Gustav III supported Voltaire, culture, liberty, and reform while also offering to lead a monarchist coalition against the French Revolution and restore Louis XVI. That contradiction made his enlightened absolutism an assertion of royal direction rather than popular sovereignty. In 1792 an aristocratic conspirator shot him in the lower back at a masquerade ball, but the wound did not immediately disable him. Gustav suppressed the attempted coup, received his opponents' apologies, and placed authority in a regency under his brother Prince Charles until his son came of age. He died of sepsis thirteen days later, with the regency arranged.
Notable Point · 2:43:35-2:46:33
Gustav III survives an assassination long enough to secure succession
Gustav's support for enlightened culture coexisted with a plan to restore Louis XVI by force, and after an aristocratic assassin shot him he suppressed the plot and arranged a regency before dying of sepsis.