The action of the Parisian mob on 18th April caused Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette to resolve to escape secretly from Paris, since they were obviously prisoners and could not leave openly. They determined, contrary to the advice so often given by Mirabeau, and contrary also to the wishes of the Emperor and of his able representative at the Hague, the Comte de Mercy-Argenteau, who knew France better than any living diplomatist, to fly towards the frontier. Leopold, under the pretext of supporting his authority in Belgium and Luxembourg, and that of his allies, the Elector-Archbishop of Trèves and the Bishop of Liége, massed his troops upon the frontier in readiness to succour or assist, and Bouillé, who commanded at Metz, made preparations to have the part of his forces on which he could rely ready to receive the fugitive monarch. On 20th June 1791 the royal family left Paris by night, after the King had drawn up a declaration protesting against the whole of the measures of the Constituent Assembly, and disavowing them. The flight, from a combination of circumstances, ended in the royal family being stopped at Varennes, and being brought back to Paris in custody. It had the most momentous results upon the history of the French Revolution, which are sometimes disregarded in the recollection of the romantic circumstances attending it.
Results of the Flight to Varennes.
The Massacre of 17th July in Paris.
The primary result of the flight to Varennes was the sudden comprehension by France that Louis XVI. was an unwilling collaborator in the work of reconstituting the French government on a new basis. Hitherto the people, and even the leaders of the Constituent Assembly, had believed in his acquiescence, if not in his hearty assistance. But the declaration, left behind on the occasion of his flight, proved the contrary. The statesmen of the Constituent Assembly, including the makers of the new Constitution, such as Le Chapelier and Thouret, and the triumvirate of Duport, Barnave, and Lameth, who, after Mirabeau’s death, were the undisputed leaders of the majority, saw they had gone too far, and that in their desire to weaken the royal authority, they had seriously weakened the executive, and had made the King’s position intolerable. They therefore threw the blame of the flight to Varennes on the subordinates in the scheme, ignored the King’s declaration, and acted on the supposition that he was misled by bad advisers. This attitude not being wholly approved by the Jacobin Club, which, through its affiliated clubs in the provinces, exercised the most powerful sway in the formation of public opinion, the believers in the royal authority seceded and formed the Constitutional Club, or Club of 1789, which temporarily weakened the power of the Jacobins in Paris. But this secession was entirely sanctioned by the bourgeois classes both in Paris and throughout France, who had the strongest interest in the maintenance of order, and who sent in numerous declarations of their adhesion to the cause of monarchy. Moreover, their chief representatives in arms, the National Guard of Paris, under the command of Lafayette, had soon an opportunity of giving practical proof of this loyal disposition. The Cordeliers Club, which was chiefly influenced by Danton, a lawyer of Paris, who had Mirabeau’s gift of seeing things as they really were, felt it impossible to hush things up. They understood the King’s declaration to mean a declaration of war against the new Constitution; his flight to Varennes they rightly interpreted to show that he was trusting to the intervention of foreign powers to re-establish him in his former position; and they resolved to draw up a petition for his dethronement. This petition was largely the work of Danton and of Brissot, a pamphleteer and journalist, who had been imprisoned in the Bastille, and had imbibed republican notions in America, and a large crowd assembled to sign it on the Champ de Mars. Lafayette determined to disperse this crowd, and the National Guard, under his command, fired on the people, killing several persons. This vigorous measure, which was intended to show the power of the party of order, was followed by vigorous steps against the party for dethronement.
Revision of the Constitution.
The leaders of the Cordeliers were proscribed. Danton and Marat fled to England, and the party of order seemed triumphant. A revision of the Constitution was undertaken, and various reactionary clauses, specially directed against the press, the popular clubs or societies, and the rights of assembly and of petition, were inserted. But this new attitude of the Constituent Assembly had but a slight effect upon France, for the king’s flight had caused the people in general to believe that he was the enemy of their new-born liberties, and a traitor in league with foreign powers to overthrow them.
Effects of the Flight to Varennes.
Manifesto of Padua. 6th July 1791.
The flight to Varennes proved to the people of France, as well as to the monarchs and statesmen of Europe, that Louis XVI. was a prisoner in Paris, and an enemy to the new settlement of the government, as laid down by the Constitution in course of preparation. The Emperor Leopold, as brother of Marie Antoinette, as Holy Roman Emperor and supporter of dynastic legitimacy, as the leading monarch of Europe, decided to intervene. On 6th July 1791 he issued the Manifesto of Padua, in which he invited the sovereigns of Europe to join him in declaring the cause of the King of France to be their own, in exacting that he should be freed from all popular restraint, and in refusing to recognise any constitutional laws as legitimately established in France, except such as might be sanctioned by the King acting in perfect freedom. The English Government paid little or no attention to these requests of Leopold, but the Empress Catherine, and the Kings of Prussia, Spain, and Sweden, for different reasons and in different degrees, heartily accepted Leopold’s views, and armed intervention to carry them into effect was suggested. But Leopold had no desire for war. His policy since his accession had been distinctly in favour of peace. He was a diplomatist, not a soldier, and he desired to frighten France by threats, rather than to fight France for the liberty of Louis XVI. and his family.
Declaration of Pilnitz, 27th Aug. 1791.