Louis xvi

Portrait of Louis XVI of France with bust of Marie Antoinette by Alexandre Roslin, 1782-1783 (PD-art/old), Zamek Królewski w Warszawie (ZKW), one of the portraits assembled by Stanislaus Augustus for his Conference Room at the Royal Castle in Warsaw

Louis XVI (1754-1793; reigned 1774-1791) was a slow, well-meaning, but stubborn man. Like his grandfather Louis XV, he showed genuine concern for his subjects. He lacked a strong will and was the pawn of special interests. He paid for his weakness at the guillotine. He would have been an excellent constitutional monarch, had he been able to bring the Bourbons through the first two years of the Revolution.

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After making his Bridgerton debut as Lord Corning, he is now to star in the eight-part BBC drama Marie Antoinette. His role? Louis XVI, of course.

Portrait of a young Louis Auguste de Bourbon, Duc de Berry, and the future Louis XVI. He was the seventh child of Maria Josepha of Saxony and Louis Ferdinand, Dauphin of France. Louis was their eldest...

Louis XVI (1754-1793) lost control of the country in 1789 when the middle classes seized power and created a popular National Assembly. The assembly would, during the following three years, “cleanse” the nation of all special privilege, nobility, and inequities, forever ending the divine right of kings in France. Had Louis possessed a more vigorous nature and self-confidence, he could have saved his crown and survived the constitutional crisis.

vivelareine: Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette; detail from a portrait of Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and Archduke Maximilian of Austria by Joseph Hauzinger. Circa 1776.