When the King Took Flight (23 page)

Once the petition ceremony itself got under way everything
seemed to proceed smoothly and peacefully. Now that the Jacobins
had abandoned the field, Francois Robert-the journalist and Cordeliers stalwart who had published a republican tract the previous
December-sat on the steps of the altar, placed a plank across
his knees, and drew up a new petition. The document strongly denounced Louis XVI and declared that the will of the people
was to end the kingship. It suggested that the National Assembly
was now under the influence of the 250 conservative deputies who
had rejected the suspension of the king. Although Robert carefully
avoided the word republic, the meaning was perfectly obvious: the
deputies were urged to "reconsider their decree" and "to convene a
new constituent body" that would ensure "a judgment against the
guilty party [the king] and his replacement by a new organization of
the executive branch." It was a clear call for a new revolution and
the election of a National Convention to create a central authority
without a king.i8

Seven or eight copies of the petition were quickly produced and
placed at different locations around the stadium; long lines of people soon formed to affix their signatures or their marks. As best we
can tell from those who examined the original documentbefore it
was destroyed in the nineteenth century-some 6,ooo individuals
had already signed it at the time the ceremony was disrupted. They
represented all elements of the Parisian population: a few professional men, local officials and national guardsmen, and a great mass
of lower-class citizens, both men and women, many of them unable
to sign their names. An estimated 50,000 others-men, women, and
children-had also come out to watch the proceedings, taking advantage of the hot summer weather for a Sunday outing.51

But in the eyes of the National Assembly, the peaceful behavior
of the vast majority of the petitioners could not outweigh the earlier murders or the underlying threat to the integrity of the Revolution's leadership. At the beginning of the afternoon the Assembly
addressed yet another angry letter to Bailly and the municipal council, demanding "the most vigorous and efficient measures possible
to halt the disorder and find the instigators." "It is time," thundered
Michel-Louis Regnaud, the eloquent young deputy from southwestern France, "to unleash the full rigor of the law." Indeed, if it
were up to him, "I would demand an immediate proclamation of
martial law."" In a climate of growing uncertainty and under continuing pressure from the Assembly, the city council finally resolved to act. In a speech, the mayor linked the whole affair to a plot of
outsiders and foreign agents: "a clearly defined conspiracy against
the constitution and the nation, financed by foreigners who are attempting to divide us." It was they who, "hidden behind a variety
of disguises, are fomenting the popular movements."6' We will
never know whether the mayor truly believed what he said or was
simply seeking to justify himself in an impossible situation. But at
half past five in the afternoon, Jean-Sylvain Bailly, Enlightened
academician and scientist, the onetime friend of Voltaire and of
Benjamin Franklin, ordered the red flag of martial law unfurled
above the city hall and issued the general call to arms.

At half past six he set off from the city hall, accompanied by a
portion of the city council and by two detachments of armed infantry and cavalry. Witnesses who participated claimed that they were
cheered by most of the Parisians as they marched across the city,
but that there were also scatterings of angry jeers, especially after
they had crossed the Seine to the Left Bank. Near the stadium they
were joined by General Lafayette and additional contingents of
guardsmen, who were already on the scene.62 By this time the demonstrators and bystanders in the stadium were well aware of the arriving forces. But the official decree of martial law specified that no
force could be used until the mayor had pronounced three successive summons for the crowds to disperse. The leaders of the demonstration urged everyone to remain calm and not to leave until the
first of the three commands had been given.

As the first armed guardsmen entered the passage into the stadium through the earthen embankment that served as a grandstand,
many of the demonstrators began shouting their disapproval: "No
bayonets, no red flags!" Soon some pelted the guardsmen with rocks
from the surrounding stands. What happened thereafter is somewhat confused, and interpretations depended in part on the political
positions of the witnesses. Apparently, after a few moments a lone
gunshot rang out, the ball passing precariously close to Bailly himself and hitting a cavalryman in the hip, knocking him off his horse.
Alarmed by the violence against them, the guardsmen then entered rapidly with their drums beating a double-time cadence and took up
position inside the stadium, facing the central altar from the north.
No formal summons to disperse, as specified by the law, was ever
pronounced. The soldiers claimed that they had first fired several
warning shots in the air. But with stones raining down on them and
with other demonstrators trying to cut the skins of their drums, the
guardsmen opened fire on the crowds, aiming primarily at those in
the stands, but also at others on the floor of the stadium. Soon a second column of guardsmen entered from the opposite side of the
altar and charged to the north, catching many demonstrators in a
pincers movement. Apparently some soldiers on horseback even pursued people outside the stadium into the surrounding fields and
gardens, trampling some, cutting down others with their sabers. According to the elderly Nicolas-Celestin Guittard de Floriban, who
was present and who was far from sympathetic with the aims of the
protesters, the firing continued for at least three minutes. General
panic broke out, and "in trying to save themselves, people knocked
over and trampled on women and children." Many of the casualties,
he reported, were among the bystanders, "people of every condition, attracted to the site by curiosity and by the beautiful Sunday
weather."63

[To view this image, refer to
the print version of this title.]

Declaration of Martial Law at the Champ de Mars, July zy, zy9z. Troops and
guardsmen attack republican petitioners on the national altar, atop which a
lone man holds copies of the petition toward heaven. Bailly, wearing his
mayor's sash, is visible in the left foreground, near the red flag of martial law.

When the troops finally ceased their attack, many dozens of men
and women, wounded or dying, lay inside the stadium or in the surrounding fields. No careful count was ever made. Bailly himself, in
a report the next day, claimed that only twelve demonstrators and
two soldiers had been killed. But the usually cautious Guittard was
angered when he heard Bailly's statement: "His account is not right!
It's outrageous! Everyone knows there were a great many deaths."
A nearby resident who visited the hospital outside the stadium
testified that he saw "the dead and the dying on every side." Various
contemporary estimates ranged from a few dozen to over two thousand. But Francois Robert, who successfully fled and hid out for a
time with Marie-Jeanne Roland and her husband, claimed that about
fifty had been killed and far more had been wounded. This was the
figure used at the time of Bailly's trial during the Terror, and it
probably represents the historian's best estimate."

THE KING'S ATTEMPTED FLIGHT and the National Assembly's efforts to deal with its effects had led to a bloodbath on the outskirts
of Paris. Even those Parisians-undoubtedly a large number-who
sympathized with the Assembly's decision on the king were shocked
by the shootings at the Champ de Mars. No one, wrote Guittard,
would ever forget "this terrible atrocity."65

FOR MANY PARISIANS at the time of the Revolution and for most
historians since, the massacre at the Champ de Mars was the single
most dramatic event in the wake of the king's flight. Yet the city of
Paris represented only one small portion of the total French nation
in 1791-perhaps 700,000 people out of the 28 or 29 million inhabiting the tens of thousands of villages and towns across the kingdom. It is impossible to understand the full impact of Varennes
without leaving the banks of the Seine and following reactions
across the great expanse of French territory, from the North Sea to
the Mediterranean, from the Rhine River to the Pyrenees, from the
Breton peninsula to the Alps.

In the provinces as in Paris, news of the departure and then capture of the king caused an extraordinary sensation. "France," wrote
cure Lindet, "has been struck by an electric shock. It traveled from
one end of the kingdom to the other with unbelievable rapidity."'
Initially word went out from the capital by official messengers. As
soon as General Lafayette learned that the monarch had disappeared, early on the morning of June 21, he commissioned several
trusted subordinates to ride at full speed along different roads in an
effort to find and halt the royal family. A few hours later the National Assembly followed much the same procedure, dispatching its
own couriers carrying handwritten summaries of the deputies' first decrees toward the Austrian and German frontiers, the most likely
directions of the flight.' But soon a whole array of unofficial messengers had also set out from the capital. Several deputies in the Assembly hired private horsemen to inform their constituencies as
rapidly as possible, horsemen who spread the story haphazardly
wherever they rode. A number of Parisian clubs and even neighborhood sections appear to have done the same. Thus, SaintQuentin in northern France first learned of events from the QuatreNations Section, perhaps at the instigation of the Cordeliers Club.
Parisian newspapers were also quick to capitalize on the breaking
story with editions dispatched rapidly into the provinces.'

Once the news had breached the walls of the capital, it rapidly resonated through local communications networks in much the
same manner as the Great Fear two years earlier, with a variety of
individuals on horseback, in carriages, and on foot fanning out
across the nation. Incidental travelers and impromptu local messengers teamed up with official couriers. Townspeople and villagers
who heard the story through unofficial sources, sometimes in garbled and fantastic versions, grew even more tense: "our anxiety increased," remembered the citizens of Bar-le-Duc, "as time dragged
on and we waited for more news." In their apprehension, officials
sent their own messengers back along the chain, seeking confirmation and further details. Soon there was a press of riders charging
about in every direction, all exchanging information and misinformation as they passed one another on the roads.'

By midnight on Tuesday, June 21, knowledge of the king's disappearance had spread about a hundred miles from Paris in an
amoeba-shaped area extending along the principal roads.' After a
delay in passing the city gates-where overzealous guardsmen initially halted all movement-the messengers had ridden scarcely beyond Chalons-sur-Marne to the east and Cambrai to the north. But
by the end of Wednesday, moving day and night at about five or six
miles per hour, "like fire along a powder trail," knowledge of the
royal flight had reached most of the northern frontier, as far as Metz
and Nancy in the east, Rouen in the west, and Moulins in the south.' One messenger-perhaps commissioned by the Breton deputieshad even reached Nantes, at the mouth of the Loire River. By
Thursday the event horizon had attained the northeastern frontier
along the German and Swiss borders and most of the Atlantic coast
from Dunkerque to La Rochelle-with the exception of the Breton
peninsula. Riders pulled into Strasbourg, on the Rhine, at five in
the morning, and into Lyon, the nation's second-largest city, by
half past ten that night. By Friday at dawn, the great seaport of
Bordeaux received reports, forwarding the startling news up the
Garonne River to Toulouse, where a messenger arrived about eight
that evening. On Saturday, at the end of the fifth day, couriers had
reached Marseilles and the Mediterranean, racing along the coast as
far as the port of Toulon to the east and Perpignan to the south,
within twenty miles of the Spanish border. At about the same time,
word finally arrived in Brest, at the tip of Brittany. But it would take
another day or two to reach the most isolated mountain villages in
the Pyrenees, the Alps, and the Massif Central. The village of
Aumont, accessible only by mountain track through the southeastern mountains of Gevaudan, still appeared uninformed at the beginning of the following week.'