France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799 -- Causes; Revolutions; Social psychology
In declaring war the king was not sincere. The queen revealed
the French plans of campaign and the secret deliberations of the
Council to the Austrians.
The beginnings of the struggle were disastrous. Several columns
of troops, attacked by panic, disbanded. Stimulated by the
clubs, and persuaded--justly, for that matter--that the king was
conspiring with the enemies of France, the population of the
faubourgs rose in insurrection. Its leaders, the Jacobins, and
above all Danton, sent to the Tuileries on the 20th of June a
petition threatening the king with revocation. It then invaded
the Tuileries, heaping invectives on the sovereign.
Fatality impelled Louis toward his tragic destiny. While the
threats of the Jacobins against royalty had roused many of the
departments to indignation, it was learned that a Prussian army
had arrived on the frontiers of Lorraine.
The hope of the king and queen respecting the help to be obtained
from abroad was highly chimerical. Marie-Antoinette
suffered from an absolute illusion as to the psychology of the
Austrian and the French peoples. Seeing France terrorised by a
few energumens, she supposed that it would be equally easy to
terrify the Parisians, and by means of threats to lead them back
under the king's authority. Inspired by her, Fersen undertook to
publish the manifesto of the Duke of Brunswick, threatening Paris
with ``total subversion if the royal family were molested.''
The effect produced was diametrically opposite to that intended.
The manifesto aroused indignation against the monarch, who was
regarded as an accomplice, and increased his unpopularity. From
that day he was marked for the scaffold.
Carried away by Danton, the delegates of the sections installed
themselves at the Hotel de Ville as an insurrectionary
Commune, which arrested the commandant of the National Guard, who
was devoted to the king, sounded the tocsin, equipped the
National Guard, and on the 10th of August hurled them, with the
populace, against the Tuileries. The regiments called in by
Louis disbanded themselves. Soon none were left to defend him
but his Swiss and a few gentlemen. Nearly all were killed. Left
alone, the king took refuge with the Assembly. The crowds
demanded his denouncement. The Legislative Assembly decreed his
suspension and left a future Assembly, the Convention, to decide
upon his fate.
2. Mental Characteristics of the Legislative Assembly.
The Legislative Assembly, formed of new men, presented quite a
special interest from the psychological point of view.
Few assemblies have offered in such a degree the characteristics
of the political collectivity.
It comprised seven hundred and fifty deputies, divided into pure
royalists, constitutional royalists, republicans, Girondists, and
Montagnards. Advocates and men of letters formed the majority.
It also contained, but in smaller numbers, superior officers,
priests, and a very few scientists.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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