Claim: Marie Antoinette was a queen.

Louis XVI -LRB- -LSB- lwi sɛːz -RSB- ; 23 August 1754 -- 21 January 1793 -RRB- , born Louis-Auguste , was the last King of France and Navarre before the French Revolution ; during which he was also known as Louis Capet . In 1765 , at the death of his father , Louis , Dauphin of France , son and heir apparent of Louis XV of France , Louis-Auguste became the new Dauphin . Upon his grandfather 's death on 10 May 1774 , he became King of France and Navarre , which he remained until 4 September 1791 , when he received the title of King of the French until his suspension on 10 August 1792 . Louis XVI was guillotined on 21 January 1793 .   The first part of his reign was marked by attempts to reform France in accordance with Enlightenment ideas . These included efforts to abolish serfdom , remove the taille , and increase tolerance toward non-Catholics . The French nobility reacted to the proposed reforms with hostility , and successfully opposed their implementation . Louis implemented deregulation of the grain market , advocated by his liberal minister Turgot , but it resulted in an increase in bread prices . In periods of bad harvests , it would lead to food scarcity which would prompt the masses to revolt . From 1776 , Louis XVI actively supported the North American colonists , who were seeking their independence from Great Britain , which was realized in the 1783 Treaty of Paris .   The ensuing debt and financial crisis contributed to the unpopularity of the Ancien Régime . This led to the convening of the Estates-General of 1789 . Discontent among the members of France 's middle and lower classes resulted in strengthened opposition to the French aristocracy and to the absolute monarchy , of which Louis and his wife , Queen Marie Antoinette , were viewed as representatives . In 1789 , the storming of the Bastille during riots in Paris marked the beginning of the French Revolution .   Louis 's indecisiveness and conservatism led some elements of the people of France to view him as a symbol of the perceived tyranny of the Ancien Régime , and his popularity deteriorated progressively . His disastrous flight to Varennes in June 1791 , four months before the constitutional monarchy was declared , seemed to justify the rumors that the king tied his hopes of political salvation to the prospects of foreign invasion . The credibility of the king was deeply undermined , and the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of a republic became an ever-increasing possibility . Despite his lack of popular approbation , Louis XVI did abolish the death penalty as well as the labor tax , which had compelled the French lower classes to spend two weeks out of the year working on buildings and roads .   In a context of civil and international war , Louis XVI was suspended and arrested at the time of the insurrection of 10 August 1792 ; one month later , the constitutional monarchy was abolished ; the First French Republic was proclaimed on 21 September 1792 . He was tried by the National Convention -LRB- self-instituted as a tribunal for the occasion -RRB- , found guilty of high treason , and executed by guillotine on 21 January 1793 , as a desacralized French citizen under the name of `` Citizen Louis Capet '' , in reference to Hugh Capet , the founder of the Capetian dynasty -- which the revolutionaries interpreted as Louis ' family name . Louis XVI was the only King of France ever to be executed , and his death brought an end to more than a thousand years of continuous French monarchy