Title: Why was Louis XVI executed? - Quora
Headings: Why was Louis XVI executed?
Why was Louis XVI executed?
Noah Wiener

Content: The issue was, he was never given a chance to be a proper Constitutional Monarch, because, in 1789, during a period called the “Great Fear” due to a bunch of conspiracy theories that someone was trying to restore Feudalism, a rumor spread that Louis had trampled a Revolutionary symbol. Now, there was no evidence whatsoever to back this up, but, well, it was winter, there was a bad harvest, people were starving, and Louis’s wife Marie Antoinette was already the public’s favorite punching bag due to being Austrian, which is a fancy way of saying “the country France had been geopolitical rivals with basically since the concept of nations, countries or geopolitics existed”. So what all this meant was: a mob formed, they marched on Versailles, and basically kidnapped the royal family (and might have done worse had Marie Antoinette not faced them in public). The really important thing about this, though, is that the National Guard, you know, the guys who were supposed to enforce the law, did nothing. So you can kind of see how Louis, now in Paris, might have feared for his life surrounded by people who had shown a willingness to physically harm at the very least his wife and protected by guards who were demonstrably unwilling to protect him, might have had his attitude towards the Revolution somewhat soured. This incident led to the cycle of events that ended with Louis at the guillotine. So, why was Louis XVI executed? It wasn’t because he betrayed the Revolution, it was because the Revolution betrayed him. The soldiers of the Revolution showed no willingness to protect him and his family including children against a mob who had come based on a conspiracy theory.