Do you think that Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette and their family deserved to be executed?

Answer 1

No. There's too much to explain, and that would be better left off to a biographer who knows a lot about them.

But I know about them - and even the film Marie-Antoinette (2006) shows this - is that they were brought up not knowing what to do. No one told them, they just fed them and gave them jewels. Of course once you get to a certain age you should see something is wrong, but back then things weren't the best and most organized politically.

Answer 2

Louis Xvi Marie Antoinette

Answer 3

I do not believe Louis XVI, and Marie-Antoinette deserved to be executed. Louis was not a bad king, and he was not a tyrant. What he was was ineffective, and unable, or unwilling to change with the times.

Louis inherited a system established and strengthened by his Great-Great-Grandfather, Louis XIV. Louis XIV took the aristocracy away from their lands and their people and concentrated them in the palace of Versailles. Having suffered through two rebellions in his youth, Louis XIV was intent in keeping the nobility under his direct gaze and control. By ordering all nobles to reside in the new Palace of Versailles, the Sun King separated the nobility from the common people. The constant need for funds to maintain the lavish style of Versailles cause the nobility to squeeze and oppress their peasantry to ever growing depths. The Sun King might have ensured the safety of his own throne, but he definitely sowed the seeds of a major upheaval in the future.

Louis XV, and XVI continued the policies of Louis XIV in general, leading to the common people being ground ever deeper into poverty and despair.

Louis XVI was too weak, and lenient to halt the spread of the philosophical writings of people like Voltaire and Rousseau, which undermined the monarchy, even if that was not their intent. Then Louis supported the American colonies in their revolution against Great Britain. This was not because he supported a democratic government, but simply to continue the traditional policy of opposition of England, and to support any who are opposed to England.

Even though there was growing agitation for reform in the years following the American Revolution, Louis simply tried to hold on the the Status Quo. Had he launched a ruthless anti-revolutionary action, or if he had embraced the reform movement and turned his government into a TRUE Constitutional Monarchy with a real representative Parliament, he might have held his throne and kept his head. In stead, he vacilitated. He alternated between conciliation and half-hearted ruthlessness. In the end, neither worked. Then when he granted reforms, he reneged.

To show how tyrannical Louis was, consider the Bastille. The traditional prison in which political prisoners could be tossed without charge, without trial, and without hope. When it was stormed by a mob and taken, there were only 14 prisoners, none of them were political prisoners, but a mix of major criminals and a few mad men.

As for Marie-Antoinette, she was beautiful, she was frivolous, and she was foreign. There was not a chance in the world that she would be popular with the people.

In my opinion, neither Louis nor Marie-Antoinette deserved to be executed. Exile or imprisonment would have been a more fair punishment. However, I can understand WHY the Revolutionaries felt they had to execute them. As long as the King lived, he and his son were the center of countless anti-revolutionary intrigues and plots. With Louis alive, there was a very good reason to fear invasion by a Counter-Revolutionary Alliance with the intention of restoring the monarchy, for a cost. So, once the monarchy was declared abolished, there was little chance that Louis and his Queen would long survive.

Doc

Answer 4

You haven't said how old you are, so I must warn you: some of this might not be appropriate if you are under age 12. Look away if you are, and ask your Mom the same question you posted here. Herein follows a complex answer. First off, the above poster is incorrect. Madame du Barry was the mistress of Louis's grandfather, Louis XV. du Barry was anything but a lady and she was not at all a nice person: she originally came from a high priced brothel and quite literally slept her way to the very top of the social pyramid, stepping on quite a few people to get there while being impudent to anyone she saw as beneath her. As mistress to the King at one point, she made the stupid move of being nasty to Marie Antoinette and paid for it once her lover died: du Barry was sent away from court never to return. Now, Louis and Marie: Marie Antoinette and he were married when they were both about 15 for political reasons, not for love; such arrangements were common and from the perspective of the French it would have been prudent to strengthen alliances with Austria and the Holy Roman Empire, in this case with blood ties. So it had been for centuries. Neither Marie nor Louis particularly had any grand passion for the other and in fact they had some real difficulties early in their marriage since Marie and Louis could not produce an heir-something that was critical to the entire Franco-Austrian alliance, not to mention carrying on the line of power to the next generation. It was a disaster! Louis's younger brother had a son before he did (Duke of Angouleme) and legally for a time this baby became the heir to the French throne. It was a complete humiliation for Marie Antoinette as most of France blamed her for the lack of an heir, whereas most historians now believe the truth was that Louis was more to blame as 1) he was always out hunting and away from her 2) he was noted for having a low, low, low libido, especially in comparison to the two kings that preceded him and 3) it is believed he had a nasty case of phimosis. Sex for him would have been very painful, since his foreskin could not retract. Marie and Louis were married for some time before they ever had a son and that ever important Dauphin, and around the time Marie had a daughter she started taking lovers. Count Ferzen, a Swede, is counted as the most likely suspect. It is unrecorded what Louis thought, but it is doubtful that it was all that important to him as his relationship with Marie was far from that of what we in the modern age would call a normal, healthy marriage based on mutual love and respect. He respected her, certainly, maybe even saw her as a friend, but love? No. PS-If you want to know which monarchs actually did love each other from the same period, the answer is across the Channel. George III, for all of his tyranny in the Colonies and his sad case of porphyria truly did love his Queen Charlotte. He got her pregnant about 15 times. It may be the first recorded case in history where an Englishman outdid a Frenchman in romance!!!

Answer 5

Absolutely Not. Revolutionary justice is anyone else's injustice.
Louis XVI is distinguished from the other two famous murdered monarchs, Charles I and Nicholas II, by his benevolence. He really wanted to make France a better country.
That being said, there is some truth in 'the right palce at the wrong time'.

Answer 6

Very few "Deserve" to be executed. He became King by birth, she by marriage and that alone doomed them. I am sure that during their reign that many were executed by order of the crown.

Either they signed the execution orders for the hundreds of prisoners executed during their reign or an appointee was delegated the duties by the ultimate responsibility rested on their crown.
And surely their children did not deserve their fate, but they were also doomed by their name.

Louis was ineffective, and not a good ruler, he was not evil mean or cruel he was just not up to the job, and by his actions was not really concerned about doing his job, on many occasions he really tried to ignore matters which only made things worst.
But during his reign many were put to death under his name. Did that make him deserving? Apparently the people felt so.

Answer 7

The were socially irresponsible and over taxed the people and were blind to their suffering and hunger. I don't believe they deserved to be executed, a prison sentence would have been more just.

Answer 8

yeah because he used all the french people's money for personal use.

Answer 9

i say off with there head!

Answer 10

they were french werent they. i will leave it at that

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