Marie Antoinette undermining the First French Republic, Louis XVI was separated from his family and tried in December. He was found guilty by the Convention, led by the Jacobins who rejected the idea of keeping him as a hostage. On 15 January 1793, by a majority of one vote, that of Philippe Égalité, he was condemned to death by guillotine and executed on 21 January 1793. The queen, now called "Widow Capet", plunged into deep mourning. She still hoped her son Louis-Charles, whom the exiled "Comte de Provence", Louis XVI's brother, had recognised as Louis XVI's successor, would one day rule France.
Hugh Capet he became independent, which defeated their plans to bring the whole of Europe under a single crown. Therefore, they turned their support from Lothair to Hugh Capet. Indeed, for the Ottonian to make France a vassal state of the empire, it was imperative that the Frankish king was not of the Carolingian race, and not powerful enough to break the Ottonian tutelage. Hugh Capet was for them the ideal candidate, especially since he actively supported monastic reform in the abbeys while other contenders continued to distribute church revenues to their own partisans. Such conduct could only appeal to Reims, who