Worst Monarch of France?

Worst French Monarch?

  • John II the Good

    Votes: 8 7.8%
  • Henry I

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Philip IV the Fair

    Votes: 1 1.0%
  • Charles VI the Beloved, the Mad

    Votes: 12 11.7%
  • Charles IX

    Votes: 1 1.0%
  • Louis XV the Beloved

    Votes: 7 6.8%
  • Louis XVI the Restorer of French Liberty

    Votes: 17 16.5%
  • Philip VI the Fortunate

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Charles X

    Votes: 35 34.0%
  • Napoleon III

    Votes: 10 9.7%
  • Louis-Philippe I the Citizen-King

    Votes: 4 3.9%
  • Other? Specify.

    Votes: 4 3.9%
  • Louis VII

    Votes: 1 1.0%
  • Louis XIV

    Votes: 3 2.9%

  • Total voters
    103
  • Poll closed .
Englishing foreign names is a perfectly respectable historiographical practice, and there's no need to get all pedantic over it.

Henry I is Beauclerc, Henri I is king of the Francs. It's particularly needed as a distinction since their reign are so close to one another.

I bet you're just the sort of person to defend writing Francis I, too.
 
My vote: Charles X

Seriously, how fucking stupid do you have to be to think that little thing called "the French Revolution" was of no consequences and that you could act as if it never happened?

In regards to the others:

Henri I - Eh... I'm not so sure. I don't really remember anything great he did, but at the same time I can't really think about a true failure... Then again, he's basically one of the few kings of France we don't give much of a fuck about...

Louis VII - Kinda harsh considering that the only thing he failed in are basically his marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Second Crusade... Sure, these failures are pretty big, but he also did a number of important reforms: he strengthened royal power and he began centralizing the administration. The awesome man that was his son Philippe Augustus basically expanded on some of the reforms his father had done. Not to say Philippe Augustus is overrated, just saying his father gave him a strong basis to start that he use extremly effectively.

Philip IV the Fair
- Why is he even on that list? You're calling the third best king of the Direct Capetians as one of the lamest? Why? Because his succession was a mess? Not his fault all his sons died in a such a quick succession without male heirs! Hell, if anything, that's just bad luck!

Philip VI the Fortunate - Bad King? Definitely given that he rather poorly handled the beginning of the Hundred Years War. Wort of the bunch? Eh... He kinda has a few circumstances... I mean, the Black Plague started hitting France while he ruled. Plus it's not like the whole mess with England happened overnight and had no past causes like the historical Plantagenêt-Capetian rivalry...

John II the Good - Yep, losing a major battle and getting captured really doesn't help your rule, especially when your ransom nearly bankrupts your kingdom and forces your heir to basically create a new money. Still, I'm not sure he's the worst in the bunch... I can at least name his bravery in battle as a quality even if it's not much.

Charles VI the Beloved, the Mad - Definitely not a great king but at the same time he was mad and that basically meant he could only rule in name... So, really, the failures of his reign aren't his fault. Unless you want to blame him for becoming mad, but that's just petty.

Charles IX - A king that was too young in a fucked up period of time. His reign isn't one of the shining period of French history (especially thanks to St. Bartholomew) but I don't think he alone should be blamed. Granted, he still did pretty badly but frankly given the situation and the entourage he had, I think a good deal of other rulers would have failed as badly...

Louis XV - I'd rather rank him as mediocre than as a bad king. He did rather poorly but he was still at the head of the strongest european power during his reign and culture was rather flourishing. Plus, given he was rather depressive, I have a tendency to sympathise for the guy...

Louis XVI - You can basically sum the guy up as "Wrong King at the Wrong Time". A (too) good natured man, willing to reform but lacking the authority and strength needed, and the whole mess he had to face was basically something he inherited from his predecessors. Add to it that the French Revolution was a rather complicated thing to handle, the fact he was rather ill prepared to rule (because his father and grandfather kinda ignored to prepare him for the job) and that he wasn't in the best mental disposition at the time and it's only natural he failed.

Louis-Philippe Ier - Eeeh... Considering who came before him, it's hard to say he was the worst. Not to mention that he kinda succeeded in some places. The July Monarchy's a bit of a transitionnal period but it wasn't that bad...

Napoleon III - As far as I'm concerned, he doesn't really have his place here. He was rather awful at foreign policies but he did rather well domestic-wise. The Second Empire is actually a rather good period for France in terms of economic growth and industrialization. There are also a few worker's right policies that he put into places because he had a genuine care for their conditions. Sure, it all ended badly in the Franco-Prussian war but considering you have the magnificent bastard that is Otto von Bismarck on the Prussian side...
Louis XIV for setting up Versailles and spending way to much on wars for too little gain.
That's kinda forgetting all the important reforms Louis XIV did in his reign, how much France extended its borders thanks to him (even if the wars in the end were disastrous for the economy) and the fact France reached its peak in power during his rule. Sure, the Sun King is a bit overrated, but he still deserves his place among the great kings of France.
 
That's kinda forgetting all the important reforms Louis XIV did in his reign, how much France extended its borders thanks to him (even if the wars in the end were disastrous for the economy) and the fact France reached its peak in power during his rule. Sure, the Sun King is a bit overrated, but he still deserves his place among the great kings of France.
I still have to say that the guy expanded too little for how much was spent,not to mention how he ended up antagonizing most of France's former allies like the Dutch in the process of doing so.I do think however that setting up a Bourbon successfully in Spain was a real big plus of his reign.
 
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I must digress again

Some of these kings/emperors could very well be good monarchs. I made this list by taking ones commonly considered bad. I don't necessarily agree with all of them being on here.

Just wanted to give a wide variety of options.
 
People focus on Napoleon III's failures with respect to Prussia-Germany, and that's obviously the big one (both in terms of what he did and didn't do, Bismarck played him like a fiddle), but the rest of his foreign policy was fairly terrible as well. The whole Mexican debacle, the fairly pointless intervention in Italy (I suppose he at least got Nice and Savoy out of that one, which was better than most of his other unnecessary wars), the fairly pointless Crimean War, even his flirtation with the Confederacy (which he was much more sympathetic to than the British ever were)...

Of course, Charles X was still worse.
 
People focus on Napoleon III's failures with respect to Prussia-Germany, and that's obviously the big one (both in terms of what he did and didn't do, Bismarck played him like a fiddle), but the rest of his foreign policy was fairly terrible as well. The whole Mexican debacle, the fairly pointless intervention in Italy (I suppose he at least got Nice and Savoy out of that one, which was better than most of his other unnecessary wars), the fairly pointless Crimean War, even his flirtation with the Confederacy (which he was much more sympathetic to than the British ever were)...

Of course, Charles X was still worse.

I don't entirely agree. Mexico was certainly a fiasco - no argument there. But the Crimean War halted Russian expansion toward the Mediterranean. At that point both France and the UK preferred a weak Turkish state controlling the straits to Russia.

The Italian war drove Austria out of Italy (except Venice), replacing it with a weaker Italian state, and gained France some territory. I do think it was a mistake to keep a French garrison in Rome, though, as this just antagonized Italy when it could have been a French ally later on.
 
Napoleon. Lost hundreds of thousands of French lives to give up France's status as the premier power of Western Europe, lost the Rhineland, lost Flanders, lost Northern Italy...
 
Charles VI.
While i'm kind of hesitant to blame him (he was insane, after all, which truly makes it kinda petty to criticize him for a bad reign, as another user has said), i'll still say it falls into your purview over what designates a bad monarch.
 
I must digress again

Some of these kings/emperors could very well be good monarchs. I made this list by taking ones commonly considered bad. I don't necessarily agree with all of them being on here.

Just wanted to give a wide variety of options.

With all due respect, again: why Philip IV then? This is, quite litterally, the first time I hear of him a bad monarch (if one exclude, as I do, the whole Templar-obsessed conspiracy crowd).
 
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With all due respect, again: why Philip IV then? This is, quite litterally, the first time I hear of him a bad monarch (if one exclude, as I do, the whole Templar-obsessed conspiracy crowd).
This is the internet; conspiracy-obssessed folks are everywhere.

More seriously, he's there, and there's no reason to take him away (he isn't hurting anything. So far no one's actually voted for him, but who knows, maybe someone will and will make an argument. They'd be wrong, but again, this is the internet.
 
This is the internet; conspiracy-obssessed folks are everywhere.

More seriously, he's there, and there's no reason to take him away (he isn't hurting anything. So far no one's actually voted for him, but who knows, maybe someone will and will make an argument. They'd be wrong, but again, this is the internet.

I am not arguing for exclusion or anything, I am genuinelly puzled (as I don't think it came from the whole conspiracy thing) and would like to hear the rationelle, that's all.
 
I included him for the following


-got rid of significant population of people of his country. This can't have been a positive for France.

-lost to the County of Flanders at The Battle of the Golden Spurs (1302) and they gained temporary autonomy. Failure in war.

This isn't necessarily a lot, but combine that with the press about the Templars, and I could understand why people would have a bad opinion of him. I am not trying to make a rational statement for why someone is bad. I am making a rational statement for why someone else might think they are bad.

This doesn't reflect my opinion of him. He's not even the only monarch with no votes right now- I put a decent number to give people options. If someone could prove Philip II Augustus was the worst (despite my feelings that he was one of the best if not the best) than I would love to see it.


And as I said before. My criteria is commonly considered bad. An opinion doesn't have to be universal to be common.
 
-got rid of significant population of people of his country. This can't have been a positive for France.

So why not include Louis XIV? He threw out the Huguenots with the Edit de Fontainebleau. Philippe IV's expulsion of the Jews and his prior exploitation of them was rather monstrous, but perfectly in line with his objectives and some of his contemporaries' morals.

-lost to the County of Flanders at The Battle of the Golden Spurs (1302) and they gained temporary autonomy. Failure in war.

Hello.
 
Napoleon I, great general, but you know you're doing something wrong when you end up at war with the rest of the continent no less than five times...

He also restored slavery, which is not only immoral but it also bungled any chance at recovering Haiti.
 
Napoleon I, great general, but you know you're doing something wrong when you end up at war with the rest of the continent no less than five times...

He also restored slavery, which is not only immoral but it also bungled any chance at recovering Haiti.
To be fair,much of the wars were due to the fact that the other countries were not content with how France became the strongest country during the Revolution.The campaign against Spain and Russian on the other hand were inexcusable.
 
To be fair,much of the wars were due to the fact that the other countries were not content with how France became the strongest country during the Revolution.The campaign against Spain and Russian on the other hand were inexcusable.
He could a done somethings to be a more acceptable presence in European diplomacy. Some territorial concessions here, some reconciliations with the Bourbons there, not offering Archduke Charles his brother's throne...

You know some little things that would have made him less obviously a radical hegemon.
 
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