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Home / People / Louis XVI of France

Historical person

Louis XVI of France

1754–1793

Louis XVI became king of France in 1774 and inherited severe fiscal weakness, privileged resistance to taxation and growing demands for political reform. He supported the American Revolution but the cost worsened the debt crisis.

After summoning the Estates-General in 1789, Louis struggled to accept constitutional limits and attempted to flee the country. The monarchy was abolished in 1792, and he was convicted of treason and executed in January 1793. Louis XVI of France was born in Palace of Versailles and died in place de la Concorde.

In Hourly History’s French Revolution, it shows how disputes over sovereignty, religion, property and popular mobilisation remade France while generating violence and instability that prepared the way for Napoleon. Robert Harvey’s The War of Wars begins with the collapse of the Bourbon monarchy and the radicalisation of the French Revolution, then follows the coalition wars through Napoleon’s rise from general to emperor. Britain’s financial system, parliamentary politics, naval power and overseas empire are set against France’s mass armies, administrative mobilisation and repeated domination of continental Europe. Further fictional perspectives on Louis XVI of France can be found in Bernard Cornwell’s Fallen Angels, Baroness Orczy’s Sir Percy Leads the Band, Cynthia Harrod-Eagles’ The Flood-Tide, Cynthia Harrod-Eagles’ The Tangled Thread, and Antonia Fraser’s Marie Antoinette.

Periods

Periods linked to Louis XVI of France

American Revolutionary Era1763–1783 CE French Revolution1789–1799 CE

Series

Historical novels and book series featuring Louis XVI of France (4 series)

Morland Dynasty in Order

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles 36 books 4.4(27,265)

The Morland Dynasty is a thirty-six-book family saga tracing the fictional Morlands of Yorkshire from 1434 to the approach of the Second World War. Beginning with the marriage of Robert Morland and Eleanor, a ward of the Beaufort family, the sequence follows successive generations as Morland Place grows…

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Crowning Mercy in Order

by Bernard Cornwell 2 books 4.3(7,136)

The Crowning Mercy novels follow the Lazender family through two periods of upheaval in European history. A Crowning Mercy is set amid the religious and political violence of the English Civil War, when a young woman’s inheritance draws her into a contest involving family loyalty, faith and royalist…

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The Scarlet Pimpernel in Order

by Baroness Orczy 16 books 4.4(1,936)

The Scarlet Pimpernel series follows Sir Percy Blakeney and his allies as they use disguises, forged papers and carefully staged deceptions to rescue people endangered by the French Revolution. Most volumes are set between the September Massacres of 1792 and the fall of Robespierre in July 1794, moving…

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French Revolution in Order

by Jean Plaidy 3 books 4.3(544)

This trilogy traces the final decades of the Bourbon monarchy through Louis XV, Madame du Barry and Marie Antoinette. Courtly privilege, political misjudgement and popular resentment accumulate across the sequence until the splendour of Versailles gives way to revolution.

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Standalone books

Standalone books featuring Louis XVI of France (4 books)

Non Fiction

Non Fiction featuring Louis XVI of France (3 books)

Biographies, histories and other non-fiction are listed separately from the historical novels above.