When the King Took Flight (20 page)

In any event, the deputies soon overcame their consternation.
They bravely reminded one another of all they had been through,
comparing the present situation with the summer of 1789, when ob stacles had seemed all but insurmountable. They declared themselves to be in permanent session, and for the next several days they
met around the clock, with a skeleton crew of deputies spending the
night at their benches, ready to confront whatever emergencies
might arise." And in the face of the unprecedented crisis, they put
aside their factional feuds and pulled together. The members were
particularly impressed when Barnave, the former Young Turk of
the Jacobins, came to the defense of his longtime rival Lafayette.
"This act of justice and generosity stunned the Assembly and
brought to a halt all accusations against the general. It was a day on
which all those previously divided by ideas, passions, rivalries, or
personality were brought together." The next morning, June 22,
nearly all of the deputies who were members of the military, most
of them sitting on the conservative right of the Assembly, came forward and, with swords raised and one knee to the ground, swore a
solemn oath of allegiance to the constitution. The oath was particularly dramatic in that it now lacked all reference to the king. It was
the same oath taken the following evening by the colorful procession of Parisians who would march through the Assembly."

Over the next two days there was a flurry of motions and decrees, most of them passed by unanimous assent. The first order of
business was the attempt to halt the royal flight. Lafayette himself
had sent out couriers even before the deputies convened on June 21.
Now the Assembly did likewise, dispatching messengers along the
main roads with orders to stop the king and all members of his family. In French the same word is used for both "stop" and "arrest,"
and the sobering ambiguity was clear to all.12

Almost as quickly, the representatives took steps to keep the government functioning. Never in its history had France been without
a king or a king's regent, and now, in these difficult circumstances,
the Assembly was forced to improvise. Unanimously and without
debate the deputies ended the requirement of a royal "sanction" for
the ratification of decrees, adding that all decrees previously voted
and still awaiting the king's approval would immediately pass into
law. Someone suggested the creation of an executive "committee of public safety" drawn from the Assembly to meet the emergency.
But the deputies opted to work through the existing ministers, who
were immediately summoned and asked to declare their allegiance
to the Assembly. When all had done so, they were set up in an adjoining building in order to maintain close contact with the representatives and to work directly with the appropriate committees in
coordinating policy. Other decrees enabled the finance minister to
continue paying the nation's bills without the monarch's signature
and instructed foreign ambassadors to deal directly with the Assembly through the minister of foreign affairs."

All such decrees, improvised in the space of a few hours, were
conceived as temporary, emergency measures. Yet no one really
knew if the king would be found or would ever return. Indeed, the
rapid reorganization of the government constituted a virtual second
revolution, instituting, if only provisionally, a veritable republic. In
theory all such changes were perfectly legal, since in 1789 the deputies had declared themselves to be a "constituent assembly," with
full powers to make a new government. But in practice they had always sought Louis' approval of their decrees, constitutional or otherwise. In two of his speeches, elaborated on the spot, Charles
Lameth proposed another justification for their actions, a justification based on expediency. "At present," he declared, "we are compelled to assume both legislative and executive powers." "In periods
of crisis, one cannot subject oneself rigorously to the forms of the
law, as one would necessarily do in a period of calm ... It is better
to commit a momentary injustice than to see the loss of the state
itself."14 Such sentiments carried ominous implications. In many
respects, decisions taken during the crisis of Varennes would prefigure the policies of another government by expediency, the government of the Terror.

The deputies were also quick to perceive the international consequences of the king's departure. No less than the people of Varennes and Sainte-Menehould, they suspected that the flight had
been coordinated with a planned foreign invasion to end the Revolution by force. Thus the Assembly took steps to prepare the nation for war. The principal military commanders then in Paris were ordered to the Assembly and asked to swear their allegiance to the
constitution, the laws, and the Assembly; the word king was again
absent from the oath formula. The deputies were thrilled when
General Jean-Baptiste Rochambeau, the friend of Washington and
the hero of the Battle of Yorktown, arrived to pronounce his oath.
The commanders were asked to work with the ministers and the
Assembly's committees to develop contingency plans." Ever conscious of the weakness of French armed forces, the deputies took
steps to call up volunteer national guardsmen throughout the country for potential service in the regular army. A first generation levee
en masse-the general mobilization of the nation for war-established lists of at least 3,000 citizens in each of the eighty-three departments "ready to bear arms for the defense of the state and the
preservation of the constitution." The Assembly anticipated yet another institution of 1793-94 by sending four teams of representatives on a mission to the frontier departments to oversee war preparations and to verify the loyalty of the officer corps. Everywhere
they traveled, the representatives were authorized to "take all necessary measures to ensure public order and guarantee the security of
the state."'6

Equally worrisome for many deputies was the problem of maintaining the peace in France itself, particularly in the great metropolis surrounding the Assembly. Given the almost continual popular
unrest in Paris during the previous six months, most members anticipated outbreaks of panic or violence or worse. Barnave recalled the
crisis of July 1789 and the enormous disorders caused by the lower
classes in Paris until "property owners and those citizens veritably attached to the nation" had taken charge. The representatives
quickly established an armed guard to surround their meeting hall
and to prevent anyone but deputies from entering. And they issued
an appeal for order directed primarily at the Parisians: "The National Assembly . . . informs all citizens that the protection of the
constitution and the defense of the nation have never more urgently
required the preservation of law and order." The Parisians were far from unmoved by the disappearance of the king, and several incidents of violence did occur. Yet for the most part, during those first
days after the king's flight they remained remarkably calm. The
deputies were amazed and extremely grateful. "It would seem to be
a miracle," wrote Felix Faulcon, "a great and unexpected good fortune. I am tempted to think that a kind of Providence is watching
over the constitution.""

At first virtually everyone spoke of the king as having been abducted or kidnapped. The rumors circulating before June 21 had
usually involved someone absconding with the king against his will
or through trickery. No one wanted even to consider the possibility
that the monarch had acquiesced in the venture. But the appearance
of Louis' handwritten "declaration" explaining his actions changed
everything. Its existence was first mentioned by one of the ministers, and at two o'clock on the afternoon of the June 21 it was formally read to the Assembly. To judge by the deputies' speeches and
letters, the declaration caused nearly as much consternation as the
initial news of the king's disappearance."

As the implications of the statement sank in, virtually no one
outside the extreme right was willing to defend the king. The deputies were horrified by the facility with which Louis had broken his
previous oaths. Basquiat, who had been a strong defender of the
king, spoke for virtually all his colleagues: "Louis the Sixteenth," he
wrote, "this king whose goodness had always seemed to excuse his
weakness, has abjured in an instant all of his promises and all of his
oaths. With this declaration, written and signed in his own hand, he
has revealed to the whole universe that the honor and duty of kings
toward their people are utterly worthless." Deputies were enraged
by Louis' apparent obliviousness to the consequences of his act, an
act that might easily lead to "civil war and the greatest possible disasters." Many were deeply disillusioned that the king who had so
often seemed to support the Revolution "in such a candid and faithful manner" could now disavow everything. They had always believed Louis to be "quite incapable of breaking his word or betraying the people's confidence." The king "has deceived us," wrote another deputy, "as he has deceived all of France, who once so
adored him." The "good king," the "citizen king" of only a few
weeks before, was now described as "an imbecile," "an idiot," "stupid," "pitiful," "cowardly," "a monster," "a pathetic excuse for a
king.""

Even deputies on the moderate right declared their disgust at the
thoughtlessness of the king's actions, "doubly offended," as Lafayette recalled, "that they had not been warned and that they had been
left behind, exposed to all kinds of dangers." The conservative marquis de Ferrieres wrote to his wife: "[The king] has abandoned to
the fury of the mobs not only the nobility, the clergy, and the whole
right side of the Assembly, but also his friends, his servants, and his
ministers. Such conduct is atrocious." In the heat of the moment
certain deputies were initially ready to see the king tried in public, replaced by a regent, or even deposed in favor of a republic.
"France is now prepared," wrote the cure Thomas Lindet to his
brother, "to give the example of a people who can quite dispense
with kings. When one examines the list of the imbeciles and rogues
who have defiled their thrones, one is tempted to overthrow the
whole lot of them." Antoine Durand felt that the experience "had
cured the French of this ridiculous idolatry that makes them treat
kings as gods.""

Late on the evening of June 22, however, everything was again
thrown into question by the amazing news that the royal family had
been captured. After two full days of uncertainty, most of the deputies had concluded that the king had crossed into foreign territory.
But when the Varennes barber Mangin burst into the hall to recount
his story, all the deputies stood on their benches and cheered. In
their initial disgust with the king, some had mused that it would be
preferable to let Louis go and be rid of him altogether. Yet most
greeted his capture with enormous relief. Ferrieres wrote immediately to his wife, "You can imagine the joy that this news has
caused." Gaultier began his own account to his constituency with a
prayer of thanksgiving. "The plot has failed," wrote the Protestant
pastor Jean-Paul Rabaut Saint-Etienne, "thanks to our star of destiny, in which I continue to believe."2'

But the feeling of celebration was to be short-lived. As word arrived of the king's slow progress back to Paris, the mood turned
tense and somber. The deputies had initially concentrated all their
energies on the immediate crisis, on the tasks of maintaining calm,
of holding the government together, of preparing the country for
what everyone assumed was an impending war. In their first reactions of shock and betrayal, a surprising number of deputies had
been prepared to eject Louis from the government altogether and
replace him with a regency or even a republic. But such thoughts
were easier to pursue with the king absent and perhaps in a foreign
country than with the king returned to the Tuileries palace, only a
few hundred yards away. Now they were forced to face the central
issue of what the flight meant for the future of the constitution on
which they had labored for almost two years and which was now so
close to completion, the issue that, as one of them put it, "we have
not dared to consider until now.""

And the problems seemed endless, ranging from basic matters of
procedure-for which neither precedent nor the constitution gave
any guidance-to profound questions of political philosophy. How
did one investigate a king? Had the king committed a crime? Was it
possible for a king to commit a crime? And even if there was no
crime before the law, could Louis ever again be trusted and placed
in a position of executive authority? A great many deputies agonized over the course of action they should take, feeling themselves
in a nearly untenable position. They had staked all their hopes on
the new constitutional monarchy. They were increasingly anxious
to put that constitution into effect, to end the Revolution, to bring a
halt to the agitation and anarchy that seemed to be eating away at
the very fiber of their society. But after the recent events, would
such a constitution ever again be viable? "We are confronted with
pitfalls in every direction," as one of them put it. It was difficult to
imagine "by what means we can extricate ourselves from the impossible position in which the king's flight has placed us.""

A first round of debates had already begun on the afternoon of
June 25. With the king returning from Varennes, only a few hours
from Paris, the Assembly was forced to make a preliminary decision on how it would handle the situation. And it was soon clear to everyone that the unity of purpose experienced by the deputies after
the first news of the flight had now been shattered. The conservatives and the aristocratic reactionaries held that the king should be
immediately reinstated. He had not broken any law in leaving the
palace, and in any case he was covered by royal immunity voted by
the Assembly itself nearly two years earlier. Anything else, as the
conservative speaker Pierre-Victor Malouet said, "would entirely
distort the constitution that you have created." Deputies on the extreme left, on the other hand, argued that Louis should be put on
trial, perhaps before the newly created national appellate court. "No
matter what his rank," pleaded Robespierre, "no matter how lofty
his position, no citizen can think himself degraded when he submits
to the rule established by law."24