Louis XVI  

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-'''Louis XVI''', born '''Louis-Auguste de France''' ([[August 23]] [[1754]] – [[January 21]] [[1793]]) ruled as King of '''France'''. His execution signaled the end of [[absolute monarchy]] in France and would eventually bring about the rise of [[Napoleon I|Napoleon Bonaparte]]. +'''Louis XVI''', born '''Louis-Auguste de France''' ([[August 23]] [[1754]] – [[January 21]] [[1793]]) ruled as King of '''France'''. He is best-known for his marriage to [[Marie Antoinette]]. His execution signaled the end of [[absolute monarchy]] in France and would eventually bring about the rise of [[Napoleon I|Napoleon Bonaparte]].
Louis XVI ruled as [[List of French monarchs|King]] of [[France]] and [[List of Navarrese monarchs|Navarre]] from 1774 until 1791, and then as [[Popular monarchy|King of the French]] from 1791 to 1792. Suspended and arrested during the [[10 August (French Revolution)|Insurrection of 10 August 1792]], he was tried by the [[National Convention]], found guilty of [[treason]], and executed by [[guillotine]] on 21 January 1793. He was the only king of France to be executed. Louis XVI ruled as [[List of French monarchs|King]] of [[France]] and [[List of Navarrese monarchs|Navarre]] from 1774 until 1791, and then as [[Popular monarchy|King of the French]] from 1791 to 1792. Suspended and arrested during the [[10 August (French Revolution)|Insurrection of 10 August 1792]], he was tried by the [[National Convention]], found guilty of [[treason]], and executed by [[guillotine]] on 21 January 1793. He was the only king of France to be executed.

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Louis XVI, born Louis-Auguste de France (August 23 1754January 21 1793) ruled as King of France. He is best-known for his marriage to Marie Antoinette. His execution signaled the end of absolute monarchy in France and would eventually bring about the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Louis XVI ruled as King of France and Navarre from 1774 until 1791, and then as King of the French from 1791 to 1792. Suspended and arrested during the Insurrection of 10 August 1792, he was tried by the National Convention, found guilty of treason, and executed by guillotine on 21 January 1793. He was the only king of France to be executed.

Although Louis was beloved at first, his indecisiveness and conservatism led some elements of the people of France to eventually view him as a symbol of the perceived tyranny of the Ancien Régime. After the abolition of the monarchy in 1792, the new republican government gave him the surname Capet, a reference to the nickname of Hugh Capet, founder of the Capetian dynasty, which the revolutionaries wrongly interpreted as a family name. He was also informally nicknamed Louis le Dernier (Louis the Last), a derisive use of the traditional nicknaming of French kings. Today, historians and French people in general have a more nuanced view of Louis XVI, who is seen as an honest man with good intentions, but who was probably unfit for the herculean task of reforming the monarchy, and who was used as a scapegoat by the revolutionaries.

Image and memory

The regicide has loomed as a shadow over French history. The 19th-century historian, Jules Michelet, attributed the restoration of the French monarchy to sympathy engendered by the execution. Michelet's Histoire de la Révolution Française and Alphonse de Lamartine's Histoire des Girondins, in particular, showed the marks of the feelings aroused by the revolution's regicide. The two writers did not share the same sociopolitical vision, but they agreed that, even though the monarchy was rightly ended in 1792, the lives of the royal family should have been spared. Lack of compassion at that moment contributed to a radicalization of revolutionary violence and to greater divisiveness among Frenchmen. Because Louis XVI was a merciful man, the revolutionaries' passions needed to be balanced by compassion and by less fanatical sentiments. For 20th century novelist Albert Camus the execution signaled the end of the role of God in history, for which he mourned. For 20th century philosopher Jean-François Lyotard the regicide was the starting point of all French thought, the memory of which acts as a reminder that French modernity began under the sign of a crime.

The duchess of Angoulême, daughter of Louis XVI, survived and lobbied Rome energetically for the canonization of her father as a saint of the Catholic Church. Despite his signing of the "Civil Constitution of the Clergy," Louis had been described as a martyr by Pope Pius VI in 1793. In 1820, however, a memorandum of the Congregation of Rites in Rome, declaring the impossibility of proving that Louis had been executed for religious rather than political reasons, put an end to hopes of canonization.

  • Louisville, Kentucky is named for Louis XVI. In 1780, the Virginia General Assembly bestowed this name in honor of the French king, whose soldiers were aiding the American side in the Revolutionary War. The Virginia General Assembly saw the King as a noble man, but many other continental delegates disagreed.

In films and literature

Louis XVI has been portrayed in numerous films depicting the French Revolution. In Marie Antoinette (1938), he was played by Robert Morley. In Sacha Guitry's Si Versailles m'était conté, he was portrayed by one of the film's producers, Gilbert Bokanowski (using the alias Gilbert Boka), who arguably resembled him. Several portrayals have upheld the image of a bumbling, almost foolish King, such as that by Jacques Morel in the 1956 French film Marie-Antoinette reine de France and that by Terence Budd in the Lady Oscar live action film. In Start the Revolution Without Me, Louis XVI is portrayed by Hugh Griffith as a laughable cuckold. Mel Brooks played a comic version of Louis the XVI in The History of the World Part 1, who was portrayed as a libertine who had such a distaste for the peasantry he used them as targets in skeet-shooting.

In the two-part film La Révolution française, Jean-François Balmer gave a critically-acclaimed performance as Louis XVI, whom he portrayed as an insecure, shy, yet decent and intelligent man. In Ridicule, the king was played by Urbain Cancelier. In Jefferson in Paris, Louis XVI was played by Michael Lonsdale who, at 64 years old, greatly exceeded the King's actual age. In Marie Antoinette (2006), he was played by Jason Schwartzman, in a movie known not to be historically accurate because the historical Louis was quite tall and is known to have gained a great deal of weight towards the end of his life. In the 1997 movie Titanic, a necklace called the Heart of the Ocean held a precious, heart-shaped blue diamond, supposedly fashioned from Louis XVI's crown, which disappeared after his execution. The history of the necklace was inspired by that of the Hope Diamond.

In the American supernatural television drama Moonlight, Louis XVI is mentioned as the progenitor of a vampiric bloodline which discovered a temporary cure for vampirism.


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