2021-05-10 Mon

The last king of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution, Louis XVI was born on 23 August 1754. He was referred to as Citizen Louis Capet during the four months just before he was executed by guillotine.

In 1765, upon the death of his father, Louis, Dauphin of France, he became the new Dauphin. Upon his grandfather Louis XV's death on 10 May 1774, he assumed the title King of France and Navarre, until 4 September 1791, when he received the title of King of the French until the monarchy was abolished on 21 September 1792.

The first part of his reign was marked by attempts to reform the French government in accordance with Enlightenment ideas. These included efforts to abolish serfdom, remove the taille (land tax) and the corvee (labor tax), and increase tolerance toward non-Catholics as well as abolish the death penalty for deserters. Louis XVI was the only king of France ever to be executed, and his death brought an end to more than a thousand years of the continuous French monarchy.

Depicted here is One Louis d'or, 1788, depicting Louis XVI.

Image Source: Wikipedia.org