LOUIS XVI AND MARIE ANTOINETTE
THE MOMENT BEFORE THE DELUGE Part 1
Part 2
The nation was ripe for revolution. The interests of the monarchy had ceased to coincide with those of the people,
and dissatisfaction grew on all sides-an accumulation of grievances that mere reforms and concessions were unable to
assuage.
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The underlying cause of the political explosion that shook France from 1789 to 1795 was that the old
institutions no longer corresponded to existing realities. The government remained monarchic and aristocratic; the
economy had passed into the hands of merchants, lawyers, manufacturers, and engineers-all legally barred from enjoying
the prerogatives reserved for the nobility -a privileged elite that, together with the clergy, constituted less than
one percent of the population in a nation of twenty-four million.
The French Revolution, therefore, was essentially the
chaotic and often violent process by which political power passed into the hands of those who already possessed
economic power. In the words of one modem historian, it made "the bourgeoisie mistress of the world." Louis XVI succeeded to his grandfather's throne at the age of nineteen, in 1774.
To mark the occasion the aged apostle of the
Enlightenment, Voltaire, published a "prophecy" in which he spelled out some long overdue reforms that the young king would accomplish. The nation's laws would be made uniform and apply equally to all people; churchmen would be prevented
from holding more than one post and from living extravagantly. "To the poor who work hard will be given the immense
riches of certain idle men who have taken the vow of poverty.... Minor offenses will no longer be punished as
great crimes.... Torture will no longer be employed. There will cease to be two powers [state and church] because
there can exist but one-that of the king's law in a monarchy, that of a nation in a republic. Lastly, we shall dare to
pronounce the word `tolerance."'
Paradoxically enough, Louis XVI actually abolished many of the worst abuses of the ancien regime.
He suppressed the infamous corvee, which involved the recruitment of forced peasant labor for building roads
in rural districts. He liberated the serfs, prohibited the use of torture in obtaining confessions, emancipated the
Protestants of France, and abolished the oppressive guild system of the Middle Ages. Even the Jews were no longer
obliged to pay discriminatory taxes. He was a considerate king, who wanted to build more hospitals for the poor,
foundling homes, and schools for the handicapped, but it was too late for these measures to stem the tide. There
was a multitude of reasons, some of them only superficial irritants to the body politic, why the French people rose
against their king when the storm broke.
Foremost among these was the mindless extravagance of the court at
Versailles. "Let them eat cake" is wrongly attributed to Marie Antoinette - it was already a well-known saying earlier
in the century - but it sums up the combination of indifference and ineptitude that led to the downfall of the monarchy.
Four years before Louis acceeded to the throne, he had married the Austrian archduchess Marie Antoinette - a
union that symbolized the end of three centuries of rivalry between the Bourbons and the Hapsburgs. Her mother, the
empress Maria Theresa, had carefully groomed her youngest daughter for this important role. 'As she has been my
delight," she wrote to her future son-in-law on the eve of her daughter's departure, "so I hope she will be your
happiness. I have brought her up for this, because for a long time I have forseen that she would share your destiny."
Part 2
Extract from “Treasures of The World The French Kings”, Written by Frederic V. Grunfeld.
Select Books, A Division of Time-Life Books, B.V. Amsterdam. Great Britain: 1983.
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