Matthew Monk/ Prof.

LaMance FRE 123-001 Best Cultural Activity: Ch 11: Moments mythiques: La fuite Varennes La fuite Varennes is a mythic moment in French history. The phase literally translates as the Flight to Varennes, and the event was a turning point in revolutionary attitudes toward the monarchy. In June 1791, the royal family found itself a virtual prisoner of the revolutionary government headed by Robespierre. The government still functioned with the approval of the king, but Louis was not at liberty to refuse any request of the revolutionary government. He had been reduced to a puppet or figurehead. At the suggestion of Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI plotted an overly elaborate and often delayed escape from Paris to the Austrian border for the purpose of raising a foreign army to recapture France. Marie Antoinette was Austrian and her brother was the Holy Roman Emperor at the time. The French royal family was going to try escape to the Austrian border in disguises, Marie and Louis traveling with their entourage as middle-class servants of a Hungarian noble woman. There were other, almost comical events that more of less doomed the journey from the beginning. They made it as far as the town of Varennes, which had revolutionary sympathies, where they were recognized and arrested. Legend has it that Louis was recognized because of his likeness on a French coin. Louis was charged with treason and the royal family was returned to Paris where they were kept under very tight security. This event was the turning point for how the French people viewed the

monarchy and felt about the Revolution. Louis had wrongly thought the common people outside of Paris were royalists and that the Revolution itself was rather small. He was wrong on both counts. The French saw the Flight as an act of treason and an act of abandonment. If there were still some commoners loyal to the king before the Flight, there definitely were not afterward. The Flight to Varennes inspired a sense of solidarity among the people against the monarchy, and the event evoked emotions of betrayal. Ultimately, the Flight led to the deaths of both the king and queen at the hands of the revolutionary government. The king was sentenced to death based on that very charge of treason he was charged with at Varennes. The French Revolution as a whole has always captured the Western mind's attention. It represented both the high and low points of the Enlightenment, and the Flight represents a movement in European history away from rule by and faith in a monarchy.