Quotes from John Hardman

who went on to write one of Louis XVI and a good synography of Robespierre. They

But Louis XV, in arguably the biggest single blunder of his reign, capitulated to clerical pressure and to specious arguments such as the 'donation of Constantine', whereby the first Christian emperor had given land to the church unencumbered and in perpetuity. The problem did not go away: clerical resistance to taxation was to defeat Louis XVI's major reforming initiative too.

But somewhere deep inside him a glass tube clanked.