Editing Louis XVI (section)

==Legacy==
[[File:Grab Louis XVI und Marie Antoinette.JPG|thumbnail|Memorial to Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, sculptures by [[Edme Gaulle]] and [[Pierre Petitot]] in the [[Basilica of Saint-Denis]]]]

===Reputation===
The 19th-century historian [[Jules Michelet]] attributed the restoration of the French monarchy to the sympathy that had been engendered by the execution of Louis XVI. Michelet's ''Histoire de la Révolution Française'' and [[Alphonse de Lamartine]]'s ''Histoire des Girondins'', in particular, showed the marks of the feelings aroused by the revolution's regicide. The two writers did not share the same sociopolitical vision, but they agreed that, even though the monarchy was rightly ended in 1792, the lives of the royal family should have been spared. Lack of compassion at that moment contributed to a radicalization of revolutionary violence and to greater divisiveness among Frenchmen. For the 20th century novelist [[Albert Camus]] the execution signaled the end of the role of God in history, for which he mourned. For the 20th century philosopher [[Jean-François Lyotard]] the regicide was the starting point of all French thought, the memory of which acts as a reminder that French modernity began under the sign of a crime.<ref>See Susan Dunn, ''The Deaths of Louis XVI: Regicide and the French Political Imagination.'' (1994).</ref>

[[File:Painting, The Death of the Last Confessor of Louis XVI, Menjaud.jpg|thumb|right|The Duchess of Angoulême at the deathbed of [[Henry Essex Edgeworth]], last confessor to Louis XVI, by Alexandre-Toussaint Menjaud, 1817]]

Louis's daughter, [[Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte]], the future Duchess of Angoulême, survived the French Revolution, and she lobbied in Rome energetically for the [[canonization]] of her father as a saint of the Catholic Church. Despite his signing of the [[Civil Constitution of the Clergy]], Louis had been described as a martyr by [[Pope Pius VI]] in 1793.<ref>{{Cite web |date=29 January 2015 |title=Pius VI: Quare Lacrymae |url=https://thejosias.com/2015/01/29/pius-vi-quare-lacrymae/ |access-date=27 April 2025 |website=The Josias}}</ref> In 1820, however, a memorandum of the [[Sacred Congregation of Rites]] in Rome, declaring the impossibility of proving that Louis had been executed for religious rather than political reasons, put an end to hopes of canonization.

Other commemorations of Louis XVI include:
* The [[Requiem in C minor (Cherubini)|Requiem in C minor]] for mixed chorus by [[Luigi Cherubini]] was written in 1816, in memory of Louis XVI.
* The Requiem for Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette by [[Jean-Paul-Égide Martini]] was written for, and performed at the burial ceremony in St. Denis in 1815.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2017/Aug/Martini_requiem_CHR77413.htm|title=MARTINI Requiem pour Louis XVI et Marie Antoinette, Messe de Requiem & GLUCK De profundis clamavi – CHRISTOPHORUS CHR77413 [JV] Classical Music Reviews: August 2017 – MusicWeb-International|website=www.musicweb-international.com}}</ref>
* [[Talleyrand]] commissioned a Requiem for the memory of Louis XVI from [[Sigismund von Neukomm]], a pupil and protégé of [[Joseph Haydn]], which was performed in 1815 in [[Vienna]].
* [[Paul Wranitzky]]'s Symphony Op. 31 (1797), which is themed on the events of the French Revolution, includes a section titled "The Funeral March for the Death of the King Louis XVI".
* The city of [[Louisville, Kentucky|Louisville]], Kentucky, is named for Louis XVI. In 1780, the [[Virginia General Assembly]] bestowed this name in honor of the French king, whose soldiers were aiding the American side in the [[American Revolutionary War|Revolutionary War]]. At that time, [[Kentucky]] was a part of the [[Commonwealth of Virginia]]. Kentucky became the 15th [[State of the United States]] in 1792.

===In film===
King Louis XVI has been portrayed in numerous films. In ''[[Captain of the Guard (film)|Captain of the Guard]]'' (1930), he is played by [[Stuart Holmes]]. In ''[[Marie Antoinette (1938 film)|Marie Antoinette]]'' (1938), he was played by [[Robert Morley]]. [[Jean-François Balmer]] portrayed him in the 1989 two-part miniseries ''[[La Révolution française (film)|La Révolution française]]''. More recently, he was depicted in the 2006 film ''[[Marie Antoinette (2006 film)|Marie Antoinette]]'' by [[Jason Schwartzman]]. In [[Sacha Guitry]]'s ''[[Si Versailles m'était conté]]'', Louis was portrayed by one of the film's producers, Gilbert Bokanowski, using the alias Gilbert Boka. Several portrayals have upheld the image of a bumbling, almost foolish king, such as that by [[Jacques Morel (actor)|Jacques Morel]] in the 1956 French film ''[[Marie-Antoinette reine de France]]'' and that by Terence Budd in the ''[[Lady Oscar (film)|Lady Oscar]]'' live action film. In the 1989 series [[La Révolution française (film)|La Révolution française]], [[Jean-François Balmer]] played Louis as an intelligent, but ultimately ineffective ruler overwhelmed by events.<ref>IMdB, "The French Revolution" https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098238/fullcredits/?ref_=tt_ov_st#cast</ref> In ''[[Start the Revolution Without Me]]'', Louis XVI is portrayed by [[Hugh Griffith]] as a laughable [[cuckold]]. [[Mel Brooks]] played a comic version of Louis XVI in ''[[The History of the World Part 1]]'', portraying him as a [[libertine]] who has such distaste for the peasantry he uses them as targets in [[skeet shooting]]. In the 1996 film ''[[Ridicule (film)|Ridicule]]'', [[Urbain Cancelier]] plays Louis.

===In literature===
Louis XVI has been the subject of novels as well, including two of the [[alternate histories]] anthologized in ''[[If It Had Happened Otherwise]]'' (1931): "If [[Flight to Varennes|Drouet's Cart]] Had Stuck" by [[Hilaire Belloc]] and "If Louis XVI Had Had an Atom of Firmness" by [[André Maurois]], which tell very different stories but both imagine Louis surviving and still reigning in the early 19th century. Louis appears in the [[children's book]] ''[[Ben and Me]]'' by [[Robert Lawson (author)|Robert Lawson]] but does not appear in the 1953 [[animated short film]] based on the same book.