General History for Colleges and High Schools

by P. V. N. Myers

THE ROYAL FAMILY TAKEN TO PARIS—The mob now demanded that the king should return with them to Paris. Their object in this was to have him under their eye, and prevent his conspiring with the privileged orders to thwart the plans of the revolutionists. Louis was forced to yield to the demands of the people.

The procession arrived at Paris in the evening. The royal family were placed in the Palace of the Tuileries, and Lafayette was charged with the duty of guarding the king, who was to be held as a sort of hostage for the good conduct of the nobles and foreign sovereigns while a constitution was being prepared by the Assembly.

Such was what was called the "Joyous Entry" of October 6th. The palace at Versailles, thus stripped of royalty and left bespattered with blood, was never again to be occupied as the residence of a king of France.

THE FLIGHT OF THE KING (June 20, 1791).—For two years following the Joyous Entry there was a comparative lull in the storm of the Revolution, The king was kept a sort of prisoner in the Tuileries. The National Assembly were making sweeping reforms both in Church and State, and busying themselves in framing a new constitution. The emigrant nobles watched the course of events from beyond the frontiers, not daring to make a move for fear the excitable Parisian mob, upon any hostile step taken by them, would massacre the entire royal family. Could the king only escape from the hands of his captors and make his way to the borders of France, then he could place himself at the head of the emigrant nobles, and, with foreign aid, overturn the National Assembly and crush the revolutionists. The flight was resolved upon and carefully planned. Under cover of night the entire royal family, in disguise, escaped from the Tuileries, and by post conveyance fled towards the frontier. When just another hour would have placed the fugitives in safety among friends, the Bourbon features of the king betrayed him, and the entire party was arrested and carried back to Paris.

The attempted flight of the royal family was a fatal blow to the Monarchy. Many affected to regard it as equivalent to an act of abdication on the part of the king. The people now began to talk of a republic.

THE CLUBS: JACOBINS AND CORDELIERS.—In order to render intelligible the further course of the Revolution we must here speak of two clubs, or organizations, which came into prominence about this time, and which were destined to become more powerful than the Assembly itself, and to be the chief instruments in inaugurating the Reign of Terror. These were the societies of the Jacobins and Cordeliers, so called from certain old convents in which they were accustomed to meet. The purpose of these clubs was to watch for conspiracies of the royalists, and by constant agitation to keep alive the flame of the Revolution.

THE NEW CONSTITUTION.—The work of the National Assembly was now drawing to a close. On the 14th of September, 1791, the new constitution framed by that body, and which made the government of France a constitutional monarchy, was solemnly ratified by the king. The National Assembly, having sat nearly three years, then adjourned (Sept, 30, 1791). The first scene in the drama of the French Revolution was ended.

3. THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY (Oct. 1, 1791-Sept. 21, 1792).

THE THREE PARTIES.—The new constitution provided for a national legislature to be called the Legislative Assembly. This body, comprising 745 members, was divided into three parties: the Constitutionalists, the Girondists, and the Mountainists. The Constitutionalists of course supported the new constitution, being in favor of a limited monarchy. The Girondists, so called from the name (La Gironde) of the department whence came the most noted of its members, wished to establish in France such a republic as the American colonists had just set up in the New World. The Mountainists, who took their name from their lofty seats in the assembly, were radical republicans, or levellers. Many of them were members of the Jacobin club or that of the Cordeliers. The leaders of this faction were Marat, Danton, and Robespierre,—names of terror in the subsequent records of the Revolution.

WAR WITH THE OLD MONARCHIES.—The kings of Europe were watching with the utmost anxiety the course of events in France. They regarded the cause of Louis XVI. as their own. If the French people should be allowed to overturn the throne of their hereditary sovereign, who would then respect the divine rights of kings? The old monarchies of Europe therefore resolved that the revolutionary movement in France, a movement threatening all aristocratical and monarchical institutions, should be crushed, and that these heretical French doctrines respecting the Sovereignty of the People and the Rights of Man should be proved false by the power of royal armies.