The spectacle of the Bourbons virtually imprisoned by their own people sent a cold draught through Europe’s corridors of power. Where would it end? Which sovereign would be next? Nevertheless, none of the watchers was going to risk going to war to help the tottering French monarchy, except perhaps Sweden, and she was too bankrupt to do more than issue promises. Instead, an army of secret agents were sent by their governments into battle, slipping through the unpredictable, often treacherous, waters that lapped the infant revolution. Once in place, they fanned out into the streets, towns and cities where they listened and waited. For what? No one was quite sure.
A trickle, then a stream, of carriages, bearing aristocratic families who were abandoning their estates and incomes, headed towards Mainz and Koblenz. They preferred the dullness of exile to the dangers of a France where the social order was under attack. In the Tuileries Palace the king struggled to retain what shreds of authority remained to him and to work with the National Assembly, while his family settled down to re-create Versailles court life in the musty old palace. Curious to see their sovereigns, the Parisians peered in through the windows and concluded that they were nothing much to look at after all. The king was fat and the queen, whose hair was streaked with grey, had lost much of her beauty.
The National Assembly followed the king to Paris and was ensconced in the old riding school close to the palace. The more conservative monarchists and constitutionalists sat to the right of the president’s rostrum. The more radical and republican members sat to the left. There was fierce rivalry for the leadership of this ‘left’ party which was composed of many liberal nobles as well as bourgeoisie and it was represented by many of the finest minds in France. Encouraged by the good harvest that had finally been garnered, these self-styled ‘patriots’ set about pushing through their ideas for a France which was both free and equal.
The National Assembly now declared that the king ruled no longer by divine right but merely through the rule of law. It introduced a new constitution for the clergy which aimed to sever the historical ties that bound them to Rome and placed the clergy under the necessity of taking an oath in order to confirm their patriotism. Many of the clergy refused to take the constitutional oath and this increased their unpopularity.
The ‘federation’ movement grew stronger. ‘We shall be free together,’ went up the cry, and the provincial authorities, anxious to make their feelings known, urged the king to let their fédérés come to Paris. The king, suspicious of any such spontaneous representation, was persuaded, however, to allow fédérés from provincial National Guards to attend a ceremony of federation in the capital. On July 14th, 1790, the anniversary of the fall of the Bastille, the whole of Paris turned out to celebrate the new France, and monarchists were reassured by the Parisians’ enthusiastic reception of the king.
The underlying truth was stark. The king and queen were virtually impotent; they were surrounded by the wrong advisers; and the Revolution was launched on a course that no one could stop. Day by day, republican feeling grew. ‘It is easier’, mourned Mirabeau, who had cause to regret his earlier support for reform, ‘to light the flames than to try to stamp them out.’ Not even his powerful charisma could prevent the rising storm.
At Easter, 1791, the king and queen were prevented from leaving Paris for a holiday at St Cloud.
In June, a large yellow berline, outfitted in white Utrecht velvet and taffeta cushions, set off from Paris in the dead of night and lumbered its way towards the frontier, stopping frequently to let its occupants stretch their legs. At Varennes it was halted, and inside was discovered the royal family. In a sweltering heatwave, the berline crawled back to Paris and drew up in front of the brilliantly lit Tuileries. Out of it stepped the dusty, dishevelled and pathetic royal prisoners, never to leave Paris again.
In August, a document, signed by the King of Prussia and the Emperor of Austria, called on fellow monarchs to come to the Bourbons’ aid. It achieved nothing and by September the king felt he had no option but to accept the new constitution which had been debated by the Assembly.
In November, a newly elected Assembly, almost totally purged of its former aristocratic members, decreed that all émigrés suspected of conspiring against France should return home. Safe in their headquarters outside France, the king’s brothers, the dukes of Artois and Provence, continued to provide a focus for the royalist forces that had begun to mass on the borders.
As the year went by, life continued as normal for the poorer elements. The city had been divided into forty-eight sections, each of which elected three members to the Hôtel de Ville. Each section dealt with poor relief, and maintained a company of the National Guard which mounted guard at the section headquarters and at the barrière. The sections also organised a committee to search for saltpetre, badly needed for the manufacture of gunpowder. Markets hummed, the price of bread fluctuated and the journeymen, craftsmen and workers confined within Paris’s walls struggled, as always, to make ends meet. But in the houses and salons of the rich and fashionable, in the cafés and theatres, in literary gatherings and political clubs, the political debates raged. ‘We are all amusing ourselves,’ wrote one observer. It became de rigueur for the fashionable to wear Constitution jewellery and Liberty caps decorated with blood-red ribbons.
Some of the fiercest radicals who had gone to ground to avoid persecution by the still moderately inclined authorities – Marat, for example, who had hidden in the city’s sewers – scenting that the tide was turning, began to emerge. On the Left Bank a series of small presses stirred into life and their pamphlets began to flood the city. Meanwhile, the Revolution presented a perfect opportunity for extremists and fanatics to exploit. These men were moving through the streets, constantly on the watch, constantly debating, nourishing their resentments and waiting.