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In defense of a Foolish King
What if Louis XVI wasn’t actually the villain?
Louis XVI is immortalized as a feckless, extravagant, foolish ruler who brought his country to the brink of collapse.
In so many history books he’s the villain which made the French Revolution a just, righteous cause.
But was he?
Louis-Auguste was a deeply shy child.
Intelligent and scholarly, he loved Latin, history, geography, and astronomy, and became fluent in Italian and English.
But his quiet, thoughtful nature made it hard for him at the glittering French court. He had to labor over his choice of words, painstakingly constructing his sentences.
Born in 1754, he was the second son — the spare — overlooked by his parents in favor of his older brother, the lively and handsome Louis, Duc de Bourgogne.
However, the older Louis died young, leaving just plain and reticent Louis-Auguste as the reluctant heir. Second in line for the throne after his father, the Dauphin.
His tutors intended to raise him as a responsible king, but their lessons only made Louis more painfully cautious.
Abbé Berthier, his instructor, instructed that timidity was a virtue in strong monarchs, and Abbé Soldini, his…
