The Tragedy of King Lewis the Sixteenth

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The play presents the life of King Louis XVI of France during the French Revolution and is based on the tradition dating from the seventeenth century of an unfulfilled request by Jesus Christ through St. Margaret Mary Alacoque that, to avert a future catastrophe in the realm, Louis’ great grandfather, Louis XIV, must consecrate France to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In return for this act of humility, the Lord promised to shower France with graces and blessings. Louis XIV and the kings who followed him delayed in making the consecration until, finally, on June 17, 1789, one hundred years later to the day, the Third Estate of the Estates General declared itself the National Assembly, challenging King Louis XVI and initiating the French Revolution. Louis was later stripped of his powers and sent to the guillotine to be put to death like a common criminal; France thereupon became engulfed in the horrors of the Revolutionary Terror. This play, therefore, like the ancient Greek tragedies, has a religious dimension in the concepts of divine retribution and the iniquity of the fathers visited upon the sons to the third and fourth generation (cf., The Bible, Euripides, Shakespeare).