Introduction: The Last King

When Louis XVI ascended the throne on May 10, 1774, at the age of nineteen, few could have imagined that within two decades the thousand-year-old French monarchy would lie in ruins. The new king seemed to embody hope for renewal after the failures of Louis XV's reign. Young, morally upright, and genuinely concerned for his subjects' welfare, Louis XVI appeared capable of implementing the reforms everyone acknowledged were necessary. Yet this well-intentioned monarch would preside over the monarchy's destruction, ultimately dying on the scaffold as "Citizen Capet," his royal identity obliterated along with the institution he embodied.

The tragedy of Louis XVI lay not in personal evil or incompetence—he was neither tyrant nor fool—but in his inability to manage revolutionary changes that overwhelmed traditional institutions. His reign demonstrated that good intentions could not substitute for political skill, that partial reforms might accelerate rather than prevent revolution, and that monarchical legitimacy, once questioned, could dissolve with stunning rapidity. The king who sought to be enlightened and benevolent became, through circumstances and choices, the symbol of everything revolutionaries sought to destroy.

Understanding the monarchy's fall requires examining how financial crisis became constitutional crisis, how constitutional crisis became social revolution, and how limited reforms unleashed forces that swept away not just the monarchy but the entire ancien régime. This transformation occurred through specific decisions and events that might have unfolded differently, yet also reflected deeper structural tensions that made some form of dramatic change almost inevitable. The story of Louis XVI's reign is thus both a personal tragedy and a world-historical drama that transformed not just France but the entire conception of political authority in the modern world.