UMass Boston History 112: Midterm on the French Revolution

January 21, 1793
A vast silence had overtaken the city of Paris. It was a moist and foggy day that saw the streets of Paris empty, shops closed for business and battalions of National Guards lining a path stretching from the Temple all the way to the Place Lois XV. Making its way down the path was a closed horse-drawn carriage whose occupants were enroute to embrace a destiny soon to send shockwaves throughout the entire civilized world.

Louis Capet, formerly King Louis XVI, was accompanied by his faithful Abbé Edgeworth along with several guards instructed to knife Capet to death should he attempt to escape. Their journey was to end with Capet’s head in a guillotine for purportedly conspiring against the liberty of the nation and of attempts against the general safety of the state. Only twenty-four hours earlier had the former king been made aware of his sentence, and had been denied a three-day delay to make peace with his God.

In what must have been an excruciatingly slow two-hour journey to the scaffold, one wonders what thoughts had taken shape in Capet’s mind. He was completely convinced of his innocence, and while having endured a sudden and cruel separation from his family earlier he was notably strong, serene and composed. As he gazed out upon the faces of National Guards lining his fateful death-march, one wonders if perhaps his mind traced back to the turbulent events that had led him here; turbulent events that marked the beginning of the Revolution...

Estates-General
For the first time since the year 1614, the body of the Estates-General convened at Versailles on May 5, 1789. The King’s power had greatly diminished following enormous debt incurred after a taxing war against Britain over the American Revolution, which he attempted to relieve by way of a permanent and indiscriminant land tax. The First and Second Estates (consisting of the elite Clergy and Nobles respectively) ultimately curtailed the King’s power to levy such a tax as the Parlement of Paris asserted the approval of the Estates-General as a provisional requirement. In order to restore regal authority, absolute monarchy had been cut off at the legs in the face of what would need to be a severely tumultuous show of force by the King. Given the precarious position he was in with such widespread dissent and financial ruin afoot, King Louis XVI bowed to the demands of the Estates.

The opening of the Estates-General involved a long march through the streets of Versailles by the representatives of the Estates, each of whom had distinguished themselves in their manner of dress: the nobles with gold-embroidered cloaks and plumed caps, the clergy bearing Episcopal purple colored clothing and the Third Estate (representatives of the common people) more modestly garbed in black wool and plain round caps (reminiscent of feudal ages). As the members took their places at the meeting, the atmosphere was charged with partisanship as some attendees were cheered or booed to varying degrees, while the King was boisterously received by cries of “Vive le Roi!”

The King gave an impassioned speech praising the First and Second Estates’ offer to renounce their financial privileges, in so far as they had previously been exempted from the land tax. He expressed hope for cooperation by all three Estates for the general good of France, and regret that the tax would be needed in order to rebuild the economy and restore public confidence in the government. He pleaded for a return to the traditional deference to the King that had subsisted in the monarchal system in exchange for his faithful and best-intentioned service to the nation. The King’s speech was received by enthusiastic applause, and followed by yet more cries of “Vive le Roi!” as he left the meeting.

Notable was a speech by the Finance Minister Jacques Necker, who reported the state of France’s finances in a very lengthy, detailed and repetitious manner that was seen to be overly complementary to the King. The First and Second Estates received these sentiments with little dissatisfaction, however Necker’s speech was met with silent disapproval of the representatives of the Third Estate. Particularly objectionable in Necker’s financial report was his inability to account for the cause of the bread shortage resulting in higher costs to the peasants. Other issues of contention that ultimately served to drown out the food-related issues of concern to the populace at large were the movement to unite all three Estates into a single body (opposed by the staunchly Monarchist Nobles and Clergy while supported by the bourgeoisie and the Third Estate) as well as to set the standard of voting by number of people as opposed to by privilege of Estate (opposed by the staunchly Monarchist Nobles and Clergy while supported by the bourgeoisie and the Third Estate). The concern among the staunchly Monarchist Nobles and Clergy was that the sheer volume of representatives present among the bourgeoisie and the Third Estate would erode their traditional domination of the Assembly. Ultimately, the Nobles and Clergy were able to retain their dominance by containing a small majority in favor of voting by privilege of Estate.

Unwilling to continue to cede to the dominance of the overly-represented privileged Estates, the Third Estate reacted by staging a walk-out of the Estates-General and began meeting as the “Communes” (meaning “Commons”). While inviting the other two Estates to take part on June 10, they did not waste any time in formally declaring themselves the National Assembly on June 17, 1789 after representatives of the First and Second Estates did not join them. Dissolving the notion of representation by Estate, it was their intention to govern the affairs of the people of France with or without the other two groups of representatives. King Louis XVI, for his part, chose to impede the National Assembly from continuing to meet in the Salle des États by locking it up. This resulted in the National Assembly moving their convention to a tennis court, where they administered the “Tennis Court Oath” holding its members to a pledge for keeping the National Assembly together until France had a new constitution. Soon after, a majority of the Second Estate joined the National Assembly, as did 47 members of the First Estate.

Taking the Bastille
King Louis XVI next sought to intimidate the National Assembly in calling up over twenty thousand soldiers to Paris and Versailles, including numbers of hired foreign soldiers against the advice of Finance Minister Necker. In the midst of such chaos and under threat, the National Assembly continued to work undeterred, focused largely on responding to the high cost of bread. After advising the King to restrict the royal family’s expenditures to a budget in order to be more fiscally conservative, Necker was dismissed from his job as well as well as being told to relinquish his citizenship on July 11th, 1789 when he fled France for Brussels. The dismissal of Necker was seen as a huge loss by the bourgeois, and taken as a monarchal political coup. Necker’s dismissal was accompanied by the suspension of theater performances and closure of the Bourse by the order of the Estates-General. Afraid that the National Assembly was in danger of being silenced, an armed mob of ten thousand bourgeois took to the streets of Paris being further agitated by the incendiary political speech of revolutionary Camille Desmoulins.

On July 12th, the armed bourgeois mob attacked cavalry troops with stones and took hostages. On the 13th, the mob seized sixty barrels of gunpowder on the Seine, a store of grain in the Monastery of Saint-Lazare and arms from the King’s “garde-meuble.” The mob began to assemble into a formation of a national armed corps, selecting Fournier l’ Américain as their chief, who related that although they were mostly armed with less than formidable weapons (e.g. - clubs, ancient swords, pruning-hooks, pitchforks, and spades), their confidence was inspired by the sentiment of liberty. On the 14th, the bourgeois mob seized yet more arms from the Hôtel des Invalides without any interference from five thousand of the King’s soldiers stationed no more than four hundred yards away. In all, twenty-eight thousand muskets were seized along with a cannon. The bourgeois later learned that the governor of the Bastille, the Marquis de Launay, had denied there were any arms to give to the mob, when so queried. All at once, the battle cry of “Let’s go and attack the Bastille!” was to be heard throughout the streets of Paris.

The situation at the Bastille escalated from the bourgeois demanding munitions and arms to being threatened by the guards, to throngs and throngs of bourgeois arriving with and without arms poised to attack. The hateful sentiment towards the Bastille was universally felt among the French commoners, as it had long served as an institution that symbolized despotism. The mob attempted to force their way into the fortress, and the guards responded by opening fire killing over a hundred bourgeois. Wishing not to incur a massacre, the governor ordered a cease-fire and surrendered the fortress. Thinking he had secured the safety of himself and his men in the course of the surrender, the governor ordered the drawbridge to the Bastille lowered, which the mob violently rushed across. The guards were hanged, arrested and dragged through the streets in humiliation. The governor was beaten, stabbed and ultimately decapitated, his head impaled upon a pike and taken about the city in celebration of the bourgeois victory, ultimately ending at the Palais-Royal.

Upon being briefed of the fall of the Bastille, the King resolved to withdraw his soldiers from Versailles in order to quell the violence, and also recalled Necker to his former position. He traveled to Paris, and appeared to accept the circumstances of the revolution, even placing a tricolore cockade in his hat. While in Paris, he sanctioned a self-appointed citizens’ committee as the new Parisian government as well as to order the representatives of the First and Second Estates to join the National Assembly. Contrary to the wishes of the King, the Nobles fled France as émigrés and more so spoiled for the intervention of other European nations to restore order to France with monarchy at the helm.

August Decrees and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
In late July of 1789, the peasants took up insurrection on their own behalves. As such, they burned both manor houses of their landlords along with the records containing owed payments and services. The insurrection of the peasants coinciding with the vast amount of unemployed peasants on the roadsides whipped up widespread paranoia in what came to be known as the “Great Fear.” On August 4, the National Assembly sought to appease the peasants as many bourgeois were also landowners and feared what had befallen the nobles would befall them as well. In what came to be known as the “August Decrees,” the National Assembly abolished the long-standing feudal system, which tied the peasants’ interests to that of the revolution.

The “August Decrees” held that the traditional rights, monetary dues and peasant labor previously entitled to the landowners would be immediately abolished without compensation. They held that the traditionally exclusive right to hunt game on farmland by the nobles would now be a right held by all on their own land. The sale of judicial and municipal offices was abolished as were the fees paid to priests. The exemption from paying taxes was abolished, and was replaced with a proportional tax levied to all citizens on their property. All privileges, financial or otherwise, as concocted by provinces, principalities, districts, cantons, cities and communities were abolished and would be replaced by laws from the forthcoming constitution. The exclusivity by way of birthright to particular positions was abolished. The money previously collected to be sent to the court of Rome, the vice-legation of Avignon and the nunciature of Lucerne by the clergy was to cease being collected, and would be an issue for church bishops to tend to. All special financial privileges afforded the clergy were to be abolished. The ability to have more than one benefice when the revenues yield more than three thousand livres was abolished. Excessive pensions, dispensations and emoluments would be reduced.

On August 26, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was published after the National Assembly was able to come to an agreement on the basic tenants while attempting to assemble the constitution. It was inspired by the American Declaration of Independence, and co-authored by America’s own Thomas Jefferson with the Marquis de La Fayette. As well as the common author of Jefferson, the French and American Declarations shared a common link of John Locke’s Natural Rights. The French Declaration was to serve functionally as a preface to the Constitution, and unlike the American Declaration attempted to outline the basis of actual legal guidelines. Among the key principles were establishing that men are born free with equal rights, establishing government’s purpose as the guardian of these rights, establishing sovereignty as belonging solely to the nation, establishing that liberty is permitted in so far as it does not cause harm to others, establishing that it is the right of the law to determine what is harmful to others, establishing that the law is the expression of the general will of the people, forbidding the detention of any man for reasons not determined by the law, establishing punishments for breaking the law along strict and conservative guidelines, establishing that man is innocent until proven guilty when accused of a crime, establishing the freedom of religion, establishing the freedom of expression, establishing the need for a police force, establishing the need for a proportionate tax in order to cover the cost of police and administration, establishing the citizen’s right to government transparency with regards to usage of taxes, establishing the citizen’s right to hold administrations to account, establishing the separation of powers for citizens, and establishing the right to property as a right which can only be lawfully seized for use of public necessity or at the discretion of the law with judicious indemnity being granted.

The “general will” tenant in the Declaration was inspired by the political ideas of French-Swiss philosphe Jean-Jacques Rousseau in his publication “Social Contract.” This tenant as applied to the Declaration referred to the collective will of French society, where all who participate via their individual contribution are to be bound by the overall will by reason of their stake in it. Rousseau’s concept legitimized the National Assembly as a sovereign authority, and helped to establish guidelines by which the National Assembly sought to stay true to with regards to respecting the general will of the people of France. Following the publication of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, the National Assembly made clear their intention to abolish the Parlement whom “called themselves the representatives of the people, desiring to be so only in order to augment their power and bring added misfortunes.” Ultimately, there was discord among the National Assembly as to how the will of the people could best be organized structurally. Contentious issues were raised, such as the executive veto, in an effort to shape the government like that of the English structure with a bicameral legislature and a King exercising an executive veto. The opposing view was to structure the legislature as a unicameral body with no executive veto for the King, essentially reducing the weight of the King’s vote to not being above that of a president. The National Assembly ultimately adopted the unicameral legislature giving the King a suspensive veto, which allowed him to merely suspend proposed legislation to not being re-proposed until following the next election. He was able to suspend legislation with a veto merely twice, and if the legislation is proposed a third time the King’s veto will have been overrode.

Marching on Versailles
By the Fall of 1789, there was mutual distrust flowing freely the monarchists (consisting of those in the monarchy and the portion of the populace who supported them) and the anti-monarchists (consisting of the National Assembly and the large portion of the populace who supported them). The National Assembly and its supporters were not confident in the King’s loyalty to the revolution with his reticence to support the August Decrees and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, along with the fact that royal émigrés were actively undermining the revolution in collusion with foreign nations. The King and his followers were constantly on guard against designs against the royal family, and mostly the imminent destruction of the monarchy itself. Plans devised by the National Assembly to relocate the King to Paris were turned down by Louis XVI when presented to him by Necker. The grain crisis grew worse resulting in resentment against bakers, and both revolutionary and counter-revolutionary orators attempting to guide the revolution in their relative favor (revolutionary attempting to guide it against the King and counter-revolutionary attempting to guide it against the National Assembly).

The straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak, occurred during a royal banquet on September 23rd. The banquet consisted of loyal sentiment expressed to the royal family, and among the spectators paying witness were revolutionists. These witnesses published their personal accounts of the banquet, which included outrage at the loyalist expressions of love for the King, perceptions of conspiracy against the city of Paris and that soldiers on guard stomped on the tricolour cockade opting instead to wear the black cockade. This resulted in many Parisians attacking army officers and aristocrats in the evening of October 4th, and on the morning of October 5th many women took to the streets denouncing the lack of bread in baker shops. As the mob grew to between six and thousand women, bakers were abused, offers by officials to state their grievances civilly were ignored, and ultimately the women began to march to Versailles.

Informed of the forthcoming mob marching on Versailles, King Louis XVI rejected the advise of his counsel to violently thwart the march at the bridges of Sévres and Saint-Cloud. Unwilling to invoke bloodshed, the King soon found the mob of women entering Versailles with small weapons and a cannon in tow chanting “Long live the King!” to which inhabitants of Versailles chanted back “Long live our Parisiennes!” Upon reaching the National Assembly, some of the women met with the representatives to discuss the bread famine, while some Assembly members discussed the necessity to reign in order among the mob. The mob surrounded the palace, where the guards were ordered to avoid agitating the mob at all costs. Meanwhile, the National Assembly chose to use the advantage of the mob as an opportunity to press the King to grant them audience in order to accept the preliminary articles of the constitution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. They were successful in attaining a nine o’clock evening reception. Before the reception of the National Assembly deputies, the King received a delegation of eight women who implored him for need of bread, to which he replied that he would send all the bread of Versailles to Paris. The King then signified his acceptance of the constitution.

Making his way from Paris to Versailles, the Marquis de La Fayette soon reached the palace, where he assured the King of the National Guard’s protection. On the morning of October 6th, the mob massacred the palace guards in their barracks, broke through the gates and forced entry to the palace killing guards they encountered. The royal family safely took refuge in their apartments until La Fayette was able to convince the National Guard to join with the palace guards and defend the royal family. The mob scoured the palace for signs of the royal family, stabbing bed mattresses with pikes to make clear their intentions would they have found them. La Fayette convinced the King of the necessity for the royal family to relocate to Paris, where he felt they would be more secure. As this was what the National Assembly and the mob desired (for the sentiment was that there would be no lack of bread in Paris should the King reside there), the King and Queen appeared on the balcony to announce their intention to move to the palace of Tuileries in Paris. King Louis XVI and his family was then escorted to Paris by the National Guards, which helped to legitimize the National Assembly for their role in safe-guarding the monarchy as much as their revolution had displaced it.

The National Assembly in Charge
Following the King’s unhappy relocation to Paris, the National Assembly relocated to Paris as well on October 19th. They set to work on the constitution, which consisted of dismantling the old structure of government while maintaining a precarious balancing act ultimately resulting in the National Assembly having leverage over the King and other parts of government. The Assembly formally acclaimed Louis XVI “King of the French,” proceeded to rename and reorganize boundaries of provinces and divided the government into ninety-three departments which were further divided into districts that were further divided into cantons composed of six or seven parishes (all levels nearly identical in size and structure). The people took on a citizenship classification of either being active or inactive, the former permitting the citizen voting eligibility in elections and slightly lower taxes. It was decreed that judges were to be elected, and that a prominent councilor of parlement dissolve every last parlement in France.

There were many adverse reactions to the reforms of the National Assembly. The Clergy reacted to their loss of privileges in attempting to call for insurrections against the National Assembly. The parlements of Rouen, Bordeaux, Metz and Toulouse reacted by attempting to garner the sympathy of the King for what they felt was the National Assembly violating the rights of the King and his subjects. The ministry, for their part, manufactured publications magnifying purported irregularities of the new constitution in a manner that would make it seem dysfunctional.

The Assembly began to divide into factions over varying perspectives of the state of the revolution. The National Party in the center was led by Mirabeau, La Fayette and Bailly, the radicals on the left were led by Robespierre, the conservatives on the right were led by de Cazalès and Maury and the Royalist Democrats (who wanted to organize France similar to the British system) were led by those such as Mournier and the Comte de Lally-Tollendal in alliance with Finance Minister Necker. The factions were to break down further into associative political clubs. Most influential was the Jacobins, formed from the deputies of Brittany, who were known for being patriotic to the extreme. The Jacobin society was to grow to the extent that it was practically a separate political body within the government by 1793 in containing approximately five hundred thousand members. Such notable Jacobins were Robespierre, Antoine and Dumets. With the revolution falling more and more into the hands of radical factions, more and more aristocrats as well as army officers became émigrés and fled France reacting to such measures as the abolishment of symbolic items of the ancient regime. The Club of ’89 consisted of leaders such as La Fayette, Bailly and Roederer and such accomplished members as Condorcet, Marmontel and Champfort who broke off from the Jacobins after finding them to be overly irrational, ignorant and uncouth that they could focus more on completing the constitution and defending it from the King, the nobles and the clergy. Mirabeau, who would not join either the Jacobins or the Club of ’89, variably switched favor with each club when mutually politically convenient.

Reforming the Church and Nobility
In 1790, measures were taken to cover government administration costs, which ultimately resulted in the confiscation of Church properties. The measures included spreading propaganda about the wealth of the clergy, the government’s desperate financial state, the lack of exemplary behavior of the priests, bishops, monks and abbots and the rights of the nation over the rights of the clergy. When the issue of confiscation was put to a vote in the National Assembly, it passed by a large majority. The confiscation entailed disassembling the monastic orders and government seizure of church properties, while paying fixed salaries to the bishops and priests. Later, when attempting to determine the relationship between the clergy and the new constitution, the National Assembly voted to create a Civil Constitution. This held that the bishops and priests were to now be elected, and ultimately set up a power structure that served to nationalize the church.

In June 23rd, the National Assembly moved to formally abolish the nobility in keeping with the constitutional principles to abolish institutions that harmed liberty and the equality of rights. This abolition also included the discarding of sale or inheritance of public office, the discarding of any privilege or exception to common French law, the discarding of corporations of professions, arts and trades and the non-recognition of any religious vow or engagement that conflicts with natural rights or the constitution. This abolition occurred without the permitting of any discussion whatsoever by the National Assembly.

The popularity of the National Assembly was negatively affected by these reforms. The Assembly became unpopular with the peasants due to increase in poverty and discontent due to the short-term financial fallout of the reforms, as well as the more religious Catholics in western and southeast France who were receptive to the counter-revolutionary propaganda of the angry clergy. The Assembly became unpopular with the landowners for the huge drop in revenue due to the abolition of feudalism. Overall, the Assembly was seen as culpable for the widespread unemployment, lack of tax accountability, bankrupt treasury and all-around unstable economy.

The Royals Attempt to Escape Paris
Pressed several times to escape Paris by the Queen, the King had remained indecisive bound by the constraints of duty in the face of causing a civil war. However, the adverse circumstance in which he found himself grew to become unbearable: his ministers were replaced with revolutionaries; the reforms made by the Assembly were (in his estimation) extreme; the association that he had with the Assembly in their efforts to nationalize the church he felt atrocious; the royal family was under tight security in which their every move was heavily surveyed by the National Assembly; their attempt to go on holiday to Saint-Cloud was inhibited by Jacobin propaganda that the King was attempting to emigrate. Unhappy in such circumstances, preparations to escape began being drawn as early as March 1790.

On June 20, 1791, the royal family sprung into action. Dressed as servants accompanying their servants who dressed as nobles, the royal family left Tuileries by carriage for the camp of General Bouillé at Montmédy. The journey passed with little incident until Varennes. It was at Varennes on June 21st in early evening, when Rapport du sieur Drouet recognized the face of the Queen and then the face of the King (from what he had seen of the King’s likeness from the fifty livres assignat) as they passed in their carriage. Drouet later informed an innkeeper, who informed others of the King’s intended flight, and they proceeded to barricade a bridge required by the King’s route. They then retrieved local authorities, who questioned the King when their carriage had reached the barricade. After initially refusing his identity, the King admitted who he was. He received a decree from the Assembly alarming France to prevent his flight from the kingdom, and ultimately decided to return to Paris pretending it was not their intention to flee.

A King Transformed and the Constitution Completed
Upon his return to Tileries, the National Assembly placed King Lois XVI under even heavier security and suspended his royal functions. He was required to swear allegiance to the constitution, and consent that violating that oath was equivalent to him abdicating the throne by proxy. Barnave, a leftist, led the Assembly to preserve the King and even restore some of his eroded authority to the horror of the Jacobins. Brissot and Doumont, of the Jacobins, attempted to argue vie petition that the King had already abdicated because of his flight to Varennes. When this petition was presented at the Champ de Mars, La Fayette had been charged by the National Assembly to keep order and following a confrontation fifty people were killed.

Meanwhile, the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II, King Frederick William II of Prussia and Charles-Phillipe, comte d’Artois (the King’s brother who was an émigré) drew up the Declaration of Pillnitz on August 27, 1791, which effectively threatened to invade France to restore the freedom and monarchy of King Louis XVI should the National Assembly not dissolve. Around the same time, the National Assembly completed the constitution. The completed constitution Soon after, the King accepted the constitution, and reaffirmed his allegiance to the country and the people, as well as his opposition of foreign interference in France’s affairs. His affirmation was met with skepticism by radicals, such as the Jacobins, whose hold on power seemed driven by keeping alive the perception that the King was a perpetual enemy of France. Having fulfilled its primary purpose of creating the constitution, the National Assembly then declared the need for an election of a new Legislative Assembly.

The New Legislative Assembly and the Clamoring for War
Because the former National Assembly had excluded its members from running for re-election to the Legislative Assembly, the majority of the Legislative Assembly was composed of Girondins (liberal republicans) and Jacobin on the left (330 in all), 250 unaffiliated deputies and a minority of 165 Fueillants (constitutional monarchs) on the right. The Legislative Assembly had their first session on October 1st, 1791. They proceeded to declare a decree against the émigrés and clergy, moving that their flight to foreign nations made them suspects of a conspiracy against France. This was to be punishable by death, and applied to civil and military functionaries, who aided and abided by the departure of the émigrés. The King vetoed the decree, and proceeded to ask his brothers to return to France.

The Legislative Assembly was divided in its attitude towards going to war with Austria and its allies. The King and the Fueillants supported the war because they saw it as an opportunity to expand the King’s power and popularity, regardless of whether France won or lost. The Girondins supported the war because they saw it as an opportunity to spread the ideals of the revolution to other nations in Europe, and thus strengthen and validate the revolution in France. The Jacobins led by Robespierre were against the war: they saw consolidation and expansion of the revolution domestically as a higher priority and feared the rise of militarism. Consequently, Romchambeau, Lückner and La Fayette were appointed to command the three armies that were to fight in the war.

War on Austria and Turmoil in Paris
Meanwhile the émigrés were preparing to invade France, the French ambassador to Austria attempted to open negotiations. In response, he received conditions from the Austrian ministry in order to avoid a declaration of war on France, the old power structure of the monarchy, nobility and clergy be reinstated, property of the clergy be returned and feudal property of the nobility be returned. The majority of the Legislative Assembly moved for war, and on April 20, 1792, King Louis XVI declared war on Austria. The Prussians entered the war on Austria’s side weeks later.

Meanwhile, an insurrection on June 20th was staged in which Jacobins rallied a mob to enter Tuileries on the pretext of offering a patriotic address to the King. Upon gaining entrance to the Tuileries, the mob tore through the palace, knocking down doors until they encountered the King. Guards immediately surrounded the King in a protective circle, and ultimately Paris Mayor Pétion managed to disperse the mob. Meanwhile, La Fayette, upon arriving in Paris and witnessing the chaos denounced the Jacobins at the Assembly and demanded their punishment to no avail. The Jacobins, in turn, accused La Fayette of orchestrating the massacre at Champ de Mars and conspiring with the Queen to deliver France to Austria. La Fayette failed to convince the royal family to allow him to deliver them to safety in Rouen, and left the next day to return to his army. The deposition of King Louis XVI was becoming inevitable with the designs of Philippe d’Orléans whose supporters hoped he would ascend to the throne upon Louis’ abdication and potential deposition petitions to be drafted by the Jacobins.

Tuileries in Crisis
On July 25, 1792, the Duke of Brunswick issued the Brunswick Manifesto, which promised violence upon the French population should they interfere with the designs of Austria and Prussia to restore the monarchy. This resulted in widespread agitation among the populace and caused the King to reaffirm his intention to fight off any invasion of France. Pressure mounted for the deposition of the King from the populace, with many threatening insurrection should the Legislative Assembly not dethrone Louis. When Paris Mayor Pétion called for the dethronement of the King, the populace, impatient with the perceived ineptitude of the Legislative Assembly, took over the city government with Mayor Pétion remaining at the head and armed themselves with pikes and bayonets.

On August 10th, as tension mounted and an attack on Tuilries seemed imminent, the royal family was convinced by Roederer to take refuge at the Assembly. They arrived under protection of Swiss and National guards and had been there an hour before the arrival of the signal to attack the palace: four heads impaled on pikes placed on the Terrace of the Feuillants. The insurrectionists proceeded to attack the palace with musket and cannon fire, as the Swiss guards retreated from the palace courts to the interior. For a time, it seemed as though the Swiss were holding their own until they ran out of ammunition. At this point, they fled for the Assembly where they were instructed by the King to lay down their arms and retire to the barracks. These Swiss, as well as others remaining at the palace were eventually to be massacred at the Place Louis XV. Meanwhile, the Assembly (comprised by Jacobin members present) decreed the suspension of the King as he ate in the stenographer’s box.

September Massacres
The insurrection continued as all priests unaffiliated with the Jacobins under sixty years of age were arrested. Churches were stripped of silver and lavish furnishings for use of military supplies. A rally at Champ de Mars was held where orators agitated the populace over alleged conspiracies being devised by aristocrats. The prisons were filled with people suspected of sympathies to the aristocracy. Quarries were dug in preparation for forthcoming victims of a massacre, called for by insurrection leaders in a proclamation by the Council-General.

In what came to be known as the September Massacres, the populace took to a murderous rampage in killing four hundred priests and over a thousand prisoners who had been arrested over suspected sympathies to the aristocracy. In order to dress the massacre in a semblance of justice, mock trials were conducted in the jail cell of each prisoner prior to their imminent murder. The Princesse de Lamballe was decapitated, and her head was paraded around the streets. The Assembly, feigning ignorance to the designs of the Massacre, sent deputies to investigate what was transpiring on the streets and was both helpless and unwilling to do anything.

Death to Monarchy and Birth to Republic
The National Convention opened on September 20th, 1792 to decide the fate of the King, bring order to what had become chaos in France and govern the war. This Convention became the de facto government and set to task writing a new constitution. Although there ensued an enormous power struggle between the Girondins and the Jacobins, on September 21st the monarchy was dismantled and France was declared a Republic.

The King and his family were essentially prisoners being held in the Temple, when his trial was decreed. The Brunswick Manifesto was cited as proof of the King’s conspiracy with France’s enemies, and ultimately he was found guilty of treason by a unanimous decision. His sentence of death by guillotine was decided by a small majority (361 yeas, 288 nays and 72 yeas with a variety of delaying conditions) and carried out on January 21st, 1793. France’s regicide resulted in more wars with other European nations, and the Queen was to follow her husband to the guillotine on October 16, 1793.