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Unlock This CourseSince the October Days, Louis XVI and his family had lived in the Tuileries Palace in Paris, watched by the National Guard. In public, Louis went along with the Revolution. In private, he hated what it had done to his power and, above all, to the Church. In April 1791 a crowd stopped his coach from leaving Paris for Easter. Louis decided he was a prisoner and agreed to a plan to escape.
The plan was to reach Montmédy, a fortress town near France's north-eastern border, where General Bouillé had troops loyal to the king. From there Louis hoped to bargain with the Assembly from a position of strength.
Key terms:
The escape itself was bad enough. What made it far worse was a letter Louis left behind. In it he attacked the Revolution and said that he had only agreed to its laws because he was not free. Now everyone could read, in the king's own words, that he had been pretending for nearly two years.
Louis could not be trusted. Many thought he had been running to join the émigrés and foreign armies so that he could crush the Revolution by force. For the first time, large numbers of people began to talk openly of a republic.
The Assembly suspended Louis from his duties. But most deputies feared that removing him would mean chaos and war, and they had nearly finished a constitution that needed a king. So from the start they claimed that Louis had been 'kidnapped'. In July they voted that he would get his powers back once he accepted the constitution.
Few people in Paris believed the kidnap story. To the radicals it looked as if the Assembly was protecting a traitor. The gap between the moderate deputies and the people of Paris grew wider.
The Cordeliers Club, a radical club in Paris, drew up a petition calling for the king to be removed. On 17 July about 50,000 people gathered on the Champ de Mars, a large parade ground in Paris, to sign it. The city council, led by the mayor, Bailly, declared martial law. Lafayette marched the National Guard to the field. After stones were thrown, the Guard opened fire. Perhaps 50 people were killed.
Why it mattered:
France had no political parties. Instead, people who thought alike met in political clubs. The clubs mattered because they shaped opinion and put pressure on the deputies.
The Jacobin Club began in 1789 and met in a former Jacobin convent in Paris. Its fee was high, so most members were well-off bourgeoisie, including many deputies. They debated issues before the Assembly voted on them. Hundreds of linked clubs in towns across France spread its ideas. After Varennes, the moderate majority walked out and set up a new club, the Feuillants, to defend the constitutional monarchy. Those who stayed, led by Robespierre, made the Jacobin Club far more radical.
The Girondins were a loose group of deputies who became leading voices in the Legislative Assembly from October 1791. Their leader was the journalist Brissot. They got their name because several of them, such as Vergniaud, came from the Gironde, the area around Bordeaux. They were Jacobin Club members at first. They deeply distrusted the king, and they spoke for the provinces and were wary of the power of the Paris crowd.
The name means 'without knee breeches'. They wore the long trousers of working men, not the breeches of the rich. They were craftsmen, shopkeepers and wage earners. They wanted cheap bread, the vote for all men and harsh treatment for enemies of the Revolution. Many were passive citizens. They read Marat's newspaper, 'The Friend of the People', and joined the Cordeliers Club, which was cheap enough for them to afford.
Their roles: the Jacobins organised and spread revolutionary ideas across France. The Girondins led the attack on the king inside the Legislative Assembly, and you will see how they pushed France into war in War, the August 1792 Coup and the National Convention. The sans-culottes supplied the force on the streets. Whoever had their support could threaten the Assembly and the king. After Varennes and the Champ de Mars, they trusted neither.
Extract A (a practice extract written for this lesson, in the style of a modern history textbook)
The flight to Varennes was a blunder from start to finish. Louis insisted on a huge, lumbering coach and dawdled along the road as if on a summer outing, so that the soldiers sent to protect him had given up and gone. Worse still was the foolish letter he left behind, which tore up two years of promises in a single night. He returned to Paris a prisoner in all but name, having wrecked the trust of his people with his own hands.
What impression does the author give about the flight to Varennes? You must use Extract A to explain your answer. [6 marks]
The author gives the impression that the flight to Varennes was a disastrous failure that was entirely Louis's own fault. The language is harsh throughout: the flight was a 'blunder from start to finish', the coach was 'lumbering' and the letter was 'foolish', which makes Louis seem careless and stupid. Saying he 'dawdled' as if on 'a summer outing' suggests he did not take the danger seriously. The author has chosen to stress only Louis's own mistakes, ending with the claim that he 'wrecked the trust of his people with his own hands'. Nothing is said about bad luck, such as being recognised on the road, or about why Louis felt he had to escape. This selection of points puts all the blame on the king.
What lifts it to the top level: it names one clear impression, proves it with short quotations, and explains how the author's choice of words and of what to include and leave out creates that impression.
Do not retell the story of the flight or add your own facts about it. The marks are for spotting the author's slant, so start with 'The author gives the impression that...' and then comment on two or three loaded words, such as 'blunder' and 'dawdled', and on what the author left out.