Page 302 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

revolution—france 1603

between the discriminatory measures of the lawmakers 1792 the king asked an eager Legislative Assembly to
and their egalitarian rhetoric—especially the Declaration declare war on Austria, with other European belligerents
of the Rights of Man and Citizen, passed in October joining the fray in the succeeding months.
1789—fueled popular unrest. Consequently, alongside War transformed the Revolution profoundly. Not only
the juridical revolution of the legislature, a popular revo- did the revolutionaries use the threat of foreign troops to
lution raged in the streets of Paris and other cities, as well whip citizens into a patriotic frenzy; the mobilization of
as in the countryside. troops created a volatile situation in which armed men
Despite the limits the Constituent Assembly attempted might turn their weapons against real or perceived
to place on the Revolution, and despite the prominent domestic threats. As volunteers from the provinces came
role of the king in what was essentially a constitutional to Paris to prepare for assignment to the front, they
monarchy, Louis XVI was averse to the Revolution. He encountered the most radical elements of the urban rev-
was particularly offended by its nationalization of church olution. They heard the speeches and read the newspa-
property, an expedient designed to back a new paper cur- pers of the sans-culottes, those “without breeches” (i.e.,
rency, and its reorganization of the clergy into civil ser- without the stylish pretensions of the rich), and before
vants required to take an oath to the nation. He therefore taking on Austrian troops they prepared to fight the aris-
plotted to escape with his family to the Austrian Nether- tocrats in their midst. Convinced that neither the king nor
lands (today Belgium), where royalist forces would pro- the assembly would bring liberty and equality, the most
tect him until such time as the Revolution could be radical revolutionaries, now fortified with weapons,
suppressed. He was captured by the revolutionary mounted an insurrection on 10 August 1792.
national guard near the border and returned to Paris on After a bloody battle between insurgents and the
20 June 1791. His attempted flight further discredited the king’s personal guard, the insurgents emerged victorious.
idea of constitutional monarchy and emboldened radicals The royal family found itself under arrest, and the Leg-
determined to transform their country into a republic. islative Assembly, now fearful of the forces it had sum-
moned into motion, abolished the undemocratic
Warfare Abroad and the Constitution of 1791 and called for the election of a new
Convention at Home legislature known as the Convention. Although women
The delicate monarchical system survived little more were still excluded from the vote, and indeed would not
than a year after the king’s abortive flight. The Con- obtain it in France until 1946, the elections of 1792 were
stituent Assembly disbanded following the fulfillment of the first application of the principle of “one man, one
its oath to write a constitution for the nation, and in vote” in modern world history.
October 1791 a Legislative Assembly was elected.While
this legislature considered questions of domestic impor- A Republic Is Born
tance, it became increasingly preoccupied with interna- Unfortunately, this dramatic movement in the direction of
tional matters. A party of radical “patriots” sought war democracy did not solve the country’s political problems.
against Austria and Prussia, countries that were harbor- During the month and a half between the fall of the
ing royalist émigrés and issuing hostile statements regard- monarchy and the first meeting of the Convention, France
ing revolutionary developments in France. The patriots was governed loosely by the outgoing Legislative Assem-
found unlikely allies in conservative royalists within the bly and a self-proclaimed municipal government known
court who encouraged the march to war for very differ- as the Commune. In the first week of September, in antic-
ent reasons. The latter expected an Austro-Prussian vic- ipation of an Austrian march on Paris and an impending
tory over the French army, many of whose officers had massacre of revolutionaries by brigands lurking in the
emigrated at the outset of the Revolution. Thus in April city’s prisons, self-appointed judges presided over the