But how had this come about? The question began to be asked almost before Louis XVI’s headless corpse was cold. How could the French, the most monarchical of people, have turned so suddenly against a ruler whom they had proclaimed, as recently as 1789, the ‘Restorer of French Liberty’?
William Doyle discusses traditional and revisionist interpretations of the downfall of the Kings of France, arguing that notions of a ‘desacralised monarchy’ are inadequate to explain what happened. (History Today)
