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 "Flight to Varennes" (the insignificant border town where he is stopped) is considered as important as taking the Bastille, because it destroyed the aura of the 1500-year-old monarchy.
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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
You can still follow the route...
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Varennes itself was devastated by the two world wars. A panel on the police station that occupies the grocery store where the king and his entourage were forced to spend the night is all that recalls the drama.
Bondy: The suburban town where the royals join chambermaids and baggage, and exchange the ordinary vehicle with which they leave Paris for the spectacular coach that the next page describes.
Chalons: The town where the the royals found a respite on the frightful return, where the crowd murdered a royalist and where members of the government arrived to impose order.
Sainte-Menehould: The relay for changing horses whose owner recognized the king.
Montmédy: A citadel on the border with Austria (now Belgium), beyond which royalist forces were massed; Louis's destination.
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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 at a time when commoners vehemently demanded equality).
-- Madame Campan, p. 340
- The result: 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 does not believe the explanation that they are there to protect a convoy of funds to pay soldiers' salaries, and fear that they have come to collect unpaid feudal dues or are a prelude to 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.
- Without trying to hide his identity, Louis 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!"
Legend has him recognized by his profile on the new paper money (the movie substitutes a coin). But Louis's daughter will say in her memoire that many people recognize him. Jean Drouet does because he had seen him many times when a dragoon in Versailles. But legends summarize events with shortcuts that are easy to remember.
- Delays in leaving Paris and the weight of the coach mean that the fugitives arrive 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 again, the commander orders its departure half an hour before the royals appear.
- The travellers find that the men have dismounted and and that many are in the taverns, where they drink and fraternize with the locals. They go on alone.
- Jean Drouet, who owns the relay at Sainte-Menehould, recognizes Louis while changing the horses. He enters history because he not only knows who the traveller is, but does something about it: He persuades the notables to let him stop the king. He and a friend, excellent horsemen who know the area, take shortcuts to reach Varenne a few minutes after the royals.
- At 23:00 everyone sleeps, except for a half-dozen Jacobins who drink in a tavern. At Drouet's passionate demand they barricade the route. The unarmed guards do not stop them.
- The grocer who replaces the mayor, the area's deputy to Paris, does not know what to do. To let the situation evolve he suggests that the travellers stay in the rooms over his shop until morning. Having no other choice, they 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 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, met; a great storm was forming; a mass of armed men, full of agitation, of trouble."
-- Michelet, p.166
- Masses arrive with drum rolls, banners, pikes and guns. Two representatives from the government arrive, with a letter that confirms the flight of the king and an order to keep him from going farther. The population demands that he be taken back to Paris.
- In the morning he tries to delay the departure, hoping that the royalist troops on the border 25 miles away will free him. The commander fears the turmoil of the countryside and can be sure only of the German mercenaries. They arrive in Varennes 20 minutes after the king has left, and see the cloud of dust left by the crowd.
"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.
They leave.
- The royals are forced to return to Paris. Local guards surround them and thousands of people relay each other around the coach, for four days.
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The People in Arms by Jean-Baptiste Lesueur / 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, perched on top of the vehicles, also endure the jeers and threats of the crowds.
- 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, they sleep at last.
- The respite is short-lived: Crowds 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. The coach can advance only step by step and as it approaches Paris, crowds are increasingly hostile.
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The procession enters town by the wealthy west, circling the city to avoid the radicalized, underclass east:
The Return from Varennes on June 25, 1791, 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.
- When fighting against Austria he 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 blindness of the monarchy.
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Return of the King and his Family after the Flight to Varennes, unidentified print / zoom |
- Men do not remove their hats.
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Return of the Royal Family to Paris on June 25, 1791, anonymous / zoom |
The entrance to the Tuileries palace, the royals' destination, is on the right.
The ecclesiastic is an implied exception: half the clergy do not accept the Civil Constitution of the Clergy (that placed the government over the Pope) and was often counter-revolutionary.
The royals are allowed into the Tuileries palace, but the guards are saved from massacre only because the National Guard protects them.
Marie-Antoinette looks in a mirror and 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 be made guard often, 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.
A constitutional monarchy would have protected France
in the time of fear and chaos
that the flight itself helped unleash.
The king's betrayal ended that authority.
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