The Insurrection of 10th August

We're back in France to look at the events of 10th August 1792, a day that rings through history. We've met revolutionaries,  been present at the fall of the Bastille and seen the leaders go to the guillotine and today we'll see a king imprisoned and hear the tale of a brutal massacre at the Tuileries Palace.

Prise du Palais des Tuileries by Jean Duplessis-Bertaux, 1793

By summer 1792, France was a nation in turmoil; embroiled in the Revolutionary Wars,  Louis XVI was prevaricating with regard to his cabinet and had abandoned the Girondists in favour of a staunchly monarchist Feuillant cabinet. This decision was to prove badly misjudged as the people of Paris regarded their king to be wildly out of touch with the wishes of the populace and he further aroused their ire by vetoing a number of Legislative Assembly decisions. 

Louis XVI by Antoine-François Callet , 1789

The Assembly itself was at a dead end, caught in a series of endless discussions about the deteriorating situation in France and how to deal with the seemingly immovable monarch. As the politicians debated, the people grew restless and on 9th August the situation boiled over as a revolutionary Commune with Georges Danton at its head took control of the Hôtel de Ville and a mob gathered at the Tuileries. As the night drew on they were joined by revolutionary militias and the National Guard, this drastic solution fully supported by a new municipal Parisian government that was to be known as the “insurrectionary” Paris Commune.

As dawn broke Louis inspected his troops and found himself faced with a mixture of loyal support and utter contempt as members of his forces heckled him with revolutionary comments. As he retreated back to the palace a number of battalions turned their guns on Tuileries, where the loyal Swiss Guard stood ready to defend the King. Within hours thousands of insurgents arrived at the Tuileries and though the Assembly appealed for calm, the crowd were in no mood to be placated, nor to let politicians enter into further debate with the monarch. 

the Mob at the Tuileries by Henri-Paul Motte, 1892

As the royal family and loyal ministers gathered within the walls of the palace the situation seemed dire, their only hope of safety offered by the promise of refuge in the National Assembly.  Faced with the fury of the mob and flanked by columns of troops, the fearful procession made its journey to what Louis and Marie Antoinette must have prayed was sanctuary. Following their departure the crowd finally swarmed into the palace, where they were fired on by the Swiss Guard. Vastly outnumbered, the Swiss Guard were massacred by the mob along with other members of the royal household and court who had found themselves unable to escape before the fighting began. 

Memorial in the Catacombs of Paris, where many victims of the massacre are buried

Buoyed by this victory, the insurgents followed the fleeing family to the Assembly; upon their arrival the King was sent to the Temple, supposedly for his own protection. Following this bloody night the city descended into chaos and six months later, King Louis XVI was dead, France set firmly on the road to the Reign of Terror.

The Lion Monument to the Swiss Guard

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The Influential Career of René de Maupeou

René Nicolas Charles Augustin de Maupeou (Montpelier, France, 25th February 1714 – Le Thuit, Eure, France, 29th July 1792) 

Here at the Guide we have had a bit of a French flavour of late, with stories of Corday and Robespierre to set our revolutionary fires burning. Today is another chap from over the Channel though he is, perhaps, a little less notorious than our previous subjects.

Maupeou was born into privilege and married into money; as assistant to his father, the young Maupeou was involved in parliamentary business from an early age and when Maupeou the elder retired from the office of Chancellor, Maupeau the younger was more than ready to step into his shoes.

Louis XV by Louis-Michel van Loo

He rose through the ranks of office quickly, ingratiating himself at court and installing allies in key roles to further solidify his position. In 1770, Maupeou reformed the make-up of the French judiciary to ensure that those who were magistrates by right of succession could no longer make unilateral decisions, a move that alarmed the nobles of France. In fact, these magistrates would now be controlled by the King himself, as both monarch and Maupeou manoeuvred in an effort to secure the sovereign absolute power. This growing hostility flared even more when Maupeou introduced policies to tax the richest members of society, most of whom were exempt from levies. In another wildly unpopular move he introduced a bill by which Parlement could no longer veto royal edicts, essentially establishing Louis XV as an absolute monarch and giving Maupeou and his associates unparalleled control over tax and judiciary.

Louis XVI by Antoine-François Callet, 1789

However, where Maupeou had found support in Louis XV, when the King died, Louis XVI did not share his appreciation of the minister, preferring a new broom approach to his reign. In 1774, Maupeou was removed from office and went into seclusion.

Although he still held the title of Chancellor, he never entered the political arena again though his stringent, absolute policies were held up as model practice by the revolutionary government. One can only imagine that Maupeou might have appreciated the irony of this given his determined loyalty to the King he served and when he died in 1792, Maupeou had seen the old monarchy swept away on a tide of revolution.