king louis xvi and the french revolution
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Which goals did Louis XVI have during the French Revolution and did he acheive them successfully?TRANSCRIPT
King Louis XVI and the French Revolution
The French Revolution is remembered with different opinions. It is agreed, however,
that the years from 1789 to 1799 was a reign of terror. It was a time in French and Europe
history where the monarchy government underwent a lot changes and in the end was
overthrown by the French citizens. Reasons for this strong and violent rebellion were the too
high and unfair taxes, which only the third estate had to pay, and the lack of participation in
ruling that King Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette showed. When the French people didn’t
want to deal with the mess anymore, they went and overthrew the government and guillotined
first the King and later also the Queen, which lead to a different, more responsible
government and the end of the absolute monarchy.
Louis XVI was born on August 23rd 1754 at Versailles in Paris. When he was only 16
years old married Marie-Antoinette through an arranged marriage and they became king and
queen in 1774. A couple of years later they had their first daughter, Marie-Therese, followed
by two sons and another daughter. Their last child died quickly after her birth and the two
boys died during the French revolution. Since both Louis and Marie-Antoinette preferred their
hobbies and living in luxury to ruling the country, they did everything to get more and more
money, not regarding the needs of others. They increased the taxes for the third estate and
used it all for their own good. Eventually this caused an incredible hatred in the French
citizens and soon they stormed the Palace of Versailles and imprisoned the royal family. They
tried to escape, but did not succeed and we’re sentenced to death only a short while after.
King Louis was guillotined on January 21st 1793.
King Louis didn’t see the French Revolution coming. However, when he did realize
that it was there, he maintained different personal and political goals. At first his goal was to
stop the revolution. His attempt at this failed though because since he hadn’t paid attention to
how to rule a country earlier, he had no idea what to do against the revolution. When he
realized that he had caused this trouble and that people were out to kill him and his family he
all of a sudden had a different goal in front of his eyes. All he wanted to do was stay alive. To
achieve this goal, he hid behind as many other people as necessary and didn’t care about their
well-being. This shows his selfishness and his disrespect toward his guards.
Another goal that King Louis XVI had during the French Revolution was to stay King
and keep France a monarchy. He noticed that his position of King was in danger when he was
described quite negatively in the papers and also when his wife was drawn as a harpy, an evil,
ferocious monster. Louis knew no one liked him, but he didn’t want to believe in it. That is
the reason why he didn’t do anything to change the revolution. He could have ended the
revolution by giving in and asking the peasant what they wanted and needed, by making fairer
taxes and giving people the freedom of opinion and speech.
To get away from all the people that wanted to see him dead, King Louis decided to
escape with his family near Austria, where they would be safe enough from attacks on the
Palace. By making this decision, Louis set up another goal, which was to get away safe,
secure, and secretly, without anyone noticing. Unfortunately, for him and his family, a post-
master in a little village recognized their faces from coins and drawings and reported them
immediately. When the royal family was arrested and brought back to Paris, they were looked
at with even more disgust. The French citizens imprisoned Louis and his family. Now there
was no longer anything special about them; they were just ordinary poor prisoners with
ragged old clothes. The failed escape brought King Louis XVI to an even more dangerous
position than the one he had been in before his attempted escape.
All these things were goals of the King during the French Revolution. Whether he
managed to fulfill these or not is pretty clear when you look at the result of the revolution.
King Louis could not achieve his first goal, which was to stay alive. When the French citizens
noticed that Austria and Prussia were aiming to free Louis from prison, they realized that in
order to keep the two enemy countries away, they would be forced to kill the King. On
January 21st 1793 he was executed. Louis did not achieve his second goal either. When he and
his family were arrested on August 10th 1792 he was dethroned at the same time. It was clear
that as soon as the citizens had taken the step to arrest him, they would also take the next step
and take away his royalty. He did not achieve his last goal either because he was caught while
trying to escape.
As a conclusion anyone can see that King Louis XVI was not a very successful king
and ruler. Sometimes it is also the case that even though someone died, he was still successful
because their ideas were carried on after their death. This was not the case for Louis. To this
day, he has a bad reputation as a lazy, irresponsible leader.