# Did King Louis XVI Actually Say This? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 19, 2012, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-king-louis-xvi-actually-say-this/644502 "2012-12-19T08:13:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2012, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-king-louis-xvi-actually-say-this/644502/1 "2012-12-19T08:13:55Z")
He was asked about what would happen to the French nation, after his death…and (supposedly) replied “apres moi le deluge” (after me, the flood). This quote is widely cited, but I don’t really know that its been validated. Louis was a rather dissolute monarch-he was also very intelligent, and knew the dire state of his country (bankrupt, defeated by England in North America, poverty among the peasantry), yet he ignored these signs of decay (he preferred to hunt and throw big parties at his palace at Versailles). The quote would seem to indicate that he was a fatalist, and had no interest in seeking to drive reforms (that might have saved the monarchy). So was the King resigned to the storm to come? ---
**Author:** ![Mops](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mops/32/16494_2.png) [@Mops](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mops)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2012, 9:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-king-louis-xvi-actually-say-this/644502/2 "2012-12-19T09:36:45Z")
I’ve only ever heard it cited as _après nous, le Déluge_, and ascribed to Madame de Pompadour, in 1757. ---
**Author:** ![si\_blakely](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@si\_blakely](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/si_blakely)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2012, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-king-louis-xvi-actually-say-this/644502/3 "2012-12-19T12:29:20Z")
The phrase was proposed as the motto of 617 squadron, following the famous Dam Busters raid. Both the attribution to Louis XVI and the grammar of the phrase were raised as issues but by then the motto had a royal seal of approval, and it has stuck. Si ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2012, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-king-louis-xvi-actually-say-this/644502/4 "2012-12-19T13:35:14Z")
The consensus view from Google seems to be that the phrase is indeed “apres _moi_ le deluge”, and that it was first said either by Louis XV (not XVI) or perhaps Madame de Pompadour. I do not know if either of those attributions are true, but they, rather than what either **ralph124c** or **Mops** says, seems to be the common opinions. ---
**Author:** ![Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Speaker_for_the_Dead)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2012, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-king-louis-xvi-actually-say-this/644502/5 "2012-12-19T14:08:42Z")
Yeah, it was definitely the generation before Louis XVI, if anyone said it at all. It’s famous because that deluge is supposed to be the Revolution. ---
**Author:** ![jbaker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/59ef9b/32.png) [@jbaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jbaker)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2012, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-king-louis-xvi-actually-say-this/644502/6 "2012-12-19T23:46:26Z")
The Yale Book of Quotations gives the line as “après nous le déluge” and says of it: Said to be Pompadour’s response to Louis XV after the French defeat in the Battle of Rossbach, 5 Nov. 1757. Some sources attribute the comment to the king himself. In reality, it predated 1757 in French proverbial usage. The Marquis de Mirabeau wrote in L’Ami des Hommes (1755), “Après moi le déluge.” ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-king-louis-xvi-actually-say-this/644502/7 "2012-12-20T02:04:05Z")
My fifteenth edition of _Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations_ (1980) also has it as “Après nous le déluge” (After us the deluge), as said by Madame de Pompadour. Similarly to **jbaker** ’s notation, it goes on, “Reputed reply to Louis XV [November 5, 1757] after the defeat of the French and Austrian armies by Frederick the Great in the battle of Rossbach,” and a footnote adds, “The attribution to Madame de Pompadour is made by Després (_Mémoires de Madame de Hausset_); also by Sainte-Beuve and La Tour. Larousse (_Fleurs Historiques_) attributes the saying to the king. It was original with neither, for it is an old French proverb.”