Louis XVII of France

Who was Louis XVII of France?

Louis XVII, from birth to 1789 known as Louis-Charles, Duke of Normandy; then from 1789 to 1791 as Louis-Charles, Dauphin of France; and from 1791 to 1792 as Louis-Charles, Prince Royal of France, was the younger son of King Louis XVI of France and Queen Marie Antoinette. As the son of the king, he was a Fils de France. His older brother, Louis Joseph, died in June 1789, just a few weeks before the start of the French Revolution.

His parents were executed for treason under the first republic making the newly orphaned eight-year-old Louis-Charles nominal successor to the abolished throne. In keeping with dynastic order, when his father was executed on 21 January 1793, during the middle-period of French Revolution, he became the King of France and Navarre in the eyes of the royalists. However, as France was by then the First French Republic, and as he had been imprisoned from August 1792 until his death from illness in 1795 at the age of 10, he was never officially king, nor did he rule. His title is rather one bestowed by his royalist supporters and implicitly by Louis XVIII's adoption of the title Louis XVIII rather than Louis XVII.