When did King Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette die and why?

Answer 1

Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette both died in 1793 (Louis on Januari 21st and Marie Antoinette on October 16th) on the scaffold. King Louis XVI and his wife Queen Marie Antoinette lost their monarchical power during the French Revolution. They inherited an enormous state debt (by Louis XIV and Louis XV). Also, Louis XVI was indecisive and not firm enough to rule.

Radical financial reforms by Turgot and Malesherbes angered the nobles and were blocked by the parlements who insisted that the King did not have the legal right to levy new taxes. So Turgot was dismissed in 1776 and Malesherbes resigned in 1776 to be replaced by Jacques Necker. Necker supported the American Revolution, and proceeded with a policy of taking out large international loans instead of raising taxes. When this policy failed miserably, Louis dismissed him, and replaced him in 1783 with Charles Alexandre de Calonne, who increased public spending to 'buy' the country's way out of debt. Again this failed, so Louis convoked the Assembly of Notables in 1787 to discuss a revolutionary new fiscal reform proposed by Calonne. When the nobles were told the extent of the debt, they were shocked into rejecting the plan. This negative turn of events signaled to Louis that he had lost the ability to rule as an absolute monarch, and he fell into depression. The French didn't want to be ruled by monarchs anymore, but wanted to become a republic without "tyrannizing" monarchs that they thought spend all their tax money and wanted equality, and also no more nobility with all their benefits and privileges. The revolutionists captured King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, held them prisoners and eventually had them beheaded by a guillotine.