shouted, "Down with the Tyrant Louis XVI," but the his-
torian knows that the king was decapitated because he was
not a tyrant. If he had had strength of will, or a modicum of
necessary ruthlessness, he would have escaped his fate and
might have spared France years of agony and decades of
bloodshed. But Louis nursed a prejudice against violence.

Even during his life, when his subjects generally liked him
and exempted him from their harsh and bitter sarcasms,
Louis XVI did not know how to sell himself to his people.
The nation cried for a king, and it was given an image of a
stout man too shy to play to the galleries. Louis XVI built no
bridges between himself and his subjects, and the wonder is
that he retained their affections as long as he did. Almost to
the very end, Frenchmen were attached to the monarchy, but
they demanded something more of the monarch than ritual-
ized inertia. In no way, except intentions, did Louis meet
the expectations of his people. This interplay of forces, as
expressed by what an aroused nation wanted and a slow-
moving ruler did not offer, forms one of the fascinating chap-
ters in history.

One of the curious ironies in the career of Louis XVI is
that his death came to be perhaps more important than his
life. From the point of view of the Revolutionary reforms,
the king's death was unnecessary because it took place after
the Revolution had achieved its program; and from the point
of view of French history, the decapitation of Louis XVI was
a national tragedy because it tore the country from its tradi-
tional moorings and cast it into a sea of violence.

The execution of the king opened the flood-gates of
anarchy, terror, dictatorship, and international war. Louis
XVI was succeeded by Danton, Danton by the mob, the mob
by Robespierre, Robespierre ultimately by Bonaparte. For
more than two decades aftter the decapitation of Louis XVI
France knew no peace. And ever since that time she has been
subject to political upheavals revolving about the problem
that the French Revolution failed to solve--how to have
order without losing liberty. Regardless of what one thinks

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