Louis XVI

V

Growing Financial Problems

Although Louis’s financial support of the American colonies against Great Britain was politically successful, it proved hugely expensive, and the careful management of Jean-François Joly de Fleury and Henri François de Paule Lefèvre d'Ormesson, who in turn both succeeded Necker as finance minister, was unable to restore financial equilibrium. The solution adopted by Charles Alexandre de Calonne, appointed by Louis as finance minister in 1783, was to borrow. He arranged a sinking fund to pay off the debts, and in 1785 he reformed the gold coinage. Initially his borrowings covered the excesses of the court, buying the country out of debt, but by 1786, when the borrowing limit was reached, it was clear that France was heading towards bankruptcy. To forestall this, Calonne drew up radical reforms that he knew would be unacceptable to the nobles and clergy alike, as they involved a proportional tax on land which would hit these ruling classes particularly hard. After submitting the plans to Louis in August 1786, he brought them before a specially convened Assembly of Notables in February 1787. The vested interests of some of the Assembly and the antagonism of his political opponents resulted in his proposals being rejected, and on April 8, 1787, Louis dismissed him for corruption and replaced him with Étienne Charles de Loménie de Brienne.

VI

The Estates-General Reconvened

Brienne was also convinced of the need for tax reform, and to overcome the opposition of the Parlement of Paris he persuaded Louis in August 1787 to exile it to Troyes. However, the struggle with the parlements was only resolved in May 1788 when they consented to accept edicts depriving them of their political powers on the proviso that a meeting of the representative governmental body called the Estates-General be called to remedy the situation. On July 5, 1788, Louis agreed—it had last met in 1614—and in August scheduled its opening for May 1789. The financial crisis, however, was causing deep political and social discontent, worsened by declining agricultural and industrial output and incomes, and the anger of the French people against taxes and the lavish spending of the court—highlighted by the Affair of the Diamond Necklace in 1785, which involved the queen—further compromised Louis in the eyes of the people. In August, opposition to Brienne was so strong that Louis was forced to replace him by recalling Necker, who was acclaimed by the populace as the only man capable of preventing the bankruptcy of the government.

On May 5, 1789, the Estates-General met at Versailles. As the government had no plan of action to meet the expectations of the deputies and the nation, the members of the third estate (representing the mass of the population) took the initiative on June 17 and declared themselves the National Assembly of France and assumed the powers of government. They invited the other estates to join them and took a solemn oath not to separate until they had given France a constitution.

VII

French Revolution and the Execution of Louis XVI

Although Necker believed that the Estates-General ought only to grant money and not make reforms, he had earlier agreed to the doubling of the third estate’s representation and had allowed it to vote accordingly. Louis saw this as a threat to the social make-up of the country and thus regarded Necker as the instigator of revolution. On July 11, 1789, having so far remained silent, Louis dismissed Necker and replaced him with the notorious counter-revolutionary, Louis Charles Auguste Le Tonnelier, Baron de Breteuil. When the government moved to disperse the National Assembly by force on July 14, the Parisian mob rebelled and stormed the royal fortress of the Bastille.

After a peasant revolt spread across the countryside, the National Assembly was moved on August 5 to abolish all feudal dues and privileges, hereditary nobility, and titles, but the obstinacy with which it ratified these decrees sparked a new riot in Paris on October 5 and a mob of women marched on Versailles. The following day the king and the royal family were brought back to Paris and imprisoned in the Palais des Tuileries.

On July 14, 1790, Louis pledged his loyalty to the country and the National Assembly, marking the final collapse of royal absolutism. Prior to this, Louis had recalled Necker again, but he was unable to resolve the crisis and resigned in September 1790. But now, Louis’s conscience was disturbed by a new civil constitution of the clergy, and he decided to flee abroad to find support for a counter-revolution that would allow him to return triumphantly. The Flight to Varennes, on the night of June 20-21, 1791, when the royal family attempted to escape to Austria, not only failed when they were caught and brought back to Paris, but completely discredited Louis in the eyes of the people. However, when Louis swore obedience to the new French constitution, his veto was restored, although he continued secretly to work against the Revolution and to plot intrigues with France's enemies.

In April 1792 the National Assembly, supported by Louis, declared war on Austria. Three months later, the Brunswick Manifesto, written by Louis's émigré cousin, Louis, Prince de Condé, on behalf of the Prussian Duke of Brunswick, declared the intent of Austria and Prussia to return the king to a position of absolute rule and to execute those that opposed them. The manifesto had been intended to bolster Louis’s position against the Revolutionaries, but in fact hugely weakened his tenuous position in Paris by appearing to “prove” his conspiracy with foreign countries against his own. On August 10, 1792, the Parisian mob, backed by the municipal government of Paris, besieged the Palais des Tuileries and forced the king and the royal family to hide within the Legislative Assembly. Three days later Louis was arrested and imprisoned in Paris’s medieval Temple fortress. The later defeat at the Battle of Valmy, on September 20, of a combined Prussian and Austrian army, led by the Duke of Brunswick, deprived Louis of his last hope of foreign support, and the following day the National Convention, the assembly of elected French deputies, abolished the monarchy and declared France a republic.

In December 1792, after long debate, the National Convention charged the king with conspiring with Austria and with conspiring against the people. At his trial, Louis’ three defence counsels, Chrétien Guillaume de Lamoignon de Malesherbes, his former interior minister, François Denis Tronchet, and Raymond Romain, Comte de Sèze, failed to save him, and in a vote of 387 to 334 the National Convention condemned him to death as a traitor. On January 21, 1793, Louis XVI was publicly guillotined in the Place de la Révolution (now Place de la Concorde) in Paris.

Historians consider Louis XVI a victim of circumstances beyond his control rather than a despot similar to the former French kings, Louis XIV and Louis XV. He was weak and incapable as king and not overly intelligent. He preferred to spend his time at hobbies, such as hunting and making locks, rather than at his duties of state, and he permitted his wife to influence him unduly. Although concerned for the wellbeing of his people, he had not been prepared for the role of king by his grandfather and his inability to modernize France economically, socially, and politically precipitated revolution and the downfall of the monarchy.