Thread: A new home, and writing ideas

well, my past few weeks have been a bit difficult. My family has finally managed ot move out of that accursed townhouse and move into a proper one. Right now, most of my muscles are sore from moving out sofas and chairs we wanted to keep. Its a lot of work, but its worth it since my family of six finally has the five bedrooms we so desperately needed. Aside from that, i was suffering from writer's block. My story seemed amazing at first, but then i started coming to dead ends as to the details of my story. That's finally been solved. I read some stuff on the French revolution, and found the almost perfect character to base my story upon.

So are the new digs more conducive to writing?

I would suggest, if you really want to understand what happened to Louis XVI and the short-lived Louis XVII you go back to the real source of all their problems, Louis XIV. He was the most gifted absolute ruler in European history. By absolute I don't mean just in power, but also in defining what today we call micro-management, or hands-on management, carried to an extreme. A man of lesser talents would have brought ruin on himself quickly. Louis, though, was not lacking in talent, temperament, intelligence, or ambition. He liked running the country, the whole country, right down to the last governmental detail. And he did it well. France prospered under his rule.

Unfortunately even absolute monarchs can't live forever. Louis XIV died and slowly, inevitably, the government of France began to unravel. If you read closely you will finds signs of growing disillusionment among the people all through the reign of Louis XV. He did not have the skills of his father, and during the reign of Louis XIV an adequate bureaucracy was not established. The old Louis would not delegate responsibility. The next one lacked the temperament, the intelligence, the governmental abilities of his father. There was sufficient momentum left over for France to coast along well enough for another generation.

Then came Louis XVI, a disaster. Everything started to fall apart. The unraveling that began under Louis XV turned into a complete loss of government's ability to properly run the country.

Read up on French history beginning with Louis XIV attending cabinet meetings at the age of nine and continue through to the beheading of Robespierre and you will see how one led inexorably to the other. With his dying breath that miserable child Louis Capet would have been justified in cursing the memory of his great-grandfather.

well...its a whole lot to read
I'm looking for people who were in contact with Louis. So my first characters would be Antoine Simon and Jacques Hebert. I do need to bone up on my knowledge of the revolution though. If u could, explain what exactly the jacobins and girondins were? They came into power after louis, and his parents were dead, correct? i'm not sure exactly. Wikipeida is confusing me horribly...
The main man Louis curses is Hebert, since he was the one that coached him into accusing his mother of incest. His parents remain his parents for him, not anyone he curses, as from a child's point of view, his parents were perfect.