 The narrative of Goriot 's painful relations with his children has also been interpreted as a tragicomic parable of Louis XVI 's decline . At a crucial moment of filial sentiment in Balzac 's novel , Vautrin breaks in singing " O Richard , O mon roi " — the royalist anthem that precipitated the October Days of 1789 and the eventual downfall of Louis XVI — a connection that would have been powerful to Balzac 's readers in the 1830s . An ill @-@ founded faith in paternal legitimacy follows both Goriot and Louis XVI into the grave . 
