| Summary: | Although the French Revolution has aroused interest of international researchers, Louis xvi is widely neglected by the academic studies. Even if reluctantly, he is yet one of the main protagonists and it is also by questioning the role and the place of the king that the Revolution took its shape.This led to the consequence that the golden legend the king constructed by controlling his image from the beginning of his reign is still very lively today. In it, he is presented as a new Henri iv, deeply concerned by the misfortunes of his subjects. In spite of the attacks of the Revolution, this image still considerably influences Louis xvi’s biographers and the historians of the Revolution.If the Restoration made a not surprising good use of it, it more astonishingly seduced Jaurès before being discreted as well as the royalists when they chose antisemitism in the 20th century. Today it is through the Anglo-Saxon historiography that is reappears and eventually begins to be questioned.
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