When the King Took Flight

by Timothy Tackett

  In the meantime, at the other end of the political spectrum, the Jacobin Club was following and commenting on events with particular ardor. All its members, both moderates and radicals, had long seen as one of their principal tasks the discovery and denunciation of conspiracy.33 But like almost everyone else, they had maintained a generally favorable disposition toward the king, usually portrayed as weak but well-meaning. Now, with the flight to Varennes, a great many club members not only felt betrayed by the king, but were ap palled at their own blindness in not anticipating that betrayal, in not rooting out this the most dangerous conspirator of all, dwelling in their midst. Perhaps it was this feeling of guilt, even humiliation, that led many Jacobins to react with exceptional outrage and anger to the king's flight.

  Yet the club remained deeply divided, and the evening meeting on June 21 saw a particularly tense confrontation between the two factions. Robespierre, leader of the radicals, arrived first, lashing out in near frenzy against his fellow deputies, accusing "the near totality of my colleagues, members of the Assembly, of being counterrevolutionaries: some through ignorance, some through fear, some through resentment and injured pride, but others because they are corrupt."34 But the moderate deputies belonging to the club arrived soon afterward, some two hundred strong, determined to regain control. Former bitter rivals like Charles Lameth and the marquis de Lafayette, Barnave and the abbe Sieyes, all appealed for a sacred union in the face of the crisis. When Robespierre's ally Georges Danton, the fiery orator from the Cordeliers Club, accused Lafayette of treason, Alexandre Lameth rushed to his defense. With the feeling of fraternity at its peak, Barnave called for an address to all the Jacobins' affiliated clubs asking full support for the Assembly: "The National Assembly alone, this must be our guide," a proposal that was met with rousing cheers. Moderate deputies were ecstatic at the turn of events: "Now," wrote Francois-Joseph Bouchette, "there are neither monarchists nor Eighty-Niners, everyone has returned to the Friends of the Constitution. "15

  Yet tensions within the club remained high, and the issue of the king continued to arouse passions. As the Assembly waited, the Jacobins debated the issue almost daily. Although a few of the speakers-like the radical Pierre-Louis Roederer-seemed to advocate a republic, such demands were rare and were quickly denounced by the moderates as going against the constitution, which the society was bound to support. Nevertheless, no one was ready to defend Louis' actions, and a great many nondeputies in the club called for a trial of the king and the creation of a regency government. As many of the moderate deputy-members tired of attending the rancorous nightly sessions-Barnave and Alexandre Lameth seem never to have returned after June 22-or found themselves preoccupied with committee work in the Assembly, the club as a whole seemed to gravitate toward an unforgiving treatment of the "traitor king" even as it proclaimed grudging support for the monarchy.3G

  The Fate of the Monarchy

  The great debate in the Assembly itself was finally launched on July 13 with the formal report of the "Seven Committees," commissioned to draw up a recommendation on the events of Varennes. Over a three-day period some seventeen deputies addressed the issue of the fate of the king and the fate of the monarchy, nine in support of the committees' position of exoneration, eight in opposi- tion.37 Many were among the finest orators in the National Assembly, and most had carefully prepared their addresses. The leaders of the moderates were masters of parliamentary rhetoric and maneuver, and they brilliantly programmed and paced the debates for maximum advantage. Their opponents, all from the extreme left of the Jacobin group, also developed powerful arguments, but their proposals were more personal and sometimes conflicting.

  To present their case the Committees chose a thirty-three-yearold magistrate from eastern France, Hyacinthe Muguet de Nanthou.38 Muguet made maximum use of General Bouille's letter to argue that Louis had indeed been "abducted," abducted in mind-through intimidation and pressure-if not in body. To be sure, one could never approve the king's actions from a moral or political standpoint: they had been thoughtless and irresponsible. But it was essential that the deputies follow the law and not the whim of emotion. And legally, the king had committed no crime. His "declaration" of June 21 had been remarkably impolitic, but it was not in itself against the law. His flight would have been grounds for deposing him only if he had left the country and refused to return, and this, by his testimony, he had never intended to do. Yet even if Louis were to have committed a crime, he could not be prosecuted, since the Assembly had voted immunity for the monarch nearly two years before.39 From their earliest debates on the constitution, Muguet argued, the deputies had decided that France must be a monarchy. A central locus of power was essential "in so vast an empire, whose parts would naturally tend to break apart." In fact, "it is for the nation, and not for the king, that a monarchy has been established." Within this system, it was essential that the king be immune from prosecution. If the king could be indicted, any faction might attack him for its own petty self-interest, and there would be a continual threat of civil war and chaos, just as had occurred in England 15o years earlier. The real villains in the affair, and the only individuals mentioned in the Committees' proposed decree, were Bouille and his subordinates. France must follow America's treatment of the traitor Benedict Arnold and prosecute these men to the full extent of the law. Curiously, Axel von Fersen was scarcely mentioned. The king and the queen were not mentioned at all.

  In reply to the Committees' position, the radicals adopted a number of tactics. Petion and several of the other orators attacked the very idea of royal immunity. Surely kings must be responsible for their actions, or there would be nothing to prevent a new Nero or new Caligula from committing untold atrocities against the people. The immunity voted by the Assembly in 1789 could apply only to state activities, not to a personal action like Louis' decision to flee the country and abandon his office. For the most part, however, the radicals skirted the Committees' legalistic arguments and appealed to a higher, moral law. How could they accept as their chief executive a man who had flagrantly lied and deceived the Assembly and the whole French nation? "How many times," asked Petion, "has Louis XVI sworn his loyalty and love for the constitution? Did he not come into this very Assembly, without having been summoned, and affirm his attachment to the constitution. Did he not declare he would be its defender?" "Such actions could only have been designed to lull the French nation to sleep and thus more easily to deceive her." Marc-Alexis Vadier, the grim Jacobin and future Terror ist leader, who rarely spoke in the Assembly, was beside himself with fury. Only a few weeks before he had written self-confidently to his constituency, denying all the rumors of impending flight. Now he felt not only betrayed but humiliated. He bitterly assailed Louis, this "brigand with a crown," this "false, fugitive king, who cowardly deserted his post only to paralyze the government and deliver us up to the horrors of civil war and anarchy; this king who, in a perfidious declaration, dared rip to shreds your constitution.""

  Several of the speakers raised the fundamental political question of public confidence and legitimacy. Robespierre put it bluntly: how can a government function when it is led by a man whom everyone mistrusts? Without the backing of public opinion, proclaimed Francois-Nicolas Buzot prophetically, "you can never even hope to have civil peace."" All the radicals sensed the deputies' obsessive fear of a republic, and they took pains to assert that they themselves did not wish to abolish the monarchy. But, they concluded, the king must be judged in some way for his actions: either through trial in the regular court system, or through a popular referendum, or through the calling of a national convention.

  The moderates took exception, point by point, to nearly all the radicals' arguments. They denied the assertion that public opinion was against the king. One could hardly judge by the passions of the Parisian crowds, riled up by a handful of seditious journalists and club members, "these Machiavellians of consummate perversity who want only to destroy the constitution." Whatever the king's failings, it
was argued, the vast majority of the French felt a deep attachment for the monarchy and viewed the person of the kingin Louis-Pierre Prugnon's words-as "necessarily sacred."42 In any case, society must be based on law, not on the unstable passions of public opinion. Barnave played skillfully on the deputies' fears of the recent popular demonstrations in Paris, many of them directed against the Assembly itself. Whatever their disclaimers, those who called for the king's trial really wanted to create a republic, and a republic could mean only mob rule and anarchy. The Revolution must at last be stopped, or the very basis of a stable society and of individual property would be jeopardized."

  [To view this image, refer to the print version of this title.]

  The King Speaking to the National Assembly, February 4, 1.7go. Standing beside the president of the National Assembly, Louis announces his intention of supporting the constitution. The scene looks toward the conservative "right" side of the hall, where the nobles are shouting "Long live the king!" and holding their hands over their hearts. The deputies on the "left," in the foreground, are much less demonstrative. Women spectators cheer from the balcony.

  Yet in the end, the moderates sensed that legalism and fear tactics might not be enough. On July 15 the Committees' original motion was passed into law, but only after additional amendments were promised specifying the grounds on which this king or any future king might be deposed and replaced. The following evening, July 16, final versions of the amendments were introduced and passed. It was now decided that Louis would not be immediately reinstated, but that his powers would remain suspended until the constitution had been completed and he had officially signed his acceptance. If he refused to sign, he would be immediately deposed, and his son would become king under a regency. In addition, the deputies voted two other grounds for dethroning a king in the future: a monarch who either led an army against the French nation or retracted an oath to the constitution that he had previously sworn would be considered, by those very acts, to have abdicated the throne. It was only too obvious that if the law on the retraction of oaths had existed one month earlier, Louis would have lost his crown."4

  The final vote was never recorded. Antoine Thibaudeau thought that many deputies had originally planned to oppose exonerating the king. But after listening to the debates and after the various amendments had been passed, only eight individuals out of several hundred rejected the Committees' bill. 15 We will never know why the deputies voted as they did. In letters written home they struggled to explain their decision to their friends and family. Many complained how agonizing the choice had been. Most piled reason upon reason, closely recapitulating the arguments of Muguet or Barnave or others, sometimes quoting speeches verbatim, without indicating which arguments had been most decisive. It was essential to follow the law; the king had committed no crime; the king was immune to prosecution; a republic would never work in a large country like France (even though no deputies had ever actually proposed a republic); the trial or deposing of the king would cause internal uprisings and foreign war.46 Significantly, two of the deputies opposed trying the king because they were convinced that he was guilty and would thus be sent to the scaffold: "The indictment of a king is not a game, for we think that any king who is so indicted will certainly lose his head."47 One theme that seemed particularly widespread but was never mentioned in the published debates was the deputies' fear of having to scrap a constitution on which they had worked so long and in which they had invested so much energy and emotion. For Felix Faulcon, a victory for the radicals would have meant "that this constitution which had caused so much struggle and sacrifice for more than two years; that this constitution whose completion would end violent upheavals and replace them with public happiness, that this constitution would cease to exist!" The Burgundian wineseller Claude Gantheret wrote much the same in his laconic style: "My work on the constitution has caused me too much pain even to think about changing it."48

  And yet a great many deputies, in their personal correspondence, expressed deep disillusionment with the whole experience and pessimism about the future. Although he voted with the majority, Gantheret admitted that he was unable to forget cure Henri Gregoire's words: even if the king signed the constitution, how could a man who had already broken three or four oaths ever again be trusted? Durand confessed having a "feeling of terror" when he thought of the decision he had made. Lindet, who seems ultimately to have voted to maintain the king, confided his disgust with the whole affair to his younger brother, a future member of the Committee of Public Safety: "We want a king. But we have to take an imbecile, an automaton, a traitor, a perjurer; a man whom the people will detest, and in whose name scoundrels will reign." And he was convinced that Barnave and the others were wrong and unjust when they attributed popular protest against the king to the sedition of a few journalists. The common people of Paris clearly despised the king. "What can we expect with a leader who is so debased? It is difficult to imagine that the situation will long remain peaceful."49

  The Massacre at the Champ de Mars

  Throughout the previous days the people in question, the citizens of Paris, had closely followed the deputies' debates and had talked of little else. The long interregnum, the National Assembly's delay in taking a position, had encouraged numerous individuals to think through the issue on their own, and many had already committed themselves to one side or the other, for or against retaining the present king, for or against a republic. Word of the Assembly's vote on July 15 raced through the city in the late afternoon like a lightning discharge, sparking an explosion of arguments in cafes and streets and public squares, where large groups of people were already gathered. Substantial numbers of Parisians, especially in the more prosperous parts of the city, vigorously supported the decision, fearing that any other course would be too uncertain and dangerous. At the Saint-Martin's Cafe in the north of Paris, over a hundred people were said to have cheered their approval. But large numbers also reacted passionately against the decree, accusing the Assembly of "weakness" or of complicity with the "treason" of the king. In the Cafe Procope on the Left Bank-the celebrated drinking spot where Voltaire and other Enlightenment authors had once gathered-a vigorous shouting match broke out among those taking opposing positions. The Palais Royal and the courtyard outside the Assembly itself filled with "countless groups of turbulent people" crying out their opposition. The visiting Creole Henri-Paulin Panon Desbassayns was stunned and frightened by the clash of opinions and the growing factionalism: "Both sides are becoming so exasperated that they see their opponents as personal enemies." "The common people are furious," wrote the bookseller Nicolas Ruault. "There is a frightful uproar throughout the city, from the square in front of the National Assembly to the smallest cafe. The indignation and irritation against the king and the Seven Committees seem to be overwhelming."50

  In the midst of this chaotic spontaneous reaction the Cordeliers Club and the various fraternal societies quickly began mobilizing a more organized response. Several thousand of their supporterspeople from the publishing district and sans-culottes from throughout Paris-soon marched to the National Assembly to present yet another petition, drawn up earlier that day, urging the deputies to reconsider their decision. When five of the demonstrators were al lowed to enter the hall through the lines of national guardsmen, they were told by Robespierre and Petion themselves that the Assembly had unfortunately made its decision and that petitions had now become useless. Frustrated and angry, a portion of the crowd then surged into the wealthier Right Bank districts, forcing the closure of theaters and the opera as a sign of "mourning"-much as they had done during the insurrection of July 1789. Others flowed into the nearby Palais Royal, joining a giant outdoor rally launched that evening by the radical club the Friends of Truth. The speakers went further in their opposition than ever before, declaring they would never accept the deputies' decree without a referendum of all French citizens, clearly implying that they no longer accepted the legitimacy of the National Assembly. About nin
e o'clock several thousand demonstrators then moved on to the Jacobin Club to urge a similar positions'

  Here the crowds found the Jacobins in the midst of a divisive debate on how best to react to the new decree. When several hundred of the demonstrators managed to push open the locked doors and crowd their way in, disorder broke out in the hall. Shocked by the pressure tactics of the crowds and angered by the radicals' continuing opposition to the Assembly's decision, nearly all the deputies present walked out, vowing to boycott the club altogether. Those remaining initially attempted to negotiate with the Cordeliers and the fraternal societies, promising to draw up and present a petition of their own. But the popular societies were now demanding a republic and a rejection of the National Assembly, and the Jacobinsincluding Robespierre and Petion and the few other deputies who had remained in the club-refused to repudiate the Assembly to which they belonged. Negotiations continued that evening, after the crowds had retired, and on into the next day. But in the end the Jacobin leadership renounced the whole idea of a petition, and the Cordeliers and their allies were compelled to push ahead on their own.'2

  The members of the National Assembly followed these events with anger and impatience. For days now the square outside their hall had been a rallying point for all those opposed to reconciliation with the king. Despite the massive national guard contingents positioned in readiness, the representatives were unable to reach their benches without walking a gauntlet between lines of angry men and women, shouting insults, accusing the deputies of treachery, and sometimes brandishing pikes.53 Infuriated by the unruliness that had been swelling in the city for months, the moderates in control of the Assembly now resolved to force a confrontation and be rid of the popular threats once and for all. On July 16 Mayor Bailly was summoned before the Assembly and publicly rebuked for tolerating the actions of the crowds. Charles Lameth was particularly firm. All the unrest, he argued, had been incited by a small number of troublemakers who were probably paid by outsiders and who were misleading the Parisians into acting against their own best interests. He harshly chastised the mayor and the municipal leaders for "closing their eyes to such disorders," and he demanded that they use "all means allowed by the constitution to discover and punish the instigators and to guarantee peace and tranquillity for all citizens."54