranean and captured Minorca from Britain . Meanwhile, the French army greatly outnumbered its British and Prussian counterparts on the continent, and after some fighting France signed the Convention of Klosterzeven with the Duke of Cumberland , which resulted in French troops occupying parts of Hanover and the Hanoverians withdrawing from the conflict entirely. Another French army had already invaded Saxony and Hanover ,
985-540: A Catholic doctrine based largely on the teachings of Saint Augustine . Jansenism had attracted many important followers in France, including the philosopher Blaise Pascal , the poet Racine , aristocrats including Madame de Sévigné and Madame de Lafayette. The faculty of the Sorbonne, then primarily a theological college and a center of Jansenism, demanded clarification from the government. The Jansenists were allied with
1182-631: A French invasion of the rest of the Netherlands, urged a quick settlement, despite objections from Austria and Sardinia. The Treaty was quickly negotiated and signed by all the parties in September and October 1748. Louis was also eager for a quick settlement, because the naval war with Britain was extremely costly to French maritime trade. The proposition of Louis was surprisingly generous; in the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle , Louis offered to return all of
1379-594: A comparable sum and donate it freely to the government. His support for the church came both from the teachings of his tutor, Cardinal Fleury, and his gratitude to Archbishop de Beaumont, who defended him against the attacks of the Jansenists and the criticisms of the Parlement, and the Archbishop's tolerance of the King's own personal life and mistresses. Despite the French victories, the war dragged on both in
1576-712: 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
1773-473: 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,
1970-605: 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
2167-468: A defensive treaty signed on 6 August 1726 between Prussia, Russia and Austria. In 1732 the coalition came into direct conflict with France over the succession to the Polish throne . The King of Poland and Elector of Saxony , Augustus II , was dying, and the favoured candidate to succeed him was Stanislaus I Leszczyński , the father of the Queen of France. In the same year Russia, Prussia and Austria signed
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#17327724663422364-533: 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
2561-479: A major victory over the Austrians at the Battle of Mollwitz . On 18 May, Fleury assembled a new alliance combining France, Prussia, Spain and Bavaria, later joined by Poland and Sardinia. However, in 1742, the balance of the war shifted against France. The German-born British King, George II , who was also the Elector of Hanover, joined the war on the side of Austria and personally took charge of his soldiers fighting
2758-400: A number of incompetent military commanders. Her most successful choice was the promotion of the Duke de Choiseul , who became one of the King's most effective ministers. She ceased all sexual intimacy with the King by 1750, but remained his closest advisor and titular mistress . She was promoted to Duchess in 1752, and Dame of the Queen's Palace in 1756, and was an important patron of music and
2955-446: 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
3152-467: 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
3349-712: A practical education in government. Beginning in 1720 he attended the regular meetings of the Regency Council. One economic crisis disrupted the Regency; the Scottish economist and banker John Law was named controller-general of finances. In May 1716, he opened the Banque Générale Privée ("General Private Bank"), which soon became the Banque Royal. It was mostly funded by the government, and
3546-480: A prime minister. Two of his ministers took the most prominent positions in his government; the finance minister, Jean Baptiste de Machault D'Arnouville , and the minister of the armies, Comte d'Argenson . With the end of the war, Louis decided to take the opportunity to reduce the debt and modernize the system of taxation of the Kingdom. The package of reforms was put together by his finance minister D'Arnouville and
3743-476: A result of these repressive acts, religious dissent remained an issue throughout the King's reign. Tension grew between the Duke of Bourbon and Cardinal de Fleury over the King's favor. The Duke's rigid and cold personality did not appeal to the young King, who turned to his old tutor for advice on how to run the affairs of state. When the King insisted that Fleury was to be included in all meetings between himself and
3940-554: A rival, however it was rumored at the time that one of the methods by which Marie Anne kept the interest of the king was to periodically offer him a ménage à trois with Diane Adélaïde. These widespread rumors made the sisters' visit to the King in Metz a national scandal and during their notorious visit the King suddenly fell gravely ill. Death appeared imminent, yet the King's chaplain refused him absolution unless he renounced his mistress, which he did. Marie Anne left The Court and after
4137-494: 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
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#17327724663424334-570: A secret agreement to exclude Stanislaus from the throne, and put forward another candidate, Augustus III , son of the deceased Polish king. The death of Augustus on 1 February 1733, with two heirs claiming the throne, sparked the War of the Polish Succession . Stanislaus traveled to Warsaw , where he was elected and crowned on 12 September. Empress Anna of Russia immediately marched her regiments into Poland to support her candidate. Stanislaus
4531-502: 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
4728-514: A small squadron with two thousand soldiers, which after a fierce action was sunk by the Russians. On 3 July Stanislaus was forced to flee again, in disguise, to Prussia, where he became the guest of King Frederick William I of Prussia in the castle of Königsberg . To bring the war to an end, Fleury and Charles VI negotiated an ingenious diplomatic solution. Francis III, Duke of Lorraine , left Lorraine for Vienna, where he married Maria Theresa ,
4925-691: A territory from the St. Lawrence River to the Great Lakes and extending down the Ohio and Mississippi River valleys to Louisiana , compared with a population of one million settlers in the British 13 Colonies . To defend its territories, France had constructed Fort Duquesne to defend its frontier against the indigenous Americans; Britain sent the young George Washington with a small force to construct his own fortification, Fort Necessity , nearby. In 1754, after
5122-504: 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
5319-423: 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
5516-696: 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
5713-516: The Age of Enlightenment in France quietly began. On 15 June 1722, as Louis approached his thirteenth birthday, the year of his majority, he left Paris and moved back to Versailles, where he had happy memories of his childhood, but where he was far from the reach of public opinion. On 25 October, Louis was crowned King at the Cathedral of Reims . On 15 February 1723, the king's majority was declared by
5910-502: 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
6107-567: 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
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6304-685: The Duchy of Lorraine , while another crossed the Alps and captured Milan on 3 November, handing it over to the King of Sardinia. Fleury was less energetic in his actions to restore the Polish throne to Stanislaus, who was blockaded by the Russian navy and army in Danzig. Instead of sending the largest part of the French fleet from its station off Copenhagen to Danzig, he ordered it to return to Brest and sent only
6501-498: The Duke of Anjou , was born in 1730 and died in 1733. Of the daughters only the two oldest daughters, who were fraternal twins, were raised at Versailles; the others were sent away to be raised at the Abbey of Fontevrault . Marie was a pious and timid Queen who spent most of her time secluded with her own courtiers. She was a musician, read extensively, and played social games with her courtiers. After 1737, she did not share her bed with
6698-626: The Duke of Noailles was defeated by a force of British, Hessian and Hanover soldiers led by George II at the Battle of Dettingen , and in September French forces were compelled to abandon Germany. In 1744, the Austrian Netherlands became the primary battlefield of the war, and the French position began to improve. Frederick the Great decided to rejoin the war on the French side. Louis XV left Versailles to lead his armies in
6895-463: The Dutch Republic , declared war on Spain. Spain was defeated on both land and sea, and quickly sought peace. A Franco-Spanish treaty was signed on 27 March 1721. The two governments proposed to unite their royal families by marrying Louis to his cousin, Mariana Victoria of Spain , the three-year-old daughter of Philip V of Spain , who was himself a grandson of Louis XIV. The marriage contract
7092-541: 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
7289-731: 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
7486-687: 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
7683-400: The Parlement of Paris, the assembly composed of high nobles and wealthy Parisians who had purchased seats, it was rejected by a vote of one hundred and six to forty nine; the majority asked for more time to consider the project. The King responded by demanding immediate registration, which the Parlement reluctantly granted on 19 May. Resistance to the new measures grew with the church and in
7880-413: 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,
8077-601: 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
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8274-525: 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
8471-402: 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
8668-407: 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
8865-421: The vingtième , a tax of five percent on net revenue, which, unlike the dixième , taxed the income of all French citizens, including for the first time the income from the property of the clergy and the nobility. While the new tax was supported by many, including Voltaire , it met immediate and fierce resistance from both the nobility and the church. When on 5 May 1749 it was presented for formal registration to
9062-747: 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
9259-686: 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
9456-726: The Archbishop of Paris threatened to excommunicate any member of the Church who read the Jansenist journal, Nouvelles Ecclésiastiques . The Parlement was strictly forbidden to discuss religious questions, preventing them from opposing the Unigenitus bull. Priests who did not accept Unigenitus were denied the authority to administer last rites to the dying. A new tax, the cinquantième , was levied against religious figures who had previously been exempted from taxation. Jansenists and Protestants were threatened with prison and banishment. As
9653-458: 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
9850-490: The Austrian Netherlands. The King's defense of his action was practical: he did not want the Netherlands to be a permanent source of contention between France and other powers; he also felt that France had already reached its proper borders, and it was better to cultivate its prosperity rather than make it larger. His basis was also religious; he had been taught by Fleury that the Seventh Commandment forbade taking
10047-535: The Austrian ambassador in Paris to Madame de Pompadour for delivery to the King. She proposed a secret alliance between Austria and France, to meet the threats of the growing power of Prussia, which was still formally an ally of France, and Britain. In the New World, conflict had already begun between Great Britain and France. New France was at an enormous demographic disadvantage vis-à-vis its British counterparts; there were about 70,000 French colonists spread over
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#173277246634210244-516: 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,
10441-429: The Beloved (French: le Bien-Aimé ), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reached maturity (then defined as his 13th birthday) in 1723, the kingdom was ruled by his grand-uncle Philippe II, Duke of Orléans , as Regent of France . Cardinal Fleury was chief minister from 1726 until his death in 1743, at which time
10638-500: 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
10835-412: 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
11032-463: 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
11229-414: 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
11426-409: The Duke of Bourbon, the Duke was infuriated and began to undermine Fleury's position at court. When the King became aware of the Duke's intrigue, he abruptly dismissed him and replaced him with Fleury. From 1726 until his death in 1743, Fleury effectively ruled France with the king's assent. Fleury dictated the choices to be made, and encouraged the king's indecision and flattered his pride. He forbade
11623-433: The Duke of Noailles, showed the King a letter that Louis XIV had written to his grandson, Philip V of Spain ; it counseled: "Don't allow yourself to be governed; be the master. Never have a favorite or a prime minister. Listen, consult your Council, but decide yourself. God, who made you King, will give you all the guidance you need, as long as you have good intentions." Louis followed this advice and decided to govern without
11820-514: The Duke's own sisters Henriette Louise de Bourbon and Élisabeth Alexandrine de Bourbon . In the end, the 21-year-old Marie Leszczyńska , daughter of Stanislaus I , the deposed king of Poland, was chosen. The marriage was celebrated in September 1725 when the king was 15 and Marie was 22. Louis was said to have fallen in love with Marie instantly, and consummated his marriage to her seven times on their wedding night. From 1727 to 1737, Marie gave Louis XV ten children: eight girls and two boys. Of
12017-445: The European stage, particularly Russia under Peter the Great and his successor, Catherine . The Habsburg monarchy under Charles VI was assembling a scattered but impressive empire as far as Serbia in southeastern Europe with territories taken from the Ottoman Empire , and from Spain, acquiring the Austrian Netherlands , Milan and the Kingdom of Naples . A new coalition against France began to assemble in eastern Europe, sealed by
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#173277246634212214-406: 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
12411-487: The French army in the German states along the Rhine. British naval supremacy prevented France from reinforcing its colonies overseas, and British naval squadrons raided the French coast at Cancale and Le Havre and landed on the Ile d'Aix and Le Havre. In 1759 the British attacked Martinique and Guadeloupe in the French West Indies , and captured Port Louis and Quebec . A series of French naval defeats forced Louis to abandon plans for invasion of Britain . In India,
12608-400: The French colony at Pondicherry was besieged by the British, and surrendered the following year. On 8 September 1760, Montreal surrendered, bringing to an end French rule in Canada. Martinique fell to the British in 1762. On 5 January 1757, as the King was getting into his carriage in the courtyard of the Grand Trianon Versailles, a demented man, Robert-François Damiens , pushed through
12805-404: The French in Germany. Maria Theresa's Hungarian army recaptured Linz and marched into Bavaria as far as Munich. In June, Frederick of Prussia withdrew from the alliance with France, after gaining the Duchies of Silesia from the Austrians. Belleville had to abandon Prague, with a loss of eight thousand men. For seven years, France was engaged in a costly war with constantly shifting alliances. Orry,
13002-413: The French nearly two to one, decisively defeated the army of the Prince de Soubise at the Battle of Rossbach . The new British Prime Minister, William Pitt , named a new commander, Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel , and the French armies were gradually pushed back to the Rhine, and defeated again at the Battle of Krefeld on 23 June. Thereafter, Britain and Prussia held the upper hand, tying down
13199-426: 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
13396-460: The Gallicans, theologians who wanted the Catholic Church in France to be distinctly French. The opposition to Unigenitus was particularly strong among the members of the Parlement of Paris , the assembly of the nobles. Despite the protests, on 24 March 1730 Cardinal Fleury persuaded the King to issue a decree that Unigenitus was the law of France as well as that of the Church. The government and church imposed repressive measures. On 27 April 1732,
13593-403: The Great in 1717; at their first meeting and contrary to ordinary protocol between such great rulers, the two-meter-tall Tsar greeted Louis by picking him up under the arms and giving him a kiss. Louis also learned the skills of horseback riding and hunting, which became great passions. In 1720, following the example of Louis XIV, Villeroy had the young Louis dance in public in two ballets—once at
13790-601: The Habsburg empire, or Louis's generals, who for a century had won glory fighting Austria. The King in Prussia had died on 31 May and was succeeded by his son Frederick the Great , a military genius with ambitions to expand Prussia's borders. The Elector Charles Albert of Bavaria, supported by Frederick, challenged the succession of Maria Theresa, and on 17 December 1740 Frederick invaded the Austrian province of Silesia . The elderly Cardinal Fleury had too little energy left to oppose this war. Fleury sent his highest ranking general, Charles Louis Auguste Fouquet, duc de Belle-Isle ,
13987-404: The Habsburgs since the early 16th century. As a result, the Ottoman Empire in 1740 renewed the French capitulations , which marked the supremacy of French trade in the Middle East. With these successes, Louis XV's prestige reached its highest point. In 1740 Frederick William I of Prussia declared "Since the Treaty of Vienna France is the arbiter of Europe." On 29 October 1740, a courier brought
14184-568: The Jansenists and the so-called "Gallicans" in Parlements of nobles. After the dismissal of 139 members of provincial parlements for opposing the official government and papal doctrine of Unigenitus , the Parlement of Paris had to register the Unigenitus papal bull and was forbidden to hear religious cases in the future. In the first years of his governance, Fleury and his foreign minister Germain Louis Chauvelin sought to maintain
14381-653: 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
14578-476: The King and Parlement was fought over the status of the Hôpital Général , a semi-religious organization which operated six different hospitals and shelters in Paris, with a staff of some five thousand persons. Many of the hospital staff and officials were Jansenists, while the board of directors of the hospital included many prominent members of the Parlement of Paris . In 1749, the King decided to purge
14775-486: The King by sentencing Damiens to the most severe possible penalty. On 28–29 March 1757 Damiens was executed on the Place de Grève in Paris by drawing and quartering, following which his body was burned on a bonfire. The house where he was born was burned down, his father, wife and daughter were banished from France, and his brothers and sisters were required to change their name. The King recovered physically very quickly, but
14972-651: The King left Versailles in order to take personal command of his armies fighting in the War of the Austrian Succession. This otherwise popular move was marred by the King's indiscreet decision to bring along Marie Anne. When Marie Anne visited the King in Metz in August 1744 she was accompanied by her sister Diane Adélaïde de Mailly . While an amiable companion, Marie Anne did not consider her simple sister to be much of
15169-419: The King recovered he made a triumphal entry into Paris. On 25 November, Minister Maurepas was obliged to recall Marie Anne to Versailles, but she soon fell sick with convulsive pains and died on 8 December 1744. Following her death the King consoled himself with Diane Adélaïde until he met Madame de Pompadour in 1745. The King's adultery confession, which was distributed publicly, embarrassed him and tarnished
15366-468: The King to go into mourning and for a time he turned to religion for consolation. When the King finally recovered his spirits, Louise Julie introduced the King to her youngest sister, Marie Anne de Mailly . The King was immediately attracted to Marie Anne, however she insisted that he expel her older sister from the Court before she would become his mistress. The King gave in, and on 4 October 1742, Marie Anne
15563-630: The King told him, "You see what a victory costs. The blood of our enemies is still the blood of men. The true glory is to spare it." Saxe went on to win further victories at Rocoux (1746) and Lauffeld (1747). In 1746 French forces besieged and occupied Brussels , which Louis entered in triumph. The King gave de Saxe the Chateau de Chambord in the Loire Valley as a reward for his victories. After Fleury's death in January 1743, his war minister,
15760-463: The King's guards and attacked the King, stabbing him in the side with a small knife. The King's guards seized Damiens, and the King ordered them to hold him but not harm him. The King walked up the steps to his rooms at the Trianon, where he found he was bleeding profusely. He summoned his doctor and a priest, and then fainted. Louis was saved from greater harm by the thickness of the winter clothing he
15957-465: The King. She was deeply upset by the death of her son the Dauphin in 1765, and died on 24 June 1768. One of the first serious conflicts that disturbed the early reign of Louis XV was a battle within the Catholic Church over a Papal Bull called Unigenitus . The Bull was requested by Louis XIV of Pope Clement XI and granted on 8 September 1713. It was a fierce condemnation of Jansenism ,
16154-460: The Kingdom of France must be governed by a regent until a given king had reached the age of 13. The title of regent was customarily assigned to an under-aged king's nearest adult living relative, often his mother or an uncle. But as Louis's mother had been struck down by disease, and as his only uncle had already been enthroned as King of Spain, the job fell to his great-uncle Philippe II, Duke of Orléans . However Louis XIV had distrusted Philippe, who
16351-682: The Maréchal de Belle-Isle, the grandson of Nicolas Fouquet , the famous disgraced controller of finances of Louis XIV, as his ambassador to the Diet of Frankfurt, with instructions to avoid a war by supporting the candidacy of the Elector of Bavaria to the Austrian throne. Instead, the Maréchal, who detested the Austrians, made an agreement to join with the Prussians against Austria, and the war began. French and Bavarian armies quickly captured Linz and laid siege to Prague . On 10 April 1741 Frederick won
16548-476: 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
16745-570: The Navy and household of the King, the Conte de Maurepas, was in office the entire period. In all he had just thirteen ministers over the course of nineteen years, while the King, in his last thirty-one years, employed forty-three. Louis's Controller-General of Finances Michel Robert Le Peletier des Forts (1726–1730), stabilized the French currency, though he was expelled for enriching himself in 1730. His successor, Philibert Orry , substantially reduced
16942-580: The Netherlands and in Italy, where Maréchal Belle-Isle was besieging the Austrians in Genoa. By the summer of 1747 France occupied the entire Austrian Netherlands (modern-day Belgium). In March 1748, Louis proposed a conference in Aix-la-Chapelle to bring the war to an end. The process was advanced by the capture of Maastricht by the Maréchal de Saxe on 10 April 1748. Britain, pressed by the threat of
17139-505: The Netherlands in person, and French field command was given to the German-born Maréchal Maurice de Saxe , a highly competent general. At the Battle of Fontenoy on 11 May 1745, Louis, accompanied by his young son the Dauphin, came under fire for the first time and witnessed a French victory over combined British, Dutch and Austrian forces. When the Dauphin became excited at the sight of so many dead enemy soldiers,
17336-526: 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
17533-530: 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
17730-547: The Parlement of Paris, officially ending the regency. Philippe continued to manage the government, and took the title of Prime Minister in August 1723, but while visiting his mistress, far from the court and medical care, he died in December of the same year. Following the advice of his preceptor Fleury, Louis XV appointed his cousin Louis Henri, Duke of Bourbon , to replace the late Duke of Orléans as prime minister. One of
17927-520: The Parlement, and the Parlement, without taking any action, went on vacation. On 20 November, when the Parlement returned, the King again summoned de Maupeou for an audience and again demanded action without delay. This time the Parlement members met but refused to discuss the Hospital. On 28 January 1752, the King instructed the Grand Council to change the administration of the Hospital without
18124-462: 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
18321-710: The Tuileries Palace on 24 February 1720, and then again in The Ballet des Elements on 31 December 1721. The shy Louis was terrified of these performances, and never danced in another ballet. The King's tutor was the Abbé André-Hercule de Fleury , the bishop of Fréjus (and later to become Cardinal de Fleury), who saw that he was instructed in Latin, Italian, history and geography, astronomy, mathematics and drawing, and cartography. The King had charmed
18518-805: 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
18715-546: The age of seven, the King was taken away in tears from his beloved governess Madame Ventadour and placed in the care of François de Villeroy , the 73-year-old Duke and Maréchal de France , named as his governor in Louis XIV's will of August 1714. Villeroy instructed the young King in court etiquette, taught him how to review a regiment, and how to receive royal visitors. His guests included the Russian Tsar Peter
18912-471: The ancestral home of George II . However, the best French commander, Maurice de Saxe , had died two years after the War of the Austrian Succession , and his successors, the Prince de Soubise , the Duke D'Estrees and the Duke de Broglie detested each other, and were rarely willing to cooperate. In August Frederick of Prussia made a lightning strike into Saxony and on 5 November 1757, though outnumbered by
19109-449: The approval of the Parlement . Voltaire, describing the affair, wrote, "Never before has such a small affair caused such a great emotion of the spirit." It was the first overt disobedience of the legislature against the King, and one of the first signs that the Parlement believed it, not the King, was the legitimate source of laws in the nation. The King's original plans to tax the church also ran into difficulty. A royal decree ordered all
19306-401: The arts, as well as religious establishments. She remained close to the King until her death in 1764. He was devastated, and remained in seclusion for several weeks after she died. The peace achieved by Louis with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle lasted only seven years. At the end of August 1755, Marie Therese , the Empress of Austria, discreetly wrote a letter to Louis XV, which was passed by
19503-423: The attack had a depressive effect on his spirits. One of his chief courtiers, Duford de Cheverny, wrote afterwards: "it was easy to see that when members of the court congratulated him on his recovery, he replied, 'yes, the body is going well', but touched his head and said, 'but this goes badly, and this is impossible to heal.'" After the assassination attempt, the King invited his heir, the Dauphin, to attend all of
19700-515: The boys, only the elder, the Dauphin Louis (1729–1765), survived childhood. While he did not live to rule, his birth as the awaited heir was welcomed with celebration in all spheres of French society. (The Dauphin Louis would go on to marry Maria Josephina of Saxony in 1747, who gave birth to the next three Kings of France: Louis XVI , Louis XVIII , and Charles X ). Louis XV's second son,
19897-522: 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
20094-682: The cemetery was cleared and the skeletal remains were transferred to the l'Ossuaire de l'Ouest (West Ossuary). When the ossuary was closed, the contents were transferred to the Paris catacombs , which was also the resting place of remains removed from the Errancis Cemetery . Those killed in the September Massacres of 1792 are alleged to be buried here: The decapitated corpses of the guillotine victims were thrown in specially dug trenches and covered in quicklime to speed up
20291-422: 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,
20488-416: The clergy to submit a declaration of their revenue by 17 February 1751, but that day passed without any declarations given. Instead it became known that the King had quietly issued a new decree in December 1750, canceling the tax and relying again, entirely, on the " don gratuit ", the voluntary donation by the church of 1,500,000 livres. Under the new decree, instead of a tax, the church would each year collect
20685-442: 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,
20882-459: 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
21079-425: 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
21276-404: 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
21473-525: 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
21670-535: 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
21867-463: The death of both the Grand and Petit dauphins, Louis's elder brother immediately became Dauphin of France , but just over two weeks further still, on 7 March, it was found that both the elder Louis and the younger Louis had also contracted measles. The two brothers were treated in the traditional way, with bloodletting . On the night of 8–9 March, the new Dauphin, age five, died from the combination of
22064-513: The debt caused by the War of the Spanish Succession, and simplified and made more fair the tax system, though he still had to depend upon the unpopular dixieme , or tax of the tenth of the revenue of every citizen. Orry managed, in the last two years of Fleury's government, to balance the royal budget, an accomplishment never again repeated during the rest of the reign. Fleury's government expanded commerce, both within France and with
22261-758: The decomposition process. There were no markers. Among those reputed to have been buried here: It is unclear how many corpses were buried: the estimates vary from hundreds up to three thousand. The cemetery was located on the intersection of rue d’Anjou and the Grand Égout (now Boulevard Haussmann ) in Paris. It was part of the land on which the Chapelle expiatoire , built in the memory of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, now stands. 48°52′25″N 2°19′22″E / 48.87361°N 2.32278°E / 48.87361; 2.32278 Louis XVI Louis XVI (Louis Auguste; French: [lwi sɛːz] ; 23 August 1754 – 21 January 1793)
22458-526: 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
22655-526: 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
22852-494: The disastrous Seven Years' War in 1763. He incorporated the territories of the Duchy of Lorraine and the Corsican Republic into the Kingdom of France. Historians generally criticize his reign, citing how reports of his corruption embarrassed the monarchy, while his wars drained the treasury and produced little gain. However, a minority of scholars argue that he was popular during his lifetime, but that his reputation
23049-464: The disease and the treatment. The governess of Louis, Madame de Ventadour , forbade the doctors to bleed the two year old Duke of Anjou by hiding him in a palace closet where she cared for him alone; where he survived despite being very ill. When Louis XIV himself finally died on 1 September 1715, Louis, at the age of five, trembling and crying and against all probability, inherited the throne as Louis XV. According to Charles V's royal ordinance of 1374
23246-534: The eternal object of jealousy." Louis lacked the communicative skills to explain his decision to the French public, and further, did not see any need to do so. The news that the King had returned the Southern Netherlands to Austria was met with disbelief and bitterness. The French obtained so little of what they had fought for that they adopted the expressions Bête comme la paix ("Stupid as the peace") and Travailler pour le roi de Prusse ("To work for
23443-487: 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
23640-517: The firework celebration of the marriage of the Dauphin (the future Louis XVI ) to Marie Antoinette of Habsburg-Lorraine on 30 May 1770 and those of the Swiss Guards who were massacred in the Tuileries , 10 August 1792 . The day after the execution of the " Hébertists " the cemetery was closed and became private land. The beheaded corpses (victims of the guillotine) were then taken to what
23837-522: 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"
24034-502: The first priorities of the Duke of Bourbon was to find a bride for the King, to assure the continuity of the monarchy, and especially to prevent the succession to the throne of the Orléans branch of the family, the rivals of his branch. A list of 99 princesses was prepared, among them being Princess Anne of Great Britain , Barbara of Portugal , Princess Charlotte Amalie of Denmark , Elisabeth Therese of Lorraine , Enrichetta d'Este and
24231-458: 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,
24428-752: The heir presumptive to the Habsburg thrones. The vacant throne of Lorraine was to be occupied by Stanislaus, who abandoned his claim to the Polish throne. Upon the death of Stanislaus, the Duchy of Lorraine and Bar would become part of France. Francis, as the future emperor, would be compensated for the loss of Lorraine by the granting of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany . The King of Sardinia would be compensated with certain territories in Lombardy. The marriage of Francis of Lorraine and Maria Theresa took place in 1736, and
24625-440: 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
24822-552: 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
25019-473: The hospital of Jansenists and corruption, appointed a new "Supérieure" against the will of the administrators, who resigned, then appointed four temporary administrators, and asked the First President of the Parlement of Paris, René Nicolas Charles Augustin de Maupeou , to implement his decree for the reorganization of the hospital. De Maupeou refused to carry out the decree without the authorization of
25216-403: The killing of French envoy, Joseph Coulon de Jumonville , the French sent reinforcements and compelled Washington and his men to withdraw. The undeclared French and Indian War followed, with British and French colonies in North America engaging in open conflict. By the end of 1755, British ships had captured over 300 French merchantmen. In January 1756, Louis sent an ultimatum to London, which
25413-491: 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
25610-512: The king of Prussia", i.e. working for nothing). Louis had been very much in love with the Queen, and they were inseparable in the early years of his reign, but as his family grew, and the Queen was constantly pregnant or exhausted by her maternities, he began to look elsewhere. He first became attached to one of the ladies of the Queen's court, Louise Julie de Mailly , who was the same age as he and from an ancient noble family. Without courtship or ceremony, he made her his mistress, and raised her to
25807-478: The king to discuss politics with the Queen. In order to save on court expenses, he sent the youngest four daughters of the king to be educated at the Abbey of Fontevrault. On the surface it was the most peaceful and prosperous period of the reign of Louis XV, but it was built upon a growing volcano of opposition, particularly from the noble members of the Parlements, who saw their privileges and power reduced. Fleury made
26004-416: The king took sole control of the kingdom. His reign of almost 59 years (from 1715 to 1774) was the second longest in the history of France, exceeded only by his predecessor, Louis XIV, who had ruled for 72 years (from 1643 to 1715). In 1748, Louis returned the Austrian Netherlands , won at the Battle of Fontenoy of 1745. He ceded New France in North America to Great Britain and Spain at the conclusion of
26201-531: 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
26398-406: The king's mistresses were widely distributed and read. Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson , better known as Madame de Pompadour, was the most famous and influential of the mistresses of Louis XV. She was the illegitimate daughter of a Paris fermier-general , and was married to a banker, Charles Guillaume Lenormant d'Étoiles . She was noticed by the King following one of his hunts, and formally met him at
26595-402: The laws of succession instituted by Louis XIV, and, as his oldest surviving male descendant, could now legally become king if the legitimate direct line of succession became extinguished. In August 1714, shortly before his own death, the King rewrote his will to restrict the powers of the regent; it stipulated that the nation was to be governed by a Regency Council made up of fourteen members until
26792-678: 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
26989-424: The local population to rise against Austrian rule. However, the Revolution had thoroughly disorganised the army, and the forces raised were insufficient for the invasion. The soldiers fled at the first sign of battle and, in one case, on 28 April 1792, murdered their general, Irish-born Théobald Dillon , whom they accused of treason. Louis XV Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis
27186-450: 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,
27383-543: 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
27580-527: 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
27777-400: 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
27974-484: The necropolis of the Kings of France. They were exhumed on 18 and 19 January 1815, and moved to Saint-Denis Basilica on 20 January. Marie Antoinette's remains were identified by a garter and a jaw, which an eyewitness identified as being the queen's, based on having seen her smile over thirty years before. Louis XVIII also searched for the remains of his sister Élisabeth in the Errancis Cemetery , but to no avail. In 1844,
28171-426: The new king reached the age of majority. Philippe, nephew of Louis XIV, was named president of this Council, but other members included the Duke of Maine and at least seven of his well-known allies. According to the will, all decisions were to be made by majority vote, meaning that the president could always be outvoted by Maine's party and effectively allowing Maine to rule France for the next eight years. Philippe saw
28368-577: The news to the King, who was hunting in Fontainebleau, that the Emperor Charles VI was dead, and his daughter Maria Theresa was set to succeed him. After two days of reflection, Louis declared, "In these circumstances, I don't want to get involved at all. I will remain with my hands in my pockets, unless of course they want to elect a Protestant emperor." This attitude did not please France's allies, who saw an opportunity to take parts of
28565-483: 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
28762-482: 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
28959-649: 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
29156-560: The other exchanges took place in turn. With the death of Stanislaus in 1766, Lorraine and the neighboring Duchy of Bar became part of France. In September 1739, Fleury scored another diplomatic success. France's mediation in the war between the Holy Roman Empire and the Ottoman Empire led to the Treaty of Belgrade (September 1739), which favoured the Ottoman Empire, beneficiary of a Franco-Ottoman alliance against
29353-585: The papal doctrine Unigenitus part of French law and forbade any debate in Parlement, which caused the silent opposition to grow. He also downplayed the importance of the French Navy, which would prove be a fatal mistake in future conflicts. Fleury showed the King the virtues of a stable government; he kept the same Minister of War, Bauyn d'Angervilliers, and controller of the currency, Philibert Orry , for twelve years, and his minister of foreign affairs, Germain Louis Chauvelin , for ten years. His minister of
29550-533: The peace by maintaining the French alliance with Great Britain, despite their colonial rivalry in North America and the West Indies . They also rebuilt the alliance with Spain, which had been shaken by the anger of the Spanish King when Louis refused to marry the Spanish infanta . The birth of the king's male heir in 1729 dispelled the risks of a succession crisis in France. However, new powers were emerging on
29747-536: 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
29944-460: The prestige of the monarchy. Although Louis XV's recovery earned him the epithet "well-beloved" from a public relieved by his survival, the events at Metz diminished his standing. The military successes of the War of the Austrian Succession inclined the French public to overlook Louis' adulteries, but after 1748, in the wake of the anger over the terms of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, pamphlets against
30141-430: The property of others by fraud or violence. Louis often cited a Latin maxim declaring, "if anyone who asks by what means he can best defend a kingdom, the answer is, by never wishing to augment it." He also received support from Voltaire, who wrote, "It seems better, and even more useful for the court of France to think about the happiness of its allies, rather than to be given two or three Flemish towns which would have been
30338-418: 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
30535-517: The provinces, which had their own parlements . While the Parlements of Burgundy, Provence and Artois bowed to the King's demands, Brittany and Languedoc refused. The royal government closed down the Parlement of Brittany, ordered the members of the Parlement of Languedoc to return to their estates and parishes, and took direct control of the Provence. Within Paris, the battle between
30732-401: 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
30929-450: The rank of Duchess. The Duke of Luynes commented on the King's behavior: "The King loves women, and yet there is absolutely no gallantry in his spirit." In 1738, after the Queen lost an unborn child, her doctors forbade her to have relations with the King for a time. The King was offended by her refusal and thereafter never shared her bed. Acknowledging that he was committing adultery, Louis refused thereafter to go to confession and to take
31126-612: The rest of the world. Transportation and shipping were improved with the completion of the Saint-Quentin canal (linking the Oise and Somme rivers) in 1738, which was later extended to the Escaut River and the Low Countries , and the systematic building of a national road network. By the middle of the 18th century, France had the most modern and extensive road network in the world. The Council of Commerce stimulated trade, and French foreign maritime trade increased from 80 to 308 million livres between 1716 and 1748. The Government continued its policy of religious repression, aimed at
31323-458: The right to challenge a king's decisions – which had been removed by Louis XIV. The droit de remontrance would impair the monarchy's functioning and marked the beginning of a conflict between the Parlement and King which contributed to the French Revolution in 1789. In the mean time, however, the will was annulled and Philippe was installed as Regent with full powers to act in the name of the King in all matters. On 9 September 1715, Philippe had
31520-400: 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
31717-631: 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
31914-565: The sacrament. The Cardinal de Fleury tried to persuade him to confess and to give up his mistress, but without success. In 1738, the King turned his attentions to the sister of Louise Julie, Pauline Félicité de Mailly . Pauline Félicité became pregnant in 1740, allegedly by the King, and subsequently died during childbirth (The illegitimate son of the King and Pauline Félicité came to be known as "Demi-Louis" due to his visual resemblance to his father who took care of his financial needs but gave him little attention.). Pauline Félicité's death caused
32111-406: 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
32308-422: 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
32505-411: The superintendent of French finance, was forced to reinstate the highly unpopular dixieme tax to fund the war. Cardinal de Fleury did not live to see the end of the conflict; he died on 29 January 1743, and thereafter Louis ruled alone. The war in Germany was not going well; the French and Bavarian forces were faced with the combined armies of Austria, Saxony, Holland, Sardinia and Hanover. The army of
32702-463: The territories he had conquered in the Netherlands to the Austrians, Maastricht to the Dutch, Nice and Savoy to the Sardinians, and Madras in India to the English. The Austrians would give the Duchy of Parma and some other territory to the Spanish Infante , Philip , while Britain would return to France Louisbourg and the island of Cape Breton . France also agreed to expel the Stuart pretender Charles Edward Stuart from its territory. The end of
32899-422: 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
33096-447: The trap. The Parlement of Paris , an assembly of French nobles among whom Philippe had many friends, was the only judicial body in France with the authority to have this portion of the deceased King's will annulled, and immediately after the King's death Philippe approached the Parlement requesting that they do just this. In exchange for their support he agreed to restore to the Parlement its droit de remontrance (right of remonstrance) –
33293-407: 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
33490-404: The visiting Russian Tsar in 1717 by identifying the major rivers, cities and geographic features of Russia. In his later life the King retained his passion for science and geography; he created departments in physics (1769) and mechanics (1773) at the Collège de France , and he sponsored the first complete and accurate map of France, the Cartes de Cassini. Besides his academic studies, he received
33687-401: The war had caused celebration in Paris, but the publication of the details of the treaty on 14 January 1749 caused dismay and anger. The Stuart pretender Charles Edward Stuart refused to leave Paris and was acclaimed by the Parisians. He was finally arrested on 10 December 1748, and transported by force to Switzerland. The French military commanders, including de Saxe, were furious about giving up
33884-408: 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
34081-421: The young King transported away from the court in Versailles to Paris, where the Regent had his own residence in the Palais Royal . On 12 September, the King performed his first official act, opening the first lit de justice of his reign at the Palais Royal. From September 1715 until January 1716 he lived in the Château de Vincennes , before moving to the Tuileries Palace . In February 1717, when he had reached
34278-612: 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
34475-423: 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
34672-474: 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
34869-403: Was a renowned soldier but was regarded by the late King as an atheist and libertine. The King referred privately to Philippe as a Fanfaron des crimes ("braggart of crimes"). Louis XIV had desired for France to be ruled by his favorite but illegitimate son, the Duke of Maine (illegitimate son of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan ), who was in the council and who, because of a dramatic change in
35066-403: 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
35263-415: Was approved by the King and presented in two decrees issued in May 1749. The first measure was an issue of bonds, paying five percent interest, to pay off the 36 million livres of debt caused by the cost of the war. This new measure was an immediate success. The second measure was the abolition of the dixième , a tax of ten percent of revenue, which had been created to finance the war, and its replacement by
35460-405: Was born in the Palace of Versailles on 15 February 1710 and was immediately styled the Duke of Anjou. At this time, the possibility of the Duke of Anjou becoming the next king seemed rather remote as Louis XIV's eldest son and heir, Louis's paternal grandfather Louis Le Grand Dauphin , was expected to assume the throne upon the old king's death. Next in line to the throne behind the Grand Dauphin
35657-483: 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
35854-496: Was forced to flee to the fortified port of Danzig , while on 5 October Augustus III was crowned in Warsaw. Cardinal Fleury responded with a carefully orchestrated campaign of diplomacy. He first won assurances from Britain and Holland that they would not interfere in the war, while lining up alliances with Spain and Charles Emmanuel III of Sardinia in exchange for pieces of the Habsburg monarchy . On 10 October 1733, Louis formally declared war against Austria. A French army occupied
36051-521: Was his eldest son- Louis's father Le Petit Dauphin and then Louis's elder brother, a child named Louis, Duke of Brittany. Disease, however, steered the line of succession forward three generations and sideways: on 14 April 1711 the Grand Dauphin, died of smallpox , and less than a year later, on 12 February 1712 the future king's mother, Marie Adélaïde, who had been stricken with measles , died, followed six days later by Louis's father, her devoted husband who would not leave her side during her illness. With
36248-410: 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
36445-435: Was later blackened by revolutionary propaganda. His grandson and successor Louis XVI inherited a large kingdom in need of financial and political reform which would ultimately lead to the French Revolution of 1789. Louis XV was the great-grandson of Louis XIV and the third son of the Duke of Burgundy (1682–1712), and his wife Marie Adélaïde of Savoy , who was the eldest daughter of Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy . He
36642-432: 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
36839-425: Was named a Lady of the Court of the Queen, and a month later the King ordered her older sister to leave the Court and to live in Paris. The King made his new mistress the Duchess of Châteauroux. The King's relationships with the sisters became a subject of gossip in the court and in Paris, where a popular comic poem was recited, ending: "Choosing an entire family – is that being unfaithful, or constant?" In June 1744,
37036-501: Was one of the earliest banks to issue paper money, which he promised could be exchanged for gold. He also persuaded wealthy Parisians to invest in the Mississippi Company , a scheme for the colonization of the French territory of Louisiana. The stock of the company first soared and then collapsed in 1720, taking the bank with it. Law fled France, and wealthy Parisians became reluctant to make further investments or trust any currency but gold. In 1719, France, in alliance with Britain and
37233-462: 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
37430-400: 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
37627-439: 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
37824-529: Was rejected by the British government. A few months later, on 16 January 1756, Frederick the Great of Prussia signed the Treaty of Westminster , allying himself with Britain. Louis responded immediately on 1 May 1756 by sealing a formal defensive treaty with Austria, the first Treaty of Versailles , offering to defend Austria in case of a Prussian attack – a reversal of France's historic conflict with Austria. Louis declared war on Great Britain on 9 June 1756, confident of success. The French navy quickly defeated
38021-457: Was signed on 25 November 1721, and the future bride came to France and took up residence in the Louvre. However, after the death of the Regent, in 1725, the new Prime Minister decided she was too young to have children soon enough, and she was sent back to Spain. During the rest of the Regency, France was at peace, and in 1720, the Regent decreed an official silence on religious conflicts. Montesquieu and Voltaire published their first works, and
38218-461: 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
38415-412: 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
38612-440: Was to become the Errancis Cemetery (it remained open for three years but is now also gone). The land was sold to a stonemason. On 3 June 1802, the land in which the bodies lay, was bought by Pierre-Louis Olivier Desclozeaux, a royalist magistrate, who had lived adjacent to the cemetery (now Square Louis XVI ) since 1789. Desclozeaux had taken note of the sites where the King and Queen were buried and reputedly surrounded them with
38809-403: Was wearing. When the news reached Paris, anxious crowds gathered in the streets. The Pope, the Archduchess of Austria, and King George II, with whom France was at war, sent messages hoping for his swift recovery. Damiens was tortured to see if he had accomplices, and was tried before the Parlement of Paris , which had been the most vocal critic of the King. The Parlement demonstrated its loyalty to
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