Louis c kung biography for kids

The reign of Louis XVI, the final Bourbon king of France, was a varied and eventful one, but when we think of him and his queen Marie Antoinette, certain associations inevitably pop into our minds. Perhaps we think of the couple’s ostentatious wealth, as exemplified by their palace at Versailles. Or, maybe we recall their blasé attitude towards the working poor, as reflected in Marie Antoinette’s famous quip, “Let them eat cake.” Some of us may think immediately of the grim machine responsible for the royal couple’s untimely end, the guillotine.

This historical shorthand may be the best we can do when we’re trying to absorb the whole of human history, but it doesn’t present us with a very well-rounded picture of an era or its important actors. In fact, sometimes it doesn’t deliver a very accurate picture at all. For instance, Marie Antoinette, forever identified with the contemptuous phrase “Let them eat cake,” never actually s