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The Palmer Mansion was a large private home constructed 1882–1885 at 1350 N. Lake Shore Drive , Chicago , Illinois. Once the largest private residence in the city, it was located in the Near North Side neighborhood, facing Lake Michigan . It was designed by architects Henry Ives Cobb and Charles Sumner Frost of the firm Cobb and Frost and built for Bertha and Potter Palmer , a prominent local businessman responsible for much of the development of State Street . The construction of the mansion established the " Gold Coast " neighborhood, still one of the most affluent neighborhoods in Chicago. The home was demolished in 1950.

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140-505: At the time of the construction of the mansion, Potter Palmer was already responsible for much of the development of State Street. After the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the buildings on State Street were destroyed, and Palmer was yet again responsible for its redevelopment. Construction on the mansion began in 1882, and its exterior work was completed in 1883. However, interior decoration would continue for another two years before

280-438: A Renaissance library, a Spanish music room, an English dining room that could seat fifty, and a Moorish room, the rugs of which were impregnated with rare perfumes. A collection of paintings, collected by Bertha Palmer, adorned the mansion's grand ballroom , 75-foot (22.9 m) long. The room's murals in the frieze above them were by Gabriel Ferrier. The mansion's exterior included many turrets and minarets , and on

420-415: A claim by Cohn to have been present at the start of the fire. According to Cohn, on the night of the fire, he was gambling in the O'Learys' barn with one of their sons and some other neighborhood boys. When Mrs. O'Leary came out to the barn to chase the gamblers away at around 9:00, they knocked over a lantern in their flight, although Cohn states that he paused long enough to scoop up the money. The argument

560-712: 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

700-473: 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,

840-473: A cow owned by Sullivan's mother. Bales's account does not have consensus. The Chicago Public Library staff criticized his account in their web page on the fire. Despite this, the Chicago city council was convinced of Bales's argument and stated that the actions of Sullivan on that day should be scrutinized after the O'Leary family was exonerated in 1997. Anthony DeBartolo reported evidence in two articles of

980-605: 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

1120-551: A dry summer, so that winds from the front that moved in that evening were capable of generating rapidly expanding blazes from available ignition sources, which were plentiful in the region. On that hot, dry, and windy autumn day, three other major fires occurred along the shores of Lake Michigan at the same time as the Great Chicago Fire. Some 250 miles (400 km) to the north, the Peshtigo Fire consumed

1260-409: A fire swept through the city of Urbana, Illinois , 140 miles (230 km) south of Chicago, destroying portions of its downtown area. Windsor, Ontario , likewise burned on October 12. The city of Singapore, Michigan , provided a large portion of the lumber to rebuild Chicago. As a result, the area was so heavily deforested that the land deteriorated into barren sand dunes that buried the town, and

1400-584: 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

1540-474: A group of men were gambling inside the barn and knocked over a lantern. Still other speculation suggests that the blaze was related to other fires in the Midwest that day . The fire's spread was aided by the city's use of wood as the predominant building material in a style called balloon frame . More than two-thirds of the structures in Chicago at the time of the fire were made entirely of wood, with most of

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1680-401: A more old-fashioned way of life, and that the fire was caused by people ignoring traditional morality. On the other hand, others believed that a lesson to be learned from the fire was that cities needed to improve their building techniques. Frederick Law Olmsted observed that poor building practices in Chicago were a problem: Chicago had a weakness for "big things", and liked to think that it

1820-664: A particularly bad harvest in 1775, prompted the masses to revolt . From 1776, Louis XVI actively supported 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

1960-446: 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

2100-520: 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

2240-494: 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

2380-502: 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

2520-487: A tornado-like effect. These fire whirls are likely what drove flaming debris so high and so far. Such debris was blown across the main branch of the Chicago River to a railroad car carrying kerosene . The fire had jumped the river a second time and was now raging across the city's north side. Despite the fire spreading and growing rapidly, the city's firefighters continued to battle the blaze. A short time after

2660-548: 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 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

2800-423: 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

2940-749: 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

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3080-636: Is not universally accepted. An alternative theory, first suggested in 1882 by Ignatius L. Donnelly in Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel , is that the fire was caused by a meteor shower . This was described as a "fringe theory" concerning Biela's Comet . At a 2004 conference of the Aerospace Corporation and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics , engineer and physicist Robert Wood suggested that

3220-605: The Chicago Tribune (October 8, 1997, and March 3, 1998, reprinted in Hyde Park Media ) suggesting that Louis M. Cohn may have started the fire during a craps game. Following his death in 1942, Cohn bequeathed $ 35,000 which was assigned by his executors to the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University . The bequest was given to the school on September 28, 1944, and the dedication contained

3360-492: The Common Council of London gave 1,000 guineas, as well as £7,000 from private donations. In Greenock , Scotland (pop. 40,000) a town meeting raised £518 on the spot. Cincinnati , Cleveland , and Buffalo , all commercial rivals, donated hundreds and thousands of dollars. Milwaukee , along with other nearby cities, helped by sending fire-fighting equipment. Food, clothing and books were brought by train from all over

3500-502: 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

3640-567: 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

3780-477: 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

3920-607: The National Assembly . Louis's indecisiveness and conservatism led some elements of 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

4060-620: 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

4200-413: 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,

4340-649: 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

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4480-525: 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

4620-856: 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

4760-465: The American city of Chicago during October 8–10, 1871. The fire killed approximately 300 people, destroyed roughly 3.3 square miles (9 km ) of the city including over 17,000 structures, and left more than 100,000 residents homeless. The fire began in a neighborhood southwest of the city center . A long period of hot, dry, windy conditions, and the wooden construction prevalent in the city, led to

4900-630: 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

5040-458: 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

5180-516: 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,

5320-697: 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

5460-471: 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

5600-466: The Chicago mansion in July 1928, for $ 3,000,000, to the industrialist Vincent Hugo Bendix , who had invented an automobile starter. Potter Palmer, Jr. and his wife vacated the property in April 1930. Bendix renamed the property "The Bendix Galleries," after adding paintings by Rembrandt and Howard Chandler Christy to Bertha Palmer's former art collection. While residing within the mansion, he modernized

5740-519: 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

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5880-610: The City Council passed the ordinance to establish the free Chicago Public Library , starting with the donation from the United Kingdom of more than 8,000 volumes. The fire also led to questions about development in the United States. Due to Chicago's rapid expansion at that time, the fire led to Americans reflecting on industrialization. Based on a religious point of view, some said that Americans should return to

6020-541: 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

6160-529: 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 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

6300-594: 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

6440-653: 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

6580-476: 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

6720-627: The Palmer Mansion if it was constructed in 1882–1883 as he was assassinated in 1881, and William McKinley ; the Duke and Duchess of Veragua ; the Prince of Wales, later to become King Edward VII ; as well as the Spanish princess Infanta Eulalia . When Potter Palmer died in the mansion in 1902, he left his wife with a fortune of $ 8,000,000. After his death, Bertha Palmer continued to reside in

6860-587: 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

7000-462: 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

7140-539: The South Branch of the Chicago River and an area that had previously thoroughly burned would act as a natural firebreak . All along the river, however, were lumber yards, warehouses, and coal yards, as well as barges, and numerous bridges across the river. As the fire grew, the southwest wind intensified and the temperature rose, causing structures to catch fire from the heat and from burning debris blown by

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7280-482: The United Kingdom spurred the establishment of the Chicago Public Library . The fire is said to have started at about 8:30 p.m. on October 8, in or around a small barn belonging to the O'Leary family that bordered the alley behind 137 W. DeKoven Street . The shed next to the barn was the first building to be consumed by the fire. City officials never determined the cause of the blaze, but

7420-541: The United States had been distrustful of Catholics (or papists , as they were often called) since its beginning, carrying over attitudes in England in the 17th century; as an Irish Catholic, Mrs. O'Leary was a target of both anti-Catholic and anti-Irish sentiment. This story was circulating in Chicago even before the flames had died out, and it was noted in the Chicago Tribune ' s first post-fire issue. In 1893

7560-746: 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

7700-451: The basement to be released. At 2:30 a.m. on the 9th, the cupola of the courthouse collapsed, sending the great bell crashing down. Some witnesses reported hearing the sound from a mile (1.6 km) away. As more buildings succumbed to the flames, a major contributing factor to the fire's spread was a meteorological phenomenon known as a fire whirl . As hot air rises, it comes into contact with cooler air and begins to spin, creating

7840-424: The building was entirely complete. Henry Ives Cobb and Charles Frost were chosen as the architects for the mansion. The interiors were completed under the direction of architect Joseph Lyman Silsbee . John Newquist, who had already worked with Palmer on numerous other constructions, was chosen as the contractor and stair constructor. Although it was originally budgeted at $ 90,000, after five years of construction,

7980-402: The burned district are still standing: St. Michael's Church and the Pumping Station were both gutted in the fire, but their exteriors survived, and the buildings were rebuilt using the surviving walls. Additionally, though the inhabitable portions of the building were destroyed, the bell tower of St. James Cathedral survived the fire and was incorporated into the rebuilt church. The stones near

8120-420: 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

8260-420: The city as well are safe." For two weeks Sheridan's men patrolled the streets, guarded the relief warehouses, and enforced other regulations. On October 24 the troops were relieved of their duties and the volunteers were mustered out of service. Of the approximately 324,000 inhabitants of Chicago in 1871, 90,000 Chicago residents (about 28% of the population) were left homeless. 120 bodies were recovered, but

8400-402: The city began to rewrite its fire standards, spurred by the efforts of leading insurance executives, and fire-prevention reformers such as Arthur C. Ducat . Chicago soon developed one of the country's leading fire-fighting forces. Business owners and land speculators such as Gurdon Saltonstall Hubbard quickly set about rebuilding the city. The first load of lumber for rebuilding was delivered

8540-423: The city. In 1871, the Chicago Fire Department had 185 firefighters with just 17 horse-drawn steam pumpers to protect the entire city. The initial response by the fire department was timely, but due to an error by the watchman, Matthias Schaffer, the firefighters were initially sent to the wrong place, allowing the fire to grow unchecked. An alarm sent from the area near the fire also failed to register at

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8680-422: 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,

8820-442: 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,

8960-423: The conflagration spreading quickly. The fire leapt the south branch of the Chicago River and destroyed much of central Chicago and then crossed the main stem of the river, consuming the Near North Side . Help flowed to the city from near and far after the fire. The city government improved building codes to stop the rapid spread of future fires and rebuilt rapidly to those higher standards. A donation from

9100-451: The continent. Mayor Mason placed the Chicago Relief and Aid Society in charge of the city's relief efforts. Operating from the First Congregational Church , city officials and aldermen began taking steps to preserve order in Chicago. Price gouging was a key concern, and in one ordinance, the city set the price of bread at 8¢ for a 12-ounce (340 g) loaf. Public buildings were opened as places of refuge, and saloons closed at 9 in

9240-404: 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

9380-425: 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

9520-404: 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

9660-425: The courthouse where the fire watchmen were, while the firefighters were tired from having fought numerous small fires and one large fire in the week before. These factors combined to turn a small barn fire into a conflagration. When firefighters finally arrived at DeKoven Street, the fire had grown and spread to neighboring buildings and was progressing toward the central business district. Firefighters had hoped that

9800-414: 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

9940-410: 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

10080-493: The day the last burning building was extinguished. By the World's Columbian Exposition 22 years later, Chicago hosted more than 21 million visitors. The Palmer House hotel burned to the ground in the fire 13 days after its grand opening. Its developer, Potter Palmer , secured a loan and rebuilt the hotel to higher standards, across the street from the original, proclaiming it to be "The World's First Fireproof Building". In 1956,

10220-532: The death toll may have been as high as 300. The county coroner speculated that an accurate count was impossible, as some victims may have drowned or had been incinerated, leaving no remains. In the days and weeks following the fire, monetary donations flowed into Chicago from around the country and abroad, along with donations of food, clothing, and other goods. These donations came from individuals, corporations, and cities. New York City gave $ 450,000 along with clothing and provisions, St. Louis gave $ 300,000, and

10360-526: 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

10500-585: 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

10640-399: The elevator, and installed a barber's chair for his own use. Vincent Bendix contemplated razing the mansion to construct a fifty-story hotel on the site, at an estimated cost of $ 25,000,000. However, the project was never put into action, and the property was sold to Potter Palmer's son in 1933 for $ 2,000,000, the amount of the building's mortgage . The mansion stood vacant for years until it

10780-470: The evening for the week following the fire. Many people who were left homeless after the incident were never able to get their normal lives back since all their personal papers and belongings burned in the conflagration. After the fire, A. H. Burgess of London proposed an "English Book Donation", to spur a free library in Chicago, in their sympathy with Chicago over the damages suffered. Libraries in Chicago had been private with membership fees. In April 1872,

10920-401: The fire began when a fragment of Biela's Comet impacted the Midwest. Biela's Comet had broken apart in 1845 and had not been observed since. Wood argued that four large fires took place, all on the same day, all on the shores of Lake Michigan (see related events ), suggesting a common root cause. Eyewitnesses reported sighting spontaneous ignitions, lack of smoke, "balls of fire" falling from

11060-682: The fire had already started to burn itself out. The fire had spread to the sparsely populated areas of the north side, having thoroughly consumed the densely populated areas. Once the fire had ended, the smoldering remains were still too hot for a survey of the damage to be completed for many days. Eventually, the city determined that the fire destroyed an area about 4 miles (6 km) long and averaging 3 ⁄ 4 mile (1 km) wide, encompassing an area of more than 2,000 acres (809 ha). Destroyed were more than 73 miles (117 km) of roads, 120 miles (190 km) of sidewalk, 2,000 lampposts, 17,500 buildings, and $ 222 million in property, which

11200-399: The fire jumped the river, a burning piece of timber lodged on the roof of the city's waterworks . Within minutes, the interior of the building was engulfed in flames and the building was destroyed. With it, the city's water mains went dry and the city was helpless. The fire burned unchecked from building to building, block to block. Late in the evening of October 9, it started to rain, but

11340-485: The fire started when Daniel "Pegleg" Sullivan, who first reported the fire, ignited hay in the barn while trying to steal milk. Part of Bales's evidence includes an account by Sullivan, who claimed in an inquiry before the Fire Department of Chicago on November 25, 1871, that he saw the fire coming through the side of the barn and ran across DeKoven Street to free the animals from the barn, one of which included

11480-403: The fire started, but stories of the cow began to spread across the city. Catherine O'Leary seemed the perfect scapegoat : she was a poor, Irish Catholic immigrant. During the latter half of the 19th century, anti-Irish sentiment was strong in Chicago and throughout the United States. This was intensified as a result of the growing political power of the city's Irish population. Furthermore,

11620-522: 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"

11760-458: 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,

11900-440: 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

12040-489: 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

12180-633: The house, as well as in homes she maintained in London and Paris , until she died at her winter residence in Osprey, Florida . She invested heavily in real estate in Florida where she developed farms, dairies, and cattle ranches that she administered herself. With these great investments in land, she parleyed the fortune into almost double what she had been left and, in 1918, bequeathed an estate of $ 15,000,000 to her sons Honoré and Potter Palmer, Jr. They sold

12320-399: The houses and buildings being topped with highly combustible tar or shingle roofs. All of the city's sidewalks and many roads were also made of wood. Compounding this problem, Chicago received only 1 inch (25 mm) of rain from July 4 to October 9, causing severe drought conditions before the fire, while strong southwest winds helped to carry flying embers toward the heart of

12460-407: The interior, a spiral staircase without a center support, rising 80 feet (24.4 m) into the central tower. Two elevators also served the building. The Palmers constructed their mansion's outside doors specifically without locks and knobs so that the only way to get in was to be admitted from the inside. Great Chicago Fire The Great Chicago Fire was a conflagration that burned in

12600-491: 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

12740-531: 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

12880-566: The lake to the east, the town of Holland, Michigan , and other nearby areas burned to the ground. Some 100 miles (160 km) to the north of Holland, the lumbering community of Manistee also went up in flames in what became known as the Great Michigan Fire . Farther east, along the shore of Lake Huron , the Port Huron Fire swept through Port Huron, Michigan and much of Michigan 's "Thumb" . On October 9, 1871,

13020-443: The lavish interiors executed under the supervision of Joseph Lyman Silsbee . The architects referred to its architectural style as Early Romanesque or Norman Gothic . Alternatively, the mansion was supposedly based on a German castle. The mansion featured a three-story Italianate central hall under a glass dome. Other rooms were finished in a variety of historic styles: a Louis XVI salon, an Indian room , an Ottoman parlor ,

13160-678: 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

13300-511: The mansion would cost the Palmers more than a million dollars. The Palmer Mansion was used for many social gatherings, including entertaining former U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant , during his visit to the city, and receptions during the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition for which Bertha Palmer was a major planner and booster. The Palmers also received many other guests, including: two other U. S. Presidents, James A. Garfield , though not at

13440-450: 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,

13580-406: The members of France's middle and lower classes resulted in strengthened opposition to 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

13720-615: 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

13860-459: The mixtures also become explosive, a situation unlikely to occur from meteorites. Methane gas is lighter than air and thus does not accumulate near the ground; any localized pockets of methane in the open air rapidly dissipate. Moreover, if a fragment of an icy comet were to strike the Earth, the most likely outcome, due to the low tensile strength of such bodies, would be for it to disintegrate in

14000-527: 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

14140-400: 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

14280-414: 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 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

14420-483: 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

14560-482: 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

14700-581: 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

14840-547: The prince's studies were "proofs of [his] intelligence and 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

14980-444: The prospects of foreign intervention . His credibility was deeply undermined, and 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

15120-401: 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

15260-414: The rapid spread of the fire due to a long drought in that year's summer, strong winds from the southwest, and the rapid destruction of the water pumping system explain the extensive damage of the mainly wooden city structures. There has been much speculation over the years on a single start to the fire. The most popular tale blames Mrs. O'Leary's cow, which allegedly knocked over a lantern; others state that

15400-572: The remaining structures on the original O'Leary property at 558 W. DeKoven Street were torn down for construction of the Chicago Fire Academy, a training facility for Chicago firefighters, known as the Quinn Fire Academy or Chicago Fire Department Training Facility. A bronze sculpture of stylized flames, entitled Pillar of Fire by Egon Weiner , was erected on the point of origin in 1961. The following structures from

15540-402: The reporter Michael Ahern retracted the "cow-and-lantern" story, admitting it was fabricated, but even his confession was unable to put the legend to rest. Although the O'Learys were never officially charged with starting the fire, the story became so engrained in local lore that Chicago's city council officially exonerated them—and the cow—in 1997. Amateur historian Richard Bales has suggested

15680-400: 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

15820-631: 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

15960-406: 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

16100-420: The sky, and blue flames. According to Wood, these accounts suggest that the fires were caused by the methane that is commonly found in comets. Meteorites are not known to start or spread fires and are cool to the touch after reaching the ground, so this theory has not found favor in the scientific community. Methane-air mixtures become flammable only when the methane concentration exceeds 5%, at which point

16240-478: 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

16380-422: 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

16520-452: The top of the tower are still blackened from the soot and smoke. Almost from the moment the fire broke out, various theories about its cause began to circulate. The most popular and enduring legend maintains that the fire began in the O'Leary barn as Mrs. O'Leary was milking her cow. The cow kicked over a lantern (or an oil lamp in some versions), setting fire to the barn. The O'Leary family denied this, stating that they were in bed before

16660-414: The town had to be abandoned. Louis XVI of France Louis XVI (Louis Auguste; French: [lwi sɛːz] ; 23 August 1754 – 21 January 1793) was the last king of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution . The son of Louis, Dauphin of France (1729–1765) (son and heir-apparent of King Louis XV ), and Maria Josepha of Saxony , Louis became

16800-409: The town of Peshtigo, Wisconsin , along with a dozen other villages. It killed 1,200 to 2,500 people and charred approximately 1.5 million acres (6,100 km ). The Peshtigo Fire remains the deadliest in American history but the remoteness of the region meant it was little noticed at the time, due to the fact that one of the first things that burned were the telegraph lines to Green Bay. Across

16940-461: The upper atmosphere, leading to a meteor air burst like the Tunguska event . The specific choice of Biela's Comet does not match with the dates in question, as the 6-year period of the comet's orbit did not intersect that of the Earth until 1872, one full year after the fire, when a large meteor shower was observed. A common cause for the fires in the Midwest in late 1871 is that the area had had

17080-407: 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

17220-408: 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

17360-473: The wind. Around midnight, flaming debris blew across the river and landed on roofs and the South Side Gas Works. With the fire across the river and moving rapidly toward the heart of the city, panic set in. About this time, Mayor Roswell B. Mason sent messages to nearby towns asking for help. When the courthouse caught fire, he ordered the building to be evacuated and the prisoners jailed in

17500-612: 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

17640-483: 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

17780-474: 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

17920-403: 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

18060-461: Was about a third of the city's valuation in 1871. On October 11, 1871, General Philip H. Sheridan came quickly to the aid of the city and was placed in charge by a proclamation, given by mayor Roswell B. Mason : "The Preservation of the Good Order and Peace of the city is hereby intrusted to Lieut. General P.H. Sheridan, U.S. Army." To protect the city from looting and violence, the city

18200-512: Was demolished in 1950, to be replaced by two 22-story high-rise apartment buildings housing 740 families. The mansion's painting gallery, including works by French painters Claude Monet , Pierre-Auguste Renoir , and Edgar Degas that were collected by Bertha Palmer, was transferred to the Art Institute of Chicago , and the furniture was sold. The Palmer Mansion was designed by architects Henry Ives Cobb and Charles Sumner Frost , with

18340-483: 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

18480-556: 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 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

18620-525: 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

18760-484: 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

18900-462: 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

19040-435: Was outbuilding New York. It did a great deal of commercial advertising in its house-tops. The faults of construction as well as of art in its great showy buildings must have been numerous. Their walls were thin, and were overweighted with gross and coarse misornamentation. Olmsted also believed that with brick walls, and disciplined firemen and police, the deaths and damage caused would have been much less. Almost immediately,

19180-526: Was overlooked by his parents who favored his older brother, Louis, Duke of Burgundy , who 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

19320-473: 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

19460-511: Was put under martial law for two weeks under Gen. Sheridan's command structure with a mix of regular troops, militia units, police, and a specially organized civilian group "First Regiment of Chicago Volunteers." Former Lieutenant-Governor William Bross, and part owner of the Tribune , later recollected his response to the arrival of Gen. Sheridan and his soldiers: "Never did deeper emotions of joy overcome me. Thank God, those most dear to me and

19600-617: Was suspended and arrested at the time of 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

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