French king deposed and tried during the Revolution
King of France from 1774, Louis XVI summoned the Estates-General in 1789 amid a fiscal crisis. He accepted the Constitution of 1791, but the Flight to Varennes and foreign war deepened distrust of the crown. The monarchy was suspended in 1792; the National Convention convicted him and he was executed in January 1793.
Revolutionary choices and political context
Louis XVI summoned the Estates-General because the crown could no longer resolve fiscal crisis by established means. Once representatives turned it into a National Assembly and recast privilege, taxation, and sovereignty, the summons became the Revolution’s beginning rather than a means of restoring royal authority. His acceptance of the Constitution of 1791 was an unstable compromise over limited monarchy, not the end of conflict.
The Flight to Varennes destroyed confidence that the king would act within constitutional order. After war and the insurrection of 1792, the Convention abolished monarchy and tried him. The trial concerned not only individual guilt but a political and constitutional conflict over whether sovereignty lay with a king or a nation.