Today is December 11. On this day in history, in 1792, King Louis XVI, King of France, was tried for treason before the French National Convention. This was the equivalent of a kangaroo court of the first order. He was found guilty of course, and guillotined in early 1793.
This is the Louis who was America's ally during the War of the American Revolution and without whose help, we would probably still be toasting the king or queen or whomever.
Louis was blamed for the centuries of problems that France had and was in the clutches of the blood-thirsty monsters of the French Revolution.
Today, historians and Frenchmen in general have a more balanced view of Louis XVI, viewing him as an honest man with good intentions, but who was probably unfit for the great task of reforming the monarchy. Most agree that he was used as a scapegoat by the Revolutionaries.
