Louis XVI orders the blacksmith Francois Gamain to build the famous “iron wardrobe”
Louis XVI (1754-1793) nurtured, as is well known, a great passion for iron working , in which he himself ventured, it seems with some success, whenever the institutional commitments allowed him.
The king had learned the secrets of the trade from the royal blacksmith Francois Gamain.
Majesty's confidence in him in the good craftsman was such as to order him a safe complete with impregnable lock to contain his documents, given that the revolutionary ferments already underway had begun to arouse some fear in him.
Gamain thus created what would go down in history as the " iron wardrobe "( armoire de fer ), whose burning content, made known during the trial, would have contributed following the death sentence of the sovereign.
Also this time, as on other occasions, the trust that, by nature, he used to place in others was fatal to Louis XVI:Gamain, having joined the revolutionary cause, betrayed him by revealing the existence of the safe, of which he led to the discovery. / P>