http://dmf.culture.fr/files/regne_LouisXVI.html (Einblicke ins Internet, 10/1995)

The reign of Louis XVI (1774-1791)

Open-minded, interested in science and geography, but indecisive, Louis XVI let himself be ruled by his wife, Marie-Antoinette, and his brothers, the Count of Artois and the Count of Provence. Confronted by the aristocracy, the king was unable to impose the reforms undertaken by his "enlightened" ministers, Turgot, Malesherbes, Vergennes, Necker, Calonne and Loménie de Brienne, who would all fail in their attempts to redress the country's finances. From 1788 onwards, France sank into an economic depression. While the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, in 1783, had ended the American War of Independence, for those members of society who were tired of absolute monarchy it had also sanctioned the republican ideal.

As for the arts, the Count of Angiviller, Administrator of Royal Residences, with his advisor Jean-Baptiste Pierre , First Painter to the King, enforced the supremacy of history painting. Vien, head of the French Academy in Rome, encouraged the neoclassical tendencies of certain prizewinning residents, such as Regnault, Suvée, Peyron and David.