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TENSIONS RISE. THE KING LEAVES SECRETLY FOR THE FRONTIER. HE IS STOPPED AND FORCED BACK TO PARIS
(JUNE 20-24, 1791)-- Main text: The Flight to Varennes in "History of the French Revolution" by Jules Michelin, 1847 (Fr. ed 1971).
Varennes, June 22, 1791, Michelet p.163
"A galloping horseman rides up behind them, cries, "On the order of the Nation, postilion, stop! You are driving the king!"
All remain stupefied. The bodyguards had no firearms...
The story of the tragic moment when the King was arrested was and always will be imperfectly known."
Louis's "Flight to Varennes" (the insignificant town where he was arrested) destroyed the aura of monarchy. It is considered as important as taking the Bastille.
Historians agree that the flight's success would have brought civil war. But they miss that such was precisely what the king intended, because they neglect details that to modern people make no sense.
This page tells the story. The next concerns those details.
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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 harbored is all that recalls the drama.
Bondy: The burg 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 last relay to which horses could gallop from Paris without being changed and 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 king leaves a list of grievances on the desk, and the statement that he will repeal the Constitution.
- The trip is put off several times, the last for 24 hours 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 throws light on the servant's animosity.)
-- Madame Campan, p. 340
- That change means that royalist troops from the frontier stay in the region much longer than the few hours originally planned, which destabilizes the population. Have they come to collect unpaid taxes? Do they announce an invasion?
--When the King took Flight by Timothy Tackett, 2004
- The king disguises himself as "Monsieur Durand," the accountant of a baroness whom the Dauphin's governess impersonates.
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The Evasion of Louis XVI by Viktor Lazarevski, 2013, source of the movie photos on this and the next page |
Louis XVI practices bowing as "Monsieur Durand," a name as ordinary as "Mr. Smith," in a film for French television.
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, he 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!"
In reality the king is recognized by his profile printed on new paper money.
- The coach's weight means that the fugitives arrive three hours late (some say five hours) for the meeting with a royalist escort. Alarmed by the unrest that the troops' presence causes and supposing that the trip has been put off again, the commander orders their departure half an hour before the king appears.
- The worried travellers go on to the next stop. They find that the men have dismounted and and that many have gone to drink with the locals and fraternize with them. The group goes on alone.
- Jean Drouet, who owns the relay at Sainte-Menehould, has recognized Louis while changing the horses. An ardent revolutionary, he persuades the notables that the travellers are the royal family. They let him gallop off to have them halted.
He arrives at Varennes minutes after the travellers.
- At 23:00 everyone sleeps, except for a few men who drink in a tavern. At Drouet's passionate demand they barricade the route. The inexperienced guards (please see the next page) cannot stop them.
- The mayor is in Paris. The grocer who replaces him does not know what to do, and to let the situation evolve suggests that the travellers stay in the rooms over his shop until morning. Having no choice, they accept.
Marie-Antoinette will enter 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 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. Other churches take up the call. "The tolling bells spread in an extraordinary way. The whole dark countryside was in a fever [...]
-- Michelet, p.166
- The population comes 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 that he be kept from going farther. The population demands that he be taken back to Paris.
- Morning comes and the king tries to delay the departure, hoping that the royalist troops on the border 15 miles away, will free him. The commander can be sure only of German mercenaries, and fears the turmoil of the countryside. The force comes nevertheless. But the king has left. It tries to follow, but encounters physical obstacles, the horses tire, news comes that a garrison is marching against it...
It leaves.
- The royals are forced to return to Paris. Local guards surround them and thousands of people relay each other to surround the coach:
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The People in Arms by Jean-Baptiste Lesueur / zoom
- The return to Paris takes four days.
- The royals spend a third night without sleep, swelter in the June heat and choke under the clouds of dust the crowds stir up. They are obliged to listen to the mayors' harangues lifted from Paris newspapers, at every burg.
- At Chalons, a town with little commercial production and so without a radical underclass, 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 and a count who arrives on horseback, wearing the Cross of Saint Louis and crying "Long live the king!," is massacred. His head and hat are brandished on pikes.
- Emissaries from the National Assembly preserve order but the coach can advance only step by step and as it approaches Paris, crowds are increasingly hostile.
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In Paris posters forbid demonstrations. Residents line the streets in silence, but applause breaks out when Jean Drouet appears at the head of the cortege.*
* His life:
- As a delegate to the radical government elected a year later, he votes the death of the king.
- He fights in the war against Austria, is captured and is among the prisoners exchanged for the king's young daughter.
- He participates in a plot against a later government, escapes and becomes sub-prefect of Sainte-Menehould.
- Napoleon decorates him, saying "You have changed the face of the world."
- At the Restoration authorities pursue him and he ends his life in hiding.
-- Wikipédia
The procession enters Paris by the wealthy west, circling the city to avoid the radicalized, underclass east:
The entrance to the Tuileries palace, the royals' destination, is on the right.
Close-up: Men leave their hats on as the king passes by. A clergyman turns away.
- ...the cortège passes in front of the royal statue. A veil over its eyes symbolizes the monarchy's blindness.
-- Michelet, p. 183
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Return of the King and his Family after the Flight to Varennes, unidentified print / zoom
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- On her return Marie-Antoinette looks in a mirror and sees that her 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 had not yet a political notion other than 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.
This accepted narrative
overlooks the extent of the betrayal.
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Next,
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