Louis

18 kings of France bore this name, beginning with Louis le Débonnaire, son of Charlemagne. Apart from Louis XIV (Louis le Grand), the most noteworthy are:

Louis IX (Saint Louis), leader of the Third Crusade [see Joinville];
Louis XI, who fought the Burgundian duke Charles le Téméraire and was responsible for the extension and consolidation of French territory;
Louis XIII (le Juste), whose first minister was Richelieu;
Louis XV (le Bien-Aimé), whose long reign saw growing economic prosperity and the rise of the philosophes;
Louis XVI, who fell victim to the Revolution, which he only half-heartedly accepted, and was guillotined as ‘Louis Capet’;
Louis XVIII, grandson of Louis XV, who spent the Revolutionary and Napoleonic years in exile, returning in 1814 [see Restoration].

The so-called Louis XVII, son of Louis XVI and Queen Marie-Antoinette, died in prison in 1795 and never reigned.