Chapter V: H. S (8)

During the last two or three years of his life Louis lived in great isolation, "seeing no one, speaking with no one, except such as he commanded," in the château of Plessis-les-Tours, that "spider's nest" bristling with watch towers, and guarded only by the most trusty servitors. A swarm of astrologers and physicians preyed upon his fears--and his purse. But, however foolish in his credulity, he still made his strong hand felt both in France and in Italy, remaining to the last "the terrible king." His fervent prayers were interrupted by instructions for the regency which was to follow. He died on the 30th of August 1483, and was buried, according to his own wish, without royal state, in the church at Cléry, instead of at St Denis. He left a son, his successor, Charles VIII., and two daughters.

See the admirable résumé by Charles Petit-Dutaillis in Lavisse's
_Histoire de France_, tome iv. pt. ii. (1902), and bibliographical
indications given there. Michelet's wonderful depiction in his
_Histoire de France_ (livres 13 to 17) has never been surpassed for
graphic word-painting, but it is inaccurate in details, and superseded
in scholarship. Of the original sources for the reign the _Lettres de
Louis XI_. (edited by Charavay and Vaesen, 8 vols., 1883-1902), the
celebrated _Mémoires_ of Philippe de Commines and the _Journal_ of
Jean de Royl naturally come first. The great mass of literature on the
period is analysed in masterly fashion by A. Molinier, _Sources de
l'histoire de France_ (tome v. pp. 1-146), and to this exhaustive
bibliography the reader is referred for further research. See also C.
Hare, _The Life of Louis XI_. (London, 1907). (J. T. S.*)

LOUIS XII. (1462-1515), king of France, was grandson of Louis of Orleans, the brother of Charles VI., and son of the poet prince, Charles of Orleans, who, after the battle of Agincourt, spent twenty-five years of captivity in England. Louis was duke of Orleans until his accession to the throne, and he was fourteen years old when Louis XI. gave him the hand of his second daughter, Joan the Lame. In the first years of the reign of Charles VIII., Louis made a determined stand against the government of the Beaujeus, stirred up coalitions of the feudal nobles against them, and was finally defeated and taken prisoner at St Aubin du Cormier in 1488. Charles VIII. set him at liberty in 1491. These successive checks tamed him a little. In the Italian expedition of 1494 he commanded the vanguard of the royal army, occupied Genoa, and remained in the north of Italy, menacing Milan, on which he was already dreaming of asserting his rights. The children of Charles VIII. having died in infancy, he became heir-presumptive to the throne, and succeeded Charles in 1499. Louis was then thirty-six years old, but he seems to have grown old prematurely. He was fragile, narrow-shouldered and of a sickly constitution. His intelligence was mediocre, his character weak, and he allowed himself to be dominated by his wife, Anne of Brittany, and his favourite the Cardinal d'Amboise. He was a good king, full of moderation and humanity, and bent upon maintaining order and improving the administration of justice. He enjoyed a genuine popularity, and in 1506 the estates of Tours conferred on him the surname of _Père du Peuple_. His foreign policy, which was directed wholly towards Italy, was for the most part unskilful; to his claims on Naples he added those on Milan, which he based on the marriage of his grandfather, Louis of Orleans, with Valentina Visconti. He led in person several armies into Italy, and proved as severe and pitiless towards his enemies as he was gentle and clement towards his subjects. Louis had two daughters. After his accession he had divorced his virtuous and ill-favoured queen, Joan, and had married, in 1499, Anne of Brittany, the widow of Charles VIII. On her death in January 1514, in order to detach England from the alliance against him, he married on the 9th of October 1514, Mary Tudor, sister of Henry VIII. of England (see MARY, queen of France). He died on the 1st of January 1515.

For a bibliography of the printed sources see Henri Hauser, _Les
Sources de l'histoire de France, XVI^e siècle_, vol. 1. (Paris, 1906).
The principal secondary authorities are De Maulde, _Histoire de Louis
XII_. (Paris, 1889-1893); Le Roux de Lincy, _Vie de la reine Anne de
Bretagne_ (Paris, 1860); H. Lemonnier, _Les Guerres d'Italie_ (Paris,
1903) in the _Histoire de France_ by E. Lavisse. (J. I.)

LOUIS XIII. (1601-1643), king of France, was the son of Henry IV. and of Marie de' Medici. He became king on his father's assassination in 1610; but his mother at once seized the full powers of regent. She determined to reverse the policy of her husband and to bring France into alliance with Spain and the Austrian house, upon which power Henry had been meditating an attack at the time of his death. Two marriages were designed to cement this alliance. Louis was to marry Anne of Austria, daughter of the Spanish king, Philip III., and the Spanish prince, afterwards Philip IV., himself was to marry the Princess Elizabeth, the king's sister. Notwithstanding the opposition of the Protestants and nobles of France, the queen carried through her purpose and the marriages were concluded in 1615. The next years were full of civil war and political intrigue, during which the queen relied upon the Marshal d'Ancre. Louis XIII. was a backward boy, and his education had been much neglected. We have the fullest details of his private life, and yet his character remains something of a mystery. He was fond of field sports and seemed to acquiesce in his mother's occupation of power and in the rule of her favourites. But throughout his life he concealed his purposes even from his closest friends; sometimes it seems as if he were hardly conscious of them himself. In 1617 he was much attached to Charles d'Albert, sieur de Luynes; and with his help he arrested Marshal d'Ancre, and on his resistance had him assassinated. From this time to her death the relation between the king and his mother was one of concealed or open hostility. The article on FRANCE must be consulted for the intricate events of the following years.

The decisive incident for his private life as well as for his reign was the entrance of Cardinal Richelieu, hitherto the queen's chief adviser, into the king's council in 1624. Henceforth the policy of France was directed by Richelieu, who took up in its main features the system of Protestant alliances and opposition to the power of Austria and Spain, which had been begun by Henry IV. and had been interrupted by the queen-mother during the regency; while he asserted the power of the crown against all rivals at home. This policy had remarkable results for the king's private life. It not only brought him into unremitting conflict with the Protestants and the nobles of France, but also made him the enemy of his mother, of his brother Gaston of Orleans, who made himself the champion of the cause of the nobles, and sometimes even of his wife. It is not easy to define his relations to Richelieu. He was convinced of his loyalty and of his genius, and in the end always supported his policy. But he disliked the friction with his family circle which this policy produced. In the difficulty with which he expressed himself and in a certain indecision of character the king was curiously unlike his father, the frank and impetuous Henry of Navarre, and his absolute son Louis XIV. He took a great interest in all the externals of war. He was present, and is said to have played an important part at the passage of Susa in 1629, and also eagerly participated in the siege of Rochelle, which surrendered in the same year. But for the most part his share in the great events of the reign was a passive one. The one all-important fact was that he supported his great minister. There were certain occasions when it seemed as if that support would be denied. The chief of these was what is known as the "Day of Dupes" (1630). Then the queen-mother and the king's brother passionately attacked the minister, and for a moment it was believed that Richelieu was dismissed and that the queen-mother and a Spanish policy had triumphed. But the sequel only strengthened the power of the minister. He regained his ascendancy over the king, punished his enemies and forced Marie de' Medici and Gaston of Orleans to sue for pardon. In 1631 Gaston fled to Lorraine and the queen-mother to Brussels. Gaston soon returned, to plot, to fail and to sue for pardon again and again; but Marie de'Medici ended her life in exile.

Richelieu's position was much strengthened by these incidents, but to the end of life he had to struggle against conspiracies which were designed to deprive him of the king's support, and usually Gaston of Orleans had some share in these movements. In 1632 the duke of Montmorency's conspiracy brought its leader to the scaffold. But the last great effort to overthrow Richelieu was closely connected with the king. Louis XIII. had from the beginning of his reign had favourites--young men for the most part with whom he lived freely and intimately and spoke of public affairs lightly and unreservedly; and who in consequence often exaggerated their influence over him. Henri d'Effiat, marquis de Cinq-Mars, was the last of these favourites. The king is said to have allowed him to speak hostilely of Richelieu and even to recall the assassination of Marshal d'Ancre. Cinq-Mars believed himself secure of the king's favour. He entered into negotiations with Spain and was secretly supported by Gaston of Orleans. But Richelieu discovered his treasonous relations with Spain and by this means defeated his plot. Louis was reconciled to his minister. "We have lived too long together to be separated" he is reported to have said (September 1642). Yet when Richelieu died in December of the same year he allowed himself to speak of him in a jealous and satirical tone. He died himself a few months later (May 1643).

His nature was timid, lethargic and melancholy, and his court was not marked by the scandals which had been seen under Henry IV. Yet Mademoiselle de la Fayette and Madame d'Hautefort and others are said to have been his mistresses. His brother Gaston survived him, but gave unexpectedly little trouble during the wars of the Fronde which ensued on the death of Louis XIII.

The chief source of information on Louis XIII.'s life is to be found
in the contemporary memoirs, of which the chief are: Bassompierre,
Fontenay-Mareuil, Gaston d'Orléans, Montrésor, Omer Talon. Richelieu's
own Memoirs are chiefly concerned with politics and diplomacy. Of
modern works those most directly bearing on the king's personal life
are R. de Beauchamp, _Louis XIII. d'après sa correspondance avec le
cardinal de Richelieu_; G. Hanotaux, _Histoire du cardinal de
Richelieu_ (1893-1896); Rossignol, _Louis XIII. avant Richelieu_; M.
Topin, _Louis XIII. et Richelieu_ (1876). See too Professor R. Lodge,
_Richelieu_; J. B. H. R. Capefigue, _Richelieu, Mazarin et la Fronde_
(1835-1836); and Dr J. H. Bridges, _Richelieu, Mazarin and Colbert_
(1866).

For full bibliography see G. Monod, _Bibliographie de l'histoire de
France_; _Cambridge Modern History_, vol. iv. ("The Thirty Years'
War"); Lavisse et Rambaud, _Histoire générale_, vol. v. ("Guerres de
religion"). (A. J. G.*)

LOUIS XIV. (1638-1715), king of France, was born at Saint-Germain-en-Laye on the 5th of September 1638. His father, Louis XIII., had married Anne of Austria, daughter of Philip III., king of Spain, in 1615, but for twenty years the marriage had remained without issue. The childlessness of the king was a constant threat to the policy of his great minister Richelieu; for the king's brother and heir, Gaston of Orleans, was a determined opponent of that policy. The birth of the prince who was destined to reign as Louis XIV. was therefore hailed as a triumph, not less important than any of those won by diplomacy or arms. The death of his father made Louis XIV. king on the 14th of May 1643, but he had to wait sixteen years before he began to rule. Power lay for some time in the hands of the queen-mother and in those of her minister, Cardinal Mazarin, who found it difficult to maintain the power of the throne and the integrity of French territory during the domestic troubles of the Fronde and the last stages of the Thirty Year's War. The minister was hated as a foreigner, and the childhood of the king weakened the royal authority. Twice the court had to flee from Paris; once when there was a rumour of intended flight the populace was admitted to see the king in his bed. The memory of these humiliations played their part in developing later the autocratic ideas of Louis. Mazarin, in spite of all disadvantages, triumphed alike over his domestic and his foreign opponents. The Fronde was at an end by 1653; the peace of Westphalia (1648) and the peace of the Pyrenees (1659) marked the success of the arms and of the diplomacy of France. Louis XIV. was now twenty-one years of age and was anxious to rule as well as to reign. The peace of the Pyrenees was a decisive event in his personal history as well as in that of France, for one of its most important stipulations referred to his marriage. He had already been strongly attracted to one of the nieces of Mazarin, but reasons of state triumphed over personal impulse; and it was agreed that the new friendship with Spain should be cemented by the marriage of Louis to his cousin, the Infanta Maria Theresa. A large dowry was stipulated for; and in consideration of this the king promised to forgo all claims that his wife might otherwise possess to the Spanish crown or any part of its territories. The dowry was never paid, and the king held himself free of his promise.

The marriage took place at once, and the king entered Paris in triumph in 1660. Mazarin died in the next year; but so strong was the feeling that the kings of France could only rule through a first minister that it was generally expected that Mazarin would soon have a successor. The king, however, at once announced his intention of being his own first minister; and from this resolution he never swerved. Whatever great qualities he may have lacked he certainly possessed industry and patience in the highest degree. He built up a thoroughly personal system of government, and presided constantly over the council and many of its committees. He was fond of gaiety and of sport; but neither ever turned him away from the punctual and laborious discharge of his royal duties. Even the greatest of his ministers found themselves controlled by the king. Fouquet, the finance minister, had accumulated enormous wealth during the late disturbances, and seemed to possess power and ambition too great for a subject. Louis XIV. found it necessary almost to conspire against him; he was overthrown and condemned to perpetual imprisonment. Those who had most of the king's confidence afterwards were Colbert for home affairs; Lionne for diplomacy; Louvois for war; but as his reign proceeded he became more self-confident and more intolerant of independence of judgment in his ministers.

His court was from the first one of great brilliance. In art and in literature, the great period, which is usually called by the king's name, had in some respects passed its zenith when he began to reign. But France was unquestionably the first state in Europe both in arms and arts, and within France the authority of the king was practically undisputed. The nation, proud of its pre-eminence and weary of civil war, saw in the king its true representative and the guarantee of its unity and success. Louis was singularly well fitted by his physical and intellectual gifts for the rôle of _Grand Monarque_ and he played it to perfection. His wife Maria Theresa bore him children but there was no community of tastes between them, and the chief influence at court is to be found not in the queen but in the succession of avowed mistresses. Mademoiselle de la Vallière held the position from 1662 to 1670; she was then ousted by Madame de Montespan, who had fiercely intrigued for it, and whose proud and ambitious temper offered a great contrast to her rival. She held her position from 1670 to 1679 and then gave place to the still more famous Madame de Maintenon, who ruled, however, not as mistress but as wife. The events that brought about this incident form the strangest episode in the king's private life. Madame de Maintenon was the widow of the dramatist Scarron, and first came into relationship with the king as governess to his illegitimate children. She was a woman of unstained life and strongly religious temperament; and it was by this that she gained so great an influence over the king. Through her influence the king was reconciled to his wife, and, when Maria Theresa died in 1683, Madame de Maintenon shortly afterwards (in 1684) became the king's wife, though this was never officially declared. Under her influence the court lost most of its gaiety, and religion came to exercise much control over the life and the policy of the king.

The first years of the king's rule were marked by the great schemes of Colbert for the financial, commercial, industrial and naval reorganization of France, and in these schemes Louis took a deep interest. But in 1667 began the long series of wars, which lasted with little real intermission to the end of the reign (see FRANCE). In the steps that led to these wars and in their conduct the egotistic ambition and the vanity of the king played an important part; though he never showed real military skill and took no share in any military operations except in certain sieges. The War of Devolution (or the Queen's War) in 1667-68 to enforce the queen's claim to certain districts in the Spanish Netherlands, led to the Dutch War (1672-78), and in both these wars the supremacy of the French armies was clearly apparent. The next decade (1678-1688) was the real turning-point in the history of the reign, and the strength of France was seriously diminished. The chief cause of this is to be found in the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The church had always opposed this settlement and had succeeded in altering it in many points. Now the new religious zeal and the autocratic temper of Louis XIV. came to the support of the church. The French Huguenots found their privileges decreased, and then, in 1685, the edict was altogether withdrawn. The results were ruinous to France. It was not only that she lost many thousands of her best citizens, but this blow against Protestantism deprived her of those Protestant alliances in Europe which had been in the past her great diplomatic support. Then the English Revolution came in 1688 and changed England from a wavering ally into the most determined of the enemies of France.

The war with the Grand Alliance, of which King William III. was the heart and soul, lasted from 1688 to 1697; and the treaty of Ryswick, which brought it to an end, deprived France of certain territories on her frontier. But Louis saw in the Spanish question a chance of more than making up for this loss. The Spanish king Charles II. was dying, and the future of the possessions of Spain was doubtful. The astute diplomacy of Louis succeeded in winning the inheritance for his grandson Philip. But this involved France and Europe in an immense war (1700) and by the peace of Utrecht (1713), though the French prince retained the Spanish crown, France had again to make concessions of territory.

Louis XIV. had shown wonderful tenacity of purpose during this disastrous war, and sometimes a nobler and more national spirit than during the years of his triumphs. But the condition of France was terrible. She was burdened with debt; the reforms of Colbert were ruined; and opposition to the king's régime began to make itself felt. Peace brought some relief to France, but the last years of the king's life were gloomy in the extreme. His numerous descendants seemed at one time to place the succession beyond all difficulty. But his eldest son, the dauphin, died in April 1711; his eldest grandson the duke of Burgundy in February 1712; and his great-grandson the duke of Brittany in March 1712. The heir to the throne was now the duke of Burgundy's son, the duke of Anjou, afterwards Louis XV. The king died on the 1st of September 1715, after the longest recorded reign in European history. The judgment of posterity has not repeated the flattering verdict of his contemporaries; but he remains the model of a great king in all that concerns the externals of kingship.

The reign of Louis XIV. is particularly rich in memoirs describing the
life of the court. The chief are Madame de Motteville's memoirs for
the period of the Fronde, and the letters cf Madame de Sévigné and the
memoirs of Saint-Simon for the later period. The king's ideas are best
seen in the _Mémoires de Louis XIV. pour l'instruction du dauphin_
(edited by Dreyss, 2 vols.). His private life is revealed in the
letters of Madame de Maintenon and in those of Madame, Duchesse
d'Orléans. Of the ordinary historians of France Michelet is fullest on
the private life of the king. Mention may also be made of Voltaire,
_Siècle de Louis XIV._; P. Clément, _Histoire de la vie et de
l'administration de Colbert_; Sainte-Beuve, _Causeries de lundi_. Full
bibliographies of the reign will be found in G. Monod's
_Bibliographie de l'histoire de France_; vol. v. ("The Age of Louis
XIV.") of the _Cambridge Modern History_; and vol. vi. ("Louis XIV.")
of the _Histoire générale_ of Lavisse and Rambaud. (A. J. G.*)

LOUIS XV. (1710-1774), king of France, was the great-grandson of Louis XIV. and the third son of Louis, duke of Burgundy, and Marie Adelaide, princess of Savoy. The first son had died in 1705, and in 1712 the second son, the duke of Brittany, as well as his father and mother, was carried off by a mysterious disease. Louis was thus unexpectedly brought into the line of the succession, and was only five years old when Louis XIV. died. The dead king had endeavoured by his will to control the administration even after his death by a carefully selected council of regency, in which the duke of Orleans should have only the nominal presidency; but with the help of the parlement of Paris the arrangement was at once set aside, and the duke was declared regent with full traditional powers. The duke had capacity, but his life was so licentious that what influence he had upon the king was for evil. Fleury, bishop of Fréjus, was appointed his tutor, and the little king was sincerely attached to him. The king attained his legal majority at the age of thirteen, shortly before the death of the duke of Orleans. His first minister was the incapable duke of Bourbon, who in 1725 procured the repudiation of the Spanish princess, to whom the king had been betrothed, and his marriage to Maria Leszczynska, daughter of the exiled king of Poland, then resident in Alsace. In 1726 the duke of Bourbon was displaced by the king's tutor, Bishop (afterwards Cardinal) Fleury, who exercised almost absolute power, for the king took little interest in affairs of state. His administration was successful and peaceful until the year 1734, when a disputed succession in Poland brought about the interference of France on behalf of the queen's father. France was unsuccessful in her immediate object, but at the peace of Vienna (1735) secured the possession of Lorraine. Up to this point the reign had been prosperous; but from this time on it is a record of declining national strength, which was not compensated by some days of military glory. Fleury's great age (he died still in office at the age of ninety) prevented him from really controlling the policy of France and of Europe. In 1740 the war of the Austrian Succession broke out and France drifted into it as an ally of Frederick of Prussia and the enemy of England, and of Maria Theresa of Austria.

On Fleury's death in 1743 no one took his place, and the king professed to adopt the example of Louis XIV. and to establish a personal autocracy. But he was not strong enough in will or intellect to give unity to the administration. The marquis d'Argenson writes that at the council table Louis "opened his mouth, said little and thought not at all," and again that "under the appearance of personal monarchy it was really anarchy that reigned." He had followed too in his domestic life the example of his predecessors. The queen for some time seems to have secured his affections, and she bore him seven children. But soon we hear of the royal mistresses. The first to acquire notoriety was the duchess of Châteauroux, the third sister of one family who held this position. She was at least in part the cause of the only moment of popularity which the king enjoyed. She urged him to take part personally in the war. France had just received a humiliating check at Dettingen, and the invasion of the north-eastern frontier was feared. The king went to Metz in 1744, and his presence there did something to ward off the danger. While the nation felt genuine gratitude for his energy and its success, he was reported to have fallen dangerously ill. The king, of whom it was said that the fear of hell was the only part of religion which had any reality for him, now dismissed the duchess of Châteauroux and promised amendment. Prayers were offered everywhere for his recovery, and the country was swept by a delirium of loyal enthusiasm, which conferred on him the title of _Louis le bien aimé_. But his future life disappointed all these hopes. The duchess of Châteauroux died in the same year, but her place was taken in 1745 by Madame de Pompadour. This woman had philanthropic impulses and some real interest in art and letters; but her influence on public affairs was a fatal one. She had many rivals during her lifetime and on her death in 1764 she was succeeded by Madame du Barry (q.v.). But the mention of these three women gives no idea of the degradation of the king's life. There has doubtless been exaggeration as to certain details, and the story of his seraglio at the _Parc aux cerfs_ is largely apocryphal. But it would be difficult to mention the name of any European king whose private life shows such a record of vulgar vice unredeemed by higher aims of any kind. He was not without ambition, but without sufficient tenacity of purpose to come near to realizing it. To the last he maintained the pretence of personal rule, but the machinery of government fell out of gear, and the disorder of the finances was never remedied before the revolution of 1789.

The peace of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748), which ended the war of the Austrian Succession, brought no gains to France in spite of her victories at Fontenoy and Raucoux; and the king was blamed for the diplomatic failure. The interval between this war and the Seven Years' War (1756) saw that great reversal of alliances which is sometimes called the "Diplomatic Revolution"; whereby France repudiated the alliance of Frederick the Great and joined hands with her old enemy Austria. The intrigues of Madame de Pompadour played in this change an important though not a decisive part. It was the cause of immense disasters to France; for after a promising beginning, both by land and sea, France suffered reverses which lost her both India and Canada and deprived her of the leading position which she had so long held in Europe. Her humiliation was declared by the peace of Paris (1763).

The article on the history of France (q.v.) shows how there arose during the last years of Louis XV.'s reign a strong reaction against the monarchy and its methods. Military success had given it its strength; and its prestige was ruined by military failure. In the parlements, provincial and Parisian; in religion and in literature, a note of opposition is struck which was never to die until the monarchy was overthrown. France annexed Corsica in 1768, but this was felt to be the work of the minister Chauvelin, and reflected no credit on the king. He died in 1774 of smallpox. If the reign of his predecessor shows us almost the ideal of personal monarchy we may see in that of Louis XV. all the vices and errors exemplified which lie in wait for absolute hereditary rule which has survived the period of its usefulness.

For the king's life generally see the memoirs of Saint-Simon,
d'Argenson, Villars and Barbier, and for the details of his private
life E. Boutaric, _Correspondance secrète de Louis XV._; Madame de
Pompadour's _Correspondance_ published by P. Malassi; Dietric, _Les
Maîtresses de Louis XV._; and Fleury, _Louis XV. intimes et les
petites maîtresses_ (1909).

For the system of secret diplomacy and organized espionage, known as
the _Secret du roi_, carried on under the auspices of Louis XV., see
Albert duc de Broglie, _Le Secret du roi. Correspondance secrète de
Louis XV. avec ses agents diplomatiques 1752-1774_ (Paris, 1878); and
for a general account of the reign, H. Carré, _La France sous Louis
XV._ (Paris, 1891). For other works, general and special, see G.
Monod, _Bibliographie de la France_, and the bibliography in the
_Histoire générale_ of Lavisse and Rambaud, vol. vii., and the
_Cambridge Modern History_, vol. vi. (A. J. G.*)

LOUIS XVI. (1754-1793), king of France, was the son of Louis, dauphin of France, the son of Louis XV., and of Marie Joseph of Saxony, and was born at Versailles on the 23rd of August 1754, being baptized as Louis Augustus. His father's death in 1765 made him heir to the throne, and in 1770 he was married to Marie Antoinette, daughter of the empress Maria Theresa. He was just twenty years old when the death of Louis XV. on the 10th of May 1774 placed him on the throne. He began his reign under good auspices, with Turgot, the greatest living French statesman, in charge of the disorganized finances; but in less than two years he had yielded to the demand of the vested interests attacked by Turgot's reforms, and dismissed him. Turgot's successor, Necker, however, continued the régime of reform until 1781, and it was only with Necker's dismissal that the period of reaction began. Marie Antoinette then obtained that ascendancy over her husband which was partly responsible for the extravagance of the ministry of Calonne, and brought on the Revolution by the resulting financial embarrassment.[1] The third part of his reign began with the meeting of the states-general on the 4th of May 1789, which marked the opening of the Revolution. The revolt of Paris and the taking of the Bastille on the 14th of July were its results. The suspicion, not without justification, of a second attempt at a _coup d'état_ led on the 6th of October to the "capture" of the king and royal family at Versailles by a mob from Paris, and their transference to the Tuileries. In spite of the growing radicalism of the clubs, however, loyalty to the king remained surprisingly strong. When he swore to maintain the constitution, then in progress of construction, at the festival of the federation on the 14th of July 1790, he was at the height of his popularity. Even his attempted flight on the 20th of June 1791 did not entirely turn the nation against him, although he left documents which proved his opposition to the whole Revolution. Arrested at Varennes, and brought back to Paris, he was maintained as a constitutional king, and took his oath on the 13th of September 1791. But already a party was forming in Paris which demanded his deposition. This first became noticeable in connexion with the affair of the Champ de Mars on the 17th of July 1791. Crushed for a time the party gained strength through the winter of 1791-1792. The declaration of war against the emperor Francis II., nephew of Marie Antoinette, was forced upon the king by those who wished to discredit him by failure, or to compel him to declare himself openly an enemy to the Revolution. Their policy proved effective. The failure of the war, which intensified popular hatred of the Austrian queen, involved the king; and the invasion of the Tuileries on the 20th of June 1792 was but the prelude to the conspiracy which resulted, on the 10th of August, in the capture of the palace and the "suspension" of royalty by the Legislative Assembly until the convocation of a national convention in September. On the 21st of September 1792 the Convention declared royalty abolished, and in January it tried the king for his treason against the nation, and condemned him to death. He was executed on the 21st of January 1793.

Louis XVI. was weak in character and mentally dull. His courage and dignity during his trial and on the scaffold has left him a better reputation than he deserves. His diary shows how little he understood, or cared for, the business of a king. Days on which he had not shot anything at the hunt were blank days for him. The entry on the 14th of July 1789 was "nothing"! The greater part of his time was spent hunting. He also amused himself making locks, and a little at masonry. Awkward and uncourtly, at heart shy, he was but a poor figurehead for the stately court of France. At first he did not care for Marie Antoinette, but after he came under her influence, her thoughtless conduct compromised him, and it was largely she who encouraged him in underhand opposition to the Revolution while he pretended to accept it. The only point on which he had of his own initiative shown a strong objection to revolutionary measures was in the matter of the civil constitution of the clergy. A devoted and sincere Roman Catholic, he refused at first to sanction a constitution for the church in France without the pope's approval, and after he had been compelled to allow the constitution to become law he resolved to oppose the Revolution definitely by intrigues. His policy was both feeble and false. He was singularly unfortunate even when he gave in, delaying his acquiescence until it had the air of a surrender. It is often said that Louis XVI. was the victim of the faults of his predecessors. He was also the victim of his own.

Having lost his elder son in 1789 Louis left two children, Louis Charles, usually known as Louis XVII., and Marie Thérèse Charlotte (1778-1851), who married her cousin, Louis, duke of Angoulême, son of Charles X., in 1799. The "orphan of the Temple," as the princess was called, was in prison for three years, during which time she remained ignorant of the fate which had befallen her parents. She died on the 19th of October 1851. Her life by G. Lenôtre has been translated into English by J. L. May (1908).

See the articles FRENCH REVOLUTION and MARIE ANTOINETTE. F. X. J.
Droz, _Histoire du règne de Louis XVI._ (3 vols., Paris, 1860), a sane
and good history of the period; and Arsène Houssaye, _Louis XVI._
(Paris, 1891). See also the numerous memoirs of the time, and the
marquis de Ségur's _Au couchant de la monarchie, Louis XVI. et Turgot_
(1910).

For bibliographies see G. Monod, _Bibl. de la France_; Lavisse et
Rambaud, _Hist. Univ._, vols. vii. and viii.; and the _Cambridge Modem
History_, vol. viii. (R. A.*)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] The responsibility of Marie Antoinette for the policy of the king
before and during the Revolution has been the subject of much
controversy. In general it may be said that her influence on politics
has been much exaggerated. (See MARIE ANTOINETTE.) [ED.]

LOUIS XVII. (1785-1795?), titular king of France, second son of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, was born at Versailles on the 27th of March 1785, was christened the same day Louis Charles, and given the title of duke of Normandy. Louis Charles became dauphin on the death of his elder brother on the 4th of June 1789. It is only with his incarceration in the Temple on the 13th of August 1792, that his history, apart from that of his parents, becomes of interest. The royal party included, beside the king and queen, their daughter Marie Thérèse Charlotte (Madame Royale), the king's sister Madame Élisabeth, the valet Cléry and others. The prisoners were lodged at first in the smaller Tower, but were removed to the larger Tower on the 27th of October. Louis Charles was then separated from his mother and aunt to be put in his father's charge, except for a few hours daily, but was restored to the women when Louis was isolated from his family at the beginning of his trial in December.

On the 21st of January 1793 Louis became, for the royalists, king of France, and a week later the comte de Provence arrogated to himself the title of regent. From that moment began new plots for the escape of the prisoners from the Temple, the chief of which were engineered by the Chevalier de Jarjayes,[1] the baron de Batz,[2] and the faithful Lady Atkyns.[3] On the 3rd of July the little dauphin was again separated from his mother, this time to be given into the keeping of the cobbler Antoine Simon[4] who had been named his guardian by the Committee of General Security. The tales told by the royalist writers of the barbarous cruelty inflicted by Simon and his wife on the child are not proven. Marie Jeanne, in fact, took great care of the child's person, and there is documentary evidence to prove that he had air and food. But the Simons were obviously grotesquely unfit guardians for a prince, and they doubtless caused much suffering to the impressionable child, who was made on occasion to eat and drink to excess, and learnt the language of the gutter. But the scenes related by A. de Beauchesne of the physical martyrdom of the child are not supported by any other testimony, though he was at this time seen by a great number of people. On the 6th of October Pache, Chaumette, Hébert and others visited him and secured from him admissions of infamous accusations against his mother, with his signature to a list of her alleged crimes since her entry in the Temple, and next day he was confronted with his sister Marie Thérèse for the last time.

Simon's wife now fell ill, and on the 19th of January 1794 the Simons left the Temple, after securing a receipt for the safe transfer of their prisoner, who was declared to be in good health. A large part of the Temple records from that time onwards were destroyed under the Restoration, so that exact knowledge of the facts is practically impossible. Two days after the departure of the Simons the prisoner is said by the Restoration historians to have been put in a dark room which was barricaded like the cage of a wild animal. The story runs that food was passed through the bars to the child, who survived in spite of the accumulated filth of his surroundings. Robespierre[5] visited Marie Thérèse on the 11th of May, but no one, according to the legend, entered the dauphin's room for six months until Barras visited the prison after the 9th Thermidor (July 27, 1794). Barras's account of the visit describes the child as suffering from extreme neglect, but conveys no idea of the alleged walling in. It is nevertheless certain that during the first half of 1794 he was very strictly secluded; he had no special guardian, but was under the charge of guards changed from day to day. The child made no complaint to Barras of his treatment, probably because he feared to do so. He was then cleansed and re-clothed, his room cleaned, and during the day he was visited by his new attendant, a creole and a compatriot of Joséphine de Beauharnais, named Jean Jacques Christophe Laurent (1770-1807), who had from the 8th of November onwards assistance for his charge from a man named Gomin. The child was now taken out to walk on the roof of the Tower. From about the time of Gomin's entrance the prisoner was inspected, not by delegates of the Commune, but by representatives of the civil committee of the 48 sections of Paris. The rare recurrence of the same inspectors would obviously facilitate fraud, if any such were intended. From the end of October onwards the child maintained an obstinate silence, explained by Laurent as a determination taken on the day he made his deposition against his mother. On the 19th of December 1794 he was visited by three commissioners from the Committee of General Security--J. B. Harmand de la Meuse, J. B. C. Mathieu and J. Reverchon--who extracted no word from him. On Laurent's retirement Étienne Lasne was appointed on the 31st of March 1795 to be the child's guardian. In May 1795 the prisoner was seriously ill, and a doctor, P. J. Desault, well acquainted with the dauphin, having visited him seven months earlier, was summoned. Desault died suddenly, not without suspicion of poison, on the 1st of June, and it was some days before doctors Pelletan and Dumangin were called. Then it was announced that on the 8th Louis Charles died. Next day an autopsy was held at which it was stated that a child apparently about ten years of age, "which the commissioners told us was the late Louis Capet's son," had died of a scrofulous affection of long standing. He was buried on the 10th in the cemetery of Ste Marguerite, but no stone was erected to mark the spot.

The weak parts of this story are the sudden and unexplained departure of the Simons; the subsequent useless cruelty of treating the child like a wild beast and keeping him in a dark room practically out of sight (unless any doubt of his identity was possible), while his sister was in comparative comfort; the cause of death, declared to be of long standing, but in fact developed with such rapidity; the insufficient excuse provided for the child's muteness under Gomin's régime (he had answered Barras) and the irregularities in the formalities in attending the death and the funeral, when a simple identification of the body by Marie Thérèse would have prevented any question of resuscitated dauphins. Both Barras and Harmand de la Meuse are said to have given leave for the brother and sister to see each other, but the meeting was never permitted. The argument from the sudden disappearance of persons in a position to know something of the truth is of a less convincing character. It may be noted that the more famous of the persons alleged by partisans of subsequent pretenders to have been hustled out of the world for their connexion with the secret are the empress Joséphine, the due d'Enghien and the duc de Berri.

Immediately on the announcement of the dauphin's death there arose a rumour that he had escaped. Simien-Despréaux, one of Louis XVIII.'s own authors, stated at a later period (1814) that Louis XVII. was living and that among the signatories of the treaty of April 13th were some who possessed proofs of his existence; and Eckard, one of the mainstays of the official account, left among his unpublished papers a statement that many members of "an assembly of our wise men" obstinately named Louis XVII. as the prince whom their wishes demanded. Unfortunately the removal of the child suited the plans of the comte de Provence (now Louis XVIII. for the _émigrés_) as well as it suited the revolutionary government, and no serious attempt was made by the royal family to ascertain the truth, though they paid none of the tributes to the memory of the dead king which might reasonably have been expected, had they been convinced of his death. Even his sister wore no mourning for him until she arrived at Vienna and saw that this was expected of her. In spite of the massive literature which has accumulated on the subject, neither his death in the Temple nor his escape therefrom has been definitely established, though a very strong presumption is established in favour of the latter.

Some forty candidates for his honours were forthcoming under the Restoration. The most important of these pretenders were Karl Wilhelm Naundorff and the comte de Richemont. Naundorff's story rested on a series of complicated intrigues. According to him Barras determined to save the dauphin in order to please Joséphine Beauharnais, the future empress, having conceived the idea of using the dauphin's existence as a means of dominating the comte de Provence in the event of a restoration. The dauphin was concealed in the fourth storey of the Tower, a wooden figure being substituted for him. Laurent, to protect himself from the consequences of the substitution, replaced the wooden figure by a deaf mute, who was presently exchanged for the scrofulous child of the death certificate. The deaf mute was also concealed in the Temple. It was not the dead child, but the dauphin who left the prison in the coffin, whence he was extracted by his friends on the way to the cemetery. Richemont's tale that the woman Simon, who was genuinely attached to him, smuggled him out in a basket, is simple and more credible, and does not necessarily invalidate the story of the subsequent operations with the deaf mute and the scrofulous patient, Laurent in that case being deceived from the beginning, but it renders them extremely unlikely. A third pretender, Eleazar Williams, did not affect to know anything of his escape. He possessed, he said, no consciousness of his early years, only emerging from idiocy at the age of thirteen, when he was living with an Indian family in New York State. He was a missionary to the Indians when the prince de Joinville, son of Louis Philippe, met him, and after some conversation asked him to sign a document abdicating his rights in favour of Louis Philippe, in return for which he, the dauphin (alias Eleazar Williams), was to receive the private inheritance which was his. This Eleazar refused to do. The wildness of this tale refutes itself.

Richemont (Henri Ethelbert Louis Victor Hébert) was in prison in Milan for seven years and began to put forward his claims in Paris in 1828. In 1833 he was again arrested, was brought to trial in the following year and was condemned to twelve years' imprisonment. He escaped after a few months and left the country, to return in 1840. He died at Gleize on the 10th of August 1853, the name of Louis Charles de France being inscribed on his tomb until the government ordered its removal.

Naundorff, or Naündorff, who had arrived from nowhere in Berlin in 1810, with papers giving the name Karl Wilhelm Naundorff, in order to escape the persecutions of which he declared himself the object, settled at Spandau in 1812 as a clockmaker, and married in 1818 Johanna Einert. In 1822 he removed to Brandenburg, and in 1828 to Crossen, near Frankfort. He was imprisoned from 1825 to 1828 for coining, though apparently on insufficient evidence, and in 1833 came to push his claims in Paris, where he was recognized as the dauphin by many persons formerly connected with the court of Louis XVI. Expelled from France in 1836, the day after bringing a suit against the duchess of Angoulême for the restitution of the dauphin's private property, he lived in exile till his death at Delft on the 10th of August 1845, and his tomb was inscribed "Louis XVII., roi de France et de Navarre (Charles Louis, duc de Normandie)." The Dutch authorities who had inscribed on his death certificate the name of Charles Louis de Bourbon, duc de Normandie (Louis XVII.) permitted his son to bear the name de Bourbon, and when the family appealed in 1850-1851, and again in 1874, for the restitution of their civil rights as heirs of Louis XVI. no less an advocate than Jules Favre pleaded their cause. Of all the pretenders Naundorff has the best case. He was certainly not the Jew of Prussian Poland which his enemies declared him to be, and he has to this day a circle of devoted adherents. Since he was sincerely convinced of his own rights, it is surprising that he put forward no claim in 1814.

If the dauphin did escape, it seems probable that he perished shortly afterwards or lived in a safe obscurity. The account of the substitution in the Temple is well substantiated, even to the names of the substitutes. The curious imbroglio deceived royalists and republicans alike. Lady Atkyns was trying by every possible means to get the dauphin out of his prison when he was apparently already in safe hands, if not outside the Temple walls. A child was in fact delivered to her agents, but he was a deaf mute. That there was fraud, and complicated fraud, in the guardians of the dauphin may be taken as proved by a succession of writers from 1850 onwards, and more recently by Frédéric Barbey, who wisely attempts no ultimate solution. When the partisans of Richemont or Naundorff come to the post-Temple careers of their heroes, they become in most cases so uncritical as to be unconvincing.

The official version of the dauphin's history as accepted under the
Restoration was drawn up by Simien Despréaux in his uncritical _Louis
XVII._ (1817), and is found, fortified by documents, in M. Eckard's
_Mémoires historiques sur Louis XVII_. (1817) and in A. de
Beauchesne's _Louis XVII., sa vie, son agonie, sa mort. Captivité de
la famille royale au Temple_ (2 vols., 1852, and many subsequent
editions), containing copies of original documents, and essential to
the study of the question, although its sentimental pictures of the
boy martyr can no longer be accepted. L. de la Sicotière, "Les faux
Louis XVII.," in _Revue des questions historiques_ (vol. xxxii.,
1882), deals with the pretenders Jean Marie Hervagault, Mathurin
Bruneau and the rest; see also Dr Cabanes, _Les Morts mystérieuses de
l'histoire_ (1901), and revised catalogue of the J. Sanford Saltus
collection of Louis XVII. books (New York, 1908). Catherine Welch, in
_The Little Dauphin_ (1908) gives a résumé of the various sides of the
question.

Madame Royale's own account of the captivity of the Temple was first
printed with additions and suppressions in 1817, and often
subsequently, the best edition being that from her autograph text by
G. Lenôtre, _La Fille de Louis XVI., Marie Thérèse Charlotte de
France, duchesse d'Angoulême, le Temple, l'échange, l'exil_ (1907).
There are two collections of writings on the subject: _Marie Thérèse
de France_, compiled (1852) by the marquis de Pastoret, and comprising
beside the memoir written by Marie Thérèse herself, articles by M. de
Montbel, Sainte-Beuve, J. Lemoine, La Guéronnière and extracts from
Joseph Weber's memoirs; and _Mémoires de Marie Thérèse duchesse
d'Angoulême_, comprising extracts from the narratives of Charles Goret
(_Mon Témoignage_, 1852), of C. F. Beaulieu (_Mémoire adressée à la
nation_, 1795), of L. G. Michaud (_Opinion d'un Français_, 1795) and
of Mme de Tourzel (_Mémoires_ 1883). Cf. A. Lanne, _La Soeur de Louis
XVII._, and the articles on "Madame Royale," on the "Captivité de la
famille royale au Temple" and on the "Mise en liberté de Madame" in M.
Tourneux's _Bibliographie de l'histoire de Paris pendant la révolution
française_ (vol. iv., 1906, and vol. i., 1890).

_Naündorff._--For the case of Naündorff see his own narrative, _Abrégé
de l'histoire des infortunes du Dauphin_ (London, 1836; Eng. trans.,
1838); also Modeste Gruau de la Barre, _Intrigues dévoilées ou Louis
XVII._ ... (3 vols., Rotterdam, 1846-1848); O. Friedrichs,
_Correspondance intime et inédite de Louis XVII._ (Naündorff)
1834-1838 (2 vols., 1904); _Plaidoirie de Jules Favre devant la cour
d'appel de Paris pour les héritiers de feu Charles-Guillaume
Naündorff_ (1874); H. Provins, _Le Dernier roi légitime de France_ (2
vols., the first of which consists of destructive criticism of
Beauchesne and his followers, 1889); A. Lanne, "Louis XVII. et le
secret de la Révolution," _Bulletin mensuel_ (1893 et seq.) of the
Société des études sur la question Louis XVII., also _La Légitimité_
(Bordeaux, Toulouse, 1883-1898). See further the article "Naündorff"
in M. Tourneux, _Bibl. de la ville de Paris pendant la Révolution_,
vol. iv. (1906).

_Williams._--J. H. Hanson, _The Lost Prince: Facts tending to prove
the Identity of Louis XVII. of France and the Rev. Eleazer Williams_
(London and New York, 1854).

_De Richemont._--_Mémoires du duc de Normandie, fils de Louis XVI.,
écrits et publiés par lui-même_ (Paris, 1831), compiled, according to
Quérard, by E. T. Bourg, called Saint Edme; Morin de Guérivière,
_Quelques souvenirs_ ... (Paris, 1832); and J. Suvigny, _La
Restauration convaincue ... ou preuves de l'existence du fils de Louis
XVI._ (Paris, 1851).