Louis XVI Exiled to the United States

The decision to have him executed wasn't unanimous. Thomas Paine, who got to vote on the decision, tried to get Louis exiled to America because he was against capital punishment. Obviously, that didn't happen.

What would have happened if Louis XVI got this fate rather than the guillotine?
 
Mass celebrity, perhaps. France was still viewed favorably at the time thanks to the ARW, and the beginnings of the French Revolution revived that-witness how Americans briefly called each other 'citizen', used French naming styles in many cities (-ville), etc. The Terror HADN'T quite come into full force and Citizen Genet yet on the horizon yet to cause the admiration to become disgust, either.
 
It's unlikely that it would have been permitted, but I expect he would have had a shadow court set up around him in the United States - an almost unavoidable fate for any serious royal claimant.
Quite apart from how well that would have gone down with the people and government of the fledgeling United States I really can't say - I presume it wouldn't have been a welcome development.
I could see his coming to the UK within a few months - since Britain was fighting ostensibly to restore the French monarchy, and would be much more comfortable with his holding court until he could return to France.

Of course, that line of events makes it all the less likely that the sentence would be commuted to exile - his eventual return to Europe as a focus of resistance against the new regime is so predictable that leaving him alive would be seen as a failure to address the problem.

Just my 2p-worth.
 
As cool as it would've been to have the exiled king in the US, this would give the monarchists a symbol to rally around causing the new republic all kinds of problems.
 
I could see his coming to the UK within a few months - since Britain was fighting ostensibly to restore the French monarchy, and would be much more comfortable with his holding court until he could return to France.

Except that Britain wasn't "fighting ostensibly to restore the French monarchy" until after the Convention executed Louis, and partly as a result thereof.
 
Except that Britain wasn't "fighting ostensibly to restore the French monarchy" until after the Convention executed Louis, and partly as a result thereof.

Fair point.
Okay, in that case, if a French state that doesn't execute Louis could have faced fewer enemies abroad (probable) the question becomes - is the Terror avoidable?
While there was a strand of opinion in Britain which held that any disorder in France was a good thing, there was also a strand of opinion that agreed with the Prussians and Austrians that this revolution was dangerous - over-extreme and incendiary. The more violent it becomes, the more viscerally terrifying it gets, and the more that tendency becomes heard.
It's hard to be sure, but I don't think Britain could have sat out the wars of the First Coalition once the extent of the Terror became apparent.
Of course, interesting butterfly if Britain does sit out, at least for a little while - the brilliant young Corsican Major of Artillery Napoleon Bonaparte maybe doesn't get to shine at Toulon. Could lead to his rising more slowly to power, or even being a General for another who made it first. (I think he was too talented not to go high, unless he were to be killed in an early action).
 
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