5 – King Louis XVI
The story of Louis XVI of France does bear several similarities to that of Charles I. Like Charles, Louis was not the initial heir to the throne: his brother, who was also considered by his family to be smarter and more handsome, died at a young age and foisted the pressure of succession onto Louis. Like Charles, he was prone to bouts of indecisiveness and easy to manipulate. Like Charles, his belief in his own innate power was strong and his indignance, when challenged, was fierce. And, of course, like Charles, he would end up with his head on the block at the hands of his own people.
The Kingdom of France that Louis inherited when he became King in 1775 was already beginning to fall apart. The country was almost totally broke, weakened by wars against Prussia and Britain, and the monarchy, who lived in opulence in Versailles while the masses starved in Paris, were deeply unpopular. In order to raise capital, Louis needed to call the Estates-General, the French equivalent of the Parliament, where he could be granted new taxes. The Estates-General was made up of the First Estate, the clergy, the Second Estate, the nobility and the Third Estate, everyone else. As the meetings went on and the terrible finances of the nation were laid bare, those from the Third Estate began to question why they should be asked to bear the brunt of the costs when those with the most money paid the least. Angered, they broke away and formed the National Assembly in 1789 and set about drawing up a new constitution. It would be the start of the French Revolution.
Though the Revolution had begun, Louis was still the King. He ruled as a constitutional monarch, but his inability to do anything concrete made him seem tyrannical. Reform was clearly needed and needed fast, but Louis continued to sit in Versailles, doing precisely nothing. The people of Paris turned increasingly towards the National Assembly, who took more and more power without Louis doing anything to stop them. Politicians from the First and Second Estates tried to persuade Louis to act, but he was unwilling: despite a strong belief in the Divine Right of Kings, he seemed totally unable to use his God-given power to help his people or indeed, himself.
The National Assembly passed legislation that ended the feudal economic system and that stripped away the power of the Church, they passed a new constitution that severely limited the power of the King and the clergy and they created free trade within France. It was becoming increasingly obvious that, for many, the monarchy was also on the list of things that had to go. Louis, who had moved into the center of Paris in order to seem closer to his people, finally made a decision. He attempted to escape to England in June 1791 but was captured and arrested.
Still, Louis was kept on as King. The National Assembly – which by now had transitioned into a parliament called the Legislative Assembly – maintained Louis as monarch and granted him veto powers over laws. He was all but a prisoner of the revolution, however, and when war broke out with neighboring Austria and Prussia, a major demand was that he be set free and returned to the throne. The King was in favor of war, as he thought a victory would endear him to the people of France, but when the Austrians and Prussia declared that they would not harm civilians if the King was not harmed, it made it look as if the King was orchestrating with his royal cousins to crush the revolution.
Thus, it came that the King was put on trial and executed via the guillotine in the center of Paris. He had gone from a position of supreme power to being killed by his own people in less than a decade, and, like during the English regicide, from an environment in which most people did not actually want him to be guillotined. Of course, as any student of history knows, the French Revolution did not end with the killing of the King: in fact, it was just the start. The second tyrant of the Revolution was waiting in the wings to take over, and the terror that he would unleash would be even more stark. His name was Maximilien Robespierre.
Read too: 16 Notable People Guillotined in the French Revolution.