King Louis XVI

“ If, then, Louis XVI., a king too recently dispossessed of sovereign power—a king in whose eyes all restitution of power to the people was tantamount to a forfeiture—a king ill satisfied with what little of government remained in his hands, aspiring to reconquer the part he had lost—torn in one direction by a usurping assembly, and in another by a restless queen or humble nobility, and a clergy which made Heaven to intervene in his cause, by implacable emigrants, by his brothers running all over Europe to drum up enemies to the Revolution ”

“ After the fall of the Bastille, he wrote to the Duke of Leeds that “the greatest Revolution that we know of has been effected with, comparatively speaking, ... the loss of very few lives. From this moment we may consider France as a free country, the King as a very limited monarch, and the nobility as reduced to a level with the rest of the nation.” He described the tactful visit of Louis XVI to Paris on 17th July as the most humiliating step he could possibly take. “He was actually led in triumph like a tame bear by the deputies and the city militia.” ”

“ He has stripped himself of the magnificence and pomp of royalty, but he has manned a navy; he has reduced the number of persons in his private service, but he has increased that of his vessels. Louis XVI., like a patriotic king, has shown sufficient firmness to protect M. Necker, a foreigner, without support or connection at court, who owes his elevation to nothing but his own merit and the discernment of the sovereign who had sagacity enough to discover him, and to his wisdom which can appreciate him. ”

“ THE NEW MEN AT THE WHEEL.
It was on the first of October, 1791, that the new Legislative Assembly was to be inaugurated over France.
King Louis XVI., captured with Queen Marie Antoinette and the royal family, while attempting to escape from the kingdom and join his brothers and the other princes abroad, was held in a kind of detention, like imprisonment without hard labor, in the Tuileries Palace in Paris. ”

“ The first condition of inspiring confidence is to possess it. Louis XVI.'s aspect was much more that of a victim than a sovereign. The cries of "Long live the King!" which would have been enthusiastic for a prince ready to battle for his rights and reconquer his realm at the sword's point, were few and sad. After having inspected the troops in the courts, Louis XVI. decided to inspect those in the garden also. The Queen returned to the palace, and he continued his rounds. ”

“ If any man is curious, and can get permission, he may mount to the roof of the palace, and see where Louis XVI. used royally to amuse himself by gazing upon the doings of all the towns-people below with a telescope. Behold that balcony, where, one morning, he, his queen, and the little Dauphin stood, with Cromwell Grandison Lafayette by their side, who kissed her Majesty's hand, and protected her; and then, lovingly surrounded by his people, the king got into a coach and came to Paris: nor did his Majesty ride much in coaches after that.... ”

“ Such was the sentiment which animated all classes, which brought the people in streaming masses to the palace where the National Assembly held its sittings. A few hours after the news of the king’s flight had spread through Paris, thousands were besieging the National Assembly, and shouting enthusiastically: “Our king is here; he is in the hall of session. Louis XVI. can go; he can do what he wills; our king is still in Paris!” ”

“ Would Louis XVI. be struck by a ball or by a poniard? What might not be feared from so many demoniacs, howling like cannibals? The King, the deputies, the soldiers, the crowd, all pressed against each other in a solid mass that left no vacant spaces; all was in continual undulation. Louis XVI. could only advance slowly and with difficulty. The intervention of the troops was necessary to enable him to reach the Altar of the Country, where he was to swear allegiance for the second time to the Constitution whose fragments were to overwhelm his throne. ”

“ No provision is made for the general education of the common people and yet the government is fast becoming bankrupt.
In 1774 Louis XVI succeeds his father, as the last King of France. He is youthful, uneducated, imbecile. He is wedded to a giddy superficial queen. Both are infidels and incapable of any intelligent acts of government. With imbecility and credulity on the throne, corruption continues to prevail among high and low. Instead of individual thrift and general prosperity, poverty and famine prevail throughout the land. ”

“ This sentence contained the sole line of policy capable of saving Louis XVI. In a time of revolution every king who is not revolutionary must be inevitably crushed between the two parties: a neutral king no longer reigns—a pardoned king degrades the throne—a king conquered by his own people has for refuge only exile or the scaffold. ”

“ If monarchy would only adopt it as its motto, monarchy would be good for another thousand years. Louis XV said it; and Louis XVI failed to give it effect. Had he but placed himself at the head of the Deluge, in the very forefront of its rush and roar, waved his hat to it and cried: 'After me!' like a captain to his company, and started off at a gallop, it would have obeyed and followed him. 'After me the Deluge!' should be the rallying cry of the monarchy for the renewal of its youth, not the quavering note of its dotage. That is the motto I am going to put on the title-page of my book. ”

“ It is rare to find a prince willing to share his power, or sufficiently enlightened to yield what he will be reduced to lose. Yet Louis XVI. would have done this, if he had been less influenced by those around him, and had he followed the dictates of his own mind. But the greatest anarchy pervaded the councils of the king. When the states- general assembled, no measures had been taken, nothing had been decided on, which might prevent dispute. Louis XVI. wavered between his ministry, directed by Necker, and his court, directed by the queen and a few princes of his family. ”

“ Instead of attracting dissenters, Louis XVI., in going up to them, seemed expressly made to show how little glamour majesty can lend a man who has no genius or strength of mind.
Here, as in the rooms, when the Royalists managed to get up a shout of "Long live the king!" an immense hurrah for the nation replied to them.
The Royalists being dull enough to persist, the patriots overwhelmed them with "No, no, no; no other ruler than the nation!"
And the king, almost supplicating, added: "Yes, my sons, the nation and the monarch make but one henceforward." ”

“ On ideas all governments rest. No throne could stand a day unless the people felt they owed it their allegiance. When the main support of the throne of Charles was withdrawn, the support of popular ideas, and this support given to the House of Commons, at issue with the sovereign, what could he do? What could Louis XVI. do one hundred and fifty years afterwards? What could Louis Philippe do in our times? A king, without the loyalty of the people, is (p. 149) a phantom, a mockery, and a delusion, unless he have physical force to sustain him ”

“ Louis XVI will become a martyr, and the wrath of the foreign sovereigns will be aroused to the last notch against a rising Republic which for first gage of battle throws at their feet the head of a King, and summons their peoples to revolt. ”

“ Louis XVI. was not insincere: he was weak; weakness is not an insincerity, but it takes its place and fulfills its functions: the respect with which the virtues and misfortunes of the sainted and martyred King must needs inspire us render any expression of human judgment almost sacrilegious.
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The deputies left Versailles and held their first sitting on the 19th of October in one of the halls of the archbishop's palace. On the 9th of November they moved into the Riding-hall, near the Tuileries. ”

“ By a sort of fatality Louis XVI. was led to disarm himself, to spike his cannons, tear down his flags, and dismantle his fortresses. By dint of approaching too near the fatal declivity of concessions, {146} he ended by losing even his dignity as man and King. He was paralyzed, annihilated by the Assembly, which treated him like a hostage, a conquered man, and which struck down, one after another, the last defenders of the monarchy and of public order. The fate of the Constitutional Guard might well discourage honest men who only sought to devote themselves. ”

“ The allied powers named Louis XVIII., the brother of Louis XVI., for the vacant throne, who promised the people to reign under a constitutional government.
The man who had deserted his brother in his extremity, a man who represented nothing—not loyalty to the past, nor sympathy with a single aspiration of the present—was king. As he passed under triumphal arches on the way to the Tuileries, there was sitting beside him a sad, pale-faced woman ”

“ When the King thought proper to be reconciled to the Queen after the death of his grandfather, Louis XV., and when she became a mother, she really was very much attached to Louis XVI., as may be proved from her never quitting him, and suffering all the horrid sacrifices she endured, through the whole period of the Revolution, rather than leave her husband, her children, or her sister. ”

“ As we are now speaking of the causes that produced this regeneration of the country, let us state the first to be the character of Louis XVI. A king less of a good man and ministers more adroit, and we should have had no revolution. ”

“ The most ardent republicans were royalists, not merely under the old régime, but after 1789, and even up to August 10, 1792. Marat wrote, in No. 374 of the Ami du Peuple, February 17, 1791: "I have often been represented as a mortal enemy of royalty, but I claim that the King has no better friend than myself." And he added: "As to Louis XVI. personally, I know very well that his defects are chargeable solely to his education, and that by nature he is an excellent sort of man, whom one would have cited as a worthy citizen if he had not had the misfortune to be born on the throne ”

“ After having forced the king to strike at the religion of his conscience, they wished to force him to deal a blow at the nobility and his own brothers. They renewed the question of the emigrants. The king and his ministers had anticipated them. Immediately after the acceptance of the constitution, Louis XVI. had formally renounced all conspiracy, interior or exterior, in order to recover his power. The omnipotence of opinion had convinced him of the vanity of all the plans submitted to him for crushing it. ”

“ The character of Louis XVIII. may be summed up in the words of Bonaparte, quoted by Sorel (L’Europe et la Rév. fr. viii. 416 footnote) , “C’est Louis XVI. avec moins de franchise et plus d’esprit.” He had all the Bourbon characteristics, especially their love of power, combined with a certain nobility of demeanour, and a consciousness of his dignity as king. But his nature was cold, unsympathetic and calculating, combined with a talent for intrigue, to which was added an excellent memory and a ready wit. ”

“ In that brilliant and able state paper, the address he had drawn up for Louis to deliver when, in 1791, the latter accepted the constitution, the key-note of the situation was struck in the opening words: "It is no longer a king who addresses you, Louis XVI. is a private individual" ”

“ A day of mourning, perhaps?"
"For good patriots there will be neither joy nor mourning, Citizen Desmarais. It will be a day of deep and sober thought. Louis XVI is not a man, but a principle, representing the oldest monarchy in Europe. In striking Louis XVI, it is royalty that is beheaded. It is not a head that will fall to the scaffold, but a crown."
"My faith, my dear pupil, you have indeed out-reasoned your master. The death of the tyrant, in fact, causes patriots more than the delirium of joy, it causes a religious meditation, as you have so aptly said. ”

“ The Duke of Chartres, who very fully comprehended the peril in which his father's family was involved, urged him to avail himself of the decree of banishment, which opened an honorable avenue of escape for him, and all his family, from France.
"You will assuredly," said he to his father, "find yourself in an appalling situation. Louis XVI. is about to be accused before an assembly of which you are a member. You must sit before the king as his judge. ”

“ Count de Vaublanc had good reason to say: "Anything can be done with Frenchmen if one knows how to animate and impress them with vehement ardor; otherwise, nothing need be expected.... Never did {134} a prince merit better the eternal rewards promised by religion to the true Christian; and yet his example should forever teach kings that their conduct must be totally different from his. Lacking the courage which acts, the most virtuous king cannot achieve his own safety." Why did not Louis XVI. go amongst his soldiers? Victory would have given him a sceptre and a crown. ”

“ LOUIS XVI. (1754–1793) , king of France, was the son of Louis, dauphin of France, the son of Louis XV., and of Marie Joseph of Saxony, and was born at Versailles on the 23rd of August 1754, being baptized as Louis Augustus. His father’s death in 1765 made him heir to the throne, and in 1770 he was married to Marie Antoinette, daughter of the empress Maria Theresa. ”