Could Louis XVI have survived and remained king after the French Revolution began?

What was the likely fate of Louis if he was a little bit smarter?

  • Alive and remained an absolute king

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B-29_Bomber

Banned
Yes. If the moderates had won out against the radicals and maintained a moderate position on religion, then you could have King Louis XVI maintain his throne.

The King knew reform was needed, the situation just got too crazy.
 
Well, it would have required him to be more accepting of his loss of powers... It's doable: after the Women's March on Versailles, Louis XVI was seriously depressed and thus left most politicial decisions to Marie Antoinette, leading to opposition to the Assemblée and the Flight to Varennes. If he decides to trust someone else, like, say, Lafayette, things could have turned out differently. France just might escape the Revolutionnary wars. If the government succeed in reforming the country its economy, France would retain its constitutional monarchy.
Dunno how you get Lafayette to be close enough to Louis XVI though.
 

RousseauX

Donor
Yes, the main problem is that he made the wrong moves at every turn, he decided take the hardline when he needed to back down, and then when the hardline didn't work he backed up anyway which simultaneously made him look weak and tyrannical.

But even then he could have survived as a constitutional monarch by default: what sealed his fate was the woman's march on Versaille (if he just ran away before they got there) which forced him to go back to Paris and then the flight to Varennes which convinced everyone he's a traitor plotting against his own country.

Obvious PoD is just that he wasn't at Versaille on the day that woman marched there and avoids having to live in Paris, his chances of retaining some kind of power increases exponentially if he isn't at the mercy of the Paris mob.
 
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