X-Nico

3 unusual facts about Louis XVI of France


Grand Squire of France

The office of Grand Squire existed down to the reign of Louis XVI.

Henri Evrard, marquis de Dreux-Brézé

Henri Evrard, marquis de Dreux-Brézé (1762-1829), succeeded his father Thomas as master of the ceremonies to Louis XVI in 1781.

Louisburg, North Carolina

Louisburg was established in the 1770s and named in honor of King Louis XVI of France, who was aiding the American Revolution at the time.


Arnaud II de La Porte

His great-granduncle was Michel Richard Delalande, court composer to Louis XIV, his grandfather was First Commissary of the Marine Joseph Pellerin, his father Arnaud I de La Porte was First Commissary as well, and his uncle, Joseph Pellerin Jr. was Intendant of the Naval Armies, all under Louis XV and Louis XVI.

Bernd Brinkmann

In 2000, Brinkmann together with Jean-Jacques Cassiman used DNA testing to prove that Louis XVII of France who died in captivity as a 10-year-old was indeed the son of Louis XVI of France and Marie Antoinette.

Constitutional Guard

When the National Constituent Assembly split on 3 September 1791, it decreed that king Louis XVI should have a Constitutional Guard, also known as the garde Brissac after its commander Louis Hercule Timolon de Cossé, duc de Brissac.

Étienne-François Letourneur

In 1792, he was elected to the Legislative Assembly for Manche, and voted in favor of King Louis XVI's execution, against a suspended sentence (but in favor of possibility of appeal to the people's mercy).

France in the American Revolutionary War

Secretly approached by Louis XVI and France's foreign minister, the comte de Vergennes, Pierre Beaumarchais was given authorization to sell gunpowder and ammunition to the Americans for close to a million pounds under the veil of the Portuguese company Rodrigue Hortalez et Compagnie.

François Chabot

Re-elected to the National Convention for the département of Loir-et-Cher, he voted for the execution of King Louis XVI, and opposed the proposal to prosecute the authors of the September Massacres, as there were heroes of the Battle of Jemmapes among them.

French Constitution of 1791

When the King used his veto powers to protect non-juring priests and refused to raise militias in defense of the revolutionary government, the constitutional monarchy proved unworkable and was effectively ended by the 10 August insurrection.

Guillaume-Mathieu Dumas

The National Constituent Assembly entrusted him with the command of the escort which conducted King Louis XVI to Paris after the Flight to Varennes (June 1791).

Holy Ampulla

The Holy Ampulla or Holy Ampoule (Sainte Ampoule in French) was a glass vial which, from its first recorded use by Pope Innocent II for the anointing of Louis VII in 1131 to the coronation of Louis XVI in 1774, held the chrism or anointing oil for the coronation of the kings of France.

Jean-Baptiste Robert Lindet

Initially close to the Girondists, Lindet was very hostile to King Louis XVI, provided a Rapport sur les crimes imputés à Louis Capet (December 20, 1792) – a report of the king's alleged crimes – and voted for the king's execution without appeal.

Jean-Louis Laya

This energetic protest against mob rule, with its scarcely veiled characterizations of Robespierre as Nomophage and of Marat as Duricrne, was an act of the highest courage, for the play was produced at the Théâtre Français (temporarily Théâtre de la Nation) only nineteen days before the execution of Louis XVI.

Madeleine Cemetery

One of the first decisions of Louis XVIII when he acceded to the throne of France at the time of the Bourbon Restoration, was to move the remains of his brother and sister-in-law, King Louis XVI and his Queen Marie Antoinette, to the necropolis of the Kings of France, the Basilica of St Denis.

Maximilien Radix de Sainte-Foix

Comte d'Artois was the youngest of the three sons of Louis, Dauphin of France (son of Louis XV) and Marie Leszczyńska and, unlike his two brothers Louis XVI and the future Louis XVIII, was inclined for the most part to easy and expensive pleasures, while reluctant to engage in reading and reflection.

Nicolas Chamfort

In 1776, his tragedy, Mustapha et Zeangir, was played at Fontainebleau before Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.

Paul François Jean Nicolas, vicomte de Barras

In January 1793 he voted with the majority for the execution of King Louis XVI.

Platon Zubov

Following one obscure duel, in which he refused to take part and which resulted in his aide's killing Chevalier de Saxe, son of Prince Francis Xavier of Saxony and cousin of Louis XVI, Zubov withdrew to his Rastrelliesque Rundale Palace in Courland, formerly the seat of the Biron ducal dynasty.

St Mary's Church, Hampstead

Marie Thérèse de France (19 December 1778–19 October 1851), the eldest (and last surviving) child of King Louis XVI of France and his wife, Queen Marie Antoinette, also known as the Duchess of Angoulême, was recorded as visiting the Abbé Morel in Hampstead on one occasion when in exile in England.


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