Book Of Facts
(Reader's Digest)
KINGS AND QUEEN
SLOW COACH TO DEATH
Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI might well have avoided the guidance during the French Revolution if the queen had not changed their original escape plan. Instead of allowing the king in 1791 to leave Paris separately in a fast coach, as was first agreed. She insisted that the royal family should travel together. A larger and therefore slower coach had to be used. Because of the delay they missed their rendezvous with an armed escort of loyalists, and it was pitch-dark and difficult to find fresh horses by the time they reached the village Varennes, only 60kms (37 miles) from the French border and safety.
As a result a young man named Drouet, who had recognized them, was able to catch up with them and have their escape route blocked by pro-Revolution troops. Drouet had spotted the family when they changed horses at his stables in the village of Sainte Menehoud earlier in the day. The royal families were captured can sent back to Paris under guard. Louis XVI was guillotined in January 1793, followed nine months later by Marie Antoinette.
PROCREATIONS
Augustus the Strong; the Elector of Saxony who was elected king of Poland in 1697. Is believed to have fathered more than 300 children. Nevertheless, when he died there was no difficulty about choosing his successor: only one of his sons was legitimate.
SOLDIER KING
King Kari Gustaf of Sweden is the direct descendant of an undistinguished French Lawyer who had a practice in the small town of Pau. In southern France, during the 18th century. The lawyer?s son, Jean Bernadotte rose through the ranks of the French Army from being a common soldier to the rank of Napoleon?s marshals. In 1810 he was elected Crown Prince of Sweden, after the Swedes had sent a delegation to Paris to consult Napoleon- then the master of continental Europe- because the existing royal line was no the point of dying out. Jean Bernadotte had earlier impressed them when he was commanding troops in North Germany and Denmark. With Napoleon?s blessing, Jean Bernadotte became in 1818 King Karl XIV Johan, founding Sweden?s present ruling house.
Resumos Relacionados
- Napoleone Bonaparte
- Alexander I
- Henry V
- The Egyptian Secret Of Napoleon
- Juana Arco's Biographie'´s
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