Louis XVI of France

Louis XVI was the well-intentioned but indecisive monarch whose reign witnessed the catastrophic collapse of the French absolute monarchy and the birth of the modern democratic era. A gentle man with a passion for locksmithing, geography, and astronomy, Louis ascended the throne in 1774 at age nineteen alongside his Austrian queen, Marie Antoinette, inheriting an empire crippled by feudal privileges and mountainous debts.

In 1778, seeking revenge against Britain for the Seven Years' War, Louis provided decisive financial, military, and naval assistance to the nascent United States during the American Revolutionary War. While the alliance triumphed at Yorktown, the colossal expense pushed the French treasury into bankruptcy. Forced to convene the Estates-General in 1789, Louis unleashed the forces of the French Revolution. Following the storming of the Bastille and the royal family's failed flight to Varennes in 1791, the monarchy was abolished. Tried for high treason by the National Convention, Louis was condemned to death, mounting the scaffold at the Place de la Révolution (now Place de la Concorde) on January 21, 1793, with calm Christian dignity.