TENSIONS RISE. THE KING LEAVES SECRETLY FOR THE FRONTIER. HE IS STOPPED AND FORCED BACK TO PARIS
-- Main texts: Michelet's The Flight to Varennes in "Histoire de la Revolution française."
Madame la Duchesse de Tourzel,
governess of the royal children, ed. 1986. When the King Took Flight by Timothy Tackett, 2003.A televised popularization: The Varennes episode in The Rest is History, YouTube, based on Tackett.
Louis's failed "Flight to Varennes" (the insignificant border town where he is stopped) destroyed the aura of the 1500-year-old monarchy and is considered as important as taking the Bastille.
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"A galloping horseman rides up behind them, cries, 'On the order of the Nation, postilion, stop! You are driving the king!' All remain stupefied."
-- Michelet, p.163
The route
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World War I devasted Varennes. A panel on the police station on the site of the grocery store where the king and his entourage were forced to spend the night alone recalls the drama.
Bondy: Where the royals joined chambermaids and baggage, and exchanged the ordinary vehicle with which they slipped out of Paris for the spectacular coach that the next page describes.
Chalons: Where after a brief respite a mob interrupts mass and forces the frightful return to continue.
Sainte-Menehould: The relay for changing horses whose owner recognized the king.
Montmédy: Louis's destination, a citadel on the border with Austria (now Belgium) beyond which the royalist forces were massed.
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The story
- The trip is put off several times, the last to coincide with the day off of a servant thought to be a spy.*
*« Placed near the queen at the time of her marriage, Her Majesty, accustomed to her, liked her skill and intelligence. She was treated in a way better than should have been that of a woman of her class. » (Bold added: the remark may explain the servant's animosity).
-- Madame Campan, p. 340
- The change means that hundreds of royalist troops sent from the frontier to escort the king stay in the region much longer than the few hours planned. The population fears that they announce invasion.
- The king disguises himself as "Monsieur Durand," a name as familiar in France as "Mr. Jones" in English. He poses as the accountant of a baroness whom the Dauphin's governess impersonates.
The photos on this page and the next are from L'Évasion de Louis XVI , a television movie by Viktor Lazarevski, 2013.
Marie-Antoinette assumes the role of her maid. The little Dauphin is dressed as a girl, and the 13-year-old princess as a commoner. Three guards accompany the group, wearing bright yellow liveries: The next page discusses that choice.
- Louis does not try to hide his identity as he travels through the countryside. At the relays he chats with locals and has a guard distribute largesse:
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"Look! I've been given a gold louis!"
"A louis for giving directions? That's impossible!"
- Delays in leaving Paris and the coach's weight mean that the fugitives are three hours late for the meeting with the escort. Alarmed by the unrest that the troops' presence causes and supposing that the trip has been put off once more, the commander orders departure half an hour before the royals appear.
- Finding that the men have dismounted and that many are fraternizing with locals in the taverns, they go on alone.
- Jean Drouet, the vehement Jacobin who owns the relay at Sainte-Menehould, recognizes Louis while changing the horses. After persuading the notables to let him stop the king, he takes shortcuts to reach Varenne a few minutes after the royals.
- At 23:00 everyone sleeps, except for a half-dozen men who drink in a tavern. At Drouet's passionate demand they barricade the route.
- The mayor is the deputy to Paris. The grocer who replaces him wants to see how things evolve, and tells the travellers that night-time travel is dangerous and to stay in the rooms over his shop until morning. With the road still blocked, they have no choice but to accept.
Marie-Antoinette enters a dwelling that is not a palace or prison for the only time in her life.
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"Bonjour Sire!" When a resident who has been to Versailles confirms the stranger's identity, Louis admits that he is the king:
"That 'Bonjour Sire !' was for Louis XVI, for Marie-Antoinette and for Madame Elisabeth [Louis's sister] the guillotine, for the dauphin the agony of the Temple; for Madame Royale [the young princess], the extinction of her race and exile."
-- Victor Hugo, cited in the Memoirs of Madame de Tourzel, note 3, p. 199.
- Drouet has the church bell toll. "The bells in the village churches took up the call. The whole shadowy countryside was in commotion; from the steeple one could see lights that sought each other, came together; a great storm was forming; a mass of armed men, full of agitation, trouble."
-- Michelet, p.166
- Populations stream into Varennes with drum rolls, banners, pikes and guns. Two representatives from the government arrive, with a letter that confirms the king's flight and an order to keep him from going farther. The crowd demands that he be taken back to Paris.
- Louis tries to delay the departure, hoping that the royalist troops on the border only 20 miles away, will free him...
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But the commander fears the turmoil of the countryside and can count on the loyalty of the German mercenaries alone.
"Barricades on the route. They find a ford, pass it. Then it's a canal. They try to pass it. [...] The Germans say that their horses are exhausted. [They hear that] the Verdun garrison is coming after them in full force."
-- Michelet, p.171.
When they reach Varennes the king has gone. The cloud of dust the crowd has left still hovers over the route.
They leave.
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- Local guards and people by the tens of thousands relay to surround the coach. It can advance only step by step. The return takes four days.
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Retour de la famille royale à Paris après sa fuite à Varennes en 1791 ("Return of the Royal Family to Paris after its flight to Varennes in 1791"), anonymous engraving / zoom
The royals spend a third night without sleep, swelter in the June heat and choke under the clouds of dust the crowds stir up. At every burg they are obliged to hear the mayors' harangues lifted from Paris newspapers.
The guards, still wearing their liveries, endure jeers, threats and fecal matter thrown at them.
- At Chalons, a town with little commercial production and so without radical workers, notables receive the royals ceremoniously. On the fourth night since leaving Paris, everyone sleeps at last.
- The respite is short-lived: Crowds that come from elsewhere stop a mass. A count arrives on horseback wearing the Cross of Saint Louis, cries "Long live the king!"and is massacred. His head and hat are brandished on pikes.
- Three emissaries from the National Assembly arrive to preserve order. Crowds near Paris are even more hostile.
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The procession enters town by the wealthy west, circling the city to avoid the radicalized, underclass east:
Le Retour de Varennes le 25 juin, 1791 ("The Return from Varennes June 25, 1791") by Jean Duplessis Bertaux / zoom
Posters forbid demonstrations.Tens of thousands line the streets in silence to watch the king pass by...
- But when Jean Drouet* appears at the head of the cortege applause breaks out.
*His life:
- As delegate to the radical government elected a year later, he votes the death of the king.
- He fights against Austria, is captured and is among the prisoners exchanged for Louis's young daughter.
- He becomes sub-prefect of Sainte-Menehould.
- Napoleon decorates him, saying "You have changed the face of the world."
- Restoration authorities pursue him and he ends his life in hiding.
-- Wikipedia
- At place de la Concorde the cortège passes in front of the royal statue: Michelet says a veil has been placed over its eyes, to symbolize the monarchy's blindness.
- Men do not remove their hats.
The entrance to the Tuileries palace, the royals' destination, appears between the statues of horses on the right.
The ecclesiastic is an exception: At the Pope's request half the clergy refused to swear loyalty to the Constitution and was considered counter-revolutionary.
The crowd lets the royals enter the Tuileries palace, but only the action of the National Guard (the Paris militia) saves the guards from massacre.
When Marie-Antoinette looks in a mirror she sees that her blond hair has turned white.
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The deputies are prosperous people, since only tax-paying proprietors can vote. For them the king is a bulwark against the street, and for a little over a year the royals live much as before — except for the surveillance.*
*A guard is posted at the queen's open door as she sleeps, the curtains around the bed providing a screen. The door is closed only when she dresses.
A corridor between the rooms of the king and queen is watched 24 hours a day, to keep them from communicating. An actor from the Comédie française tries to often be the guard, to let them have brief conversations.
-- Madame Campan, pp. 347-348
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"What! The king flees! The king joins the enemy! He betrays the nation!
A father hands over his children! Our peasants of France did not yet have a political notion other than that of paternal rule; it was less the revolutionary idea that infuriated them than the awful, impious thought that a father would cede his offspring, betray their confidence! »
-- Michelet, p. 166
The monarchy never recovers.
La famille des cochons ramenée à l'étable ("The Family of Pigs Returned to the Stable)," anonymous print / zoom
A constitutional monarchy would have protected France
at a time of fear and chaos.
The king's betrayal ended that authority.
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